1. BLESSED is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the wicked, Nor standeth in the way of sinners, Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. 2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; And in his law doth he meditate day and night. 3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water, That bringeth forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also doth not wither; THE book opens with an exquisite picture of the truly Happy Man, as seen from the highest ground of the old dispensation. He is described both literally and figuratively, positively and negatively, directly and by contrast, with respect both to his character and his condition, here and hereafter. The compression of all this into so short a composition, without confusion or obscurity, and with a high degree of graphic vividness, shows what the Psalm is in a rhetorical or literary point of view, apart from its religious import and Divine authority. It contains a summary of the doctrine taught in this book and in the Scriptures generally, as to the connection between happiness and goodness. It is well placed, therefore, as an introduction to the whole collection. A. This Psalm seems to have been placed first in the collection because, from its general character and subject, it formed a suitable introduction to the rest. It treats of the blessedness of the righteous, and the misery of the wicked, topics which constantly recur in the Psalms, but it treats of them as if all experience pointed only in one direction. The poet rests calmly in the truth that it is well with the righteous. He is not vexed with those passionate questionings of heart which meet us in such Psalms as the And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. 4. The wicked are not so; But are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. 5 Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, Nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 6 For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: But the way of the wicked shall perish. thirty-seventh and seventy-third. The close of the Psalm is, as Ewald remarks, truly prophetical, perpetually in force, and consequently descriptive of what is to be expected at all times in the course of the world's history. In style the Psalm is simple and clear. In form it is little more than the expansion of a proverb. P. Obviously this Psalm was either written for an introduction to the Psalter or was selected by the compiler as one adapted to this place. It breathes forth and foreshadows the spirit of the entire book in this special respect, celebrating the blessedness and prosperity of the truly good man in this world and inferring his corresponding fruition in the world to come. He is put in contrast with the wicked both in his life and in his destiny. C.—This Psalm carries blessedness in the frontispiece; it begins where we all hope to end: it may well be called a Christian's guide, for it discovers the quick-sands where the wicked sink down in perdition, and the firm ground on which the saints tread to glory. Thomas Watson. The Book of Psalms may be said to be built upon the foundation of its first word. There is not a "woe" in the whole book. God is loath to speak of judgments, but there are very many instances of the occurrence of this phrase "blessed." It appears some five-and-twenty times. We used to call the book "The Psalms of David." We have learned that it is not a solo, but a chorus of many voices, many sorts of men, under many circumstances, in many generations. And these experts in the devout life all unite in a harmonious conception of what makes true joy. The Beatitudes of the Psalter are the anticipation of, and in fact identical with the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount. For the conditions of human blessedness are always the same, and the essence of true religion is one, and its effects uniform, in every age of the Church and stage of Revelation. The various instances of the occurrence of this phrase teach us the elements of human blessedness—in our relation to God, in our conduct, and in our circumstances. A. M. 1. Blessed.** Christ opens the Sermon on the Mount with His "Blessed," "Blessed" are the people of a certain sort. To the Psalmist and to Christ; in life and at the judgment, in this world and in the next world, are two sorts of folk, two only, the godly and the ungodly, the righteous and the wicked. They move on different lines, even when they walk side by side and live under the same roof. They are ruled by different motives, they are seeking different ends. Haydn.—Blessednesses are to him; blessings of all kinds, enough to make him completely happy; no ingredients of happiness shall be wanting to him. When he undertakes to describe a blessed man, he describes a good man; for, after all, those only are truly happy that are holy; and we are more concerned to know the way to blessedness than to know wherein blessedness will consist. Nay, goodness and holiness are not only the way to happiness, but happiness itself. That man is a happy man that keeps in the way of duty. H. A kind of climax has been noticed in the choice of expressions. Thus we have, first, three degrees of habit in the verbs "walked," "stood," "sat;" next, three degrees of evil in the character: the "wicked," described as the passionate or restless; or perhaps, simply, as the unrighteous, the false; "the sinners," as the active habitual doers of iniquity; "the mockers," who make an open scoff, and blaspheme; lastly, three degrees of openness in the evil-doing: the "counsel" referring apparently to hidden designs; "the way" to public life; "the seat" or "assembly," to a deliberate confederacy in wickedness. P. Walking—standing—sitting—these are the three stages. Counsel—way—seat—these are the three steps. Thoughts lead to deeds, and deeds to habits. Take care of the starting-point, for the walk makes the way, and the way makes the end. These are the three dreadful steps: Neglecting (Heb. 2: 3); rejecting (Heb. 12: 25); despising (Heb. 10: 28). Pearse.—Men are usually first corrupted by bad counsel and company, which is called "walking in the counsel of the ungodly;" next they habituate themselves to their vicious practices, which is "standing in the way of sinners;" and then, at last, they take up and settle in a contempt of all religion, which is called "sitting in the seat of the scornful." Archbishop Tillotson. It is clearly said that the wicked have their counsels, sinners their way, and scorners their haunts; and that the man who will be happy must keep out of them all. The man who is happy has so done and so continues, is the idea. The counsels are principles and maxims. The wicked have such in abundance: as to what is fit and right to do in trade; as to keeping the Sabbath; as to the getting and using of money; as to how men are to be amused; as to the training of children; as to the whole domain and claims of religion. Sinners also have their "way"—their manner of life, which matches their counsels. It is called in the Book "a false way," "a crooked way," "a way of darkness," and "a way of death." Blessed is the man who leaves the counsels, the ways and haunts of the wicked, but more blessed he who has always shunned them. Ask the man who has had large and long experience in every sort of evil, but who now has found the penitent's peace and pardon, and hates the paths he once trod in reckless folly—ask him what he would give if he only could forget—if he could banish forever from the chambers of his soul the vile pictures of the life of those dissolute days. What is the price of a pure imagination and a chaste memory! The blood of atonement will not give that, when once they are defiled. No man can get away from his record. Forgiven he may be, but he must remember. Blessed is the man whose feet not only walk in right paths, but whose memory is clean and pure. 2. The positive side of the godly man's character we find summed up in a statement of great brevity: "His delight is in the law of the Lord; and in His law doth He meditate day and night!" The one hundred and nineteenth Psalm is a disclosure of the blessedness of revelation to one who devoutly received it. What light upon the path, what guidance for the steps, what wisdom, what comfort, what inspiration! The man of our time has the light of that day intensified, its wisdom amplified a hundred-fold. "The law of the Lord" now covers the New Testament as well as the Old. Christ is the Wisdom of God. He who spake in divers ways and times by angels and by godly men of old, now speaks by His Son. Haydn. "His delight (or will) is in the law of Jehovah." Now this will is that pure satisfaction of the heart in the law which does not ask what the law promises or what it threatens, but only this, that the law is holy, just, and good. It is, therefore, a loving delight in the law, which neither prosperity nor adversity can take away or overcome, but through the midst of want it forces its victorious way; for it shines forth chiefly in adversities. Luther.—Sin is not the Christian's element. He may fall into it, but he cannot breathe in it; cannot take delight and continue to live in it; but his delight is in the law of the Lord. That is the walk that his soul refreshes itself in; he loves it entirely, and loves it most where it most crosses the remainders of corruption that are in him; he bends the strength of his soul to please God, and aims wholly at that. Leighton. The blessed man grows right up out of the Word of God. He does not read it only, does not only search it; he meditates in it day and night. He lets his thoughts and desires feed upon it. Pearse.—By this it appears that his delight is in it, for what we love we love to think of (119 : 97). To meditate on God's Word is to discourse with ourselves concerning the great things contained in it, with a close application of mind, a fixedness of thought, till we be suitably affected with those things, and experience the favor and power of them in our hearts. This we must do, day and night; we must have a constant habitual regard to the Word of God as the rule of our actions and the spring of our comforts, and we must have it in our thoughts upon every occasion that occurs, whether night or day. No time is amiss for meditating on the Word of God, nor any time unseasonable for those visits. We must not only set ourselves to meditate on God's Word morning and evening, at the entrance of the day and of the night; but these thoughts should be interwoven with the business and converse of every day, and with the repose and slumbers of every night; When I awake, I am still with Thee. H. Meditation doth discriminate and characterize a man; by this he may take a measure of his heart, whether it be good or bad, "For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he." As the meditation is, such is the man. Meditation is the touchstone of a Christian; it shows what metal he is made of. It is a spiritual index; the index shows what is in the book, so meditation shows what is in the heart. T. Watson.—Meditation chews the cud, and gets the sweetness and nutritive virtue of the Word into the heart and life; this is the way the godly bring forth much fruit. B. Ashwood.—Meditation helps judgment, wisdom, and faith to ponder, discern, and credit the things which reading and hearing supply and furnish. It assists the memory to lock up the jewels of divine truth in her sure treasury. It has a digesting power, and turns special truth into spiritual nourishment; and lastly, it helps the renewed heart to grow upward and increase its power to know the things which are freely given to us of God. N. Rinew. The blessed man delights in the law of the Lord and therefore meditates upon it. And this implies something deeper yet—a delight in the Lord Himself. He loves God, His character and His ways, and so all His works are a joyful study to him. For you notice the emphasis put upon observing, keeping, running in the way of these testimonies; "with my whole heart," says the author of the 119th Psalm. This gives zest to meditation, and interest to every page, to every fresh disclosure of what God is and wants him to be. . . . The secret of what the Bible is to them who delight themselves therein is that it finds them, brings them face to face with Him Who is the Life and Light of men, and shows the way for prodigal children back to the Father's house, to peace and rest in Him. And let us not forget that only by brooding over the great things of the Word will they disclose to us their fulness. We are to study as well as read, pray as well as search, and all that we may fix them in our lives, and put our life into them, for ourselves to know the blessedness of him whose delight is in the law of the Lord, whose pleasure it is to walk therein. Haydn. I know not a grander quality of the soul than that quiet calmness which, while it feels deeply, yet remains sovereign over the feelings, and in which lordly reason sits upon the throne. Superior to this in usefulness, and not below it as a source of power, is that steady, unwearied progress which is the result of permanent convictions, which is attended not with violent feelings, rising like gusts to-day and dying down to-morrow, but with an undercurrent of soul which "runs, and as it runs, forever will run on." Such characters are like the mountains for majestic repose; they are like perennial deep streams for constancy. Such characters we may have, if we mingle meditation on divine truth with activity in works of usefulness. T. D. W. 3. The figure which follows possessed for an Eastern mind a vividness of which we can form but a faint conception. When all else was parched and sterile, the "brooks of water" and the "torrent-beds" had their bright strip of verdure (1 Kings 18 : 5). There the grass was freshest and greenest, and there the trees flourished most luxuriantly. P.—The charming figure of a tree, ever green, thrifty, flourishing, and fruitful sets forth prosperity. In Palestine, vegetables of annual growth might fall through drought; but the tree (e.g., the fig, olive, or palm), deep-rooted, beside living waters, whose leaf never withered, and its fruit never failed, became a true type of the good man whose life could never be a failure—whose work was evermore sure to prosper. C. The Blessed Man is like a tree planted, not growing wild; pruned and brought under Divine culture, not left to the natural workings of mind and heart; brought into circumstances and relations favorable to his highest development, not left to chance influences in this untoward world, to be sapped at the root by his vices, consumed by his appetites and passions, but planted, cared for, and brought forward in the garden of the Lord, whose trees are full of sap. Planted by the rivers of water brings into view the sources of nourishment, growth, fruit-bearing, the careful husbandry employed. God is the source of supply which by the channels of His grace is conveyed to men. The Incarnation, the gift of the Holy Spirit, His blessed Word and appointed ordinances, these go to the roots of being; they satisfy the heart of the Blessed Man, and out of the heart are the issues of life. Haydn. The man who delights in God's Word, being taught by it, bringeth forth patience in the time of suffering, faith in the day of trial, and holy joy in the hour of prosperity. S.—He has comfort in the depths of affliction, strength in the hour of temptation, and comes forth unharmed from the perils of the world, rejoicing in the labors and tears that assure him a rich harvest of glory. Whether the powers of reason crave the loftiest subjects for their exercise; or the imagination asks the widest field wherein to expatiate; or the spirit of devotion seeks an exhaustless store of aliment—all is found here. For the ignorant there is overflowing instruction in its simplest forms; for the learned there are mysteries without end, profound enough to engage and baffle an angel's powers; for the careless and the headstrong there is reproof uttered in the strongest terms; for the timid and irresolute there are encouragement and assurance in the most soothing language; for the erring there are directions that none can misunderstand; for the presumptuous warnings given in tones of thunder, and for the broken-hearted consolation is poured forth "in strains as sweet as angels use." It is a mine of unfathomable wealth, and fully yields its soul-enriching treasures to the search of the diligent, while it leaveth poverty enough to him that dealeth in it with a slack hand. R. S. Storrs, Sr. Character should grow, like a tree, at both ends. Upward, it should send forth a trunk, strong, erect, and stately, together with branches numerous, graceful, and widespread. It should shed a benign shade for refuge from the heat; and it should be filled to the top with flowers and fruits for beauty and for food. But no such development in mid-air is possible unless the tree grows deeply at the other end, shooting its roots far down and in widening circles, seeking moisture and nutriment. There must be this unseen, this secret life. The roots of the soul, with their myriads of fibres, must take firm and deep hold in the soil of God's truth, and absorb the elements of the new life by meditation and prayer, by communion with Christ and the fellowship of the Spirit. H. M. Scudder.—All the sap and nourishment that the branches of a tree have they receive from the root. This shadows out unto us that our life, growth, strength, and all our spiritual acts are from Christ. He is the root and stock of every believer, and all spiritual life is from Him; not only the principles of grace, but also the workings of grace. Aug. His fruit in his season. A godly education, under the influences of the Divine Spirit, which can never be withheld where they are earnestly sought, is sure to produce the fruits of righteousness; and he who reads, prays, and meditates, will ever see the work which God has given him to do; the power by which he is to perform it; and the times, places, and opportunities for doing those things by which God can obtain most glory, his own soul most good, and his neighbor most edification. A. Clarke.—His conscience shall be reinforced and become increasingly tender; his heart shall be elevated in its affections and longings; and his mind shall be trained to what is high and holy. Thus is the whole being enriched and the life enlarged. Edgar. Moral growths do not all fructify at the same time or rate. No workman of God need be disheartened because his fruit season comes late. The latest fruit is usually the best. But, early or late, the fruit of godly character is seasonable. It will be found that God nourishes His men as He does the fruits of the earth, to meet the demands of special seasons; and that in each individual character Divine graces fructify as the occasion demands—courage for seasons of danger, patience for seasons of suffering, strength for seasons of trial, wisdom for seasons of difficulty, words spoken in season—in short, the beautiful fitness of godliness is no less remarkable than its fruitfulness. V. His leaf shall not wither. Even the leaf of those who bring forth only the leaves of profession, without any good fruit, will wither, and they shall be as much ashamed of their profession as ever they were proud of it; but if the word of God rule in the heart, that will keep the profession green, both to our comfort and credit; the laurels thus won shall never wither. H.—His leaf also shall not wither; showing how the Divine culture looks after the details of the life of the Blessed Man—even the leaf, soonest to feel exposure, soonest to show lack of the conditions of health, shall not wither; assurance that God's supply reaches to the minute necessities and providential emergencies of the life of His children. Haydn. And all, or every thing, which he, the man represented by the verdant fruitful tree, shall do, he shall make to prosper, or do prosperously, with good success. This pleasing image is in perfect keeping with the scope of the Psalm, which is not to describe the righteous man as such, but the truly happy man, with whom the righteous man is afterward identified. The whole description is not so much a picture drawn from real life, as an ideal standard or model, by striving to attain which our aims and our attainments will be elevated, though imperfect after all. A.—It is a most astonishing promise to give to men; yet here, as all through this Psalm, the correspondence with the broader thought of the New Testament is marked. "All things are yours" because you are God's. Whatsoever he doeth shall prosper, because he is planted in God's garden, by God's rivers, and this suggests a very important thought as to the standard of prosperity. If it is prosperity which comes from God, it must be measured by God's rule—and that is quite another rule from men's—so that with reference to a large number of godly men the world is disposed to deny this statement and to say it is rather the other way: whatsoever he doeth does not prosper. He has sickness and financial disaster; his plans miscarry; he has tribulation, distress, nakedness and peril. Yet it by no means follows that he does not prosper according to a different and a higher standard. V. This is not to be apprehended in a mercantile sense—nor is it to be viewed as though success, as men term it, were identical with prosperity. Success may be all one with sheer, irretrievable ruin. Defeat may mean good fortune. Adversity, as men esteem it, is oft-times a godly man's prosperity, attended by a positive increase of his blessedness. The thought moves on the higher plane which contemplates a man as a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven, to whom this world yields its fruits of increase according to the laws that rule therein; and to him accrues the advantage which belongs in this world, to integrity of character and uprightness of moral purpose. Haydn.—Outward prosperity, if it follow close walking with God, is sweet; as the cipher, when it follows a figure, adds to the number, though it be nothing in itself. Trapp. The spiritual plant of God is placed by the running waters; it is nourished and recruited by the never-failing, the daily and hourly supply of their wholesome influences. It grows up gradually, silently, without observation; and in proportion as it rises aloft, so do its roots, with still less observation, strike deep into the earth. Year after year it grows more and more into the hope and the posture of a glorious immobility and unchangeableness. What it has been, that it shall be; if it changes, it is as growing into fruitfulness, and maturing in its fruit's abundance and perfection. Nor is that fruit lost; it neither withers upon the branches nor decays upon the ground. Angels unseen gather crop after crop from the unwearied, never-failing parent, and carefully store them up in heavenly treasure-houses. The servant of God resembles a tree in his graciousness; in his fruitfulness; in his immobility. Newman. The great lesson, then, of this first part of the Psalm is—Holiness is happiness, security, stability, fruitfulness; and holiness is based solely upon the law of God. Within the sphere of that law, as in a sheltered and well watered garden, are all the fountains which minister to perfect blessedness and to permanent efficiency. V.—The man who loves God and keeps His statutes with his whole heart has a counsel, a way, a resort, which are intensified in sweetness and significance as he goes on; the very opposite of the counsel of the ungodly, the way of sinners and the seat of the scornful. His counsel, his way, his haunts, are full of Divine Wisdom and ennobling fellowships. In harmony with God and His laws, in love with His works and ways, in faith of His providence over him, the man is blessed—any man may be. Conscience approves. The outer world utters a benediction. So does every pure and right-minded man. Deep calleth unto deep, “It is well.” In sickness and in health; at home, abroad; awake, asleep; in life, in death, “It is well!” “It is well!” Haydn. 4. The ungodly are not so.** No one pretends that every man who is not an avowed servant of God is a defier of all moral obligation. No one denies that such often exhibit the loveliest moral traits; but God’s tests go straight through these superficial developments of character, down to the roots of character. Where is it planted? Whence does it get its impulse? What gives it its ultimate law? The Bible is concerned only with the question of allegiance to God. It puts us to this simple test—God’s servant or not? That not contains the germs of all moral disaster. Thus we are prepared for the sharp contrast here introduced: “The ungodly are not so.” The Psalmist does not dwell upon the details of their ungodliness. As in the case of the righteous, he confines himself to indicating the sources of their life, and passes over all that intervenes, until the judgment. The great object of this introductory Psalm is to show us the fountain-heads of moral character. Its developments of both kinds we find in abundance throughout the Book of Psalms; but in this the proper truth to be set forth is the fundamental one, that all true fruitfulness of character is found in God’s garden only; in being planted by God’s hand and by God’s rivers, and that all barrenness and uselessness result from being not so. V. Like the chaff that the wind driveth away. We do not get the full force of the imagery, till on some Eastern threshing-floor, like that of Araunah, the Jebusite, on some high hill exposed to the winds of heaven, we see the husbandman tossing his grain into the air, that the wind may separate the chaff and carry it away. A more striking contrast it is hardly possible to conceive. Haydn.—They are without root below, without fruit above, without vital force and freshness, lying loose upon the threshing-floor, and fleeing away if a wind but blows; so altogether null and unstable are they. D.—The chaff, which only lives by the grain, which feeds no one, which has no power of reproduction, is driven away. So it is the law, the unchanging law of God, that the life which gives nothing has no place in His Divine order; that the life which is bound to no other life by God’s laws of love and of ministry, but is self-centred, is a light, useless life, to be shaken to the four winds when God shall shake heaven and earth. V. 5. Therefore,** because they are unlike a living tree, and like the worthless chaff, fit only to be scattered by the wind, wicked (men) shall not stand, i.e., stand their ground or be able to sustain themselves, in the judgment; i.e., at the bar of God. This includes two ideas, that of God’s unerring estimation of all creatures at their real value, and that of His corresponding action toward them. A.—This part of the Psalm is an almost literal anticipation of the parable of the tares. Tares and wheat are in the same field, as wheat and chaff are on the same threshing-floor. The tares, for the time, enjoy immunity for the wheat’s sake. So the chaff, while it keeps close to the wheat, enjoys some privileges for the wheat’s sake. In the world, good and evil grow together. But there is coming a day of judgment whose searching tests shall make clearly manifest what is wheat and what is chaff. In that day of fearful winnowing what hypocrisies shall be disengaged from their goodly wrappings, what self-deceptions, what imposing phantoms of greatness and usefulness and goodness driven away like morning mist. V. Here it is plainly said—the wicked shall not stand in the judgment. He cannot maintain himself, or hold his ground in that day, at that tribunal. Here and now, he often more than holds his own. He is victorious. Here and now, he often seems to own the tribunal that is to pass upon his case. Here and now, he is often taken for what he is not. But at the judgment every mask is dropped. Character stands forth in its naked truthfulness. The counsel of the wicked will not abide, and he who walked in it is driven away, like the chaff out of the threshing-floor. Hitherto, he has presented himself among his fellows, in the mart of business, in social festivities, in worshipping assemblies, where lines are never sharply drawn—where men grow together as do wheat and tares. But this is to end, as every man goes to his own place. The judgment does not make character, but declares it; and that separateness which has been so real in spirit is now to take effect in the formal act of separation. “Sinners shall not stand in the congregation of the righteous.” Thus was foreshadowed what is so impressively set forth by our Lord Himself, in one of His latest discourses. The conclusion is not an event detached from the life that lies behind it, but its immediate consequence. The chain is as unbroken as that betwixt seed-sowing and harvest. To stand on the right or the left hand of the Judge, men's lives are all the time fitting them; and choices, fellowships and deeds are all the time charging life with bane or blessing; they are shaping a sinner or a saint. That such a final separation should come is both reasonable and beneficent. It is solemnly declared to lie before us all. Haydn. 6. Knoweth. Regards with watchful care and love (31 : 7 ; 144 : 3). The participle denotes that this is the character of Jehovah. P.—The ungodly perish.** Their doom is to be disowned of God, condemned, and made monuments of His eternal justice. C. Here, then, is the contrast between the two portions of this Psalm. Here is the fruitful, cherished tree, and here the driving chaff. On the one side, stability, Divine culture, fruitfulness; on the other, instability, uselessness, ruin. On the one side, a law which nourishes every form of goodly power, and provides every variety of instruction and of comfort; on the other, license which dissipates power, begets restlessness, and ends in worthlessness. On the one side, a Divine vindication; on the other, a Divine exposure. Which shall be our portion? Where our place? In the garden beside the river of God, or on the threshing-floor at the mercy of the wind? V. The Psalm teaches that the keeping of God's commandments, which is blessedness, must spring from the inward consent and delight of the heart in the law. Reluctant obedience has no blessedness in it. The name of it is slavery. Many professing Christian people would very much like to do the thing that they think they durst not do—I was going to say, then they may as well do them! That would be an exaggeration, but yet it would be in the direction of the truth. For a man that refrains from profitable or pleasant infractions of the law of righteousness because, and only because, he thinks he ought, and who keeps hanker, hanker, hankering after the things that he is too much of a coward to do, has a very imperfect righteousness, if he has any at all. The first thing that we have to see to is to bring our hearts into harmony with the commandments, and only then is obedience blessedness, when it is the spontaneous and thorough expression of our delight in the law, which again is the child of our love to the Lawgiver. A. M. With reason is the decalogue filled with thou-shalt-nots. It marks a tendency, that this is so; a tendency to evil, to false gods, to lying, stealing, coveting, killing; a tendency in men to walk in the counsel of the wicked, to stand in the way of sinners, to sit in the seat of the scornful. "Thou shalt not," is the Lord's obstruction in the way. He that gives rein to this tendency must break over Divine command. "Thou shalt not," arrests attention, gives time for thought, and the better, brighter way presents itself, and if accepted, entered, enjoyed, the commands, the "nots" become of little value, and less necessity. He who loves virtue need not be told to hate vice. He who is wedded to truth need not be told to abhor lying. Haydn. There are few Christian duties more neglected than that of meditation, the very name of which has fallen of late into comparative disuse—that augurs ill for the frequency of the thing. We are so busy thinking, discussing, defending, inquiring; or preaching, and teaching, and working, that we have no time and no leisure of heart for quiet contemplation, without which the exercise of the intellect upon Christ's truth will not feed, and busy activity in Christ's cause may starve the soul. A. M. We observe two classes of men answering to those outlined in this Psalm. Look at representative men on either side. In them principles have gone to seed. One class, rooted in the love of God, in principles of righteousness, in the hearts of men, in the well-being of society. The longer they live, the more a blessing they are, the more needful to society; old age, a crown of glory to them, their counsel esteemed, their character venerated, their name cherished. Another class there is, rooted in no good thing, doing nothing to make their life essential to society, nothing to command the veneration of men, nothing to make their memory green when gone. Is life worth living? Answer it on the plane of the materialist; of life without God and without hope—no! For the most of men—no! Answer it from the heart of him whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates upon it day and night, drinking at this peren- nial fountain, and rising invigorated, day by day, to make life a series of victories—yes, a thousand times, yes! This book of the Lord counsels us to seek first the kingdom of heaven. Yea, it forbids us to set our affections on the things of earth. It bids us dismiss anxious care; take our losses and disappointments with composure; lay up for ourselves treasure in heaven; use this world and not abuse it; forsake the greedy scramble for wealth; crucify inordinate ambition and live soberly, righteously and godly in this present evil world. So shall all this teeming tide of thought and activity bring to our doors their argosies of wealth to minister to our comfort and our taste, to meet our necessity or swell our abundance, as the case may be; and given or refused we cannot be miserable if we are delight- ing ourselves in the law of the Lord, and our souls are fed, nourished and satisfied by meditation thereupon! Haydn. The first beatitude of the Psalter is, “Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord.” The last beatitude of the Apocalypse is, “Blessed are they that wash their robes that they may have right to the tree of life.” The last explains the first, shows us how it is possible to keep God’s commandments, and soars higher than the earlier utterance; giving us a glimpse of the calm delights and immortal joys that wait for us above. Here we drink of the river of His pleasures. There we shall slake our thirst at the fountain-head. Blessed are the living that thus live in the Lord. Yet more “blessed are the dead which thus die in the Lord.” A. M. 1. WHY do the nations rage, And the peoples imagine a vain thing? 2 The kings of the earth set themselves, And the rulers take counsel together, Against the LORD, and against his Anointed, saying, 3 Let us break their bands asunder, And cast away their cords from us. 4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: The Lord shall have them in derision. 5 Then shall He speak unto them in his wrath, And vex them in his sore displeasure: 6 Yet I have set my King Upon my holy hill of Zion. 7 I will tell of the decree: The LORD said unto Me, Thou art my Son; This day have I begotten thee. 8 Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for thine inheritance, And the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. 9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a pot- ter’s vessel. 10 Now therefore be wise, O ye kings: Be instructed, ye judges of the earth. 11 Serve the LORD with fear, And rejoice with trembling. 1 Wherefore do the peoples rage, And the nations meditate vanity! 2 The kings of the earth rise in rebellion, And the rulers take counsel together— Against Jehovah and against his Anointed. 3 “Up! let us break their bonds asunder, And cast away from us their cords!” 4 He who is enthroned in the heavens laughs, The Lord of all mocks at them. 5 Then will He speak to them in his anger, And in his hot wrath thunder them down: 6 “— And yet have I established my King Upon Zion, my holy hill.” (The Divine King speaks :) 7 “I will tell of a decree! Jehovah said unto Me: Thou art my Son, I have this day begotten Thee. 8 Ask of Me, and I will give Thee nations for thine inheritance, And thy possession shall be the ends of the earth. 9 Thou shalt break them with a sceptre of iron, Like a potter’s vessel Thou shalt dash them in pieces.” 10 And now, ye kings, show yourselves wise; Be admonished, ye judges of the earth! 11 Serve Jehovah with reverence, And rejoice with trembling. 12. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish in the way, For his wrath will soon be kindled. Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him. 12. Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish, For his anger may easily be kindled— Blessed are all they that take refuge in Him. D. THIS Psalm is Messianic, for it speaks of an Anointed One who transcends all earthly sovereigns; catholic, for it calls the Gentiles into the Church; evangelical, for it announces happiness to all who trust in the Lord; and monitory, for it warns the rebels to make a timely submission. It celebrates the kingly office of the Messiah. M.—In the Messianic Psalms, one King and His reign are distinguished from all kings and reigns before Him. His is a universal Kingdom; the whole earth is His inheritance; all nations are subject to Him, and under His sway righteousness and peace everywhere prevail. It is a Kingdom in permanent form and without end. Jehovah has found One who can be in the highest sense His King and His Priest; and this One, by whom He acts, in all His works, both of judgment and of blessing, is a Son of David. This King is thus distinguished from and lifted up above all of His predecessors. S. J. Andrews. The Psalm celebrates the world-dominion of a king who is a son of David and a Son of God. The occurrences of his time, which determined the mood of the poet, are no longer clear to us. From these occurrences, however, he is transported in thought into the very middle of those commotions among the nations, which issue in their all becoming the kingdoms of God and of His Christ (Rev. 11: 15; 12: 10). In the New Testament this Psalm is cited more frequently than any other. D.—The proof is most abundant that the inspired apostles saw the Messiah, and Him only, throughout this Psalm. Appealing to it in proof that Jesus of Nazareth is the very Messiah of Old Testament prophecy, of course they assume this to be a prophecy of Him. C. The second Psalm is a kind of inaugural hymn, intended to celebrate the appointment and final triumph of Jehovah's king. The heathen nations are represented as foolishly opposing it; they agree among themselves to disown and resist it; the Almighty perseveres in His purpose, scorning the rebellious opposition of such impotent adversaries; the eternal decree goes forth that the anointed King is en- throned on Zion; that being Jehovah's Son He is made the heir of all things, even to the utter most bounds of the habitable globe. And in consideration of what has thus been decreed and ratified in heaven, the Psalm concludes with a word of friendly counsel and admonition to earthly potentates and rulers, exhorting them to submit in time to the sway of this glorious King, and forewarning them of the inevitable ruin of resistance. That in all this we can trace the lines of Messiah's history is obvious at a glance. P. F. This Psalm, in the spirit of prophecy, celebrates the inauguration of the Messiah as king in His Church, with authority and power to subdue the world. Neither David nor Solomon could have been the king whom the Psalm celebrates; nor did any subsequent period of the kingdom of Judah answer to these conditions. It was interpreted as a prophecy of Christ by the apostles, when "Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together against the holy child Jesus;" and again by Paul in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where Christ is set above the angels, as the only begotten Son of God. He who was born into the world of a lowly virgin was, before His advent, consecrated in heaven to be King over God's true Israel, with the promise of the universal triumph of His spiritual dominion. This is His coronation-hymn. John, in the Revelation, takes up the strain in a doxology to Christ as having Divine power and glory. J. P. T. This Psalm rings with the tramp of gathering armies, and notes of lofty challenge addressed by the poet to the invaders of his country. It must have been written at a time when Jerusalem was threatened by a confederacy of hostile powers. It is plain from the language which the poet puts into their mouth—"Let us break their bonds asunder," etc.—that the allies were vassal or tributary monarchs, who, having either been subdued in former wars, or having in some other way tendered their allegiance, had seized this opportunity to assert their independence. We may suppose the song to have been written when the news of their approach reached Jerusalem. The poet encourages his countrymen by reminding them of the covenant made with David's house, and predicts for their enemies a disastrous overthrow. Their enterprise is in its very nature "a vain thing." It cannot but come to naught, because the king whom they would dethrone is the Son and vicegerent of Jehovah Himself. The poet therefore counsels the rebels to return to their allegiance before it be too late. It is quite impossible now to say what the event was which occasioned this poem. Whatever the event, we need not suppose that the singer himself did not feel that his words went beyond their first occasion. He begins to speak of an earthly king, and his wars with the nations of the earth; but his words are too great to have their meaning exhausted in David, or Solomon, or Ahaz, or any Jewish monarch. Or ever he is aware, the local and the temporal are swallowed up in the universal and the eternal. The king who sits on David's throne has become glorified and transfigured in the light of the promise. The picture is half ideal, half actual. It concerns itself with the present, but with that only so far as it is typical of greater things to come. The true King, who to the prophet's mind is to fulfil all his largest hopes, has taken the place of the visible and earthly king. The nations are not merely those who are now mustering for the battle, but whatsoever opposeth and exalteth itself against Jehovah and His Anointed. Hence this Psalm is of the nature of a prophecy, and still waits for its final accomplishment. It had a real fulfilment, no doubt, in the banding together of Herod and Pontius Pilate against Christ. But this was not a literal one. Only in a partial sense—rather in the way of application—did the words of this Psalm correspond to that event. But it may be said to have an ever-repeated fulfilment in the history of the Church, which is a history of God's kingdom upon earth—a kingdom which in all ages has the powers of the world arrayed against it, and in all ages with the same disastrous result to those who have risen "against the Lord, and against His Anointed." And so it shall be to the end, when, perhaps, that hostility will be manifested in some yet deadlier form, only to be overthrown forever, that the kingdoms of this world may become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. P. 1-3. The Psalm opens abruptly; it is an utterance of amazement, breaking from the lips of one who looks out upon the nations and generations of man. He discerns, in his widespread view, one perpetual restlessness, one ceaseless movement of discontent, the throbbing of a rebellion that cannot be appeased, of a vain, bitter, ceaseless revolt. That rebellion against God which in the vast ignorant masses of the world is half unconscious, in their leaders finds utterance, assumes shape and formula. It is from these men of the sword, paper, tongue, and brain—it is of these the wondering Psalmist challenges an answer. Why does the world fret against the government of God? Is there no better name for the laws of God and His Christ than "bands" and "cords"? If we study the aspects and explanations of the world's rebellion against God, they may be found—in their clearest forms, at least—in the example, and spirit, and teaching of those whom the multitudes blindly follow—godless power, godless wealth, godless intellect. All these are represented among the kings and rulers of the earth. F. W. Macdonald. 1. It is Jehovah Himself who is assailed in the person of the king whom He has set on the throne. Such an enterprise cannot but fail. In its very nature it is "a vain thing." In this word, says Luther, is comprised the argument of nearly the whole Psalm. How can they succeed who set themselves against Jehovah and against His Christ? The abrupt question is in the true spirit of lyric poetry. P.—The interrogation in this verse implies that no rational solution of the strange sight could be given, for reasons assigned in the remainder of the Psalm. This implied charge of irrationality is equally well founded in all cases where the same kind of opposition exists. A. 2. Anointed.** The original word here is Messiah—the Anointed One, to which the word Christ is the Greek equivalent. The idea of anointing comes from the Hebrew practice of inducting their high priests and their kings into office by this ceremony. The history gives prominence to the anointing of Saul, of David, and of Solomon; and says of David, "The Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward." Anointing was the symbol of this Divine unction, and, therefore, makes the names Messiah and Christ specially significant and appropriate in the case of Him to whom God gave the Spirit "not by measure." C.—External unction or anointing is a sign, in the Old Testament, of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and especially of those conferred on prophets, priests, and kings, as ministers of the theocracy, and representatives of Christ Himself. To kings particularly, as the highest and most comprehensive order, and peculiar types of Christ in His supremacy as Head of the Church, the sacred history applies the title of the Lord's Anointed. A. 3. But the singer not only sees the gathering host; he hears their menace of rebellion: "Let us burst their bonds asunder" (i.e., those of Jehovah and His Christ). The metaphor is borrowed from restive animals which break the cords, and throw off the yoke. P.—The language of the rebels in the verse before us is a genuine expression of the feelings entertained by the masses of mankind, so far as they have been brought into collision with the sovereignty of God and Christ, not only at the time of His appearance upon earth, but in the ages both before and after that event, in which the prophecy attained its height, but was not finally exhausted or fulfilled; since the same rash and hopeless opposition to the Lord and His Anointed still continues and is likely to continue until the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ (Rev. 11 : 15), an expression borrowed from this very passage. A. 4-6. The scene of the first act of this drama is laid on earth; the scene of the second is laid in heaven. As we pass onward we must pass upward. Watching all the turmoil and rebellion, watching below and calmly surveying the most turbulent outbreaks of the heathen as they rage, there sits the King against whose rule this revolt is made. We see in His attitude undisturbed repose and majesty. He occupies a point of observation. He occupies a judicial position. Mursel.—The transition here is a sublime one, from the noise and agitation of earth to the safety and tranquillity of heaven. No shifting of the scene could be more dramatic in effect or form. While the nations and their kings exhort each other to cast off their allegiance to Jehovah, and thereby virtually to dethrone Him, He reposes far above them and beyond their reach. A. 4. Shall laugh.** Put the Psalmist's bold word here into our feeble prose, and it comes to this. The Psalmist sees the utter futility of revolt against God; he discerns the strength of the Almighty; the pillars of the eternal throne are before his soul; he sees from afar the strength and majesty of God, and looking down upon all the feeble, foolish wisdom of the world that sets itself against God, he can find no other words to express the vanity of man's revolt than to say, "The Lord shall laugh." F. W. Macdonald. There is something very awful in the representation here given of God. First, as if in calm contempt, "He laughs;" then there is the bitter derision which, in its effects, brings their counsels to nought, and baffles their purposes. "He mocks them;" "then," at last, with the thunder of His word He discomfits them. P.—"Who thought," says Luther, "when Christ suffered and the Jews triumphed, that God was laughing all the time?" Beneath this bold anthropomorphism there is hidden a profound truth—namely, that to all superior beings, and above all to God Himself, there is something in sin not only odious, but absurd, something which cannot possibly escape the contempt of higher, much less of the highest intelligence. A. 6. The words of Jehovah, and the central truth of the Psalm. It is God's own answer to them that oppose Him. I (the pronoun is emphatic in the Hebrew), the King of heaven and earth, have set My own king, My Son and My Vicegerent, on the throne. P.—And I have constituted My King upon Zion, My hill of holiness, or holy hill, i.e., consecrated, set apart, distinguished from all other hills and other places, as the seat of the theocracy, the royal residence, the capital city, of the Lord and of His Christ, from the time that David took up his abode, and deposited the ark there. A. Notice—1. The royal office and character of our glorious Redeemer; He is a King, "This name He hath on His vesture and on His thigh" (Rev. 19 : 16). 2. The authority by which He reigns; He is "My King," says God the Father, and I have set Him up from everlasting. The world disowns His authority, but I have set Him, I have "given Him to be head over all things to the Church." 3. His particular kingdom over which He rules; it is over "My holy hill of Zion"—an eminent type of the Gospel Church. The temple was built upon Mount Zion, and therefore called a holy hill. Christ's throne is in His Church, it is His headquarters, and the place of His peculiar residence. Charnock.—Christ's throne is set up in His Church—that is, in the hearts of all believers, and in the societies they form. The evangelical law of Christ is said to go forth from Zion (Isa. 2 : 3 ; Micah 4 : 2), and therefore that is spoken of as the headquarters of this General, the royal seat of this Prince, in whom the children of men shall be joyful. H. 7-9. With inimitable beauty and pertinence the Messiah Himself now appears and speaks, witnessing to His sonship and kingship, and to the constitution—the grand charter of rights—under which this fallen world is given to Him as His empire. C.—No word of transition, no formula of introduction marks this sudden passage from the words of Jehovah to those of His Christ; the singer is a seer; his Psalm is a reflection of what he has seen, an echo of what he has heard. Just as Jehovah in opposition to the rebels acknowledges the King upon Zion, so in opposition to the same rebels the King upon Zion appeals to Him. D.—He proclaims the Father's counsel concerning Himself. He has received of Jehovah a decree, the new law of His kingdom. He reigns not by the will of man, but by the grace of God; not by right only as the Son of Jehovah, but by covenant and promise likewise. (See the stress laid on this Divine calling as fulfilled in Christ in Heb. 5: 5.) This is true of the type in a primary sense, 2 Sam. 7: 14, "I will be His Father, and He shall be My son." But the emphatic, "This day have I begotten Thee," is true in its highest sense only of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world. (Compare the argument in Heb. 1: 5.) P. 7. The plain thought seems to be: This day, by anointing Thee as King on My hill of Zion, I have recognized Thee as My Son. This enthroning is My public and solemn recognition of this relation—the relation being essentially eternal in the past, but never brought forth to the knowledge of created minds till this momentous inauguration as king. So Paul understood this verse, for he finds it fulfilled in Christ's resurrection and consequent ascension and enthronement in heaven. (See Acts 13: 33.) C. He is the Son of God, and therefore dear to Him, His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased; and upon this account we are to receive Him as a King; for because the Father loveth the Son, He hath given all things into His hand (John 3: 35; 5: 20). Being a Son, He is Heir of all things, and the Father having made the worlds by Him, it is easy to infer thence that by Him also He governs them; for he is the eternal Wisdom and the eternal Word. If God hath said unto Him, "Thou art My Son," it becomes each of us to say to Him, "Thou art my Lord, my Sovereign." H.—No man with a natural conscience but knows that if he lives, moves and has his being, depends for his destiny upon and must have his good and joy from the loving and continual agency of God, he ought to render something to God in return, and he ought to render to God what is His due; and if He is the highest object of knowledge, He ought to be known; if He is worthy of perfect trust, He ought to be trusted, and if He is infinitely lovely and loving, He ought to be loved; and our natural conscience would teach us that we ought to know and love and trust God. Very well; there is no other way to do it, except to take God as God comes to us, and He never comes to any man except in the Son, and He never will. He hath sworn His decree, and He will never take it back. And not only are we never to know Him except as He is revealed in the Son, but we shall never be able to approach Him except as He comes to us in the Son. Duryea. 8. The scene of the last act is once more laid on earth. It intimates the proclamation here of the secret decree there—the proclamation on earth of the decree of Heaven. What, in point of fact, is this "declaring the decree" but the preaching of the Gospel? The Father not merely gives the throne, but He guarantees by covenant a large kingdom. The heathen are to be given for His inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for His possession. A. Mursell. 9. Some readers will ask: Is it not the fair sense of this verse that all the nations promised to Christ as His inheritance and possession are given Him only to be destroyed? To this I answer: It is probably due in part to the salient points of David's own sway over the hostile nations—Philistia, Syria, Moab, Ammon and Edom—that the language of this verse contemplates the subject nations as being crushed by physical power rather than saved by moral. Moreover, this view is in keeping with the leading thought of the Psalm—these nations seen in their malign rage against Jehovah and His anointed Son; and the Lord asserting His infinite right to reign, and giving dominion to His Son that He may reign to the subjugation of every foe. This is one of the main points in this Psalm. Yet v. 8 must contemplate the masses of the nations as converted, to become Christ's true inheritance. The last three verses assume most clearly and delightfully that there is mercy most abundant for the gulliest rebel who will submit to Christ and be a rebel no more. These "terrors of the Lord" are here for the very purpose of persuading men to be wise and to submit while yet pardon is possible. Beyond all question, the doctrine of the entire Bible, the New Testament and the Old, is that Jesus becomes King and Lord of all, to bring rebels to penitence and penitent souls back to purity and blessedness; but to give the incorrigibly impenitent their righteous doom—remediless ruin. Who will not bow in submission must fall beneath His rod. Justice demands this and Jesus will execute it. Whosoever will may come to Him for life; but whosoever will not have life must have death! It suffices therefore to say of our passage, and indeed of the whole Psalm, that it contemplates as its main theme the case of Christ's enemies in hostile league against Him, but sure to fall beneath His rod unless they will bow to His sceptre. C. This extensive grant had been accompanied by that of power adequate to hold it. That power was to be exercised in wrath as well as mercy. The former is here rendered prominent, because the previous context has respect to audacious rebels, over whom Messiah is invested with the necessary power of punishment, and even of destruction. This view of the Messiah as a destroyer is in perfect keeping with the New Testament doctrine that those who reject Christ will incur an aggravated doom, and that Christ Himself is in some sense the destroyer of those who will not let Him be their Saviour; or, to borrow terms from one of His own parables, in strict agreement with the scene presented by the Psalm before us, "these Mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before Me." That false view of the Divine nature which regards God as delighting in the death of the sinner is more revolting but not more dangerous than that which looks upon His justice as extinguished by His mercy, and supposes that the death of Christ has rendered perdition impossible, even to those who will not believe in Him. The terms of this verse are repeatedly applied to Christ in the Book of Revelation (2 : 27 ; 12 : 5 ; 19 : 15). A. 10-12. Finally, the poet who has heard the words of Jehovah and the words of His Anointed, seeks by wise counsel to dissuade the rebels from their mad enterprise. Learn wisdom, receive instruction. Submit yourselves; not only in a political sense, but also in a religious sense—become His true worshippers. In the Jewish mind the two ideas would never be dissociated. P. 12. Kiss the Son. An ancient mode of doing homage or allegiance to a king. Even in modern European courts the kissing of the hand has this significance. In the case before us there may possibly be an allusion to the kiss as a religious act among the heathen. The Son, the Son of God, the Messiah, so called by the Jews in Christ's time. A. He be angry. The office of the Messiah is not only that of one who brings salvation, but also that of one who is a judge. Redemption is the beginning and judgment the end of His work. It is to this end that the Psalm points. D.—The same view of the Messiah as a judge and an avenger, which appeared in v. 9, is again presented here, but only for a moment, and as a prelude to the closing beatitude or benediction. Blessed (are) all; oh, the felicities of all—those trusting Him, believing on Him, and confiding in Him. This delightful contrast of salvation and perdition, at one and the same view, is characteristic of the Scriptures, and should teach us not to look ourselves, and not to turn the eyes of others, toward either of these objects without due regard to the other also. A. Thus closes this sublime and solemnly impressive Psalm. Comparing it with the first Psalm, it ends where that begins—with the blessedness of the righteous. Like that, it makes prominent the heaven-wide contrast between the righteous and the wicked in respect to both present condition and future destiny. Like that, its great moral purpose is to commend true piety; to dissuade men from the ways of sin and rebellion; and to press them to submission to God as the path of life and blessedness. C. It should be observed that two of the names given by the Jews themselves to the Hope of Israel were taken from this Psalm (and Dan. 9 : 25), the Messiah, v. 2, and the Son of God, v. 7. Both names are joined together by the high priest, Matt. 26 : 63. In like manner the name, Son of man, is taken from Psalm 8 : 4 and Dan. 7 : 13. P. The Hebrew monarchy presents a clear and unmistakable prophecy of a Divine and everlasting kingdom. We have to trace two distinct lines of thought rising in different ages, and gradually growing into one, till both are fully realized in that kingdom which embraces earth and heaven, and links time with eternity. The first thought is that God alone is the King of Israel, the second that David shall not want a man to sit upon his throne forever. The former belief is by far the more ancient; it was born with the people in their deliverance from Egypt, and became the one enduring foundation of the national polity. Out of this truth grows the national life, and on it are based morality, religion, and law. Hardly less wonderful was the second thought, which sprang up in a later age: that in the little State of Israel a King should be born of the seed of David according to the flesh who should extend His dominion from one end of the earth to the other, and reign as long as the sun and moon endure. To bring this new hope into harmony with the ancient creed that seems so utterly opposed to it, to reconcile the perpetual reign of David's seed with the exclusive sovereignty of Jehovah, is the new task upon which prophecy now enters. The first advance is clearly marked when the title "Messiah," hitherto applied only to "the priest that is anointed," is transferred to the promised King. Hannah is the first that so uses it, in her song of thanksgiving (1 Sam. 2: 10). Observe how carefully the great truth of God's sole sovereignty is guarded in this first announcement of an earthly King. It is still Jehovah that shall judge the ends of the earth; He shall give strength to the rising monarchy; He shall anoint, and in anointing choose and consecrate, the human king as His viceroy on earth. In David we have a soul conformed to the ideal of a true king—a soul ready to be quickened and illuminated by the Holy Spirit of prophecy, until, amid the kindling glow of thought, there should shine forth the image of a King like David himself, but fairer than the children of men. One in whom all gifts and graces of which man is capable should be combined with the perfections that belong to God only. E. H. Gifford. The Mediator, the distant hope of whom had cheered the men of ancient times on their passage to the tomb, has come in the fulness of the times to accomplish his mysterious mission, and claim from the height of the cross the fulfilment of the Divine promise, "Ask of Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession." The nations belong to Him, He to humanity; He is prince and pastor, for His sceptre is a crook, and His subjects are sheep whom He feeds and carries in His bosom with a tenderness as great as the power with which He defends, and the authority with which He governs them. His reign is a reign of persuasion and love; He wishes none but free subjects, He wishes only to reign over hearts; He acknowledges for subjects those only who are united to Him by faith, and are desirous to be enlisted to Him only for peace, comfort, joy, and strength. He acknowledges for subjects only those who, acknowledging themselves to be sinners devoid of all glory before God, and incapable of entering by their own strength and their own merits into communion with the Father of spirits, cry for grace and mercy at the foot of His cross, and expect nothing in earth or heaven except from His powerful mediation. A. Vinet. For professedly Christian nations, churches, institutions, their relation of earnest loyalty and faithfulness, or otherwise, to Him and to the beneficent work of His Kingdom, is decisive of their destiny; since for the work of that Kingdom, and for the glory of its King, they exist, as means to ends. Christ's law is the law of right. His Kingdom is the kingdom of light, of purity, of peace, of love, of brotherly kindness between man and man, between class and class; the kingdom of hope, for time and for eternity, and of endless progress for human nature. Medd.—In spite of all man's sin, the world does prosper marvellously, miraculously; in spite of all, God is stronger than the devil, life stronger than death, wisdom stronger than folly, order stronger than disorder, fruitfulness stronger than destruction; and they will be so more and more, till the last great day, when Christ shall have put all enemies under His feet and death is swallowed up in victory, and all mankind in one fold, under one Shepherd, Jesus Christ, the righteous King of all. Kingsley. 1. LORD, how are mine adversaries increased! Many are they that rise up against me. 2 Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God. [Selah 3 But thou, O LORD, art a shield about me; My glory, and the lifter up of mine head. 4. I cry unto the LORD with my voice, And he answereth me out of his holy hill. [Selah 5 I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustaineth me. 6 I will not be afraid of ten thousands of the people, That have set themselves against me round about. 7. Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God: For thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; THIS Psalm and that which follows were written by David when he fled from his son Absalom. Both Psalms, it has been conjectured, were composed on the same day; the one in the morning, the other in the evening, of the day following that on which the king quitted Jerusalem. The words are the words of one who had often sought and found help from God; and who even in this his sorest strait calmly reposes, knowing that Jehovah is his glory and the lifter-up of his head. From v. 5 we gather that the Psalm is a morning hymn. With returning day there comes back on the monarch's heart the recollection of the enemies who threaten him—a nation up in arms against him, his own son heading the rebellion, his wisest and most trusted counsellor in the ranks of his foes. Never, not even when hunted by Saul, had he found his position one of greater danger. The odds were overwhelmingly against him. This is a fact which he does not attempt to hide from himself: "How many are mine enemies;" "Many rise up against me;" "Many say to my soul;" "Ten thousands of the people have set themselves against me." Yet he is not crushed; he is not desponding. Enemies may be thick as the leaves of the forest, and earthly friends may be few, or uncertain, or far off. But there is one Friend who cannot fail him, and to Him David turns with a confidence and affection which lift him above all his fears. Never had he been more sensible of the reality and preciousness of the Divine protection. If he was surrounded by enemies, Jehovah was his shield. If Shimei and his crew turned his glory into shame, Jehovah was his glory; if they sought to revile and degrade him, Jehovah was the lifter-up of his head. Nor did the mere fact of distance from Jerusalem separate between him and his God. He had sent back the ark and the priests; for he would not endanger their safety, and he did not trust in them as a charm, and he knew that Jehovah could still hear him from "His holy mountain" (v. 4), could still lift up the light of His countenance upon him, and put gladness in his heart (4: 6, 7). Sustained by Jehovah, he had laid him down and slept in safety; trusting in the same mighty protection, he would lie down again to rest. Enemies might taunt (v. 2), and friends might fail him; but the victory was Jehovah's, and he could break the teeth of the ungodly (vs. 7, 8). P. Thou hast broken the teeth of the wicked. 8. Salvation belongeth unto the LORD: Thy blessing be upon thy people. [Selah One day of David's life has been more fully chronicled than any other day in the Bible—the day when he halted after Shimei's curses, and the king and all the people rested, weary and heart-sick. The next morning "David arose, and all the people that were with him; by the morning-light there lacked not one of them that was not gone over Jordan." To that morning and the following night, in all probability, belong the third and the fourth Psalms. Yet, while those Psalms arose from the occasion, they suit every Christian generation. Bishop Alexander. 2. No help for him in God. Had David's foes said of him, He deserves no help from God, he would readily have owned this as a great truth. As God's children are comforted by the truth, so the enemy advances lies to distress them. When he attacks their faith and comfort, he boldly impeaches the love and faithfulness of their God. W. Mason. Selah. The first stanza, or double verse, closes, like the second and fourth, with the word Selah. This term occurs seventy-three times in the Psalms and three times in the prophecy of Habakkuk. It corresponds to rest, either as a noun or verb, and like it is properly a musical term, but generally indicates a pause in the sense as well as the performance. Like the titles, it invariably forms part of the text. In the case before us, it serves as a kind of devout ejaculation to express the writer's feelings, and at the same time warns the reader to reflect on what he reads, just as our Saviour was accustomed to say, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. A. Art thou beset with distress of soul, or surrounded with troubles and difficulties? art thou singing a melancholy note? "Selah," saith David; pause, consider this; lift up thy mind to attend, how dishonorable to thy God, how destructive to thy faith, peace, love, and holiness is this! Hear the voice of thy Saviour. His word is adapted to thy circumstances, however distressing or desperate. W. Mason. 3. Every hour he has reason to fear an attack that will annihilate him; but Jehovah is the shield that covers him before and behind. His kingdom has been taken from him, but Jehovah is his glory. With covered and sunk head he went up the Mount of Olives, but Jehovah is the lifter up of his head, inasmuch as He comforts and helps him. D.—An active believer, the more he is beaten off from God, either by the rebukes of Providence or the reproaches of enemies, the faster hold he will take of Him, and the closer will he cleave to Him; so David here, when his enemies said, There is no help for him in God, cries out with so much the more assurance, "But Thou, O Lord, art a shield for me; let them say what they will, I am sure Thou wilt never desert me, and I am resolved, I will never distrust Thee." H. 4. Expresses not a single act, but the habit of a life. Whenever I cry, God hears me from His holy hill, i.e., Zion, where was the ark of the covenant. P.—Care and grief do us good and no hurt, when they set us a praying, and engage us, not only to speak to God, but to cry to Him, as those that are in earnest. H. Here again the strophe ends with a devout and meditative pause, denoted as before by Selah. A. 5. I laid me down—I went to sleep—I woke up again—for Jehovah sustaineth me; His hand is my pillow. 6. Then from that thought there arose fresh confidence in his heart, "I will not be afraid of countless hosts." P.—The same courage, which enabled him to sleep without disturbance in the midst of enemies and dangers, still sustained him when those enemies and dangers were presented to his waking senses. A. Awakening in health and strength, he feels grateful to Him to whom he owes it. It is the consequence of the fact, that Jehovah supports him, that God's hand is his pillow. Because this loving, almighty hand is under his head, he is unapproachable, and therefore also void of fear. D.—We lie down, and sleep, and awake again to the light and comfort of another day; and whence is it, but because the Lord has sustained us with sleep as with food? We have been safe under His protection, and easy in the arms of His good providence. H.—God is Alpha and Omega in the great world; endeavor to make Him so in the little world; practise to make Him thy last thought at night when thou sleepest, and thy first thought in the morning when thou awakest; so shall thy fancy be sanctified in the night, and thy understanding rectified in the day; so shall thy rest be peaceful, thy labors prosperous, thy life pious, and thy death glorious. Quarles.—Thy bed, when thou liest down in it, preacheth to thee thy grave; thy sleep, thy death; and thy rising in the morning, thy resurrection to judgment. Bunyan. I will not be afraid. It makes no matter what our enemies be, though for number, legions; for power, principalities; for subtlety, serpents; for cruelty, dragons; for vantage of place, a prince of the air; for maliciousness, spiritual wickedness; stronger is He that is in us, than they who are against us; nothing is able to separate us from the love of God. In Christ Jesus our Lord, we shall be more than conquerors. W. Cowper. 7. "Save me, O my God;" mine by covenant; mine by the full choice of my soul; mine by long years of trustful service on my part and precious mercies on Thine. For I have this assurance of relief to day, that Thou hast ofttimes interposed to smite down my foes; therefore Thou surely wilt again. C. 8. Salvation belongeth unto the Lord; He has power to save, be the danger ever so great; it is His prerogative to save, when all other helps and succors fail; it is His pleasure, it is His property, it is His promise to those that are His, whose salvation is not of themselves, but of the Lord. Therefore all that have the Lord for their God, according to the tenor of the new covenant, are sure of salvation; for He that is their God, is the God of salvation. H. 7,8. His imprecations are not directed against His people, but only against those who have seduced them, and their wicked partisans. As in olden times, He still bears His people upon a loving, interceding heart. He commiserates those who have been led astray, without being angry with them. Distinctions vanish altogether from His mind, when He prays for the nation as a whole. The one concluding expression of the Psalm—remarks Ewald—throws a bright light into the depths of his noble soul. D. Considerations for the Uniform Use of "JEHOVAH" in Place of "LORD." There are very cogent grounds for the change. 1. In the first place, our translators in their use of the word "Lord" make no distinction between two names, "Jehovah" and "Adonai," perfectly distinct in Hebrew, and conveying different conceptions of God. 2. In the next place, it is well known that whole Psalms are characterized, just as sections of the Pentateuch are characterized, by peculiar names of God, and it is surely of some importance to retain as far as possible these characteristic features, especially when critical discussions have made them prominent, and questions of age and authorship have turned upon them. 3. It has been held by very good authorities to be a desirable emendation in our Authorized Version. "Why continue the translation of the Hebrew into English," says Coleridge, "at second hand, through the medium of the Septuagint? Have we not adopted the Hebrew word Jehovah? Is not the Kurios, or Lord, of the Septuagint, a Greek substitute in countless instances for the Hebrew, Jehovah? Why not, then, restore the original word; and in the Old Testament religiously render Jehovah, by Jehovah; and every text in the New Testament, referring to the Old, by the Hebrew word in the text referred to?" No one could be a better judge on such a point than one who, like Coleridge, was both poet and critic. 4. If owing to merely superstitious scruples the name fell out of use in the Jewish Church, and if owing to a too slavish copying of the Greek and Latin versions our own version lost the word, these are reasons of no force whatever against a return to the original use. It is no doubt a question how the word should be written when transferred to another language. "Jehovah" certainly is not a proper equivalent for the Hebrew form; for it is well known that the Jews, having lost the true pronunciation of the name, transferred to it the vowels of the other name "Adonai," which in reading they have for centuries substituted for it. Some of the Germans write "Jahveh," others "Jahaveh," and Hupfeld, despairing of any certainty as to the vowels, retains merely the consonants and writes "Jhvh." Probably the most correct equivalent in English would be "Yahveh" or "Yahaveh," but this would look pedantic, and would doubtless shock sensitive eyes and ears far more than the comparatively familiar form, Jehovah. P. 1. 1 ANSWER me when I call, O God of my righteousness; Thou hast set me at large when I was in distress: Have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. 2. 2 O ye sons of men, how long shall my glory be turned into dishonour? How long will ye love vanity, and seek after falsehood? [Selah] 3. 3 But know that the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for himself: The LORD will hear when I call unto him. 4. 4 Stand in awe [be ye angry], and sin not: Commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. [Selah] 1. 5 Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, And put your trust in the LORD. 2. 6 Many there be that say, Who will shew us any good? LORD, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. 3. 7 Thou hast put gladness in my heart, More than they have when their corn and their wine are increased. 4. 8 In peace will I both lay me down and sleep: For thou, LORD, alone makest me dwell in safety. DAVID had said in the previous Psalm, "I laid me down and slept;" he says in this, "I will lay me down in peace, and sleep." That was a morning, this is an evening, hymn. That was written with a deep sense of thankfulness for the undisturbed rest which had followed the most anxious, in some respects the dreariest, day of his life; this was written with a calm confidence, flowing directly from the previous experience. The interval between the two Psalms may only have been the interval between the morning and evening of the same day. The thoughts and turns of expression in the one are not unlike those in the other. As in the former he heard many saying to his soul, "There is no help for him in God" (v. 2), so in this he hears many saying, "Who will show us any good?" (v. 6.) As in that he knew that, though at a distance from the tabernacle, he was not at a distance from God, but would receive an answer to his prayer from the "holy mountain" (v. 4), so in this, though the priests have returned with the ark to Jerusalem, he can look for "the light of Jehovah's countenance," which is better than the urim and thummim of the priestly ephod. The Psalm opens with a short prayer, in which David's faith stays itself on his experience of past mercies. Then his thoughts run upon his enemies, on the curses of Shimei, on the treachery of Ahithophel. "Oh, ye sons of men,"—thus he turns to address them, and the expression denotes persons of rank and importance—"how long will ye turn my glory into shame?" How long will ye trample my honor as a king in the dust, refusing me the allegiance which is my due? How long will ye love vanity (or emptiness), and seek after lies? How is it that ye are bent on this mad enterprise, and persist in using the weapons of falsehood and slander to my prejudice? He reminds them that, in assailing him, they are assailing not him, but God, who chose him and appointed him to his office (v. 3). "For them, if his words could reach them, as they were lying down to rest in the pride of their successful plots, his counsel would be, 'Stand in awe, and sin not; commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.' Let the watches of the night be given to self-searching; let the voice of scorn and reviling be hushed in silence. Then, when that scrutiny and solemn awe have done their work, and repentance comes, 'offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.'" (Plumptre.) Once more David, ere he lies down to rest, lifts his eyes to heaven. Many, in such circumstances, might be ready to despair; many, probably, among his own friends, were then saying, "Who will show us any good?" David knows where true good is to be found. There is a light which can "lighten his darkness," whether it be the darkness of night or the darkness of sorrow. The light of God's countenance lifted up upon him can fill his heart with greater joy than the joy of the threshing-floor or the vintage. And in that confidence he can lie down and take his rest, knowing that Jehovah Himself will keep him in the watches of the night. It is worthy of notice that David does not cry to God for vengeance on his enemies, but earnestly seeks to bring them to a better mind. The strong feeling of injured innocence prompts no thought of revenge, but only the noble desire to teach those who have done the wrong a more excellent way. P. Everywhere, in the history of the human heart, these two things are found in the hours of our bitter pain: unfathomable desire and want of something more than earth or its love can give, and the consciousness of some one capable of filling the want. Out of these two things, consciousness of an infinite want and an infinite fulness and of the relation of one to the other, springs prayer, the paradox; and whatever some may say, it is undeniable that men have received an answer. In this Psalm we have the true amalgam of prayer; trust which boldly claims God; humility that owns the weakness of self. The answer comes at once to such a prayer as it came to David, not as yet in restoration to the kingdom, but in gladness of heart, in peace of heart. S. A. Brooke. 1. God of my righteousness.** Thou who maintainest my right and my cause, asserting my righteousness against the slanders of my enemies. But not to be confined to this; it also means who knowest the righteousness, the sincerity of my heart and life; and, moreover, art Thyself the ground and source of all righteousness in me. On these two things he builds his plea, God's righteousness as pledged to himself, and God's goodness, as experienced either in past times, or in the present emergency. P.—Jehovah is the possessor of righteousness, the author of righteousness, the vindicator of righteousness that is misjudged and persecuted. David believingly calls this God of righteousness his; for the righteousness that he has he has in Him, and the righteousness that he looks for he looks for from Him. His past experience assures him that he does not look in vain. He grounds his prayer upon two facts: upon his fellowship with God, the righteous One, and upon the justifying grace he has already experienced from Him. Already he has been many a time in straits, and God has set him at large. D.—The suppliant is conscious of his own integrity in the great question at issue between himself and his enemies; in this assurance of his heart he practically says: "I know God will vindicate my cause as His own, since really it is His own," and therefore I can appeal to Him as my ever-righteous God—my Defender and Avenger. 2. Sons of men.** Chief men, princes, perhaps the head men of the tribes, who seem generally to have gone into this conspiracy with Absalom. The Hebrew has various words for man; one indicating man as of the earth, frail and weak; another, man as strong, gigantic; and again another, man as of noble rank. The latter is used here. Selah, meaning pause, invites to reflection upon the thought just presented, and here, very pertinently. Why should ye, men of noble rank, be so unmanly as to account my real glory to be only my disgrace? C. 3. Godly men are God's separated, sealed ones; He knows them that are His, has set His image and superscription upon them; He distinguishes them with uncommon favors; They shall be Mine, saith the Lord, in that day when I make up My jewels. Know this; let godly people know it, and let them never alienate themselves from Him to whom they are thus appropriated; let wicked people know it, and take heed how they hurt those whom God protects. H.—We set apart things that are precious; the godly are set apart as God's peculiar treasure (Psalm 135: 4); as His royal diadem (Isa. 43: 3); the godly are the excellent of the earth (Psalm 16: 3); comparable to fine gold (Lam. 4: 2). They are the glory of the creation (Isa. 46: 13). Origen compares the saints to sapphires and crystals: God calls them jewels (Mal. 3: 17). T. Watson. The Lord will hear when I call unto Him. Let us remember that the experience of one of the saints concerning the verity of God's promises and of the certainty of the written privileges of the Lord's people is a sufficient proof of the right which all His children have to the same mercies, and a ground of hope that they also shall partake of them in their times of need. Dickson. 4. He passes on to wise and loving counsels. Tremble, i.e., before God, not before me, and sin not against Him. The verb expresses any sort of disquietude, or strong emotion, the agitation of anger as well as fear. Hence the rendering of the LXX, "Be ye angry and sin not," i.e., "do not suffer yourselves to sin in your anger," is certainly a possible rendering of the words. Paul (Eph. 4: 26) uses the words as they stand in the Greek version. P. The men whose hearts never burn with indignation against cowardice, falsehood, and profligacy—the men whose eyes never flash, whose pulse never quickens, whose words move on in an unbroken flow, and never rush on tumultuously, like a cataract, either in praise or blame—never yet did any work worth doing either for God or man. R. W. Dale.—Surely, if we be not thus angry, we shall sin. If a man can be so cool, or without any inward commotion, to suffer God's honor to be trod in the dust, he shall find God justly angry with him for his want of anger. I know not whether it were a praise that were given to Theodorius, that never any man saw him angry; so, as it may fall, an immunity from anger can be no other than a dull stupidity. Bishop Hall.—The indignation raised by cruelty and injustice, and the desire of having it punished, which persons unconcerned would feel, is by no means malice; no, it is resentment against vice and wickedness; it is one of the common bonds by which society is held together, a fellow-feeling which each individual has, in behalf of the whole species as well as of himself, and it does not appear that this, generally speaking, is at all too high among mankind. Bishop Butler. It is as impossible for injustice to be done and resentment not to follow, as it is for the flesh not to quiver on the application of intense torture. Resentment is but the sense of injustice, made more vivid by its being brought home to ourselves; resentment is beyond our control so far. There is no sin in this. But let resentment pass into revenge; let it smoulder in vindictive feeling till it becomes retaliation, and then a natural feeling has grown into a transgression. You have the distinction between these two things clearly marked in Scripture. "Be ye angry"—here is the allowance for the human, "and sin not"—here is the point where resentment passes into retaliation. F. W. R.—It is possible, by the grace of God, to be angered with what a man does without being angered at the man. A true father loves his child through everything. God loves us through everything. "Thou wast a God," said the Psalmist, "that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions." "Christ commendeth His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us." This solves the difficulty of the command, "Be ye angry and sin not;" be angry without sinning; offended at the deed, but tender-hearted toward the doer. C. H. P. Commune with your own heart. To converse with self we must be alone, our sole companion our own thoughts, our sole witness God and nature. When Isaac would meditate he walked at eventide into the fields where, in the free air and the calm face of nature and the music of creation, he could find what tends to elevate the mind to God. When the Psalmist exhorts men to commune with their own hearts, his counsel to them is to do it by night upon their bed, when all is still around them, and when no flaring lights and no distracting shows will be present to interrupt the current of their thoughts. The din and the daylight of society are hostile to quiet, concentrated, self-searching thought. The man that would truly meditate must bear to be alone. W. L. A. No man will ever attain to high excellence in what an old divine calls "the life of God in the soul of man" without cultivating stated periods of solitude, and using that solitude for the important purpose of self-knowledge. Blackie.—"Quiet thinking seems quite out of fashion, and many know more of what is passing on the other side of the globe than of the working of their own souls." The weariness so many feel in being alone, the hours often called so "interminable" by young persons and even those in mature life, when by chance they have had no friend to chat with through the afternoon or evening, the long hour and the weariness of the Sabbath to so many if detained from the public services of religion, evince a deep want somewhere, a want of inward resources, and of an independent spiritual life, that augurs but ill for the true well-being and growth of the individual. To live spiritually, to make the unseen real, to feel the constraining influence of spiritual motives and affections, the "still hour," the hour of daily communion with God, is absolutely needed; for if faith without works is dead, faith without prayer and communion is an absolute nonentity. Phelps. Our Lord did not contemplate wildernesses for people of the towns, but He did speak to them about praying in their own rooms with closed doors. Original thought is the only power which rules others. Use yourselves therefore not to live always in a din, not always in a turmoil; let not your character be made up of endless patchwork fragments of the thoughts, the opinions, the feelings, which you have caught from others. Archbishop Benson.—A man hath need of a well-set mind when he speaks to himself; for otherwise, he may be worse company to himself than if he were with others. But he ought to endeavor to have a better with him, to call in God to his heart to dwell with him. If thus we did, we should find how sweet this were to speak to ourselves, by now and then intermixing our speech with discourses unto God. For want of this, the most part not only lose their time in vanity in their converse abroad with others, but do carry in heaps of that vanity to the stock which is in their own hearts, and do converse with that in secret which is the greatest and deepest folly in the world. Leighton. When the tumult of his day was over David lay down in his bed, and then God was and David was; there was nothing else for the time. That is the fountain of life to which we have to go to draw life, just to be at peace and let God let us know that He is there; it is just to let all the rest go away, all the troubles and anxieties of life, and let God say to our hearts, "Here I am, and here you are; you are in my charge, and nothing can hurt you; everything is well." Something like that it is between God and the man who knows how to be still. Let God speak to him. And this is what He wants to bring us to even by means of the tumult of life. G. Macdonald.—Be still or quiet, and then commune with your hearts; and if you will commune with your hearts, God will come and commune with your hearts too, His Spirit will give you a loving visit and visions of His love. Caryl.—It is the reserve that saves us in all final tests—the strength that lies back of what we need in ordinary experiences. Those who daily commune with God, breathing His life into their souls, become strong with that secret, hidden strength which preserves them from falling in the day of trial. They have a "vessel" from which to refill the lamp when its little cup of oil is exhausted. J. R. M. It is by looking up beyond the actual, not by looking down into it, by seeking God within, not by consulting men without, that you will truly measure the Divine claims upon you, and find your duty clear and calm and sacred. Commune with Him, the All Holy, and it will become a secret understanding between His spirit and your own—a trust from Him, answered by assent and love from you. A soul that goes apart with this Divine vision of goodness has that to feed on which others think not of. Martineau.—No large growth in holiness was ever gained by one who did not take time to be alone with God. No otherwise can the great central idea of God enter into a man's life, and dwell there supreme. "Holiness," says Dr. Cudworth, "is something of God, wherever it is. It is an efflux from Him, and lives in Him; as the sunbeams, although they gild this lower world, and spread their golden wings over us, yet they are not so much here where they shine, as in the sun from whence they flow." Such a possession of the idea of God we never gain but from still hours. For such holy joy in God, we must have much of the spirit of Him who rose up a great while before day, and departed into a solitary place and prayed, and who continued all night in prayer; "the morning star finding Him where the evening star had left Him." Phelps. 6. A picture of the disquiet and unsatisfied desire arising from the want of faith and righteousness described in the foregoing verse. Of all who do not trust in God it may be said that they are continually asking, who will show us good, who will show us wherein happiness consists, and how we may obtain it? A.—It is but too apparent that multitudes of men do still exhibit the same temper. They have no relish for spiritual and Divine enjoyments; their only care is "what they shall eat, and what they shall drink, and wherewithal they shall be clothed." "They labor abundantly for the meat which periseth, but not at all for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life." And though they meet with repeated disappointments in every new experiment; yet instead of seeking after happiness where it is alone to be found, they still renew the fruitless search among the creatures around them, and cry out with as much keenness as ever, "Who will show us any worldly good?" R. Walker. Either in the pauses of business, or as their whole employment, great numbers of persons spend their time in seeking amusement, recreation, the satisfying of curiosity, appetite or passion. This host includes most who are in youth, but many also who tread on the confines of age. They are living as though they had no souls. They are lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. It is common to speak of such as amiable and good natured, or as injuring none but themselves. But no persons are more intensely selfish than the confirmed devotees of pleasure. Their motto is, Who will show us any good? What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed? There are none more bound to the earth. There is no temper more incompatible with religion, or with the serious pursuit of it. Hence the reiterated injunctions of our Lord to those who would follow Him, to leave all, to deny themselves, and to take up the cross daily. J. W. A. But David has learned a better lore. Though far from "the holy mountain," there still dwells in his heart the blessings wherewith the priests of Jehovah had there blessed His people. "Jehovah make His face shine upon thee, . . . Jehovah lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace." To that remembered blessing his heart now gives the echo in the prayer, "Jehovah, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us." P.—In the whole of the Old Testament Scriptures there is no other such echo of the second and third sentences of the Aaronic blessing. In David's mouth it is a petition of assured faith; for notwithstanding the hopelessness of the outlook at present, he is even now already at peace in his God. D. Full of beauty and force is this thought of God lifting the sunlight of His face upon a soul otherwise in the gloom of darkness. David means to say that other men, e.g., those treacherous enemies of his, may seek their good elsewhere and anywhere else they please; but for himself it is an all-sufficient joy if only he may have peace in God and the sunlight of His favor. C.—They in their worldly-mindedness look for their happiness in the abundance of their earthly things. Hence when adversity threatens they begin to despond. David, on the other hand, has a source of joy deeper and more unfailing, because it flows from above. P. The temper of a child of God is here beautifully described by the Psalmist. While others say, "Who will show us any good?" the language of his heart is, "Lord, lift Thou upon me the light of Thy countenance." He, too, seeks what is good; for the desire of happiness is common to all. But he knows where that good is to be found. He knows that the favor of God and the sense of His loving kindness are the only sources of true happiness. Here therefore he fixeth his choice. Here all his desires centre, and here he hath treasured up all the wishes of his heart. R. Walker.—When once the soul is rightly opened toward God, and draws its life from His Spirit, it does not need to go hunting the world for happiness—seeking it in nature, in science, in art, in money, in pleasure, in fashion, in changes, in crying, "Who will show me any good?" but it has its blessedness within, and is so full of the spirit of good that it sees good in everything, gets good from everything, and does good to all. This is the fountain within that never fails. J. P. T. 7. Thou hast put gladness in my heart.** The very faculty of joy is the gift of the Holy Ghost. There is a canker in the heart of man which hinders happiness even when the materials are most abundant; and it is mournful to observe how little gladness is felt even when corn and wine most abound. In the midst of affluence still anxious, the munificence of the Creator cannot give contentment to worldlings and worldly professors; but while the green pastures re-echo their grumblings, they may see their peevish faces reflected in those quiet waters to which their kind Shepherd has led them. It needs more than good and perfect gifts to awaken melody and praise: and unless the Spirit of God make it a thankful heart, the providence of God cannot make it a happy existence. Hamilton. Reason is either obscured, or not obeyed, when the world is the object of our choice. Now what are these appearances of beauty and pleasure compared with a blessedness that is truly infinite? Earthly joy smiles in the countenance, flatters the fancy, touches the sense, but cannot fill the heart; but the favor of God satisfies the soul: "Thou hast put gladness into my heart, more than when their corn and wine increased." Carnal joy, in its highest elevation, in the time of the harvest and vintage, is incomparably less than spiritual joy, that springs from the light of God's countenance. The world cannot fill the narrow capacity of our senses, but Divine joys exceed our most enlarged comprehensive faculties: "The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear with hearing; but the peace of God passes all understanding." The things of the world are of a limited goodness; wisdom is not strength, nor learning riches, nor beauty fruitfulness; but God is a universal good, in whom are all attractives to raise and satisfy our desires. If men did consider, they would distinguish and despise, in comparison, all that is named felicity here, with the favor of God. Bates. Though the heart once gone from God turns continually further away from Him, and moves not toward Him till it be renewed, yet, even in that wandering, it retains that natural relation to God, as its centre, that it hath no true rest elsewhere, nor can by any means find it. It is made for Him, and is therefore still restless till it meet with Him. Leighton.—So surely is it the infinite itself that attracts and charms us, that its highest manifestations do not satisfy us until we have referred them to their immortal source. The heart is insatiable, because it aspires after the Infinite. Cousin.—All lower natures find their highest good in semblances and seekings of that which is higher and better. All things strive to ascend, and ascend in their striving. And shall man alone stoop? Shall his pursuits and desires, the reflections of his inward life, be like the reflected image of a tree on the edge of a pool, that grows downward, and seeks a mock heaven in the unstable element beneath it? No! it must be a higher good to make you happy. Coleridge. The true disciples of Christ are such as feel their spiritual wants—such as thirst for what they have tasted indeed, but merely tasted; they have tasted the streams, and they long to drink at the fountain; they are always pressing on through all difficulties and trials to their heavenly home; they are often ready to sink, often crying out, "Hold Thou me up;" they have to fight against a combination of powers, they want aid for their weakness; and pray with all prayer as the grand weapon of their warfare. Others may be rejoicing in their corn and wine, but the good things of this life will not satisfy their spiritualized desires; and with groanings that cannot be uttered the Spirit is often breathing in their hearts the desire, "Lord, lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us!" R. Hall. 8. It was probably about the time of the Feast of Tabernacles. The grain harvest and the vintage were over. A rich harvest of corn and new wine had been gathered in. In these rich stores, which were at their disposal, the rebel troops of Absalom had a reserve of the greatest importance. But what David has in his heart is a better treasure than what they have in their barns and cellars. So he lays himself down to sleep serenely and peacefully. D.—Nothing could better express the sweet and perfect repose of faith than this. No matter for the danger to my throne or the peril to my life; my soul shall still rest in God, my Refuge—rest so completely that I shall lay me down and sleep in peace, for with God for my Helper, and all the universe besides against me, I shall dwell in safety. God alone, God with no other refuge or friend, is simply sufficient to ensure my salvation. And this experience is for me, let each reader say, as truly as for David. It stands here of set Divine purpose for the people of God in every age to read and to sing; to meditate upon and to transfer to their own case and appropriate each to his own soul in the midst of whatever trials, persecutions, dangers. The heart that is consciously upright before God, honestly and humbly seeking His favor above all things else, may trust in His protection and in His love forever. C. Many a believer lies down, but it is not to sleep. Perhaps he feels safe enough so far as his body is concerned, but cares and anxieties invade the privacy of his chamber; they come to try his faith and trust. There is a trial in stillness; and oftentimes the still chamber makes a larger demand upon loving trust than the battle-field. O that we could trust God more and more with personal things! O that He were the God of our chamber, as well as of our temples and houses! O that we could bring Him more and more into the minutiae of daily life! P. B. Power. Deep indeed and mysterious, far beyond what we can understand, are our own ordinary sleeping and waking; we know not how it is that the soothing quietness which we call sleep steals over the soul and body, nor how the two wake together and begin to act as before. Our sleeping and our waking are beyond our own knowledge and our own power; God keep both in His own hand. Koble.—They slumber sweetly whom faith rocks to sleep. No pillow so soft as a promise; no coverlet so warm as an assured interest in Christ. O Lord, give us this calm repose on Thee, that like David we may lie down in peace, and sleep each night while we live; and joyfully may we lie down in the appointed season, to sleep in death, to rest in God! S. In how many ways and how sweetly is the nature of faith expressed in this and the preceding Psalm; he finds his righteousness, his excellency, his joy, his peace, his satisfaction in God! D. Life is worth living; from the beginning to the end it is full of opportunities, full of interests, full of indications of duty; full of growing, expanding experiences of the love of God and of the happiness of serving Him. As we grow up we learn enough of the shame of hollowness; short experience proves the vanity of false friendships. The very experience of unreality in other people teaches you to know what you have to do, and do it; to know your own measure, and act up to it; to live believing in truth and in God's moral government, shirking nothing, blinking nothing, shamming nothing, pretending to nothing that is not your own. Bishop of Chester. Count the knowledge of God and the experience of His sunny favor as more than all other treasures of wisdom or delights of love or lower things. Endeavor to keep vivid the consciousness of that face as looking always in on you, like the solemn frescoes of the Christ which Angelico painted on the walls of his convent cells, that each poor brother might feel the Master ever with him. Make Him your companion, and then, though you may feel the awe of the thought, "Thou hast set our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance," you will find a joy deeper than the awe, and learn the blessedness of those, sinful though they may be, who walk in the full brightness of that face. A. M. 1. GIVE ear to my words, O LORD, Consider my meditation. 2 Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: For unto thee do I pray. 3 O LORD, in the morning shalt thou hear my voice; In the morning will I order my prayer unto thee, and will keep watch. 4 For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: Evil shall not sojourn with thee. 5 The arrogant shall not stand in thy sight: Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. 6 Thou shalt destroy them that speak lies: The LORD abhorreth the bloodthirsty and deceitful man. 7 But as for me, in the multitude of thy lovingkindness will I come into thy house: In thy fear will I worship toward thy holy temple. 8. Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness because of mine enemies; Make thy way plain before my face. 9 For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; Their inward part is very wickedness: Their throat is an open sepulchre; They flatter with their tongue. 10 Hold them guilty, O God; Let them fall by their own counsels: Thrust them out in the multitude of their transgressions; For they have rebelled against thee. 11 But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice, Let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: Let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. 12 For thou wilt bless the righteous; O LORD, thou wilt compass him with favour as with a shield. LIKE Psalm 3, this is a morning prayer. But the circumstances of the singer are different. He is not now fleeing from open enemies; but he is in peril from the machinations of those who are secretly lying in wait for him (vs. 9, 10). He is not now an exile, but can still enter the house of the Lord and bow himself toward His holy dwelling-place (v. 7). Throughout the Psalm there breathes a strong feeling that God is pledged, by His very character as a righteous God, to defend and bless the righteous. And David (if the Psalm be his) speaks as if in the full consciousness of his own uprightness. Yet the words are not the words of a self-righteous boaster; for, though no hypocrite or evil doer, he confesses that it is only in the lovingkindness of God that he can enter His holy temple. P. 1. To my words, O Lord, Jehovah, give ear, perceive my thought.** Attend not only to my vocal and audible petitions, but to my unexpressed desires, to those "groanings which can not be uttered," but are no less significant to God than language. The second verb suggests the idea of attention, as well as that of simple apprehension. A. 1,2. Observe the order and force of the words, "my cry," "the voice of my prayer;" and also, "give ear," "consider," "hearken." These expressions all evince the urgency and energy of David's feelings and petitions. First, we have, "give ear;" that is, hear me. But it is of little service for the words to be heard, unless the "cry," or the meditation, be considered. Luther. Meditation before prayer matures our conceptions and quickens our desires. Our heart is an instrument that is easily put out of tune. And meditation is like the tuning of an instrument, and setting it for the harmony of prayer. What is the reason that in prayer there is such an easy discurrency in our thoughts—that our thoughts are like dust in the wind, carried to and fro; but only for want of meditation? The great reason why our prayers are ineffectual is, because we do not meditate before them. David expresseth prayer by meditation: "Give ear to my words, O Lord; consider my meditation." Gurnall. 2. Meditation and adoration are the necessary basis and element out of which prayer proceeds, and into which it returns. But they are not prayer. In prayer the soul appears before God, speaking to Him and giving itself to Him in humility, repentance, trust, love, and childlike petitions for grace and strength and all needful gifts. Wishes, cares, anxieties prepare the heart for prayer, but are not prayer until they are converted into direct address, supplication, and cry unto God. Saphir.—His prayer was a cry, it was the voice of his cry, which denotes fervency of affection, and importunity of expression; such effectual fervent prayers of a righteous man avail much, and do wonders. H. Prayer is not a bondage to a heart full of holy feeling, and a head full of Divine knowledge; but it is the language which the promptings of the thoughts within us send rushing to our tongue, which it were the cruellest bondage of nature to stifle. Why, it were to muzzle reason, and knowledge, and piety, and purpose, and gratitude, and devotion—to doom to deep dungeons of silence the spirit which boundeth for the liberty of utterance and enterprise. Unspeakable pain would you cause were ye to deprive the religious man of prayer, which is the utterance of strong desire, and purpose, and feeling unto his Maker. Irving. Prayer is intercourse; an act of trust, of hope, of love, all prompting to interchange between the soul and an Infinite, Spiritual, Invisible Friend. We all need prayer, if for no other purpose, for this which we so aptly call communion with God. We need friendly converse with Him whom our souls love. "He alone is a thousand companions; He alone is a world of friends. That man never knew what it was to be familiar with God, who complains of the want of friends while God is with him." But who can originate such conceptions of God, as are necessary to the enjoyment of His friendship in prayer, without time for thought, for self-collection, for concentration of soul? Momentary devotion, if genuine, must presuppose the habit of studious prayer. Phelps. My King, my God. The most commanding encouraging principle of prayer, and the most powerful prevailing plea in prayer, is, to look upon Him as our King and our God, whom we lie under peculiar obligations to, and whom we have peculiar expectations from. H.—These little pronouns—my king, my God, are the very pith and marrow of the plea. Here is an argument why God should answer prayer; because He is our king and our God. He is ours by covenant, ours by promise, ours by oath, ours by blood. S. 3. O Lord, Jehovah, (in) the morning Thou shalt hear my voice.** This is not so much a request to be heard as a resolution to persist in prayer. The reference may be either to stated hours of prayer or to early devotion as a proof of earnestness and faith (In) the morning I will set (my prayer) in order, to (or for) Thee. There is here a beautiful allusion to the Mosaic ritual, which is unavoidably lost in a translation. The Hebrew verb is the technical term used in the Old Testament to signify the act of arranging the wood upon the altar and the shewbread on the table. It would therefore necessarily suggest the idea of prayer as an oblation, here described as a kind of morning sacrifice to God. And I will look out, or watch for an answer to my prayers. The image presented is that of one looking from a wall or tower in anxious expectation of approaching succor. A similar use of the same verb occurs in Hab. 2: 1 and Micah 7: 7. True faith is not contented with the act of supplication, but displays itself in eager expectation of an answer. A. Keep watch. We are to watch and pray; to watch unto prayer—with reference to prayer; to watch before prayer, that our prayer may be rightly directed or set in order; to watch during prayer, against “unmannerly distractions;” to watch after prayer, to see what becomes of our prayers. V.—Faith hath a supporting act after prayer; it supports the soul to expect a gracious answer: “I will direct my prayer unto Thee, and will look up,” or I will look; for what, but for a return? An unbelieving heart shoots at random, and never minds where his arrow lights, or what comes of his praying; but faith fills the soul with expectation. It gives such a being and existence to the mercy prayed for in the Christian’s soul before any likelihood of it appears to sense and reason, that the Christian can silence all his troubled thoughts with the expectation of its coming. For want of looking up many a prayer is lost. If you do not believe, why do you pray? And if you believe, why do you not expect? By praying you seem to depend on God; by not expecting, you again renounce your confidence. O Christian, stand to your prayer in a holy expectation of what you have begged upon the credit of the promise. Gurnall. The Hebrews sometimes speak of doing things “in the morning,” meaning by it rather earnestly than early. Perhaps both ideas are involved here—the latter more surely. The first thing when the day opens and my refreshed powers turn anew to my life-work, I will lift up my voice gratefully to God my preserver, imploringly to God my benefactor. What can be more fitting? Why not begin each day in communion with God? C.—Better to go from the throne of grace into the business of life, than to delay approaching it till worldly concerns have intruded on our minds. Wisest to seek and serve our best Friend first. May we not justly charge most of our sins and failings, and the breaking forth of our unholy tempers, to the neglect of this duty? How ought we to begin each day with seeking the power of the Spirit, to enable us to mortify sin and live unto God! W. Mason. A battle is each morning fought in every Christian’s closet. The morning is the key of the position. The season of morning prayer is, so to speak, the citadel, the critical point of each successive day. If he wins those morning minutes the devil knows that he has won that day; and if he wins them a few successive mornings he counts on winning you altogether, and hopes by and by to see you neglecting prayer entirely. The enemy of souls well knows how important that morning devotion is, and he spares no pains to frustrate and defeat it. Doubtless it is hard work; but let us risk or endure everything rather than be driven out of that morning prayer. A few moments spent in communion with God at each opening day—a visit to the throne of grace—will freshen our spirits and revive their sacred emotions. It will fortify our hearts against the griefs and crosses which may surprise us, and, in case of threatened dangers, or seducing evils, it will secure presence of mind and a present help in a present Saviour. Hamilton. We are the fittest for prayer, when we are in the most fresh, and lively, and composed frame, got clear of the slumbers of the night, revived by them, and not yet filled with the business of the day. We have then most need of prayer, considering the dangers and temptations of the day to which we are exposed, and against which we are concerned, by faith and prayer, to fetch in fresh supplies of grace. H.—That silent morning prayer, how does it deepen our thankfulness for all the good daily bestowed! How does it strengthen our patience under the burden each day brings! How does it hallow our activity in the task which day demands! How does it keep alive our watchfulness against the temptation each day renews! How does it feed our hope of the eternity each day brings nearer! Sufficient unto each day is the evil thereof; but the sorrows of a day confided to God’s ear, work together for good; and the morning sacrifice offered to Him in truth, hours thereafter still spreads its sweet-smelling savor through the priest’s house and heart. Van O. In the morning, when you awake, accustom yourself to think first upon God, or something in order to His service; and at night also let Him close thine eyes; and let your sleep be necessary and healthful, not idle and expensive of time, beyond the needs and conveniences of nature; and sometimes be curious to see the preparation which the sun makes when he is coming forth from his chambers of the east. Let all the intervals or void spaces of time be employed in prayers, reading, meditating, works of charity, friendliness, and means of spiritual and corporal health; ever remembering so to work in our callings as not to neglect the work of our calling. Jeremy Taylor. He that muses toward God prays. If you can conceive of a child in the presence of a parent most beloved that speaks, that is silent, that speaks again, that is again silent; the intercourse of that child with the parent is a fit symbol of true prayer. Prayer is the soul of a man moving in the presence of God, for the purpose of communicating its joy, or sorrow, or fear, or hope, or any other conscious experience that it may have, to the bosom of a parent. H. W. Beecher. 4. Here, as elsewhere, the Psalmist identifies his cause with God's, and anticipates the downfall of his enemies because they are sinners and therefore odious in God's sight. For not a God delighting in wickedness (art) Thou, as might appear to be the case if these should go unpunished. It is necessary, therefore, for the Divine honor, that they should not go unpunished. Not with Thee, as Thy guest or friend, shall evil, or the bad (man), dwell. It is still implied that the impunity of sinners would appear as if God harbored and abetted them, and therefore must be inconsistent with His honor as a holy God. 7. The verse is an engagement to acknowledge God's delivering mercy in the customary manner. As if he had said: while my enemies perish by the hand of God, I shall be brought by His mercy to give thanks for my deliverance at His sanctuary. A. In the multitude of Thy lovingkindness. The Psalmist has access to God not only because he is of a different character from those mentioned in the previous verses, but because the King of kings, of His grace and goodness, permits him to draw near. Therefore also he adds "in Thy fear." We see here the mingled feeling of confidence and liberty of access with solemn awe and deep humility which befits every true worshipper. P.—It is in the multitude of God's mercy (the inexhaustible treasures of mercy that are in God, and the innumerable proofs and instances of it which we receive from Him) that David confides, and not in any merit or righteousness of his own, in his approaches to God. The mercy of God should ever be the foundation both of our hopes, and of our joy, in everything wherein we have to do with Him. H. In Thy fear will I worship. Such will the print on the wax be as the sculpture is on the seal; if the fear of God be deeply enengraven on thy heart, there is no doubt but it will make a suitable impression on the duty thou performest. Gurnall.—Seeing it is much in the capacity and frame of thy heart how much thou shalt enjoy of God in His worship, be sure that all the room thou hast be empty; and seek Him here with all thy soul. Say to all thy worldly business and thoughts, as Christ to His disciples, "Sit you here, while I go and pray yonder." Baxter. 8. Mine enemies. The word is, my observers, or as these scan my ways, every foot of them, that examine them as a verse or as a song of music; if there be but a wrong measure in them they will not let it slip, but will be sure to mark it. And if the enemies of the godly wait for their halting, shall not they scan their own paths themselves that they may not halt? and examine them to order them, as the wicked do to censure them; still depending wholly upon the Spirit of God as their guide, to lead them into all truth, and to teach them how to order their conversation aright, that it may be all of a piece, holy and blameless, and still like itself? L.—"Make Thy way," not my way, "straight before my face." When we have learned to give up our own way, and long to walk in God's way, it is a happy sign of grace; and it is no small mercy to see the way of God with clear vision straight before our face. S. 9. The figure graphically portrays the filthy conversation of the wicked. Nothing can be more abominable to the senses than an open sepulchre, with its tainted exhalations. What proceeds out of their mouth is infected and putrid; and as the exhalation from a sepulchre proves the corruption within, so it is with the corrupt conversation of sinners. R. Haldane.—If we could seal in silence the mouth of the wicked it would be like a sepulchre shut up, and would not produce much mischief. But "their throat is an open sepulchre," consequently all the wickedness of their heart exhales and comes forth. S. 10. The imperative and future forms, in this verse, both express the certainty of the event, with an implication of approving acquiescence. Such expressions, in the Psalms, have never really excited or encouraged a spirit of revenge in any reader, and are no more fitted to have that effect than the act of a judge who condemns a criminal to death or of the officer who executes the sentence. The objections urged against such passages are not natural, but spring from over-refinement and a false view of the Psalms as expressions of mere personal feeling. A.—This is not malicious imprecation; it is not David moved selfishly to curse his enemies considered as only his own, but it is David the rightful sovereign of the nation, conscious of acting under the great God both of Israel and of all the nations of the earth, jealous for the honor of his Master, accounting the wickedness of those traitors more as rebellion against God than as treason against his own earthly throne; identifying himself with God and invoking His interposition for the honor of His name and the vindication of His justice. And can any complaint lie against the spirit of these words? Ought not the all-perfect God to hold such sinners guilty and treat them accordingly? And ought not every soul that loves God, and justice, and the well-being of the universe to stand with God in this? approving His judgments upon the wicked, sympathizing with His abhorrence of all sin and wrong, and rejoicing that he will not let the incorrigibly wicked escape their deserved doom? C.—All the difficult passages in this book, where curses seem to be called for on the head of the ungodly, are no more than a carrying out of Deut. 27: 15-26, “Let all the people say, Amen,” and an entering into the Lord’s holy abhorrence of sin, and delight in acts of justice expressed in the “Amen, hallelujah,” of Rev. 19: 3. A. A. Bonar. 11. When traitors against God and man meet their doom, all men loyal to God and His cause may fitly rejoice. Joy that God reigns is always legitimate—always glorious. It is sad that men and devils will be wicked; it is not sad that, being wicked past all cure and even all effective restraint in a free world, they should eat of the fruit of their own doings, and that God makes their example of woe and ruin a glorious power toward holiness and blessedness in His universe. Thus much in exposition of what are so often called the imprecatory and vindictive Psalms it is fit should be said, and is of the utmost consequence that all men should understand. C. Joyful in Thee. Joy is not a fancy, or bred of conceit; but is rational, and ariseth from the feeling of some good—viz., the sense of God’s love and favor. Joy is so real a thing that it makes a sudden change in a person; it turns mourning into melody. As in the spring-time, when the sun comes to our horizon, so when the Sun of Righteousness ariseth on the soul it makes a sudden alteration, and the soul is infinitely rejoiced with the golden beams of God’s love. Watson.—Confiding, disinterested love finds in all things something to rejoice in. In forgiving it recovers what was lost; in enduring it conquers; in expending it increases; in admiring it takes possession. Harmony, truth, beauty, excellence become ours through the loving perception of them, and love sharpens the mind’s sight for them, or reveals them where without loving we should not see them. The seeing of what is lovely or excellent is, for the moment at least, a possession of these qualities, and seeing them with approbation and desire prolongs their possession. Consciousness tells us so much as true. H. Hooker. 12. With favor as with a shield.** Being a movable piece of armor, the skilful soldier might turn it this way or that way, to catch the blow or arrow from lighting on any part they were directed to. And this indeed doth excellently well set forth the universal use that faith is of to the Christian. It defends the whole man: every part of the Christian by it is preserved. . . . The shield doth not only defend the whole body, but it is a defence to the soldier’s armor also; it keeps the arrow from the helmet as well as head, from the breast and breastplate also. Thus faith, it is armor upon armor, a grace that preserves all the other graces. Gurnall. This Psalm is a great lesson on prayer; pointing us to its variety as a weapon adapted for all emergencies, and teaching us how to wield it most effectively. We are taught to carry into it the faith which appropriates God as our own. We are warned against the profanation by carelessness or haste of that most solemn of acts—communion with our Creator. We are bidden to send forth our prayers considerately, and to look confidently for tidings from them. The Psalm drives all slavish fear from our prayers even while it bases our confidence wholly upon the undeserved compassion of our Father in Heaven; and it commends to us intercourse with God as no mere task or duty, but as the dearest employment and the sweetest joy of our lives. V. 1. O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. 2 Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am withered away: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed. 3 My soul also is sore vexed: And thou, O LORD, how long? 4 Return, O LORD, deliver my soul: Save me for thy lovingkindness' sake. 5 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: In Sheol who shall give thee thanks? 6 I am weary with my groaning; SINCE the time of Origen, seven of the Psalms have borne the name of Penitential—namely, 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143. "The historical books," says Perowne, "need a rich store of knowledge before they can be a modern book of life; but the Psalms are the records of individual experience. Personal religion is the same in all ages. The deeps of our humanity remain unruffled by the storms of ages which change the surface." Sin and penitence, which are common to all times and to all men, give these productions a permanent and universal interest. These Psalms are not all expressions of contrition for personal sin; nevertheless, they all recognize sin as the source of corruption and trouble. We may find in them every element of a true repentance according to the Gospel standard. V.—This is the first of the seven Penitential Psalms. In great peril from his enemies, and in great anguish of heart, David cries to God for mercy. In the malice of his enemies he sees the rod of God's chastisement; and therefore he makes his prayer to God for deliverance. The struggle has lasted so long, the grief is so bitter, that his health has given way, and he has been brought to the gates of the grave. But, even while thus pouring out the anguish of his spirit, light and peace visit him, and he breaks forth into the joy of thanksgiving. That this is a Psalm of David, there is no reason to question, although there is nothing in it to guide us to any peculiar circumstances of his life. P.¹ Title. For the Chief Musician (to be sung), with stringed instruments upon the eighth. This Every night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears. 7. Mine eye wasteth away because of grief; It waxeth old because of all mine adversaries. 8. Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity; For the LORD hath heard the voice of my weeping. 9. The LORD hath heard my supplication; The LORD will receive my prayer. 10. All mine enemies shall be ashamed and sore vexed: They shall turn back, they shall be ashamed suddenly. last word corresponds exactly to our octave; but its precise application in the ancient music we have now no means of ascertaining. We probably lose little by our incapacity to understand these technical expressions, while at the same time their very obscurity may serve to confirm our faith in their antiquity and genuineness, as parts of the original composition. This Psalm, like the three which immediately precede it, describes itself as a Psalm of (or by) David, belonging to David, as its author. The correctness of this statement there is as little reason to dispute in this as in either of the other cases. A. 1-7. These verses speak the language of a heart truly humbled under humbling providences, of a broken and contrite spirit under great afflictions, sent on purpose to awaken conscience, and mortify corruption. Those heap up wrath who cry not when God binds them; but those are getting ready for mercy who under God's rebukes sow in tears, as David does here. H.—David uses the name Jehovah exclusively in this Psalm. He has no hope but in the grace of which that name is a pledge. Rebuke, anger, chasten, displeasure—each word involves an acknowledgment of deep guilt. David feels that his sin has found him out. Cook. 1. This is not a prayer for the mitigation of the punishment, but for its removal, as appears from the answer in vs. 8-10. Such a petition, while it indicates a strong faith, at the same time recognizes the connection between suffering and sin. In the very act of asking for relief the Psalmist owns that he is justly punished. This may serve to teach us how far the confident tone of the preceding Psalms is from betraying a self-righteous spirit, or excluding the consciousness of personal unworthiness and ill-desert. The boldness there displayed is not that of self-reliance, but of faith. 2. Heal me, O Jehovah, for shaken, agitated with distress, are my bones, here mentioned as the strength and framework of the body. The physical effect here ascribed to moral causes is entirely natural and confirmed by all experience. A.** 2,3. The Feeling of the Burden and Sorrow of Sin.** Thus the bones and the soul are sore vexed. The bones wax old: a heavy hand is upon him: his moisture is dried up (32: 3, 4). God's arrows stick fast in him; there is no soundness in his flesh: his heart panteth, his strength fallet; his loins are filled with a loathsome disease (38: 2-10). He has eaten ashes like bread, and mingled his drink with weeping (102: 9, 10). His sin is ever before him (51: 3). V. 3. The Psalmist himself guards against the error of supposing that his worst distresses were corporeal. And my soul, as well as my body, or more than my body, which merely sympathizes with it, is greatly agitated, terror-stricken, the same word that was applied to the bones in the preceding verse. The description of his suffering is then interrupted by another apostrophe to God. And Thou, O Lord, Jehovah, until when, how long? The sentence is left to be completed by the reader: how long wilt Thou leave me thus to suffer? how long before Thou wilt appear for my deliverance? This question, in its Latin form, Domine quousque, was Calvin's favorite ejaculation in his times of suffering, and especially of painful sickness. A.—Our deprecatory prayers appoint not God His ways, nor His times; but as our postulatory prayers are, they also are submitted to the will of God, and have all in them that ingredient, that herb of grace, which Christ put into His own prayer, that yet not My will, but Thy will be fulfilled; and they have that ingredient which Christ put into our prayer, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven. Donne. 3. Return.** It seems to the sufferer as if God had been absent during his affliction. And there is no hope for him but in God. Therefore the repeated prayer, Do Thou be gracious unto me:—how long wilt Thou be absent? Return Thou, etc. And observe, not only "be gracious, for I languish," but "deliver me for Thy lovingkindness' sake." Any man may use the first argument: only one who has tasted that the Lord is gracious can use the last. P. It is an unspeakable privilege that we have a God to go to in our afflictions, and it is our duty to go to Him and thus to wrestle with Him, and we shall not seek in vain. He pleads his own misery, and that his misery had continued long: "I am weak, I am troubled, sore troubled; O Lord, how long shall I be so?" He pleads God's mercy; thence we take some of our best encouragements in prayer: Save me, for Thy mercies' sake. He pleads God's glory (v. 5): "For in death there is no remembrance of Thee." Even the death of the body puts an end to our opportunity and capacity of glorifying God in this world, and serving the interests of His kingdom among men, by opposing the powers of darkness, and bringing many on this earth to know God and devote themselves to Him. To depart and be with Christ is most happy for the saints themselves; but for them to abide in the flesh is more profitable for the Church. This David had an eye to when he pleaded this, In the grave, who shall give Thee thanks? And this Christ had an eye to when He said, I pray not that Thou shouldst take them out of the world. H. 8. Judge me, oh Lord, Jehovah!** If it be true that God will judge the world, redress all wrong, and punish all iniquity, let Him begin with me. Let me share now in the justice which is to be universally administered. Judge me, oh Lord, according to my right, and my completeness, or perfection, over me, i.e., according to my innocence which covers and protects me. All such expressions must be qualified and explained by the confession of unworthiness in Psalm 6 and elsewhere, which sufficiently demonstrates that the Psalmist here makes no claim to absolute perfection and innocence, nor to any whatever that is independent of God's sovereign mercy. A. Mine integrity that is in me. Notice how the Scriptures speak of integrity, how manifold and bold the forms in which they commend it, and how freely the good men of the Scripture times testify their consciousness of it in their appeals to God. And lest we should imagine that the integrity is only a crude and partial conception, belonging to the piety of the Old Testament, the Christian disciples of the New Testament are testifying also in a hundred ways to the integrity, before God and man, in which they consciously live. As an integer is a whole, in distinction from a fraction, which is only a part, so a man of integrity is a man whose aim in the right is a whole aim, in distinction from one whose aim is divided, partial, or unstable. It is such a state of right intention as allows the man to be consciously right-minded, and to firmly rest in the singleness of his purpose. There is a kind of integrity which goes far beyond the mere integrity of trade, and which is the only real integrity. This higher and only real integrity is the root of all true character, and must be the condition somehow of Christian character itself. There is no redeeming efficacy in right intent; taken by itself, it would never vanquish the inward state of evil at all. And yet it is just that by which all evil will be vanquished under Christ and by grace, because it puts the soul in such a state as makes the great power of Christ, co-working with it, effectual. Integrity is presupposed in all true faith, and enters in that manner into all true Gospel character. Bushnell. The believer's purpose to glorify God and enjoy Him forever is an habitual, constant purpose. Whatever winds may drive him from the thing he purposes, yet no wind can drive him from his purpose when once it is wrought of God in his heart. He may be drawn to sin, but he can never be drawn to a purpose of living in sin; nay, if some strong corruptions prevail against him and lead him captive, yet he can confidently appeal to Heaven it was against his purpose, and against his prayers, and against his tears, and against his hope, that such an iniquity prevailed against him. Erskine.—An habitual intending God as our end, depending on His support, and subjection to His government, will carry on the soul in a sincere and constant course of godliness, though the actual most observed thoughts of the soul be fewer in number about God than about the means that lead unto Him, and the occurrences in our way. A man in a journey may be much of the way taken up with thoughts and discourse of other things, and yet he doth truly intend his journey's end in every step of the way, and use every step as a means to that end. And so it is with a true Christian in the work of God and the way to heaven. Baxter. Consider what it is that gives such peace and loftiness of bearing to the life of a truly righteous man. What an atmosphere of serenity does it create for him that he is living in a conscience void of offence! And when great storms of trouble drive their clouds about him, when he is assailed by enemies and detractors, persecuted for his opinions, broken down by adversities, thrown out of confidence and respect even, as will sometimes happen, by false constructions of his conduct and malignant conspiracies against his character, still his soul abides in peace, because he justifies himself and has the witness that he pleases God. These clouds that seem to be about him do still not shut him in. He sits above with his God, and they all sail under! Such a man is very strong! There is no power below the stars that can shake him! He is able still and always to make his great appeal and say—"Judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness, and according to the integrity that is in me." Who can understand like him the meaning of that word—"And the work of righteousness shall be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." Here, too, is the ground of all failures, and all highest successes in religion, or the Christian life. Only to be an honest man, in this highest and genuinely Christian sense, signifies a great deal more than most of us ever conceive. Here is the spot where you are to make your revision, find what your intent is, whether it is honest, and whole, and clean, warped by no ambiguities, divided and stolen away by no idols. Here the Achan will be hid if anywhere. Make sure of his dislodgment, and the way is clear. Every man who comes into a state of right intent, or is set to be a real integer in the right, will forthwith also be a Christian. Bushnell. 9. It is the cessation of evil with which the Psalmist has now to do—oh, that it would come to an end! His prayer is therefore not directed against the persons as such, but against the evil that is in them. This Psalm is the key to all the Psalms that contain prayers against foes. To the longed-for cessation of evil there corresponds the longed-for securing and confirming of the righteous, whom evil endangers and whose stability it tends to undermine. God trieth the hearts and the reins. The reins are the seat of the emotions, just as the heart is the seat of the thoughts and affections. Reins and heart lie naked before God. 10. God is the righteous One, and in virtue of His knowledge of the heart He is perfectly able to prove Himself righteous in anger as well as righteous in grace, according to the requirements of each several case. Therefore David can confidently add: God beareth my shield. D.—He saves the upright in heart, saves them with an everlasting salvation, and therefore will preserve them to His heavenly kingdom; He saves them out of their present troubles as far as is good for them; their integrity and uprightness will preserve them. The upright in heart are safe, and ought to think themselves so, under the Divine protection. God is a righteous Judge, who not only doeth righteousness Himself, but will take care that righteousness be done by the children of men, and will avenge and punish all unrighteousness. H. 11. Ainsworth translates it, "God is a just judge; and God angrily threateneth every day." With this corresponds the reading of Coverdale's Bible, "God is a righteous judge, and God is ever threatening." In King Edward's Bible, of 1549, the reading is the same. J. Morison.—God's judgment upon the case of the righteous is thought of here as a vindication of His cause against the oppression of the wicked. So considered, David says, "God will avenge the righteous man, intensely indignant all the time," i.e., against his oppressor. So the next words imply, "If he turn not"—which can possibly mean none other than this wicked persecutor of the good. This turning must be a reversal of his course—real repentance of this sin. C. The object of this anger, although not expressed, is obvious, and is even rendered more conspicuous by this omission. As if he had said: "God, who does justice to the righteous, has likewise objects for His indignation." A.—No other word will adequately represent God's feeling, but the human word anger. If we explain away such words, we lose the distinction between right and wrong: we lose belief in God; for you will end in believing there is no God at all, if you begin with explaining away His feelings. F. W. R.—We have no insensible and stolid God to deal with; He can be angry, nay, He is angry to-day and every day with ungodly and impenitent sinners. The best day that ever dawns on a sinner brings a curse with it. Sinners may have many feast days, but no safe days. S. 12. If he, the sinner with whom God is angry, will not turn, i.e., turn back from his impious and rebellious undertakings, His sword He will whet, i.e., with a natural though sudden change of subject, God will whet His sword, often referred to as an instrument of vengeance. His bow he has trodden on, alluding to the ancient mode of bending the large and heavy bows used in battle, and made it ready. The bow and the sword were the most common weapons used in ancient warfare. The past tense of these verbs implies that the instruments of vengeance are prepared already, and not merely viewed as something future. A.—The whetting of the sword is but to give a keener edge that it may cut the deeper. God is silent as long as the sinner will let Him; but when the sword is whet, it is to cut; and when the bow is bent, it is to kill; and woe be to that man who is the butt. W. Secker. 13. And at him (the wicked enemy) He has aimed, or directed, the instruments of death, His deadly weapons. This is still another step in advance. The weapons are not only ready for him, but aimed at him. His arrows to (be) burning He will make, i.e., He will make His arrows burning arrows, in allusion to the ancient military custom of shooting ignited darts or arrows into besieged towns, for the purpose of setting them on fire, as well as that of personal injury. The figurative terms in these two verses all express the certainty and promptness of the Divine judgments on incorrigible sinners. For even these denunciations are not absolute, but suspended on the enemy's repentance or persistency in evil. That significant phrase, if he will not turn, may be tacitly supplied as qualifying every threatening in the book, however strong and unconditional in its expressions. A. Illyricus hath a story which may well be a commentary upon this text in both the parts of it. One Felix, Earl of Wartenberg, one of the captains of the Emperor Charles V., swore in the presence of divers at supper that before he died he would ride up to the spurs in the blood of the Lutherans. Here was one that burned in malice, but behold how God works His arrows against him; that very night the hand of God so struck him that he was strangled and choked in his own blood; so he rode not, but bathed himself, not up to the spurs, but up to the throat; not in the blood of the Lutherans, but in his own blood, before he died. Jeremiah Burroughs. 11-13. With what magnificent boldness he paints God the Judge arraying Himself in His armor of destruction! Surely there is nothing grander in any poetry than this tremendous image, smitten out with so few strokes of the chisel, and as true as it is grand. The representation applies to the facts of life, of which, as directed by a present Providence and not of any future retribution, David is here thinking. Among these facts is chastisement falling upon obstinate antagonism to God. Modern ways of thinking shrink from such representations; but the whole history of the world teems with confirmation of their truth—only what David calls the flaming arrows of God, men call "the natural consequences of evil." The later revelation of God in Christ brings into greater prominence the disciplinary character of all punishment here, but bates no jot of the intensity with which the earlier revelation grasped the truth of God as a righteous Judge in eternal opposition to, and aversion from, evil. A. M. Even death and judgment, awful as they are, derive all their terrors from a greater fear: they are only expressions of the wrath of God. This wrath it is which is enkindled by our sin, and which like an infinite fire inflames the rage of Tophet. When we trace up our fears to their principle, we find them fixing on one august but dread object—the Lord God Almighty, considered as a God of infinite holiness and infinite justice. It is not more clearly revealed that there is a God, or that there is a Christ, than that the justice of Jehovah goes forth toward the destruction of the guilty. J. W. A.—While God is preparing His instruments of death, He gives the sinners timely warning of their danger, and space to repent and prevent it. He is slow to punish, and long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish. The longer the destruction is delayed to give time for repentance, the sorer will it be, and the heavier will it fall, and lie forever, if that time be not so improved, while God is waiting; the sword is in the whetting, and the bow in the drawing. The destruction of impenitent sinners, though it come slowly, yet comes surely. Of all sinners, persecutors are set up as the fairest marks of Divine wrath; against them, more than any other, God has ordained His arrows. They set God at defiance, but cannot set themselves out of the reach of His judgments. H. 14-16. Not only the justice of God punishes, but the wickedness of the wicked effects his own destruction. P.—The sinner is here described as taking a great deal of pains to ruin himself, more pains to damn his soul than if directed aright, would save it. H.—As if dictating a judicial sentence, he prophesies to the enemy of God what awaits him. Man brings forth what he has conceived, he reaps what he has sown. Under these figures the punishment that sin naturally and inevitably involves is frequently represented, first in this the primary passage, and then in Job 15:35; the act of sin, its guilt and punishment appear in general as notions that pass over into one another. David sees in the sin of his enemies their self-destruction. D. With that solemn picture flaming before his inward eye, the Prophet-Psalmist turns to gaze on the evil-doer who has to bear the brunt of these weapons of light. Summoning us to look with him by a “Behold!” he tells his fate in an image of frequent occurrence in the Psalms of this period, and very natural in the lips of a man wandering in the desert among wild creatures and stumbling sometimes into the traps dug for them. A. M. 17. We conclude with the joyful contrast. In this all these Psalms are agreed; they all exhibit the blessedness of the righteous, and make its colors the more glowing by contrast with the miseries of the wicked. Praise is the occupation of the godly, their eternal work, and their present pleasure. Singing is the fitting embodiment for praise, and therefore do the saints make melody before the Lord Most High. The slandered one is now a singer; his harp was unstrung for a very little season, and now we leave him sweeping its harmonious chords in adoring praise. S. SHIGGAION OF DAVID, WHICH HE SANG UNTO THE LORD, CONCERNING THE WORDS OF CUSH A BENJAMITE. 1. O LORD my God, in thee do I put my trust: Save me from all them that pursue me, and deliver me: 2. Lest he tear my soul like a lion, Rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver. 3. O LORD my God, if I have done this; If there be iniquity in my hands; 4. If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; (Yea, I have delivered him that without cause was mine adversary:) [if I have spoiled him as an enemy without cause;] 5. Let the enemy pursue my soul, and over- take it; Yea, let him tread my life down to the earth, And lay my glory in the dust. [Selah 6. Arise, O LORD, in thine anger, Lift up thyself against the rage of mine adversaries : And awake for me ; thou hast commanded judgment. 7 And let the congregation of the peoples compass thee about : And over them return thou on high. 8 The LORD ministereth judgment to the peoples : Judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and to mine integrity that is in me. 9 Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end, but establish thou the righteous : For the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins. 10 My shield is with God, Which saveth the upright in heart. "SHALL not the Judge of all the earth do right?" might stand as the motto of this Psalm. In full reliance on God's righteousness David appeals to Him to judge his cause. The righteous God cannot but save the righteous, and punish the wicked. This David believes to be the law of his moral government, and he applies it to his own case. His heart bears him witness that he has done no wrong to any man (vs. 3, 4), whereas his enemies have plotted unceasingly to take away his life. He therefore confidently anticipates his own deliverance and their overthrow (vs. 17, 18) as the manifestation of the righteous judgment of God. According to the inscription, this Psalm was written by David, and was occasioned by the words of Cush, a Benjamite. There can be very little doubt that the inscription, in this instance, preserves an ancient tradition. It is accepted by the majority of critics, and the Psalm unquestionably bears every internal evidence of having been written by David. The solemn appeal to God's righteous judgment, the deep consciousness of his own integrity, which was so fully admitted by Saul, are but the echo in the Psalm, only expressed in a lofty strain of poetry, of the same thought which is repeated with so much emphasis as he speaks to Saul on the hill-side : "Jehovah judge between me and thee, and Jehovah avenge me of thee ; but mine hand shall not be upon thee. . . . Jehovah therefore be Judge, and judge between me and thee, and see and plead my cause, and do me justice at thy hand." We must look, then, to circumstances like 11. God is a righteous judge, Yea, a God that hath indignation every day. 12 If a man turn not, he will whet his sword ; He hath bent his bow, and made it ready. 13 He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death ; He maketh his arrows fiery shafts. 14 Behold, he travaileth with iniquity ; Yea, he hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood. 15 He hath made a pit, and digged it, And is fallen into the ditch which he made. 16 His mischief shall return upon his own head, And his violence shall come down upon his own pate. 17 I will give thanks unto the LORD according to his righteousness : And will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High. those recorded in the twenty-fourth and twenty-sixth chapters of the first book of Samuel, and to the reproaches of a Benjamite named Cush, a leading and unscrupulous partisan of Saul's, as having given occasion to the Psalm. P. 1,2. David rests his appeal to God for help on these grounds : that he is in peril and cannot live without help ; that he has made the Lord God his refuge ; that he had long before accepted Jehovah as his Friend and Helper, and therefore comes to Him now in his time of need. That he should speak of his enemies at one time as many and at other times as one need occasion no difficulty, since the one may be a chief—the leader of the rest. C. 3. With a quick turn he protests passionately his innocence, his soul surging with emotion, his words broken by the vehemence of his feelings, as he thinks how unjustly he has been assailed. Again, as in v. 1, "my God," If I have done this thing, with which I am charged. P. 3-5. The passage, with all its lyrical abruptness and lofty imagery, is the expression of the very same thought which we find so prominent in his words to Saul concerning God's judging between them and delivering David out of Saul's hand. A. M. 4. If I have repaid my friend, one at peace with me, evil, and spoiled, plundered (one), distressing me, acting as my enemy, without a cause. This construction is moreover much more natural, and agrees better with the grammatical dependence of the second verb upon the first. A.—The more exact translation would be, "If I have requited evil for good to one who was my friend, if I have even spoiled him as an enemy without provocation, then let my enemy pursue my soul and overtake and tread down my life to the ground," etc. C.—To do evil for good is human corruption; to do good for good is civil retribution; but to do good for evil is Christian perfection. Though this be not the grace of nature, yet it is the nature of grace. W. Secker. 6-8. The rapid utterance of feeling has here again somewhat broken the poet's words. Hitherto he has protested his innocence; now, in the full consciousness of that innocence, he comes before the very judgment-seat of God, and demands the fullest and most public vindication. Then he sees, as it were in a vision, the judgment set: "Thou hast commanded judgment." Next, that sentence may be pronounced with due solemnity, he calls upon God to gather the nations round Him, and to seat Himself upon His judgment-throne. Lastly, he prays God, as the Judge of all nations, to judge himself. P.—His field of vision is enlarged, and embraces not only the enemies that are in his immediate neighborhood, but also the world at large in its hostility to Jehovah and His anointed one. Here the language takes the highest and most majestic flight conceivable. D. Each smaller act of God's judgment is connected with the final world-judgment, is a prophecy of it, is one in principle therewith; and He who at the last will be known as the universal Judge of all certainly cannot leave His servants' cause unredressed nor their cry unheard till then. The Psalmist is led by his own history to realize more intensely that truth of a Divine manifestation for judicial purposes to the whole world, and his prophetic lip paints its solemnities as the surest pledge of his own deliverance. He sees the gathered nations standing hushed before the Judge, and the Victor God at the close of the solemn act ascending up on high where He was before, above the heads of the mighty crowd (Psalm 68: 19). In the faith of this vision, and because God will judge the nations, he invokes for himself the anticipation of that final triumph of good over evil, and asks to be dealt with according to his righteousness. The righteous integrity which he calls God to vindicate is not general sinlessness nor inward conformity with the law of God, but his blamelessness in all his conduct to his gratuitous foe. A. M. 5. As a further reason for his rescue, he now urges that without it God will lose the honor, and himself the happiness, of his praises and thanksgivings. For there is not in death, or the state of the dead, Thy remembrance, any remembrance of Thee. In Sheol, the grave, as a general receptacle, here parallel to death, and like it meaning the unseen world or state of the dead, who will acknowledge, or give thanks, to Thee? The Hebrew verb denotes that kind of praise called forth by the experience of goodness. This verse only proves that David in this emergency looks no further than the close of life as the appointed term of thanksgiving and praise. A.—Sheol is the name given to the subterranean land of the dead, whose gate is the grave, the yawning abyss, into which everything that is mortal descends. All the Psalmists know only of one single gathering-place of the dead in the depths of the earth, where they indeed live, but their life is only a quasi life. D. Exactly parallel to this is Hezekiah's language (Isa. 38: 18), "For the grave cannot praise Thee; death cannot celebrate Thee. The living, the living, he shall praise Thee." The argument here employed is no doubt characteristic of the old dispensation. They who then feared and loved God, nevertheless walked in shadows, and their hope was not yet full of immortality. And further, the desire to continue in life is always connected with the desire to praise God. The Old Testament saint pleaded with God for life, in order that that life might be consecrated to His service. And it is very touching to see how, with the weakness of man's heart trembling at dissolution, there mingles the child-like confidence which fears not to advance the plea that God's glory is concerned in granting its request. P. The Psalmist is not asserting the cessation of memory, gratitude, or any other conscious activity of soul as the consequence of death. This would cut very short the hope of the future, leave a very meagre argument for pleading with God to return, make the lot of the good and the bad very much alike, and be contrary to the doctrine of the Psalmist concerning the future state of the soul. M.—His prayer would be, Let me live; let me find mercy of Thee, so that I may go again before the great congregation in Thy house of praise and there render my thanksgivings for delivering mercy. Death would cut me off from this greatest joy of my heart. The same sentiment appears again in Psalm 30: 9, and 88: 10-12, and 115: 17, 18; also Isa. 38: 18. C. 6,7. A further description of his distress. The heart can make all known to God. Thoughts and feelings and acts that we should be ashamed to confess to our fellow-men, we fear not to confess to Him. P.—The feeling that he was suffering God's rebuke, smarting under God's correction, was at once a comfort and a grief to the Psalmist: a comfort when he remembered the loving wisdom that corrected him; a grief when he called to mind the sinful ingratitude that needed correction. It is by the depth and reality, yea, the passion and abandon with which he utters the profoundest feelings of the pious heart, that David has moved so mightily the soul and spirit of the world. Bishop Moorhouse. 7. That explanation which regards the "enemies" as spiritual foes has a large measure of truth. It commended itself to a mind so far removed from mysticism as Arnold's. It is most valuable for devout private use of the Psalter. For, though we are come to Mount Zion, crested with the eternal calm, the opened ear can hear the thunder rolling along the peaks of Sinai. In the Gospel the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness. Sin is utterly hateful to God. The broad gates are flung wide open of the city that lies foursquare toward all the winds of heaven; for its ruler is divinely tolerant. But there shall in nowise enter it anything that defileth, neither whatever worketh abomination; for he is divinely intolerant too. And thus when, in public or private, we read these Psalms of imprecation, there is a lesson that comes home to us. We must read them, or dishonor God's Word. Reading them, we must depart from sin, or pronounce judgment upon ourselves. Impurity, hatred, every known sin of flesh or spirit—these, and not mistaken men, are the worst enemies of God and of His Christ. These were the dark hosts which swept through the Psalmist's vision when he cried, "Let all mine enemies be ashamed and sore vexed." Bishop Alexander. 8-10. Mark the sudden change, as of sunrise upon night. Already the prayer and the weeping have been heard. Already faith has triumphed. Already he can defy the enemies who have been maliciously anticipating his end, and tell them they shall be disappointed with a suddenness which only makes the disappointment more bitter. P.—Even while he is still pouring forth his mournful prayer, God's light and comfort fall suddenly into his heart. Enemies mock him as one whom God has forsaken, but even in the presence of his enemies he becomes conscious that such is not his case. In vs. 8 and 9 he thrice repeats, with upflashing confidence, that God hears him: He hears his tearful sobbing that cries aloud to heaven, He hears his supplication, He graciously receives his prayer. D.—Despondency gives place to exultant hope and even confidence in God. "Depart from me," says he, "all ye workers of iniquity;" what more have I to do with you? Is not my God almighty to save? He has heard the voice of my weeping; it is enough! And he turns the sweet thought over and over: "The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping;" "the Lord hath heard my supplication;" the Lord not only hath in the nearer present, but will in the future receive my prayer. All will be well! C. 8. God stood looking on Hezekiah's tears (Isa. 38: 5), "I have seen thy tears." David's tears made music in God's ears, "The Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping." It is a sight fit for angels to behold, tears as pearls dropping from a penitent eye. T. Watson.—When Antipater had written a large letter against Alexander's mother unto Alexander, the king answered him, "One tear from my mother will wash away all her faults." So it is with God. A penitent tear is an undeniable ambassador, and never returns from the throne of grace unsatisfied. Spencer. 9. The Lord hath heard my supplication. The Holy Spirit had wrought into the Psalmist's mind the confidence that his prayer was heard. We read of Luther that, having on one occasion wrestled hard with God in prayer, he came leaping out of his closet crying, "We have conquered, we have prevailed with God." Assured confidence is no idle dream, for when the Holy Ghost bestows it upon us we know its reality, and could not doubt it even though all men should deride our boldness. "The Lord will receive my prayer." Here is past experience used for future encouragement. He hath, He will. Note this, O believer, and imitate its reasoning. S. When thou prayest for spiritual graces, let thy prayer be absolute; when for temporal blessings, add a clause of God's pleasure; in both, with faith and humility. So shalt thou undoubtedly receive what thou desirest, or more, or better; never prayer rightly made was made unheard, or heard, ungranted. Quarles. To pray for rain or sunshine, for health or food, is just as reasonable as to pray for gifts which the soul only can receive, for increased love, joy, peace, faith. All such prayers presuppose the truth that God is not the slave of His own rules of action; that He can innovate upon His work without forfeiting His perfection; that law is only one way of conceiving of His regularized working, and not an external force which governs and moulds what we recognize as His work. It dissolves into thin air as we look hard at it, this fancied barrier of inexorable law; and as the mist clears off, beyond there is the throne of the Moral King of the universe, in whose eyes material symmetry is as nothing when compared with the spiritual well-being of His moral creatures. H. P. L. 1. O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is thy name in all the earth! Who hast set thy glory upon the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou established strength, Because of thine adversaries, That thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, The moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; 4 What is man, that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him? This is the first of a number of Psalms which celebrate the praise of God in the phenomena of the natural world. The sun by day (Psalm 19), the moon and the stars by night (Psalm 8), the glory and the order of creation (Psalm 104), the terrors of the thunder-storm and the earthquake (Psalm 29), are all dwelt upon in Hebrew verse, and are described with a force and animation, a magnificence of imagination and coloring, which have never been surpassed in the poetry of any nation. But the Hebrew odes are never merely descriptive. There are pictures in them of extreme beauty and vividness, but the picture is never painted for its own sake. Nature is never regarded, whether in her aspect of terror or of grace, whether in her tumult or her repose, as an end in herself. The sense of God's presence of which the Psalmist is so profoundly conscious in his own spiritual life is that which gives its glory and its meaning to the natural world. There is a vivid realization of that presence as of a presence which fills the world, and from which there is no escape; there is a closeness to God, as of one who holds and compasses us about (Psalm 139), in the mind of the inspired minstrels of 5. For thou hast made him but little lower than God, And crownest him with glory and honour. 6 Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet: 7 All sheep and oxen, Yea, and the beasts of the field; 8 The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, Whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. 9 O LORD, our Lord, How excellent is thy name in all the earth! Israel, which, if it is characteristic of the Semitic races at large, is certainly in an emphatic degree characteristic of the Hebrews. This feeling lends its coloring to their poetry. Nature is full of God; nature is the theatre of His glory. All admiration of nature in a rightly tuned heart is a confession of that glory. To such a heart there can be no praise of nature apart from the praise of God. All things are "of Him and through Him and to Him." The sun and the moon are His witnesses and heralds, the light is His robe, the clouds are His chariot, the thunder is His voice, the flashes of the lightning are His arrows and His spear. Apart from Him the universe is void and waste; He gives it its life and meaning. This eighth Psalm describes the impression produced on the heart of David as he gazed upon the heavens by night. In such a country as Palestine, in that clear Eastern atmosphere, "the moon and the stars" would appear with a splendor and a brilliancy of which we can scarcely conceive; and as he fixes his eyes upon them, awed and solemnized, and yet attracted and inspired, by the spectacle, he breaks forth into admiring acknowledgment of that God, who, as the God of Israel, has set His glory so conspicuously in the heavens that it is seen of all eyes and confessed even by the lisping tongues of children. They praise Him, and their scarcely articulate homage is a rebuke to wicked men who disregard or resist Him. But as the poet gazes on into the liquid depths of that starry sky, there comes upon him with overwhelming force the sense of his own insignificance. In sight of all that vastness, before all that evidence of creative power, how insignificant is man! "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" is the natural utterance of the heart. What is man—man in his frailty, his littleness, his sin? What in the sight of Him who made those heavens, and planted in them those glittering orbs? This is the first feeling; but it is immediately swallowed up in another—the consciousness of man's true greatness, in nature all but Divine, of the seed-royal of the second Adam, of highest lineage and dignity, crowned and sceptred as a king: "Thou hast put all things under his feet." This is the principal thought; not man's littleness, but his greatness. This subject is boldly but briefly handled, and then the Psalm is brought to a fitting close with the same ascription of praise with which it opened. P. This Psalm, like Psalm 104 and others, is a lyric echo of the Mosaic account of the creation. Ewald calls it a flash of lightning cast into the darkness of the creation. D. Estimate the theologic value of this Psalm, its inspired import, by reading it as a bold contradiction of errors all around it: the dreams of Buddhism, the fables of Brahminism, the atheism of the Greek Philosophy, and the malign atheism of our modern metaphysics. Within the compass of these nine verses the celestial and terrestrial systems and the human economy are only poetically set forth; but they are truly reported of, as the three stand related to Religious Belief and to Religious Feeling. The astronomy of Oriental sages and of Greek philosophers are well-nigh forgotten; but David's astronomy lives, and it will ever live. I. T. This Psalm connects the distant past with the far-off future—creation with redemption when complete—the first chapter of Genesis with the eleventh chapter of Isaiah; it is the poetic version of the former, and the germ of the prediction contained in the latter. This Psalm, moreover, is quoted three times in the New Testament. It is neither a directly Messianic Psalm, on the one hand, nor is its application to Christ a mere accommodation, on the other; the middle way is here the safe way, and so we regard it as typically Messianic. The type is the first Adam and the privileges of the human race in him; the antitype is the Second Adam and the glory, honor, and dominion of redeemed humanity as represented by Him. J. J. Green. The Messianic import of the Psalm is not of a direct kind. It is, however, necessarily implied in that mysterious relation of man to God and that kingship over the inferior creatures of which the Psalm speaks, for this rests upon the incarnation. Man is what he is, because the Son of God has taken upon Him man's nature. Man is very near to God, higher than the angels, because the Christ is both God and man. This is the profound truth on which the Messianic character of the Psalm depends. This truth is the key to its interpretation. But it does not follow that David saw this distinctly. He takes what must in any case be the religious view of creation, and of man's relation to God on the one hand, and to the inferior animals on the other. David is manifestly speaking of the present. He sees the heavens witnessing for God; he sees man placed by God as ruler upon earth; he feels how high an honor has been put upon man; he marvels at God's grace and condescension. Man is king, however his authority may be questioned or defied. In the New Testament, verses of this Psalm are twice applied to Christ (besides our Lord's own quotation of v. 2). The incarnation explains the principle on which the quotations rest. In 1 Cor. 15: 27, Paul quotes, with a slight change, the words of v. 6, "Thou hast put all things under His feet," as describing accurately the complete subjection of the universe to Christ. The words may be true of man, but they are in their highest sense only true of Christ as the great head of mankind, and of man only in Him. Similarly the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (2: 6-9) argues that the words "Thou hast put all things under His feet" have not yet been literally fulfilled of man, and declares that their proper fulfilment is to be seen only in Jesus, whom God had made "a little lower than the angels," and had "crowned with glory and honor." He does not make use of the Psalm as a direct prediction, but he shows that man's place in creation is his in Christ; his destiny as depicted in the Psalm is not, and cannot be, accomplished out of Christ. He is the true Lord of all. In Him man reigns; in Him man shall yet be restored to his rightful lordship, and shall really and completely be in the new world of redemption what now he is but very imperfectly—God's vicegerent; ruling a subject creation in peace and harmony and love. A thousand years later other shepherds were keeping watch over their flocks by night on the same hills of Bethlehem, while the same stars looked down upon them from heaven. But a brighter glory than the glory of the stars shone round about them; and they knew better than David himself the meaning of David's words, "Lord, what is man, that Thou art mindful of him?" For to them it was said by the angel, "Unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." P. Title. "Upon Gittith" probably refers either to the instrument or to the music with which it should be sung. It appears also in the titles to Psalms 81 and 84, which like this are joyous in character. C. 1. Our Lord. For the first time in the Book of Psalms the personal feeling is lost sight of in the national. Jehovah is not the God of David only, but of Israel; fitting prelude to a Psalm which forgets the individual in the contemplation of God's glory in the universe. The thought which here appears is, in fact, the thought which is the key to the Book of Genesis, and indeed to the whole history of the Old Testament. The God who makes Himself known to Israel by His name Jehovah, as their Redeemer, is the God who created the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth. P. Unable to express the glory of God, the Psalmist utters a note of exclamation, O Jehovah our Lord! For no heart can measure, no tongue can utter, the half of the greatness of Jehovah. The whole creation is full of His glory and radiant with the excellency of His power; His goodness and His wisdom are manifested on every hand. The countless myriads of terrestrial beings, from man the head, to the creeping worm at the foot, are all supported and nourished by the Divine bounty. The solid fabric of the universe leans upon His eternal arm. Universally is He present, and He worketh ever and everywhere. S. Above the heavens. Not in the heavens, but even greater, beyond, and higher than they; "angels, principalities, and powers, being made subject unto Him." As Paul says, He hath "ascended up far above all heavens." And with this His glory above the heavens is connected, His sending forth His name upon earth through His Holy Spirit. And thus here: "Thy name excellent in all the world;" "Thy glory above the heavens." I. Williams. 2. Children, not "babes;" they are more advanced in age than the sucklings; so that there is a kind of climax, "not children only, but sucklings." As Hebrew mothers did not wean their children till they were three years old, this is no mere figure of speech. David speaks literally of children, and so our Lord Himself explains these words. P.—The simple heart of childhood loves to bear witness to the purity and glory of Jesus as it appeared when He entered Jerusalem in triumph. The same simple heart loves to bear like witness when it sees God in His great works in this beautiful and glorious world—which is the doctrine of our Psalm. Such testimony serves to silence the cavils of God's enemies. The words quietly suggest that it is only from enemies to God—from those who are His enemies in their heart by reason of their wicked works—that any counter voice is heard, disparaging to the great God. No other voice ever needs to be put to silence save that of prejudiced enemies. C. David implies that when the discontents and mutinies of men against the Divine Laws had disturbed his heart and lowered his hopes for humanity, he turned from men to babes and sucklings; and that he found in their trust and love, their content and peace, a stronghold from doubt and care. And he ranks this stronghold, the influence of children, with man's lordship over nature—declares the one fact to be just as valuable and hopeful as the other. At first, indeed, there does seem a vast disproportion between David's two grounds of hope for the human race. One ground is man's sovereignty over the animate and inanimate creation; the other is the simplicity, the obedience, the trust and love of little children. But think what human life would be if we had no "babes and sucklings" to love, to work for, to play with, to reprove our grossness with their innocence, our worldliness with their unworldliness. Would it be worth having? Would not all the sweetness and spirituality of it be gone? Why, half our mirth, and more than half the motives which ennoble and purify our toils, half our piety and more than half our love come to us through children! What sports and recreations should we have, to call us away from our drudgery, but for them? What kind thoughts, what tenderness, what good resolves, what laughter, what tears, do we not owe to them! What lessons of heavenly wisdom and goodness do we learn while teaching them! How often do we suppress an evil word or look lest we should injure them! How often do we think of God that we may speak to them of Him! how often pray that we may teach them to pray, or because, more even than for ourselves, we desire God's blessing on them! With what force do the simplest words of supplication from their lips strike upon our hearts! With what a pure and sacred gladness are we filled as we see them take delight in acts of kindness and self-sacrifice! It is the little children who save the world—save it from its worldliness, its selfishness, its hardness of heart. That God sent them in their innocence and simplicity to make us pure and simple—that He sends them generation after generation—is not that, after all, quite as weighty and hopeful a fact as man's lordship over the beasts of the field, and the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea? Was not David right in regarding "babes and sucklings" as one of God's greatest gifts to the race—a gift full of Divine promise and hope? Are they not a "stronghold" for our thoughts, our affections, our pious trust in God, when our hearts are fretted with cares and hardened with regrets? Cox. 3-5. David, familiar from boyhood with rural life, had learned to see God in nature, and thus to add to the beauty and glory of natural objects in themselves the thought of the Divine wisdom and goodness reflected in them all. His shepherd life in the open fields, and upon the slopes of the mountains, had acquainted him with the habits of birds and beasts, and had led him to observe the stars in his nightly watches. Those youthful experiences, matured by the meditations of riper years, find expression in this Psalm. In the nineteenth Psalm he celebrates the glory of the sun. But now, sitting at eventide upon the housetop, under the mild and lustrous Syrian sky, he is absorbed with the beauty and order of the moon and stars. These are God's possession—"Thy heavens;" the work of His "finger," manifesting beauty and skill; "ordained" with Divine wisdom and order, and established forever. The first thought awakened in him by the contemplation of this majesty and glory is of the littleness of man. What was David's kingdom in comparison with a single star? what his royal splendor beside the brightness of the moon? Yet with this came the thought of the condescending goodness of God, who made man in His image, the representative of His glory and dominion. The word "angels," Elohim, is commonly used for the name of God: "Thou madest man but little short of the Divine." This high dignity and prerogative man disgraced and forfeited by the fall; but it was restored in Jesus, the Second Adam, "crowned with glory and honor." While we praise God in His works, let us, above all, bless and honor Him in His Son, the head and glory of our redeemed humanity. J. P. T. 3,4. The Psalmist leaves the world, and lifts his imagination to that mighty expanse which spreads above it and around it. He wings his way through space, and wanders in thought over its immeasurable regions. Instead of a dark and unpeopled solitude, he sees it crowded with splendor, and filled with the energy of the Divine presence. Creation rises in its immensity before him, and the world, with all which it inherits, shrinks into littleness at a contemplation so vast and so overpowering. He wonders that he is not overlooked amid the grandeur and the variety which are on every side of him, and passing upward from the majesty of nature to the majesty of nature's Architect, he exclaims, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that Thou shouldest deign to visit him?" Chalmers. The first feeling is an overpowering sense of man's insignificance in presence of the vastness and splendor, the mysterious depth, and the exceeding glory of the heavens, as seen at night. "The vault of the sky arched at a vast and unknown distance over our heads; the stars apparently infinite in number, each keeping its appointed place and course, and seeming to belong to a wide system of things which has no relation to the earth, while man is but one among many millions of the earth's inhabitants; all this makes the contemplative spectator feel how exceedingly small a portion of the universe he is; how little he must be in the eyes of an Intelligence which can embrace the whole." Add to this revelation of darkness the revelation of silence—the man is alone; the stir and noise of his own works, which in the light of day filled and absorbed him, are hushed and buried in darkness; his importance is gone; and "every person in every age and country will recognize as irresistibly natural the train of thought expressed by the Hebrew Psalmist." P. It can hardly be questioned that, of all scientific truths, those of astronomy are most calculated to impress upon the thoughtful mind the greatness and power of the Creator, the insignificance of man and earthly things, and at the same time to inculcate a profound reverence for the Divine something within ourselves—the "image of God," in which we were created, and by virtue of which we human beings are, in a sense, greater than the whole material universe, as being able, in some degree, to master and comprehend it. It is well worth while, now and then, to spend a little time in quiet contemplation of the simple facts, to endeavor to grasp their magnitude and meaning, and mentally and spiritually to take the place and attitude which they indicate as reasonable—an attitude of humility and reverence toward God, and also of self-respect as His children and partakers of His nature. In imagination we transport ourselves to the sun; we consider its bulk, huger than a million earths could fill, the ineffable glory of its light, and the unimaginable intensity and quality of its heat, which gives life and vigor to all the planetary systems, flowing out for centuries, seemingly, without diminution, and maintained in some mysterious way, which as yet we can only guess at; an unconsuming and apparently unreplenished fire, such as Moses gazed upon of old, when God appeared to him in the bush. We stagger under such conceptions of power and motion and immensity; but we have hardly made a beginning yet. We try to conceive of greater spaces and more tremendous forces. We consider the visible stars, so far away that though really suns, and many of them vaster than our own, they look like mere twinkling points; the nearest of them more than two hundred thousand times as distant as our sun, or nearly four years' journey for a flash of light; and the remotest of them—no one knows—no one can tell how long light takes to bring its message from them, but unquestionably centuries, and perhaps millennia. Then we look into our telescopes, and the number of the stars increases many thousand-fold, clusters and nebulae come crowding into sight; and the range of distance and dimensions thus brought to human knowledge grows in proportion to the telescopic power as compared with that of the unaided eye. It is hopeless to image such immensities, and with weary helplessness we simply cease the struggle. Our little world! The merest dust-mote dancing in the sunbeam is in bulk a vastly more important portion of the earth than the earth herself of even that portion of the stellar universe revealed by our present telescopes. And what of the beyond—that which is still unknown to us because of feeble vision or cosmic haze, or, perhaps, because separated from us by unfathomable spaces empty of the mysterious "ether" by which alone we are brought into sensible relations with distant orbs and worlds. So also when we measure human life and history in their time-relations against astronomical periods and cosmical affairs, we reach very similar proportions. A human life, even the longest, bears only some such ratio to the duration of a star as the bulk of the human body to that of the star. We have in astronomy to do with periods of time, some of them, it is true, short, even in comparison with earthly affairs, but mostly long, and some of them immeasurable and inconceivable. The scale of time is as vast as that of space; and when we set ourselves, our little lives and human interests, against the worlds and stars of heaven, we come to know the Psalmist's meaning when he wrote, "Lord, what is man that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man that Thou visitest him?" C. A. Young. 3. The stars.** I cannot say that it is chiefly the contemplation of their infinitude, and the immeasurable space they occupy, that enraptures me in the stars. But the mere thought they are so far beyond and above everything terrestrial—the feeling that before them everything earthly so utterly vanishes to nothing—that the single man is so infinitely insignificant in the comparison with these worlds strewn over all space—that his destinies, his enjoyments, and sacrifices, to which he attaches such a minute importance—how all these fade like nothing before such immense objects; then, that the constellations bind together all the races of man and all the eras of the earth, that they have beheld all that has passed since the beginning of time and will see all that passes until its end; in thoughts like these I can always lose myself with a silent delight in the view of the starry firmament. It is in very truth a spectacle of the highest solemnity, when in the stillness of night, in a heaven quite clear, the stars, like a choir of worlds, arise and descend, while existence, as it were, falls asunder into two separate parts; the one, belonging to earth, grows dumb in the utter silence of night, and thereupon the other mounts upward in all its elevation, splendor, and majesty. When contemplated from this point of view, the starry heavens have truly a moral influence on the mind. Humboldt. There can be no doubt that if the understanding of man (as well as his other faculties) were in the state of unimpaired simplicity, the spectacle of the universe would teach him piety, even if he had not learned it in some more direct way. First the exterior magnificence of the skies, so brightly symbolizing as it does the wealth and splendor of Almighty Regal Power, and then those severer calculations and rational conjectures, wherein the mind penetrates beyond the mere beauty and grandeur of the scene, and eagerly makes its path athwart the unmeasured spaces, and subjoins to what is visible, its own vigorous conceptions of magnitude, number, distance; from both these sources, a mind retaining its integrity would infer the great truth of the Divine Existence; and its power, and wisdom, and beneficence. I. T. When man looks abroad on the universe and cries: "How can God be mindful of me," is it not plain that his mind has taken the great thought of the universe, and the great thought of God, into itself? And what a mind that is which can thus soar away from itself; which can strive to fathom immensity and deplore its partial success! What a mind that is which mourns that its attainments fall so short of its desires! The weakness of man is one of the grandest proofs of his greatness, because it is a conscious weakness—a weakness from which, in thought and aspiration, he has already escaped. G. P. Fisher. Science is the rival of imagination, and by teaching that these stars are suns has given a new interest to the anticipations of eternity, which can supply such inexhaustible materials of intelligence and wonder. Yet these stars seem to confess that there must be still sublimer regions for the reception of spirits, refined beyond the intercourse of all material lights; and even leave us to imagine that the whole material universe itself is only a place where beings are appointed to originate and to be educated through successive scenes, till, passing over its utmost bounds to the immensity beyond, they there at length find themselves in the immediate presence of the Divinity. J. F.—Great is the beauty of the earth, the brightness of the sun, the moon and the stars cheering the night. Yet is not my thirst stayed then; I admire these and praise these—I thirst for Him who made them. Augustine. 4. Thou art mindful of him.** Man is worse than weak, he is sinful. He broke the covenant of his God at the beginning; he has continued his rebellion from then till now. Yet God has not forgotten him. He was mindful of man when in the beginning He created the heavens. He was mindful of him when He arranged and organized them as they at present exist. He was mindful of him when He prepared this world as his place of abode, ordaining the sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night. He was mindful of man when He arranged the pleasing vicissitudes of the seasons; when He renewed His covenant with man, saying, "While earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease." He is mindful of him when from year to year and season to season He makes the grass to grow for the cattle and herb for the service of man; when the eyes of all things wait on Him and do not wait in vain, for He openeth His hand liberally, and satisfeth the wants of every living thing. Given.—God is mindful of man at every moment of his existence—mindful of infancy, of boyhood, manhood in the toils of active life, of age, when all other mindfulness terminates, and when the ties of earth have been loosened one by one. He is mindful of us inasmuch as He has provided all things needful for our existence and happiness. And when, in the fulness of time, the Son of God was incarnate in furtherance of the purpose of the Father, surely God was mindful of His creatures then. Since the Son has ascended up to heaven, God has been mindful of man in the operations and influences of the Spirit. Punshon. The Gospel alone discloses in God depths of compassion transcending even heights of power, and points us to a Being who crowns His own nature, as He crowns us, "with lovingkindness and tender mercy." When we take this view, we see that man has been placed in this world in the midst of concentric circles of Divine attributes, which become charged with deeper interest as they press in closer toward him. The inmost circle of fatherly love and forgiving mercy remains in the approach of God to the individual soul. Such a circle there must be; and when we feel its clasp on our hearts, we learn, in the language of the poet, "that the world is made for each of us." J. Ker.—Could we once break through this deadening influence of regularity, where the very love of God is hidden in its own constancy; could we see and feel that we are indeed utterly, and always, and afresh every instant, at our Maker's disposal and dependent on His will—every fibre of the body kept in place by His care, and every breath inspired by Him, and the whole spirit subject and amenable to Him; could we then begin to consider His patience and recount His gifts—His patience with us from the cradle, and with the race from Eden—His gifts, as many as the organs, inlets, faculties, tissues, powers, of all our complex being multiplied by all the seconds of our life; could we then rise from this to some worthy conception of His own Infinite Life—boundless, fathomless, endless, yet all intensest life—the majesty, the might, the dominion—the purity, the pity, the wisdom, the love;—God forbearing with all this impious folly, God enduring all this abhorrent selfishness, God upholding all these unprofitable and unthankful creatures, if so be that possibly something may yet be recovered of their self-destruction, and the well-beloved Son dying for that;—and could we at last put in contrast with Him our lives, so mean, so weak, so bad—then should we not be ready to exclaim, with something more than a mere recitation of the memory, “Lord! what is man that Thou art mindful of him? God be merciful to me a sinner!” F. D. H. 5. Lower than God.** There is obviously a reference in v. 6 to Gen. 1: 26, and therefore here, doubtless, an allusion to the creation of man in the image of God. P.—The Psalmist had intimated the littleness of man, as we have seen, but here he dwells on the greatness of man. He is made in the image of God, and with dominion over the creatures of God. Given.—Man is a feeble reed, trembling in the midst of creation; but then he is endowed with thought. It does not need the universe to arm for his destruction. A breath of wind, a drop of water will suffice to kill him. But, though the universe were to fall on man and crush him, he would be greater in his death than the universe in its victory; for he would be conscious of his defeat, and it would not be conscious of its triumph. Pascal. Soul, with its will, feeling, intelligence, and capacities for happiness and virtue, is universally felt by thinking men to be the highest as well as the most mysterious sort of known being. Not the grandest masses of matter, such as mountains, oceans, stars—not the most subtle and forceful material elements, such, for example, as produce the phenomena of light, electricity, and gravitation—not any conceivable combination of such elements can compare in wonderfulness and nobleness with the soul of a Newton. Burr. And what shall we say of this mind of Man?—its power of reasoning, which grasps the facts of the external world and the truths of the inner world of consciousness, and weaves them into consecutive chains of ideas, and builds up fabrics of thought that will stand though the physical universe shall fall?—this Mind that, from a few arbitrary characters and a few articulate sounds, constructs a language that expresses thought, that stirs emotion, that kindles passions or allays them—language that makes the printed page glow with the fire and beauty of poetry, that makes the air pulsate with the throbs of eloquence?—this Mind that from a few arbitrary figures, that you may count upon your fingers, constructs the abstract science of mathematics, by which it weighs the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance; by which it measures the velocity of light and the distances and magnitudes of the stars? This Mind of Man, with its powers of Reason, Imagination, Memory, Will—with its hopes and fears, its joys and loves—this Mind that knows itself, and that dominates all matter and all life without itself—can it be less than the immediate offspring of God? J. P. T. Man was not made for the world, but the world for man; all its laws were mute predictions of what he would be; all nature was preconfigured to him, and looked forward to his coming; the earth also was designed to be a temple for man’s worship, where he might find himself surrounded by the symbols of the God-head—where every object on which his eye may rest is either an “altar of memorial,” or an offering to be laid on it. “Even the earth itself, as it goes speeding through space, what should it be but an altar at which he should be perpetually ministering as the high-priest of nature?” J. Harris.—Man is the summit and pinnacle of creation, the crown of the completed whole, the priest in the finished temple of God, whence without him no note of worship worthy of God should ascend from rational and moral beings. Van O. 6-8. A crown is mentioned in v. 5, and a crown imports a king, and a king implies a kingdom; and so in vs. 6-8 we are informed of the extent of man’s dominion, and of the various subjects of his kingly rule. Thus man was set up as God’s viceroy on earth. He was invested with full kingly dominion under Divine suzerainty. Given.—All Thy creation hath not more wonder in it than one of us: other creatures Thou madest by a simple command; man, not without a Divine consultation; others at once; man Thou didst form, then inspire; others in several shapes, like to none but themselves; man, after Thine own image; others with qualities fit for service; man, for dominion. Man had his name from Thee; they had their names from man. How should we be consecrated to Thee above all others, since Thou hast bestowed more cost on us than other! Bishop H. What, then, is the right effect upon our hearts of this discovery of God’s limitless working, His immeasurable condescension? It is to do away with our fear; it is to tell us that there is nothing incredible or preposterous in the thought that He visits us, and expends even upon us all the riches of His care and love. The heavens declare His glory, and proclaim it to be infinite. Why may not the Gospel be a similar declaration of His highest attribute, a witness borne to the universe that His mercy is infinite also? And if man is a being so precious, so unique in his origin and destiny, if God has bestowed such manner of love upon him as Christ bids us believe, then what an appeal is made to him to live up to his unspeakable dignity! "It is the highest effort of his culture," says Bernard, "when a man comes to care for himself for the sake of his God;" when, that is, his sovereign desire is to be worthier of the rank with which God has invested him and of the love which God has lavished upon him. R. Duckworth. Put all things under his feet. Man is a king. God has put a crown upon his head, and not only so, but has given him a territory and subjects. "All things under his feet," with evident reference to the "let them have dominion," of Gen. 1: 23. What David means by "all things" is then explained—beasts, birds, and fishes, which are in the same manner enumerated in Gen. 1. Paul, however, extends the meaning of the "all things" far beyond this. Jesus, as the true Lord of all, shall have a universal dominion. P.—The Psalmist extends his statement to the human race. The apostle does the same, but he looks up to Jesus, in whom alone the grand ideal of humanity is realized, and sees Him already crowned with glory and honor; and then he directs his gaze onward and forward anticipatively to the time when this text shall be fully accomplished, and all things completely subject to redeemed humanity and its glorified Head. G.ven.—The central point of the New Testament consciousness is indeed Jesus, the Restorer of what is lost. Redeemed humanity in the person of Jesus is already enthroned at God's right hand. Everything is as absolutely subjected to Him as it is stated to be in the Psalm; not only the animal world, not only the earth, but the universe, with all the forces that are working in it, those that are hostile to God as well as those that are in His service, yea, even the power of death. D. The highest fulfilment of these words can be found nowhere short of Him who loved to call Himself the "Son of man." "Thou hast put all things under His feet." This is what only God has either the right or the power to do. It is not merely supreme power that is here spoken of; it is supreme authority, as when our Lord said to His disciples, "All power is given to Me." In the days of His flesh He constantly exercised four kinds of authority: the authority to forgive sin, the authority to declare truth, the authority to rule nature, and the authority over human hearts and consciences. The claim of universal and absolute obedience and these four are in close, inseparable moral unity. "All things"—small things as well as great. The hairs of your head are all numbered; your name is not unknown to Him. The chief lesson in these words is for every Christian a lesson of restful calm, peaceful, untroubled faith, but faith surely tempered with reverence. All things are naked and open to Him with whom we have to do. E. R. Conder. 9. The Psalm closes with the same expression of loving admiration with which it opened, but with added emphasis after the singer has told the tale of God's goodness to man; just as the repetition of a passage in music falls more sensibly on the ear, and touches the heart with quicker emotions, than the same passage when it first occurs. P.—He has demonstrated the assertion that the name of Jehovah, whose glory the heavens reflect, is also glorious on earth. And so he can conclude by repeating the thought with which he began, only now in a fuller sense, and weave his Psalm as it were into a wreath. D.—More fit words no human mind has conceived or pen recorded. And if we may include in the scope of this Psalm not the material world only, but the moral also—not only man as a race with no Christ in it, but the race with an incarnate Saviour as part and even the chief part of it, how will the manifestations of God in all the earth—in all its moral history, in all the destiny of its once living men, saints and sinners, become the admiration, the wonder, the praise of the intelligent universe forever! C. 9. Our Lord.** If we turn to the sacred record of God's creation of the world, we cannot overlook or mistake the two great religious truths which stand side by side on its page, the twofold revelation of one and the same God as the Creator of the material universe and as the personal Providence that watches over the life and actions of men. The whole scheme of Holy Scripture from the beginning to the end is one continuous record of God's love and care for man in creation, government, redemption; and as such it is a revelation, not for this or that age alone, but for every generation of mankind, as our best and truest safeguard against an error into which human thought in every age is very prone to fall. Modern sophistry is ready to tell us that one law of cause and effect reigns supreme over mind as well as matter, that the actions of man, like the other phenomena of the universe, are but links in a chain of rigid and necessary consequences. Against this perversion Scripture furnishes a standing protest, and if read aright, a safeguard. God is revealed to man as He is revealed to no other of His visible creatures, not as God merely, but as our God, the personal God of His personal creatures. H. L. Mansel. All the earth. We may boldly affirm that earth is not too small a globe to be thought worthy of giving birth to the heirs of immortality; nor is man too diminutive a being to hold converse with his Creator, or to be amenable to the Divine government. The very multiplicity of worlds, instead of favoring such a conclusion, refutes it by showing that the Creator prefers, as the field of His cares and beneficence, limited and separate portions of matter rather than immense masses. It is manifest that the omnipotent wisdom and power loves to divide itself upon the individuality of its works. To exist at all as a member of so vast an assemblage of beings, and to occupy a footing in the universe such as it is, involves incalculable probabilities of future good or ill. I. T. There have been those who have stood under the starry heavens, and in contrasting the immensity of the universe as revealed by modern science with the earth, as a mere speck, and with man, in his brief day upon it, have felt that the great doctrines of the incarnation, and of redemption by the Son of God, could not be true. The impression is natural, and at times overwhelming, and yet it is but an impression. Seen in its true light, the very insignificance of the earth and the low rank of man are the indispensable condition for the fullest display of the Divine attributes, and so, for that is the same thing, of the Divine glory. Nor, in the light of modern science, is the obscurity of this earth, and the apparent insignificance of what takes place upon it, any bar to its fullest publicity in the remotest world in space, if so be that intelligent beings dwell there. When science says, as it does, that the action of gravitation is instantaneous throughout space, it shuts the mouth of incredulity when we assert a possible sympathy and unity of a higher kind in the intelligent universe of God. Knowing, then, that God could not be better than He is; that the love revealed in Christ could not be greater than it is; that the heaven provided for those who love God could not be more blessed than it is; finding in the Scriptures as much of optimism as we had a right to expect; finding, also, in them the revelation of a future which gives us a possible key to the fearful perplexities of the present state, we welcome each gleam of light, and wait with patience and hope the coming of that perfect day of "the restitution of all things of which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began." In the coming of such a day, thus revealed, we find that solution of the mystery of the present state for which our whole nature cries out. M. H. Like its own Bethlehem Ephratah, little among thousands of worlds, our earth already stands alone in the universe, and will stand forth in the annals of eternity, illustrious for its fact without a parallel. It is the world on which the mystery of redemption was transacted; it is the world into which Christ came. And though lower than the angels, ours is the race which Jehovah has crowned with one peerless glory, one unequalled honor. It is the race which God has visited. Ours is the flesh which Incarnate Deity wore, and ours is the race for whose sinners the Son of God poured forth a ransom in His blood. This is the event which over our small planet sheds a solemn interest, and draws toward it the wondering gaze of other worlds. Hamilton. If we believe in a God who created the world and made man in it, it is surely reasonable to believe also that He will guide His work to its proper end, and that the highest part of man's nature will not be left to neglect. A dignified idea of either God or man will not incline us to believe that things are abandoned to chance-hazard here. If we see God exerting His power and wisdom in multiplying and adorning forms of dead matter—if we behold Him piling them in heaven-soaring mountains, brightening them into resplendent suns, and scattering them through space in infinitely varied combinations—it is not too much to expect that He will exert these same attributes in retrieving from loss and in raising to fresh spiritual power that immortal mind which is the true image of Himself—which alone of all His works can comprehend Him, and can return the expressions of His intelligence and love. So far from what God has done for the world of matter, in the fields of astronomy, being any reason for discrediting what the Gospel declares He has done for the world of mind in man, it should be a reason for believing it. If He has lavished so much of pains and skill upon a universe of death, what may we not anticipate for one of life? If He has expended so much upon the mere pedestal and platform of being, what upon the thinking immortal spirit, on whose account alone the basement and outer furniture of the world are there? Belief in the Gospel will become an easier thing to us in proportion as we realize the greatness of the soul, and breathe the air of eternity. Ker. If the contemplation of the universe presses upon us the question, What is man? and gives no answer to the question in which we can without difficulty acquiesce, no answer which reconciles the conflicting evidence of his greatness and his insignificance, or which gives an intelligible theory of the distinction between his relation to God and that of other creatures, then we find in the birth of Christ the very answer we need. The Word, who was with God and was God, became flesh: the Son of God became the Son of man. Then men are precious in the eyes of God: the race of man is glorified in the manhood of Christ; and each individual man may rejoice when he remembers that he is clothed in flesh, which God Himself condescended to assume. Bishop H. Goodwin.—It is the glory of the world, that He who formed it dwelt on it; of the air, that He breathed in it; of the sun, that it shone on Him; of the ground, that it bare Him; of the sea, that He walked on it; of the elements, that they nourished Him; of the waters, that they refreshed Him; of us men, that He lived and died among us; yea, that He lived and died for us; that He assumed our flesh and blood, and carried it to the highest heavens, where it shines as the eternal ornament and wonder of the creation of God. Christ on the cross is the measure of man's worth in the eyes of God, and of man's place in the creation; Christ on the throne is the prophecy of man's dignity, and of his most sure dominion. When bordering on despair at the sight of so much going wrong, so much ignorance, sorrow, and vice, so many darkened understandings, and broken hearts, such wide tracts of savagery and godlessness, I can look up to Jesus, and can see far, far away—the furthest thing on the horizon—like some nebula, faint, it is true, and low down, but flickering with true starry light—the wondrous vision of many souls brought into glory, even a world redeemed. When conscious of personal imperfection and much sin, no thought will bring peace nor kindle hope but this, that Christ has died to bring me to God, and lives to bring me to glory. Then behold Jesus entered within the veil for us, Here, from far beneath, look up through the heavens to Him who is "made higher than" them all. And hereafter, from the supreme height and pinnacle of the throne of Christ, we shall look down on sun, moon, and stars that once shone so far above us; and, conscious that His grace has raised us up on high, and put all things under our feet, shall exclaim with yet deeper thankfulness and more reverent wonder, "What is man, that Thou art mindful of him, and the son of man, that Thou visitest him?" A. M. The estimate we make of man's place in God's universe depends upon the criterion by which we judge. There is a sense in which, viewed as a physical force in the world of matter, man is nothing. The physical man compared with the stupendous forces of nature, or viewed from the standpoint of duration, or set in opposition to the omnipotence of God, is insignificance itself. If we contemplate man simply as a being of intelligence, the scale begins to turn. The fact of a thinking mind in man puts him above sun, moon, and stars. Mind is above matter, intelligence above force. But the importance of man in the universe is greatly heightened when we advance from the mental to the moral. "Two objects," said Kant, "fill my soul with ever-increasing admiration and respect—above us the starry heavens, within us the moral law." Man is a member of the kingdom of spirits. He is capable of virtue and of sin. He is the offspring of God, and in this lies his greatness. He is a free being, capable of self-improvement and self-destruction. He can contend with his Maker. "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" finds its answer here—"Thou hast made him to lack but little of divinity. Thou hast clothed him with glory and honor." "Why visit him?" The answer is here—man is an immortal being. Man as a sinner is of special importance. Viewed simply as a sinner, he looms up in the Divine government above the stars. He has lifted up the hand of rebellion against God. Angels veil their faces and love and adore God. This man lifts his guilty hand and defies Him. A sufferer is a being of importance in God's universe. Man is a sufferer, and is worthy of God's thought and visitation. However feeble, as compared with the stupendous forces of nature, however obscure in rank; yet, if he suffers, and is liable to suffer forever, he becomes at once an object of the highest importance in the Divine government. Such is man—a great sufferer here, and liable to eternal pain hereafter. Hence the God of mercy is "mindful of him," and sets His heart upon him, and visits him every day. The crowning proof of man's greatness and worth in the Divine government must be taken from God's own estimate; and that is found in the sacrifice that God has made to restore man to the high place from which he has fallen. It is in view of the Incarnation and of the Cross that we see man "crowned with glory and honor." In the Bible we have an account of the Creation and an account of Redemption. The story of Creation gives us an impression of the ease with which it was done. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." How different the account of Redemption! The moon and the stars cost nothing—the redemption of the soul cost God's Only Begotten Son. We thus find the fact and the reasonableness of the fact that God is "mindful of us." We have a place in God's thoughts. The weakest and most unworthy of us all engages the Divine mind, and is an object of interest and solicitude to the Divine heart. We see that the real greatness of man as a sinner lies in his penitence, contrition, confession; for that reopens the way for the incoming and indwelling of the Divine Spirit. "Know ye not that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost?" If a man is worth so much to God, he surely ought to be of great value to himself. If God is thus mindful of him, what madness for him to be unmindful of God! If man is so important a creature as a sinner and as a sufferer, how much more so as a Christian! When he becomes a redeemed soul, a sufferer healed, a slave emancipated, a restored and sanctified man, raised by the love of Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit to think God's thoughts, to walk in God's fellowship and to be one in God's family—then he is indeed "crowned with glory and honor." J. Brand. 1. I will give thanks unto the LORD with my whole heart; I will shew forth all thy marvellous works. 2 I will be glad and exult in thee: I will sing praise to thy name, O thou Most High. 3 When mine enemies turn back, They stumble and perish at thy presence. 4 For thou hast maintained my right and my cause; Thou satest in the throne judging righteously. 5 Thou hast rebuked the nations, thou hast destroyed the wicked, Thou hast blotted out their name for ever and ever. 6 The enemy are come to an end, they are desolate for ever; And the cities which thou hast overthrown, Their very memorial is perished. 7 But the LORD sitteth as king for ever: He hath prepared his throne for judgment. 8 And he shall judge the world in righteousness, He shall minister judgment to the peoples in uprightness. 9 The LORD also will be a high tower for the oppressed, A high tower in times of trouble; 10 And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee; For thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee. 11 Sing praises to the LORD, which dwelleth in Zion: Declare among the people his doings. 12 For he that maketh inquisition for blood remembereth them: He forgetteth not the cry of the poor. 13 Have mercy upon me, O LORD; Behold my affliction which I suffer of them that hate me, Thou that liftest me up from the gates of death; 14. That I may shew forth all thy praise: In the gates of the daughter of Zion, I will rejoice in thy salvation. 15. The nations are sunk down in the pit that they made: In the net which they hid is their own foot taken. 16. The LORD hath made himself known, he hath executed judgment: The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. [Higgaion. Selah THIS Psalm expresses, in a series of natural and striking alternations, gratitude for past de- liverances, trust in God's power and disposition to repeat them, and direct and earnest prayer for such repetition. A.—A thanksgiving to God, the righteous Judge, who punishes the wicked and defends the cause of the oppressed. Throughout, with the exception of v. 13, the Psalm is one continued strain of triumph. P. —It is a thoroughly national and triumphant hymn of thanksgiving, composed by David at the time when Jehovah was already enthroned upon Zion, and is, therefore, to be dated from the time after the ark was brought to Jerusa- lem. D. 1, 2. "I will confess unto Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart." Behold, with what a flood of the most sweet affections he says that he "will confess," "show forth," "rejoice," "be glad," and "sing," being filled with ecstasy! He does not simply say, "I will confess," but, "with my heart," and "with my whole heart." Nor does he propose to speak simply of "works," but of the "marvellous works" of God, and of "all" those "works." Thus his spirit exults and rejoices in God his Saviour, who has done great things for him, and those marvellous things which follow. In which words are opened the subject of this Psalm—that is, that he therein sings the marvellous works of God. Luther.—Holy joy is the life of thankful praise, as thankful praise is the language of holy joy; I will be glad and rejoice in Thee. Whatever occurs to make us glad, our joy must pass through it, and terminate in God only: I will be glad and rejoice in Thee, not in the gift so much as in the Giver. H. All Thy marvellous works. Here is eternal work for us, for there can be no end to the showing forth of all His deeds of love. If we consider our own sinfulness and nothingness, we must feel that every work of preservation, forgiveness, conversion, deliverance, sanctifica- tion, which the Lord has wrought for us or in 17. The wicked shall return to Sheol, [the unseen world,] Even all the nations that forget God. 18. For the needy shall not alway be forgotten, Nor the expectation of the poor perish for ever. 19. Arise, O LORD; let not man prevail: Let the nations be judged in thy sight. 20. Put them in fear, O LORD: Let the nations know themselves to be but men. [Selah us is a marvellous work. Even in heaven, Di- vine lovingkindness will doubtless be as much a theme of surprise as of rapture. S. 3,4. That his enemies fall and perish in God's presence shows that their being turned back in defeat and flight is attributed to God's arm. He was there. They fell before His face. And this fall of theirs came of the fact that the Lord appeared in power to vindicate the cause of His anointed king, His servant David. C. 7. And Jehovah to eternity, forever, will sit, as He sits now, upon the throne and judgment- seat. He has set up for judgment, for the pur- pose of acting as a judge, His throne. It is not as an absolute or arbitrary ruler, but as a just judge, that Jehovah reigns. This recognition of God's judicial character and office as perpet- ual is intended to prepare the way for an ap- peal to His righteous intervention in the present case. A. King forever. He always was, always is, and always will be what He is. He remains always the same in being; so far from any change, that no shadow of it can touch Him. He will continue in being as long as He hath already enjoyed it; and if we could add never so many millions of years together, we are still as far from an end as from a beginning, for "the Lord shall endure forever." As it is im- possible He should not be, being from all eter- nity, so it is impossible that He should not be to all eternity. Charnock.—There is no change of His being; His felicity, power, and perfection are out of the reach of all the com- bined forces of hell and earth; they may put an end to our liberties, our privileges, our lives, but our God is still the same, and sits even upon the floods, unshaken, undisturbed, 29: 10; 93: 2. H.—The enduring existence and unchang- ing dominion of our Jehovah are the firm foundations of our joy. The enemy and his destructions shall come to a perpetual end, but God and His throne shall endure forever. The eternity of Divine sovereignty yields unfailing consolation. S. 8-10. It is because God rules the nations and the people of the earth in righteousness that He will surely prove Himself a refuge for the oppressed. For it is mainly to vindicate the cause of the oppressed that God rules the nations at all, His purpose being to restrain sin and crime and to break in pieces the oppressor. They who know God's name in the sense of knowing these grand elements of His glorious character as a righteous ruler of wicked men and wicked devils will surely put their trust in Him, for all the history of time shows that God has never forsaken those who have sought His aid against wrong-doers. C. 8. He shall judge the world in righteousness.** In this judgment tears will not prevail, prayers will not be heard, promises will not be admitted, repentance will be too late; and as for riches, honorable titles, sceptres, and diadems, these will profit much less; and the inquisition shall be so curious and diligent, that not one light thought nor one idle word (not repented of in the life past) shall be forgotten. For truth itself hath said, "Of every idle word which men have spoken, they shall give an account in the day of judgment." Oh, how many which now sin with great delight will be then astonished, ashamed, and silent! Tymme.—In the administration of His government He does all every day, He will do all at the last day, according to the eternal, unalterable rules of equity (v. 8); He shall judge the world, all persons and all controversies, shall minister judgment to the people, shall determine their lot both in this and in the future state, in righteousness and in uprightness, so that there shall not be the least color of exception against it. 9. Peculiar favor God bears to His own people, and special protection He takes them under. The Lord, who endures forever, is their everlasting Strength and Protection; He that judges the world will be sure to judge for them, when at any time they are injured or distressed; He will be a refuge for the oppressed; a high place, a strong place, for the oppressed, in time of trouble. H. 10. They that know Thy name will put their trust in Thee.** Faith is an intelligent grace; though there can be knowledge without faith, yet there can be no faith without knowledge. Knowledge must carry the torch before faith (2 Tim. 1: 12). "For I know whom I have believed." As in Paul's conversion a light from heaven "shined round about him," so before faith be wrought, God shines in with a light upon the understanding. Watson.—The better God is known, the more He is trusted. Those who know Him to be a God of infinite wisdom will trust Him farther than they can see Him (Job 35: 14); those who know Him to be a God of almighty power will trust Him when creature confidences fail, and they have nothing else to trust to (2 Chr. 20: 12); and those who know Him to be a God of infinite grace and goodness will trust Him, though He slay them (Job 13: 15). Those who know Him to be a God of inviolable truth and faithfulness will rejoice in His word of promise, and rest upon that, though the performance be deferred, and intermediate providences seem to contradict it. Those who know Him to be the Father of spirits, and an everlasting Father, will trust Him with their souls as their main care, and trust in Him at all times, even to the end. H. The sufferer cannot be consoled until he finds that God is his friend; he cannot find this without faith; and in this manner, most directly, chastisement awakens the exercise of this grace, with great and unspeakable satisfaction. And thus the tribulations which have succeeded one another through life give us stronger and stronger reliance on God, for the approaching hour of death. At some future day it will be sweet to remember how the Lord sealed us with His Spirit of adoption in these times of trial J. W. A. 12. The general import of the verse is that God's judgments, though deferred, are not abandoned, that He does not forget even what He seems to disregard, and that sooner or later He will certainly appear as an avenger. Murder is here put, as the highest crime against the person, for all others, and indeed for wickedness in general. A. Requireth, or "maketh inquisition for blood," i.e., "demandeth satisfaction for bloodshed." This is God's character, as opposed to the scoff of the wicked, "He requireth not," 10: 4, 13 (where the same verb is used). Like the Goël, the next of kin, who was bound to avenge the murder of his kinsman, so God calls the murderer to account, requires satisfaction at his hand. P.—In Gen. 9: 5, 6, are the same leading words. Making "inquisition for blood" is there "requiring" the murderer's blood for the blood he has shed. By "the humble" is meant the defenceless, upon whom the strong come down with cruel, bloody hands. Their cry God accounts it at once His duty and His glory to hear and avenge. C. 13,14. Gates.** The most public place of concourse, this being in the East what the market-place was to the Greeks, and the forum to the Romans. P.—The gates here mentioned are contrasted with those of the preceding verse. The God who saves him from the gates of death shall be praised for this deliverance in the gates of the daughter of Zion. A.—The gates of the daughter of Zion, which are above the earth, are set over against the under-world gates of death. “In the gates of the daughter of Zion” is equivalent to “before all the people of God;” for the gates are the places where people gather together and engage in discussion. The sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament as yet know nothing of hymns of praise sung by the blessed in heaven. On the other side of the grave is silent death. If the Church is to praise, she must live and not die. D. 15. As usual, God makes man’s wrath react to His own praise. Foiling the wicked in their plans, He turns back their wicked endeavors upon their own head. The figure is taken from the pits dug to catch wild animals. The wicked dig such pits to ensnare and destroy the righteous; God brings their own feet into these snares. C.—Drunkards kill themselves; prodigals beggar themselves; the contentious bring mischief upon themselves; and thus men’s sins may be read in their punishment, and it becomes visible to all that the destruction of sinners is not only meritoriously, but efficiently, of themselves, which will fill them with the utmost confusion. H.—As they cannot lay by their life and being, though then they would account annihilation a singular mercy, so neither can they lay aside any part of their being. Understanding, conscience, affections, memory, must all live to torment them, which should have helped to their happiness. Baxter. 16. The Lord is known, He makes Himself known, by these judgments which He executes. It is known that there is a God who judges in the earth; that He is a righteous God, and one that hates sin, and will punish it. In these judgments, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. H.—The wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Not only do we read it in the Word of God, but all history records the same righteous justice of God in snaring the wicked in the work of their own hands. Perhaps the most striking instance on record, next to Haman on his own gallows, is one connected with the horrors of the French Revolution, in which we are told that, “within nine months of the death of the queen, Marie Antoinette, by the guillotine, every one implicated in her untimely end, her accusers, the judges, the jury, the prosecutors, the witnesses—all, every one at least whose fate is known, perished by the same instrument as their innocent victim.” “In the net which they had laid for her was their own foot taken—into the pit which they digged for her did they themselves fall.” Bouchier. 17. Must return.** Not “be turned.” The biblical idea is that of a returning to the dust, taken from the original passage in Gen. 3: 19. Cf. Job 30: 23, of a return to Sheol (i.e., Hades, the unseen world), as here and Psalm 90: 3: “Thou makest man return to destruction,” expressions only to be explained by the dimness which then hung over the grave and the life beyond it. The meaning is, that even now, before the eyes of men, God’s righteousness shall be seen in cutting off the wicked by a sudden and premature end, and helping and exalting the righteous. P. All the nations that forget God. Forget God and therefore live as if there were no God—forget God, and therefore have no faith in a just retribution for sin and no fear of it; forget God, and therefore spurn His law and trample down the rights of our common humanity: all such must have their doom, first as nations in the retributions of time; then as individuals in the more just—the perfectly just and complete retributions of eternity! C. Apart from clear acts of great and grievous sin, how is God forgotten, clean forgotten, by the great part of mankind! They live as if there were no God. It is not as if they openly rebelled against Him. They pass Him over and ignore Him. He is an inconvenience in His own world, an impertinence in His own creation. So He has been quietly set on one side, as if He were an idol out of fashion and in the way. Men of science and politicians have agreed on this, and men of business and wealth think it altogether the most decent thing to be silent about God; for it is difficult to speak of Him, or have a view of Him, without allowing too much to Him. F. W. R.—Forgetfulness of God implies that a man doth neither esteem nor value the all-sufficiency and holiness of God as his happiness and portion, as his strength and support; nor doth he fear Him, nor live in subjection to His laws and commands as His rule; nor doth he aim at the glory of God as his end. To exclude God out of our thoughts and not to let Him have a place there, not to mind nor think upon God, is the greatest wickedness of the thoughts that can be. And though you cannot say of such a one he will swear, cozen or oppress; yet if you can say he will forget God, or that he lives all his days never minding nor thinking upon God, you say enough to speak him under wrath and without remedy. Howe. Higgaion, meditation. Selah, pause. God has revealed Himself as present and attentive, notwithstanding His apparent oblivion and inaction, by doing justice on His enemies, or rather by making them do justice on themselves, converting their devices against others into means of self-destruction. In view of this most striking attestation of God's providential government, the reader is summoned to reflect, and enabled so to do by a significant and solemn pause. The sense of meditation or reflection is clear from Psalm 19 : 14 and Lam. 3 : 62. The addition of Higgaion to Selah here confirms the explanation already given of the latter word. With this understanding of the terms, we may well say, to ourselves or others, in view of every signal providential retribution, especially where sin is conspicuously made its own avenger, Higgaion Selah! A. 18. For the needy shall not always be forgotten.** This is a sweet promise for a thousand occasions, and when pleaded before the throne in His name who comprehends in Himself every promise and is indeed Himself the great promise of the Bible, it would be found like all others, yea and amen. R. Hawker.—The needy may think themselves and others may think them forgotten for a while; their expectation of help from God may seem to have perished, and to have been forever frustrated; but he that believes does not make haste; the vision is for an appointed time, and at the end it shall speak; we may build upon it as undoubtedly true that God's people shall not always be forgotten, nor shall they be disappointed of their hopes from the promise. God will not only remember them at last, but will make it appear that He never did forget them. H.—God causeth us by delay to make the more prayers; and the more we pray, the longer we stay, the more comfort we shall have, and the more sure we are that we shall have it in the latter end. Distinguish between denying and delaying. In God our Father are all dimensions of love and that in an infinite degree; infinitely infinite: what if He defer us? so do we our children, albeit we mean no other but to give them, yet we love to see them wait, that so they may have from us the best things, when they are at the best, in the best time, and in the best manner; if a mother should forget her only boy, yet God hath an infinite memory; He nor can nor will forget us; the expectation of the waiter shall not fail forever—that is, never. R. Capel. 19,20. To be judged, in the case of the wicked, is of course to be condemned. To be judged in God's presence, or at His tribunal, is of course to be condemned without appeal. A.—Put them in fear, O Lord (v. 20); strike a terror upon them, make them afraid with Thy judgments. God knows how to make the strongest and stoutest of men to tremble and to flee when none pursues; and thereby He makes them know and own that they are but men; they are but weak men, unable to stand before the holy God; sinful men, the guilt of whose consciences makes them subject to alarms. It is much for the glory of God, and the peace and welfare of the universe, that men should know and consider themselves to be but men, depending creatures, mutable, mortal, and accountable. H.—Crowns leave their wearers but men, degrees of eminent learning make their owners not more than men, valor and conquest cannot elevate beyond the dead level of "but men;" and all the wealth of Cressus, the wisdom of Solon, the power of Alexander, the eloquence of Demosthenes, if added together, would leave the possessor but a man. S. 1. 1 Why standest thou afar off, O LORD? Why hidest thou thyself in times of trouble? 2. 2 In the pride of the wicked the poor is hotly pursued; Let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined. 3. 3 For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, And the covetous renounceth, yea, contemneth the LORD. 4. 4 The wicked, in the pride of his countenance, saith, He will not require it. All his thoughts are, There is no God. 5. His ways are firm at all times ; Thy judgments are far above out of his sight : As for all his adversaries, he puffeth at them. 6 He saith in his heart, I shall not be moved : To all generations I shall not be in adversity. 7 His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression : Under his tongue is mischief and iniquity. 8 He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages : In the covert places doth he murder the innocent : His eyes are privily set against the helpless. 9 He lurketh in the covert as a lion in his den : He lieth in wait to catch the poor : He doth catch the poor, when he draweth him in his net. 10 He croucheth, he boweth down, And the helpless fall by his strong ones. 11 He saith in his heart, God hath forgotten : He hideth his face ; he will never see it. 12. Arise, O LORD ; O God, lift up thine hand : Forget not the poor. 13 Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God, And say in his heart, Thou wilt not require it? 14 Thou hast seen it ; for thou beholdest mischief and spite, to take it into thy hand : The helpless committeth himself unto thee ; Thou hast been the helper of the fatherless. 15 Break thou the arm of the wicked ; And as for the evil man, seek out his wickedness till thou find none. 16 The LORD is King for ever and ever : The nations are perished out of his land. 17 LORD, thou hast heard the desire of the meek : Thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear : 18 To judge the fatherless and the oppressed, That man which is of the earth may be terrible no more. THE Psalmist calls upon God to chastise the unbridled insolence and scorn of the wicked. These have reached such a pitch that it seems as if God winked at evil. Men are not only doing wickedness, but boasting of their wickedness ; and, finding that justice does not overtake them, are acting as if in the conviction that there is no God. The prosperity (v. 5), security (v. 6), insolence (vs. 4, 11), deceit (v. 7), and violence (vs. 8-10) of these despisers of God is vividly portrayed. The Psalm concludes with the triumphant assertion of faith, that despite all seeming disorders, Jehovah is King, and that He does hear and answer the cry of the oppressed. It is impossible to say to what period of Jewish history the Psalm is to be referred. The state of society which it supposes is peculiar. The violent oppressors belonged apparently to heathen nations, who had not yet been finally driven out of the land, but whose speedy destruction the poet anticipates (v. 16). P. 1. The Psalm begins with the plaintive inquiry, why Jehovah delays to deliver His oppressed ones. It is not captious murmuring that is expressed in the question, but an earnest longing that God would not delay to act in such a manner as His nature and His promise demand. D.—This expostulation betrays no defect either of reverence or faith, but, on the contrary, indicates a firm belief that God is able, and must be willing, to deliver His own people. Such demands are never uttered either by scepticism or despair. A. 3,4. Quite a new turn has been given by the Revisers to the thought in this difficult Psalm, in a number of instances, and greatly to its advantage in clearness and force. The necessity for such changes had long been felt by scholars, and now that they are made, they will commend themselves to all as at least suitable to their connection. It is not said of the wicked that he “blesseth the covetous whom the Lord abhorreth ;” but as the parallelism requires, he is put on a level with the covetous, and it is declared of him that he “renounceth, yea, contemneth the Lord.” And so in the following verse, which carries on the same thought, we read in the Revision, “The wicked in the pride of his countenance saith, He will not require it. All his thoughts are, There is no God.” E. C. B. 3. Boasteth of his heart’s desire. Every Christless life, whatsoever the superficial differences in it, is really a life shaped according to and under the influence of passionate desires.—Given the immense varieties of tastes and likings and desires which men have, the point and characteristic feature of every godless life is that, be these what they may, they become the dominant power in that life. The sway and tyranny of such lusts and desires may be sometimes broken by remonstrances of conscience ; sometimes suppressed by considerations of prudence ; sometimes by habit, by business, by circumstances that force people into channels into which they would not naturally let their lives run. And often and often in such a life there may be a dim desire for something better. But apart from Christ it is not conscience that rules our lives; apart from Christ it is not sense of duty that is strongest; apart from Christ the real directing impulse to which the inward proclivities, if not the outward activities, do yield in the main and on the whole, is the things that we like, the passionate desires of nature, the sensuous and godless heart. A. M. In themselves, impulsion, desire, appetite, have no moral character, but the man who gives himself up to the control of any one of these has a moral character. He lays aside his true manhood. He debases himself. Outwardly he may do nothing unseemly, but he permits that to rule which ought to serve. He falls into bondage, and nothing but favoring outward circumstances, or an amiable temper, or a selfish prudence, can stand between him and any crime. This bondage may assume a great variety of forms, and be more or less inveterate and debasing, but in every form it is bondage, and more to be dreaded than that which is physical. We call it bondage, and it is so. It is an unnatural position, a degradation. Let the spiritual nature with its powers of comprehension abdicate its seat and work in subjection to the lower and blind nature of apperency and impulsion, and the broad wisdom appropriate to that nature degenerates into the cunning of the serpent. Intellectual power becomes a curse, and instead of holding his erect position and communing with the heavens, the man, that which is distinctively so, goes upon his belly and eats dust. In this bondage there is no trouble or sacrifice of self-denial, for the higher nature, in whose behalf alone self-denial is possible, is set aside. If we add to this the blindness and paralysis that come upon the spiritual powers when they are thus ignored and abused, the light that is within us becoming darkness, we shall not wonder that it is so seldom, if ever, that any one who has come under the power of this bondage breaks away from it of his own accord, or by his own strength. M. H. The desires are meant to be impelling powers. It is absurdity and the destruction of true manhood to make them, as we so often do, directing powers, and to put the reins into their hand. They are the wind, not the helm; the steam, not the driver. Let us keep things in their right places. Remember that the constitution of human nature, as God has meant it, is this: down there, under hatches, under control, the strong impulses; above them, the enlightened understanding: above that, the conscience—that has a loftier region than that of thought to move in, the moral region; and above that, the God, whose face, shining down upon the apex of the nature thus constituted, irradiates it with light which filters through all the darkness, down to the very base of the being; and sanctifies the animal, and subdues the impulses, and enlightens the understandings, and calms and quickens the conscience, and makes ductile and pliable the will, and fills the heart with fruition and tranquillity, and orders the life after the image of Him that created it. A. M. 4. The pride of his countenance.** Pride is the undermost and original vice of all. It is base because at its best it cannot but imply that the eyes look downward only and have never been raised above their own measure; for there is not a man so lofty in his standing or capacity but he must be humble in perceiving what infinity there is of things he cannot know, nor even reach unto, as it stands compared with that little body of things he can reach, and of which nevertheless he can altogether understand not one; not to speak of that wicked and fond attributing of such excellency as he may have to himself and thinking of it as his own getting, which is the real essence and criminality of pride; nor of those viler forms of it founded on false estimation of things beneath us and irrational contempt of them. Ruskin. Thoughts. The noun properly means schemes, devices, rather than thoughts. The whole of his conduct, all his purposes and plans are carried on as if there were no God—in a practical denial of His existence. P.—A personal God would disturb the ungodly in his doings; he therefore prefers to deny His existence, and thinks: there is only a fate, and that is blind; an absolute, and that has no eyes; an idea, and that cannot intervene in the affairs of men. D. Among a numerous and increasing class of the higher and middle ranks there is an inward withdrawing from the life and personal being of God, a turning of the thoughts exclusively to the so-called physical attributes, to the Omnipresence in the counterfeit form of Ubiquity, to the Immensity, the Infinity, the Immutability, the attributes of space, with a notion of Power as their substratum; a Fate, in short, not a Moral Creator and Governor! Let intelligence be imagined, and wherein does the conception of God differ essentially from that of gravitation (conceived as the cause of gravity) in the understanding of those who represent the Deity not only as a necessary, but as a necessitated being? those for whom Justice is but a scheme of general laws, and Holiness and the Divine hatred of sin, yea, and Sin itself, are words without meaning, or mere accommodations to a rude and barbarous race! S. T. C. What a wretched condition hath sin brought man unto, that the great God who "filleth heaven and earth" should yet have no place in the heart which He hath especially made for Himself! The sun is not so clear as this truth, that God is, for all things in the world are because God is. If He were not, nothing could be. It is from Him that wicked men have that strength they have to commit sin, therefore sin proceeds from atheism, especially these plotting sins; for if God were more thought on, He would take off the soul from sinful contrivings, and fix it upon Himself. Sibbes.—All their thought is, that there is no God. This is there made the bottom, the foundation, the groundwork and reason of all their wicked plots and injurious projects, and deceitful carriages and proceedings, that seeing there is no God or power above them to take notice of it, to regard or requite them, therefore they may be bold to go on. T. Goodwin. 5. The Chaldee paraphrase, the cognate dialects, and the analogy of Job 20: 21, are in favor of the rendering, his ways are strong, i.e., his fortunes are secure, his life is prosperous, which moreover agrees best with the remainder of the verse, as a description of the sinner's outward state. Thus understood, the second clause describes him as untouched or unaffected by God's providential judgments, and the third as easily ridding himself of all his human adversaries. Both together represent him as impregnable on all sides, in appearance equally beyond the reach of God and man. As this immunity from danger, strictly understood, could exist only in appearance, the whole verse may be regarded as an expression of the sinner's own opinion rather than his true condition. 6. He hath said in his heart, I shall not be moved; to generation and generation (I am one) who (shall) not (be) in evil, or in evil case, i.e., in trouble, in distress. This is a natural expression of the proud security engendered in the natural man by great prosperity. He hath said, implying that the cause has already been in operation long enough to show its natural effect. In his heart, to himself, in a spirit of self-gratulation and self-confidence. To age and age, throughout all ages or all generations. The strength of this expression shows that the speaker is not a real person, but the ideal type of a whole class. The sinner who thus says in his heart is not the sinner of one period or country, but the sinner of all times and places. The form of the last clause in Hebrew is peculiar and emphatic. He says, I shall never be in evil or adversity, as if the very supposition of such a contingency would be not only groundless but absurd in his case. There could scarcely be a stronger expression of the self-relying spirit of the sinner, as contrasted with the saints' implicit confidence in God's will and power, not only to preserve him from falling, but to raise him when he does fall. A. 6-9. He proudly sets trouble at defiance, and is confident of the continuance of his own prosperity. He had said in his heart, and pleased himself with the thought, I shall not be moved; my goods are laid up for many years, and I shall never be in adversity. Those are nearest ruin who thus set it furthest from them, v. 6. His mouth is full of cursing. Those he cannot do a real mischief to, yet he will spit his venom at, and breathe out the slaughter which he cannot execute. Thus have God's faithful worshippers been anathematized and cursed with hell, book, and candle. Where there is a heart full of malice, there is commonly a mouth full of curses. He is false and treacherous. He cares not what lies he tells, what oaths he breaks, nor what arts of dissimulation he uses to compass his ends, v. 7. His malice is against the innocent, who never provoked him; against the poor, who cannot resist, and over whom it will be no glory to triumph. Those are perfectly lost to all honesty and honor, against whose mischievous designs neither innocence nor poverty will be any man's security. Those that have power ought to protect the innocent and provide for the poor, vs. 8, 9. H. 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 artifice, to which the enemies of truth and righteousness will often resort in order to accomplish their corrupt and vicious designs. The great powers which have oppressed the Church of Christ in different ages have answered to this description. They have sat in ambush for the poor of Christ's flock; they have adopted every stratagem that infernal skill could invent; and all for the vain purpose of attempting to blot out a "name which shall endure forever, and which shall be continued as long as the sun." Morison. Consider the persecutions of the good; fires for the saints of all ages, dungeons for the friends of liberty and benefactors of their times. What does it mean? What face shall we put on this outstanding demonstration of the world? No other but this, that cursing and bitterness, the poison even of asps, and more, is entered into the heart of man. He hates with a diabolical hatred. Feeling "how awful goodness is," the sight of it rouses him to madness, and he will not stop till he has tasted blood. And what a being is this that can be stung with so great madness, by the spectacle of a good and holy life. The fiercest of animals are capable of no such devilish instigation; because they are too low to be capable of goodness, or even of the thought. But here is a creature who cannot bear the reminder, even of good, or of anything above the ruin where his desolated glory lies. Oh, how great is the nature which is capable of this dire frenzy! H. B. 11. He hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten, He hath hidden His face, He hath not seen,** doth not see, and will not see, forever. The opening words are the same, and have the same sense, as in v. 6 above. The three parallel clauses which follow all express the same idea—namely, that God takes no note of human offences. This is first expressed by the figure of forgetfulness; then by that of deliberately refusing to see; then by a literal and direct affirmation that He does not see, either the sufferings of His people or the malice of their enemies; and that this is not a transient or occasional neglect, but one likely to continue forever. A.—As God's 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. Charnock. 13. Wherefore doth the wicked contemn God, and say in his heart, Thou wilt not require it?** Insensibility to God's retributive providence leads to a denial of the same; and thence a denial of the truth of a future judgment; and thence a contempt of all human restraints and penalties, if by any act of power or lying they may be evaded. The whole of this Psalm is, in fact, an argument that not mere atheism, but a disbelief in future punishment, would break up all the foundations of social morality, and set men in a wild and savage freedom of "cursing and deceit and fraud." Take away the idea of a God, whose providence is personal, superintending and retributive, and you leave nothing for restraint but a present low expediency—nothing but self-interest in the present life, which, if there were no God, would be impossible to be demonstrated as on the side of virtue. Cheever. 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. Because justice delays punishment, they imagine she denies to punish them; because she does not always reprove them for their sins, they suppose He 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 ever-lasting. W. Secker. 14. Thou hast seen it.** An emphatic, energetic protest against the words immediately preceding, and also with a reference to the "He will never see" (v. 11), throwing back the word in the mouth of the wicked. There is a time coming, he feels assured, when all this disorder will be set right. God is not the passive spectator of human affairs which these men deem Him. He "considers" (i.e., regards with interest and sympathy) what is going on. The helpless, therefore, may leave all to God—and with the more confidence, because God has been the helper of those who, like the orphan, are deprived of human protectors. This appeal to past experience is always a ground of confidence. The road we are now travelling may be very dark; but let us look back, and on some spot which we have passed we shall see the light shining. P. "Thou beholdest mischief and spite, to requite it with Thy hand." God is all-eye to see, and all-hand to punish His enemies. From Divine oversight there is no hiding, and from Divine justice there is no fleeing. Wanton mischief shall meet with woful misery, and those who harbor spite shall inherit sorrow. Verily there is a God which judgeth in the earth. Nor is this the only instance of the presence of God in the world; for while He chastises the oppressor, He befriends the oppressed. S.—Let the persecuted encourage themselves with a well-grounded faith, not only that Thou hast seen it, but that Thou dost behold all the mischief that is done by the hands, and all the spite and malice that lurk in the hearts of these oppressors; it is all known to Thee, and observed by Thee; nay, not only Thou hast seen it, and dost behold it, but Thou wilt requite it, wilt recompense it into their bosoms, by Thy just and avenging hand. H. "Thou art the helper of the fatherless." God doth exercise a more special providence over men in 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; Hos. 14:3, "For in Thee the fatherless find mercy." 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. Charnock. 16. Jehovah (is) king!** He is not dethroned, as His enemies imagine; He is still king, and will so remain, perpetuity and eternity, forever and ever. Lost, perished, are nations, the heathen, i.e., hostile nations, from, out of His land, the Holy Land, the Land of Israel, the land of which He is the king in a peculiar sense, distinct from that of providential ruler. The Psalmist sees Jehovah still enthroned, not only as the sovereign of the world, but of His people. A. 16-18. The triumph of faith, which, knowing that Jehovah is King, already sees by anticipation His righteous judgment executed. The bold plunderers who have so long infested the land are already swept away, says the singer, so sure is he of the issue. The land, which is Jehovah's land, must "be purged of all evil-doers," as once of the Canaanites, who were driven out. Israel may be "mightily oppressed," as by Sisera of old; but God will hear his cry, and give strength to his trembling heart (v. 17), and so manifest His power that these tyrants who, with all their boasting, are but weak mortal men (v. 18), shall no longer oppress His people. P. 17. The desire of the meek.** Prayer is the offering up of our desires to God in the name of Christ, for such things as are agreeable to His will. It is an offering of our desires. Desires are the soul and life of prayer; words are but the body; now as the body without the soul is dead, so are prayers unless they are animated with our desires: "Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the humble." God heareth not words, but desires. T. Watson. Notice the logic of this verse. It is simple, forcible, accurate logic. It runs thus: "Thou hast," "Thou wilt." "Lord, Thou hast heard the desire of the meek: Thou wilt prepare their heart." And the same blessed logic is carried a step further; for you read, "Thou wilt," and then again, "Thou wilt": "Thou wilt prepare their heart, Thou wilt cause Thine ear to hear." Faith first of all concludes that God will bless because of former blessings, and then she is so sure of her conclusion that upon it she is prepared to build up a further confidence. She expects because she has experienced, and experiences already what she expects. Join these two sentences together in your minds: "Thou wilt prepare their heart: Thou wilt cause Thine ear to hear." S.—God first prepares the heart of His people, and then gives them an answer of peace; nor may we expect His gracious answer but in this way; so that God's working upon us is the best earnest of His working for us. He prepares the heart for prayer by kindling holy desires and strenghening our most holy faith, fixing the thoughts, and raising the affections, and then He graciously accepts the prayer; He prepares the heart for the mercy itself that is wanting and prayed for; makes us fit to receive it and use it well, and then gives it unto us. The preparation of the heart is from the Lord, and we must seek unto Him for it (Prov. 16:1). H. Faith is the very life of prayer, whence springs hope and comfort with it, to uphold the soul and keep it steady under storms with the promises: and, as Aaron and Hur to Moses, keeping it from fainting, strengthening the hands when they would begin to fail. Such is the force of this preparing of the heart, which God gives as an assurance and pledge of His inclining His ear to hear. It signifies the establishing of the heart, as that indeed is a main point of its preparedness for prayer. L. 18. The sense here is, that weak and short-lived man shall not continue to insult and defy Almighty God. It implies a wish or prayer, but is in form a strong expression of the Psalmist's confident assurance that it will be so, and in connection with the similar expressions of the two preceding verses, forms a worthy and appropriate close of the entire composition. A. 1. In the LORD put I my trust : How say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain ? 2 For, lo, the wicked bend the bow, They make ready their arrow upon the string, That they may shoot in darkness at the up- right in heart. 3 If the foundations be destroyed, What can the righteous do ? 4 The LORD is in his holy temple, The LORD, his throne is in heaven ; THE singer is in danger of his life ; and tim- orous, faint-hearted counsellors would fain per- suade him to seek safety in flight. But, full of unshaken faith in God, he rejects their counsel, believing that Jehovah, the righteous King, though He tries His servants, does not forsake them. Not the righteous, but the wicked have need to fear. The Psalm is so short and so general in its character that it is not easy to say to what circumstances in David's life it should be referred. P. 1-3. David rejects the counsel of his friends to save his life by flight. Hidden in Jehovah, he needs no other refuge. However well meant and well grounded the counsel is, he finds it too timid, and sees himself raised in God above the necessity of following it. D. 1. In Jehovah—under the shadow of His wings—have I found refuge ; I need no other refuge : how can ye say to me, etc. ; my feet are on the true rock, why should I look else- where for safety ? This is the full force of the expression. There is moreover a force in the perfect, "I have found." It is an exclamation of joyful confidence in the thought that he has such a refuge ; it is not yet to seek. The ad- vice here given, and which he repels, is that of timid and desponding friends, who would per- suade him that all is lost, and that the highest wisdom is to yield to circumstances, and to seek safety not in resistance, but in flight. But in fact the voice which thus speaks is the voice of the natural heart, of the selfish and therefore short-sighted and cowardly instinct, which al- ways asks first not what is right, but what is safe. The advice may be well meant, but it is unworthy. This is the victory that over- cometh the world, even our faith. But it is His eyes behold, his eyelids try, the children of men. 5. The LORD trieth [proveth] the righteous : But the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth. 6 Upon the wicked he shall rain snares ; Fire and brimstone and burning wind shall be the portion of their cup. 7 For the LORD is righteous ; he loveth right- eousness [righteous deeds] ; The upright shall behold his face. often a sorer trial for faith to have to withstand the pleadings of well-meaning friends than to arm itself against open enemies. 3. A further reason for the adoption of a timid policy. All is in hopeless disorder and confusion. The foundations, or "pillars," are the principles of law and order which were now subverted. P.—The pillars or founda- tions are those of social order or society itself. These are said to be destroyed, when truth and righteousness prevail no longer, but the inter- course of men is governed by mere selfishness. The question in the last clause implies that the righteous has effected nothing, in opposition to the prevalent iniquity. The past tense repre- sents this as a matter of actual experience, but as one which still continues. The true relation of the tenses is correctly given in the Prayer- Book version. For the foundations will be cast down, and what hath the righteous done ? A. True foundations : God is God, before all things preordaining, revolving within Himself and all things else, as He pleases, the great foundation given to Moses in the bush—"I am !" This good God has given us a revela- tion. We can prove it by every evidence : the external evidence—prophecy ; the internal evi- dence—the harmony ; the experimental evidence —what it has been to many, and what it is to me. In the revelation there is shown a way— the only way—by which a just God can forgive a sinner. He has found and accepted a Substi- tute who outweighs the whole world—His own Son. To communicate this thought and to give this faith, there is a Holy Ghost, Him- self also God ; and He being spirit, works in the spirit of a man, and creates in his heart trust and love toward Jesus Christ. As soon as by that Spirit a man really trusts, as a sinner, in Christ, he is united to Christ. God sees him in Christ, and in Christ God sees him righteous. By the same union, and through the operation of the Holy Ghost, that man, now a living member in Christ, has a motive sufficient to change his whole life and to make him do all good works. God, inspiration, Christ, the Holy Ghost, faith, good works—these are the foundations. There is nothing in the world so sure as a believer's foundation. As the whirlwind passeth, so is the wicked no more, but the righteous is an everlasting foundation. J. V. 4-7. The answer of faith, the glance directed from earth to heaven, the full trust in the righteous and all-seeing Lord, the confidence that whatever the apparent confusion and disorder of the lower world, there is an eye that sees and a hand that directs all, that even the suffering of the righteous is part of a Divine purpose of love. P.—The discourse of the counsellors who are afraid for David is now ended. He justifies the confidence in God with which he began his hymn. Above all that takes place upon earth, and disheartens those who are of little faith, Jehovah is enthroned. Above the earth are the heavens, and in heaven stands the throne of Jehovah, the King of kings. And this heavenly temple, this heavenly palace, is the place whence comes the ultimate decision of all earthly things. Men, righteous and unrighteous, lie open to the eyes of Jehovah, which see through everything, and to His glances, which search everything through and through. He tries the righteous, i.e., seeing into the depths of his soul, He recognizes that his inmost nature is righteous and able to stand the test, and therefore He lovingly protects him, just as the righteous lovingly adheres to Him. The wicked, however, and him that loves the violence done by the stronger to those who are weaker, His soul hates, i.e., He hates him with all the energy of His holy nature. The more intense this hatred is, so much the more fearful will be the judgments in which it discharges itself. D. 4. The Psalmist, saddened by the breaking down of those supports on which he had relied, turns as by instinct to the sublime and consoling truth that God is in His holy temple, Jehovah's throne is in heaven, His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men. There He reigns in absolute life, with unwasting powers. The eternal mountains may disappear; the firmest human works may vanish, like a dream of the night, but His throne is settled forever in heaven. Solitary, helpless as I am, I may turn to Him, whose love is as undecaying as His throne; who has made me in His own image, and therefore cannot despise my prayer; who reigns for the very purpose of doing good; from whom life and happiness flow in ceaseless currents. His Church on earth, when beset with enemies and obstacles apparently invincible, is awakened by that very experience to look to Him whose eyes behold her with inexpressible complacency, whose providence in its ample range comprehends the evil as well as the good, and with the same ease abates the one and prospers the other. B. B. E. The Lord has not only His residence, but His throne, in heaven, and He has set the dominion thereof in the earth (Job 38: 33); for, having prepared His throne in the heavens, His kingdom ruleth over all (103: 19). Hence the heavens are said to rule (Dan. 4: 26). Let us by faith see God on His throne; on His throne of glory, infinitely transcending the splendor and majesty of earthly princes; on His throne of government, giving law, giving motion, and giving aim, to all the creatures; on His throne of judgment, rendering to every man according to his works; and on His throne of grace, to which His people may come boldly for mercy and grace; we shall then see no reason to be discouraged by the pride and power of oppressors, or any of the afflictions that attend the righteous. H.—Though justice, faith, and truth may seem to have fled from the earth, Jehovah will never suffer the boundaries which separate right from wrong to be effaced. He continues holy and unchangeable on His heavenly throne, and is able in a moment to reverse the most desperate condition of His servants. Anon. His eyes behold, His eyelids try, the children of men; He not only sees them, but He sees through them; not only knows all they say and do, but knows what they think, what they design, and how they really stand affected, whatever they pretend. We may know what men seem to be, but He knows what they are, as the refiner knows what the value of the gold is when he has tried it. God is said to try with His eyes, and His eyelids, because He knows men, not as earthly princes know men, by report and representation, but by His own strict inspection, which cannot err or be imposed upon. This may comfort us when we are deceived in men, even in men that we think we have tried, that God's judgment of men, we are sure, is according to truth. H.—Of one thing we may be certain: the infinitely holy and omniscient Judge takes cognizance of what passes in human minds. He cannot look with indifference on the thoughts, imaginations, wishes, purposes, choices and habits of our souls. Slightly as we regard them, each has its moral estimate in God's account. And this gives a serious importance to inward things, which, if duly pondered, might modify our whole view of life. J. W. A.—God sees each man as perfectly as if there were no other creature in the universe. He sees us always; He sees us entirely, reading the recesses of the soul as readily as the glances of the eye. Is not this a sufficient ground of confidence, and an abundant answer to the solicitations of despondency? S. 5. Jehovah the righteous will prove, will prove the righteous, and the wicked and the lover of violence his soul hates. The sentence might also be divided thus: Jehovah will prove the righteous and the wicked, and the lover of violence his soul hates. A.—Trieth. The same verb as in the previous verse, but used here in a more definite sense, with reference to the result of the trial, puts them into the furnace (the word is used of the testing of metals), that they may come forth as pure gold. P.—The Lord tries all the children of men that He may do them justice; but He tries the righteous that He may do them good in their latter end (Deut. 8:16). H.—They are precious to Him, and therefore He refines them with afflictions. None of the Lord's children may hope to escape from trial, nor, indeed, in our right minds, would any of us desire to do so, for trial is the channel of many blessings. S. 6. The figures in this verse are borrowed from the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. David, who has just said that Jehovah abhors the wicked, thus places himself, as it were, on the Lord's side. Ewald reads "coals of fire," and arranges the clauses as follows: "On the wicked he raineth coals of fire and brimstone; A burning wind is the portion of their cup." The first line gives, as he says, the image of a fiery rain from heaven, as in the overthrow from Sodom; the second, that of a poisonous Simoom, drunk in, as it were, from an envenomed cup. P. Figures of speech these are, indeed, but figures of most fearful import! Their application to the wicked in the future world is not in the least softened and toned down by saying that these are only the judgments which God sends on wicked nations and cruel oppressors in the present world. For if, despite of the necessary imperfections and the manifold limitations of judgment upon men in this world, such figures come from the lips of God to express it, what will be the unmitigated, the perfect retribution of the eternal world? What figures will ever be found adequate to measure that shoreless ocean of the sinner's woe? H. C. Because I believe in a God of absolute and unbounded love, therefore I believe in a loving anger of His which will and must devour and destroy all which is decayed, monstrous, abortive in His universe, till all enemies shall be put under His feet, and God shall be all in all. C. Kingsley.—Place a God of love on a throne, and He becomes, He must become, a God of justice; His love compels Him to arm His right hand with vengeance, and to make the workers of iniquity feel its stroke. A governor who would treat alike vice and virtue could not reign long over one petty kingdom of the earth, could not rule a single parish of our own kingdom, no, nor a single house; how much less this huge world, a mighty universe, a crowded earth and an almost boundless heaven! C. Bradley. The threatenings and rebukes, the acts of retributive judgment, which are contained in the revelation of God, are no limitation nor disturbance of the clear and happy faith that all which we behold is full of blessing, and that all comes from the Father's hand. They are the garb in which the Love needs to array itself when it comes in contact with man's sin and man's evil. The love of God appears no less when it teaches us in grave sad tones that "the wages of sin is death," than when it proclaims that "the gift of God is eternal life." Love threatens that it may never have to execute its threats. Love warns that we may be wise in time. Love prophesies that its sad forebodings may not be fulfilled. And love smites with lighter strokes of premonitory chastisements, that we may never need or feel "the whips of scorpions." A. M. The justice which inflicts punishment is only benevolence in another form. And this it is that makes the infliction intolerable. How much more terrible to the wayward child are the blows inflicted by a weeping, affectionate father, than if received from an enemy! God is that affectionate Father; and He punishes only because He loves the universe more than the individual; and He has exhausted the stores of infinite mercy in vain to save him. Wicked men sometimes tell us that they are not afraid to trust themselves in the hands of infinite benevolence; whereas it is eminently this quality of the Divine character which, above all others, they have reason to fear. For if, even in this world of probation and hope, God finds it necessary to mingle so much severity with goodness, what but a cup of unmixed bitterness shall be put into his hands who goes into eternity unrenewed and unpardoned, and finds that even infinite benevolence has become his eternal enemy! E. Hitchcock. 7. The concluding verse grounds the different bearing of God toward the righteous and the unrighteous, and the dismal fate of the latter, upon God's righteousness. Just as Jehovah Himself is righteous, so also both on His own part and on the part of man He loves deeds of righteousness. D. The upright shall behold His face. Not only does David make Jehovah his refuge in calamity, but he can rejoice in the thought that he shall behold the face of God—behold now the light of His countenance even in the midst of gloom and darkness. Did his hope reach beyond this, and are we to suppose that here he looks forward to seeing God in the resurrection? We cannot tell. To us, however, his words may be the expression of a "hope full of immortality." P.—To enjoy this vision of God, this vision which is softened by love, is the highest honor which God in His grace can bestow upon a man; it is the very blessedness reserved for the upright (140: 13). It cannot be said that what is meant is a vision of God beyond the grave, but just as little can it be said that it is exclusively a vision on this side of it. To the Old Testament consciousness the future undoubtedly loses itself in the night of Sheol. Faith, however, broke through this night and trusted in a future intuition of God (Job 19: 26). The New Testament redemption has realized this postulate of faith, inasmuch as the Redeemer, having broken through the night of the realm of the dead, has led up the saints of the Old Testament along with Himself, and has translated them into the sphere of the Divine love that is clearly revealed in heaven. D. All the attributes ascribed to God—such as truthfulness, righteousness, omnipotence, omomniscience, holiness—are essential elements of the highest and most perfect personality. Only a personal God can be thought of as a God of love, and as a good and holy God. He would not be God were He not personal. But we do not merely think of God. In worship and love we exalt ourselves to Him; we pray to Him, we yield our whole being to Him, and in doing so we feel ourselves blessed. The relation of man to God is a personal one, and is experienced as such. We can worship, revere and love only a personal God, not the abstract ghost of the Absolute or of any unalterable Substance. Only the highest personal Being is worthy of the greatest affection; only He can claim to be supreme and holy; only a personal God can we trust; only to a personal God, whose love and goodness we can understand, can we yield ourselves, and only when we commit ourselves to such a Being can we be exalted, comforted, and blessed. This is the decisive point; all religious faith finds satisfaction only in the idea of a personal God. All Divine worship and reverence, all religion and all religious exaltation stand or fall with faith in a personal God. This faith is the essence of all religion, particularly of the Christian religion, which teaches us to apprehend God as a loving Father. Faith in a personal God is not in antagonism with experimental knowledge, but supplements it and completes our view of the universe and of life. Faith in a personal God is the vital element in all culture and progress, for all culture and progress ultimately spring from a healthy conception and realization of the eternal destiny of man, which destiny reveals the infinite value of life and gives to life its consecration and exaltation. Sommer. God is the only happiness of a rational and immortal soul. The soul that was made for God can find no happiness but in God; it came from God, and can never be happy but by returning to Him again and resting in Him. With Him for your portion, you have all: you have infinite wisdom to direct you, infinite knowledge to teach you, infinite mercy to pity and save you, infinite love to care for and comfort you, and infinite power to protect and keep you. J. Mason. 1. HELP, LORD; for the godly man ceaseth; For the faithful fail from among the children of men. 2 They speak vanity every one with his neigh- bour: With flattering lip, and with a double heart, do they speak. 3 The LORD shall cut off all flattering lips. The tongue that speaketh great things: 4 Who have said, With our tongue will we pre- vail; Our lips are our own: who is lord over us? THE Psalmist is evidently smarting from the falseness and hypocrisy of the time. The de- fection which he deplores is a national defec- tion. Like Elijah in the deserts, he feels him- self alone. "There is not one godly man left: the true-hearted are cut off." A taint has spread through society (to use the modern ex- pression, for which the Hebrew poet says, "this generation"). Falsehood is everywhere, truth nowhere. The heart of men is double: their lips are flattering lips (v. 3). And while they utter slander, hypocrisy, and lies, they boast of their power; and not only give their tongues license, but justify the license: "Our lips are our own; who is lord over us?" Now this utter hollowness and insincerity are very hard to bear. The few who, in the midst of the general corruption, still retain their integ- rity are persecuted, and sigh for deliverance. This deliverance is promised them in the form of a Divine interposition. The singer, filled with the spirit of prophecy, consoles himself, and those afflicted like himself, not in his own words, but in the words of God (v. 6). And then, remembering how pure those words are, how unalterably true—not like the words of men which seem so fair, but are so false—he feels that there he can rest, calm in the convic- tion that, though the wicked walk on every side, Jehovah will save them that love Him from all their machinations (v. 8). Both the circumstances of the Psalmist and his prayer are very similar to what we find in the two im- mediately preceding Psalms. In Psalm 11 his belief as to the overthrow of the wicked is based upon God's character as a righteous God. In this Psalm it rests apparently upon a special 5. For the spoiling of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, Now will I arise, saith the LORD; I will set him in safety at whom they puff. 6 The words of the LORD are pure words, As silver tried in a furnace on the earth, Purified seven times. 7 Thou shalt keep them, O LORD, Thou shalt preserve them from this genera- tion forever. 8 The wicked walk on every side, When vileness is exalted among the sons of men. promise, but in fact upon God's Word. But God's Word teaches us what God's character is. The difference therefore is formal, not real. P. 1. The whole verse is a strong hyperbolical description of the small number of good men left in the community, and their consequent exposure to the malice of the wicked. Such expressions, as Luther well suggests, are too familiar in the dialect of common life to be mis- taken or produce perplexity. A. Ask the children of this world what it is, in their account, that makes the times bad; they will tell you, Scarcity of money, decay of trade, and the desolations of war make the times bad; but the Scripture lays the badness of the times upon causes of another nature. When there is a general decay of piety and honesty among men, the times are then truly bad. When the godly man ceases, and the faithful fail. Observe how these two characters are here put together, the godly and the faithful. As there is no true policy, so there is no true piety, with- out honesty. Godly men are faithful men, fast men, so they have sometimes been called; their word is as confirming as their oath, as binding as their bond; they make conscience of being true both to God and man. They are here said to cease and fail, either by death, or by deser- tion, or by both. H. The godly man. That only is godliness which reveres and honors God in a way suited to that high and incommunicable character. Genuine piety expresseth itself thus: "Whom have I in heaven but Thee, O Lord? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee." We are not godly, whatever we profess or seem, if in our most deliberate and affectionate choice we do not prefer the one true God and the enjoyment of His favor to all that can be found throughout the wide extent of His works; if we make not His will the measure of ours, His law the sovereign guide of our conduct, and His glory the ultimate end of our obedience. R. Walker. 2. Vanity, i.e., falsehood, they will speak; as they now do, so will they persist in doing; (each) man with his neighbor, not merely with another man, but with his friend, his brother, toward whom he was particularly bound to act sincerely. A.—They speak with a double heart. The original is, “A heart and a heart;” one for the Church, another for the change; one for Sundays, another for working days. A man without a heart is a wonder, but a man with two hearts is a monster. T. Adams. 2-4. A “double heart” in the strong idiom of the Hebrew is “a heart and a heart”—one to hide and live by; another to show to the world and not to live by. But the Lord cannot be deceived by such men. He utterly abhors their double heart, and will cut them off for their sins. Expressively said, he will cut off those treacherous lips—that proud, lying tongue! Their spirit is further described as virtually saying, “With our tongue we are mighty;” like heroes we say what we please; who shall dare dictate to us? Wonderfully true to human nature! C. A guileful heart makes guileful tongue and lips. It is the workhouse where is the forge of deceits and slanders and other evil speakings; and the tongue is only the outer shop where they are vended, and the lips the door of it; so then such ware as is made within, such and no other can be set out. From evil thoughts, evil speakings; from a profane heart, profane words; and from a malicious heart, bitter or calumnious words; and from a deceitful heart, guileful words, well varnished but lined with rottenness. And so in the general, from the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh, as our Saviour teaches. That which the heart is full of runs over by the tongue. If the heart be full of God the tongue will delight to speak of Him; much of heavenly things within will breathe forth something of their sweetness by the mouth; and if nothing but earth is there, all that man’s discourse will be vain and purposeless. Leighton. Consider our markets, our fairs, our private contracts and bargains, our shops, our cellars, our weights, our measures, our promises, our protestations, our politic tricks and villainous Machiavelsm, our enhancing of the prices of all commodities, and tell, whether the twelfth Psalm may not as fitly be applied to our times as to the days of the man of God. R. Wolcombe. 5. For the spoiling of the poor. Fear ye, whosoever ye be, that do wrong the poor; you have power and wealth and the favor of the judges, but they have the strongest weapons of all, sighings and groanings, which fetch help from heaven for them. These weapons dig down houses, throw up foundations, overthrow whole nations. Chrysostom.—The sighing of the needy. A desire is a small matter, especially of the poor man, yet God regards the desire of the poor, and calls a good desire the greatest kindness; “The desire of a man is his kindness.” A tear makes no great noise, yet hath a voice, “God hath heard the voice of my weeping.” A groan is a poor thing, yet is the best part of a prayer sometimes; a sigh is less, yet God is awakened and raised up by it. J. Sheffield. 6. The sayings of Jehovah are pure sayings, silver purged in a furnace of earth, refined seven times. The Psalmist does not use the term commonly translated words, but one derived from the verb to say, with obvious allusion to the use of the verb itself in the preceding verse. What Jehovah there says, the promises there given, are here declared to be true without any mixture of mistake or falsehood. This is expressed by the favorite figure of pure metallic ore. The idea of extreme or perfect purity is conveyed by the idiomatic phrase, purified seven times, i.e., repeatedly, or sevenfold, i.e., completely. A.—God’s Word is pure silver that has flown off and left all dross behind it, silver that has, as it were, passed seven times through the furnace, and is therefore altogether free of alloy and very precious. Silver is an emblem of everything that is precious and pure, and seven is the number of the completed process. D.—The expression may import two things: first, the infallible certainty of the word; as gold endureth in the fire when the dross is consumed. Vain conceits comfort us not in a time of trouble; but the word of God, the more it is tried, the more you will find the excellency of it—the promise is tried as well as we are tried in deep afflictions; but, when it is so, it will be found to be most pure; as pure gold suffers no loss by the fire, so the promises suffer no loss when they are tried, but stand to us in our greatest troubles. Secondly, it notes the exact perfection of the word: there is no dross in silver and gold that hath been often refined, so there is no defect in the Word of God. Manton. The poet dwells on the purity and perfect truth of God's promises, not only as opposed to all lying lips of men, but also that he may thus more deeply print upon the heart of the afflicted the certain fulfilment of the promise. This emphatic assertion was rendered necessary by the widespread and apparently long-prevailing corruption. For those who were weak in faith might begin to doubt whether the truth of God itself had not failed. P. Truth is the most glorious thing; the least filing of this gold is precious. Truth is ancient; its gray hairs make it venerable; it comes from Him who is the Ancient of Days. Truth is unerring; it is the star which leads to Christ. Truth is pure; it is compared to silver refined seven times. There is not the least spot on truth's face: it breathes nothing but sanctity. Truth is triumphant; it is like a great conqueror; when all its enemies lie dead it keeps the field, and sets up its trophies of victory. "The heavens being on fire shall be dissolved," but not that truth which came from heaven. T. Watson.—God suffers desperate opinions to be vented for the purging of His own truth. The truth of God is compared to "silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." Every corrupt opinion that comes to be vented against any truth of God is a new furnace, it comes out the purer for it. Arrowsmith. The Bible has passed through the furnace of persecution, literary criticism, philosophic doubt, and scientific discovery, and has lost nothing but those human interpretations which clung to it as alloy to precious ore. The experience of saints has tried it in every conceivable manner, but not a single doctrine or promise has been consumed in the most excessive heat. S.—No truth is established till it has been denied and has survived. Antagonism to the Word of God should have, and will have, to those who use it rightly, a blessing in its train, in bringing out yet more of the preciousness and manifoldness, the all-sufficiency and the universality of the Book. "The more 'tis shook, the more it shines." The fiercer the blast, the firmer our confidence in the inexpugnable solidity of that tower of strength that stands four square to every wind that blows. A. M. The Scriptures carry in themselves independent and convincing evidence of the truth, validity, and sufficiency of all the narratives, doctories, promises, and threatenings they contain. Truth is its own witness, and exacts our assent. I recognize the handwriting of a friend without needing to be told who has written to me. We want not the stars, much less a torch, to show us the sun; it is only the blind that cannot see. Bengel. Tested by the chances of any mere human conflict, of any philosophic or literary strife, the Bible would ages ago have vanished from the field and been consigned to oblivion; but here it is yet, the mightiest element in human thought, and challenging to the conflict the mightiest of human antagonisms. How it rises up, ever higher and stronger, against every fresh assault! every new phase of unbelief, when it is really new, only calling out some before unknown aspect of power in this exhaustless defence. But it is not enough to say that the Bible has kept its ground in the world; it has ever been extending itself, not only into new territory, but into new fields of thought. Philosophy assumes to be independent of it, but finds, in the end, that it must go the way of all human speculations, or fortify itself by ideas that can never more belong to human thinking should this book be discarded from the world. So science, too, often "seems first in its own cause, until revelation cometh and searcheth it." Some startling discovery has raised the hopes of unbelief, but soon this more ancient power in the world, this power of the unseen and the eternal, rides over the sense difficulty, or shows it to belong to a lower plane of knowledge with which the diviner truth can have no actual or imagined collision. Every other assumed revelation has been addressed to but one phase of humanity. They have been adapted to one age, to one people, or one peculiar style of human thought. Their books have never assumed a cosmical character, or been capable of any catholic expansion. They could never be "accommodated" to other ages, or acclimated to other parts of the world. They are indigenous plants, that can never grow out of the zone that gave them birth. Zoroaster never made a disciple beyond Persia or its immediate neighborhood; Confucius is wholly Chinese as Socrates is wholly Greek. T. Lewis. The Bible has passed triumphantly through the ordeal of verbal criticism. English infidels of the last century raised a premature paan over the discovery and publication of so many various readings. They imagined that the popular mind would be rudely and thoroughly shaken, that Christianity would be placed in imminent peril of extinction, and that the Church would be dispersed, and ashamed at the sight of its magna charta. But the result has blasted all their hopes, and the oracles of God are found to be preserved in immaculate integrity. The storm which shakes the oak only loosens the earth around its roots, and its violence enables the tree to strike its roots deeper in the soil. So it is that Scripture has gloriously surmounted every trial. These gather round the Bible a dense "cloud of witnesses," from the ruins of Nineveh and the valley of the Nile; from the slabs and bas-reliefs of Sennacherib, and tombs and monuments of Pharaoh; from rolls of Chaldee paraphrast, and Syrian versionists; from the cells of monastic scribes, and the dry and dusty labors of scholars and antiquarians. Our present Bibles are undiluted by the lapse of ages. Her oracles written amid such strange diversity of time, place and condition—among the sands and cliffs of Arabia, the fields and hills of Palestine—in the palaces of Babylon, and in the dungeons of Rome—have come to us in such unimpaired fulness and accuracy, that we are placed as advantageously toward them as the generation which hung on the lips of Jesus as He recited a parable on the shores of the Galilean lake, or as those churches which received from Paul or Peter one of their epistles of warning exposition. Yes; the river of life, which issues out from beneath the throne of God and the Lamb, may, as it flows through so many countries, sometimes bear with it the earthly evidences of its conquests; but the great volume of its waters has neither been diminished nor dimmed in its transparency, nor bereft of its healing virtue. North British Review. 1. How long, O LORD, wilt thou forget me for ever? How long wilt thou hide thy face from me? 2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? 3 Consider and answer me, O LORD my God: Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death; In this Psalm we see a servant of God long and sorely tried by the persecutions of unrelenting enemies, and, as it seems to himself, forgotten and forsaken of God, pouring out the agony of his soul in prayer. It is a long and weary struggle; it is a daily and hourly martyrdom; and, wrestling with his despair, he can but cry (like the souls under the altar, Rev. 6: 10), How long? And then calmer words of prayer rise to his lips (vs. 3, 4). And at last faith asserts her perfect victory (v. 5). The rapid transition of feeling, from a depth of misery bordering on despair to hope, and even joy, is very remarkable. P. David probably passed through experiences of this sort more than once. They are not unusual in the life-history of God's people. It is well therefore that such a Psalm should have a 4. Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; Lest mine adversaries rejoice when I am moved. 5 But I have trusted in thy mercy: My heart shall rejoice in thy salvation: 6 I will sing unto the LORD, Because he hath dealt bountifully with me. place in the devotional songs of Zion, evermore impressing the precious truth that God's trustful children will surely come forth from every affliction, however sore, with a song of praise; that God will not forget them forever; that, having put their faith to stern trial, He will make this very trial yield the fruit of a purer and stronger faith, a richer joy in God, and a firmer footing upon His promises. C. 1,2. The refusal or delay of the Divine help is here, as often elsewhere, represented by the figures of forgetfulness and an averted countenance. To the eye of sense and reason, the abandonment seemed final; but faith still prompted the inquiry, how long, which implies that it was not to last forever. A.—This is a state in which Hope despairs, and yet Despair hopes at the same time; and all that lives is "the groaning that cannot be uttered," wherewith the Holy Spirit maketh intercession for us, brooding over the waters shrouded in darkness, to use the expression in Gen. 1. This no one understands who has not tasted it. Luther.—The self-contradiction of the question is to be explained by the conflict between the spirit and the flesh that is raging within. The desponding heart thinks, God has forgotten me forever; but the spirit repels this thought and turns it into a question, which marks this forsaking as being only apparent: how long shall it seem that Thou forgettest me forever? Four times does David raise this cry of faith from the very depths of his spirit. D. The intenseness of the affliction renders it trying to our fortitude; but it is by the continuance of it that patience is put to the test. It is not under the sharpest, but the longest trials, that we are most in danger of fainting. In the first case, the soul collects all its strength, and feels in earnest to call in help from above; but, in the last, the mind relaxes, and sinks into despondency. A. Fuller.—And what if there be some impatience mingled therewith; is not this the more true a portrait of our own experience? It is not easy to prevent desire from degenerating into impatience. O for grace, that while we wait on God we may be kept from indulging a murmuring spirit! S. 3. Look, hear me, Jehovah, my God, lighten my eyes, lest I sleep the death.** The complaint is now followed by a corresponding prayer. In allusion to the hiding of the face in v. 1, he now beseeches God to look toward him or upon him, to show by His acts that He has not lost sight of him. As he before complained of God's forgetting him, so here he prays that He will hear and answer him. The idea of Jehovah as a God in covenant with His people is brought out still more fully by the phrase my God, i.e., one on whom I have a right to call, with a well-founded hope of being heard. Enlighten my eyes, or make them shine, is by some understood to mean, dispel my doubts and extricate me out of my perplexities. Others with more probability suppose an allusion to the dimness of the eyes produced by extreme weakness or approaching death, and understand the prayer as one for restoration and deliverance from imminent destruction. Compare 1 Sam. 14: 27, 29, where the relief of Jonathan's debility occasioned by long fasting is described by saying that his eyes were enlightened. Lest I sleep (in) death, or lest I sleep the (sleep of) death, as in the common version. Compare the beautiful description of death as a sleep of perpetuity, a perpetual or everlasting sleep, in Jer. 51: 39, 57. A. The illuminating light is the loving light of the Divine countenance. Light, love, life and their opposites, darkness, wrath, death, are ideas closely linked together in Scripture. He whom God looks upon in love continues to live; new vital powers permeate him; he does not have to sleep death, i.e., the sleep of death. For such a light of life he prays. D. The sleep of death. It is not the enemy death which seizes a believer, but the shadow, or emblem of it, sleep. Weary soul, tired out with the burden of sin, corruptions, afflictions, accusations, temptations—is sleep an enemy to you? Are you afraid of rest? What! fear to fall asleep in Jesus, to awake in His presence, to be satisfied with perfect likeness to Him, and eternally to enjoy Him! W. Mason.—If you would awake satisfied in the perfected likeness of Christ, and with the closest, most endearing fellowship with Christ; if, shining in the light of the Lamb, you would join the saintly hosts in their new rapt song of grateful love, and if, to crown and complete this blessed experience, you would have your spirit pervaded with the assured conviction that this holy character, this Divine fellowship, this unutterable joy will be unchangeably, forever yours, then hold steadfastly on in trustful, full-hearted consecration to your Saviour King! B. 5,6. The five lines of lamentation and the four of supplication are now followed by four of joyous anticipation. In the stormily agitated soul of the suppliant all has now become calm. Although the storm may still continue to rage without, there is peace in the depths of his heart. D.—How often do we find the holy prophet when he first kneels down to pray full of fears and doubts, who, before he and the duty part, grows into a sweet familiarity with God and repose in his own spirit! He begins his prayer as if he thought God would never give him a kind look more: "How long wilt Thou forget me, O Lord? forever?" But by the time he had exercised himself a little in duty his distemper wears off, the mists scatter and his faith breaks out as the sun in its strength: "I have trusted in Thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in Thy salvation. I will sing unto the Lord." Gurnall. In the beginning of the Psalm we have him drooping, trembling, and ready to sink into melancholy and despair; but in the close of it, rejoicing in God, and elevated and enlarged in his praises. See the power of faith, the power of prayer, and how good it is to draw near to God. If we bring our cares and griefs to the throne of grace and leave them there, we may go away like Hannah, and our countenance will be no more sad (1 Sam. 1 : 18). And still I do trust in Thy mercy; so some read it. "I refer myself to that, with an assurance that it will do well for me at last." This he pleads with God, knowing what pleasure he takes in those that hope in His mercy (147 : 11). H.—It was mercy that first washed us in that precious blood; it was mercy that put that glorious robe around us; and having done so much for us, mercy will not now forsake us. It is mercy's voice that will pronounce us blessed; mercy's hand that will open heaven to us; and mercy's power and riches that will make us happy in it. Hence the heirs of heaven are called by an apostle "vessels of mercy prepared unto glory;" and another apostle calls the very glory they look for, mercy. It is "the mercy," he says, "of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life;" mercy that becomes at last salvation, mercy laying aside the form of earthly grace and consolation, and shining forth in the splendor of heavenly joy. C. Bradley. His faith in God's mercy filled his heart with joy in his salvation; for joy and peace come by believing. Believing, ye rejoice (1 Pet. 1 : 8). Having put his trust in the mercy of God, he is fully assured of salvation, and that his heart, which was now daily grieving, should rejoice in that salvation. Though weeping endure long, joy will return. H.—Rejoice that ye have passed from death to life, and that there is now no condemnation for them who are in Christ Jesus. Rejoice that you are also advanced to the dearest and most intimate relation to all the Persons of the ever-blessed Godhead. By your new birth ye are become the sons of God, members of Christ, and temples for the Holy Ghost. Rejoice that God hath made with you an everlasting covenant, well ordered in all things and sure. He hath given you a variety of exceeding great and precious promises, so that there can be no possible exigence in your situation, in which you may not find a suitable and abunabundant relief, in these gracious assurances of a faithful God. Rejoice that the life which is begun in you is an immortal principle that can never be extinguished. Ye are born again by the Spirit of God; and ye are kept by His mighty power through faith unto salvation. And rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. "Fear not, little flock," said the blessed Jesus, "for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Erelong your trials and sufferings shall come to an end, and your light afflictions, which are but for a moment, shall be followed by an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. R. Walker. 6. His joy in God's salvation would fill his mouth with songs of praise; "I will sing unto the Lord, sing in remembrance of what He has done formerly. I will sing in hope of what He will do for me at last; being confident that all will end well, will end everlastingly well. But he speaks of it as a thing past; He has dealt bountifully with me; because by faith he had received the earnest of the salvation, and he was as confident of it as if it had been done already. H.—Faith keeps the soul from sinking under heavy trials, by bringing in former experiences of the power, mercy, and faithfulness of God to the afflicted soul. Hereby was the Psalmist supported in distress. Oh, saith faith, remember what God hath done both for thy outward and inward man; He hath not only delivered thy body when in trouble, but He hath done great things for thy soul; He hath brought thee out of a state of black nature, entered into a covenant relation with thee, made His goodness pass before thee; He hath helped thee to pray, and many times hath heard thy prayers and thy tears. Willison. The Psalm closes with a sentence which is a refutation of the charge of forgetfulness which David had uttered in the first verse, "He hath dealt bountifully with me." So shall it be with us if we wait awhile. The complaint which in our haste we utter shall be joyfully retracted, and we shall witness that the Lord hath dealt bountifully with us. S. 1. THE fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works; There is none that doeth good. 2 The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there were any that did understand, That did seek after God. 3 They are all gone aside; they are together become filthy; There is none that doeth good, no, not one. 4 Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? THERE seems to be no reference to any particular historical occasion. The Psalm was, no doubt, originally written to express the feelings of God's people, in all times and places, with respect to the original depravity of all men and the obstinate persistency in evil of the greater number. A.—The singer, keenly alive to the evils of his time, sees everything in the blackest colors. The apostasy is so widespread that all are involved in it, except the small remnant (implied in v. 4); and the world seems again ripe for judgment as in the days of Noah (v. 2). Both in this Psalm and in Psalm 12 the complaint is made that the wicked oppress and devour the righteous. In both corruption has risen to its most gigantic height; but here the doings of bad men, there their words, form the chief subject of complaint. In form the ode is dramatic, or quasi-dramatic. A great tragedy is enacting before the eyes of the poet. Sin is lifting itself up in Titanic madness against God, and God looks down upon its doings as once upon the builders of Babel. He sees utter apostasy (v. 3); He speaks from heaven (v. 4), and the evil-doers are confounded at the word of His mouth (v. 5). "It would scarcely be possible," says Ewald, "for a great truth to be sketched in fewer or more striking outlines." There is nothing in the Psalm which can lead us to fix its date or authorship precisely. The feeling is common enough at all times in men of earnest mind. Filled with a holy jealousy for God, no age seems to them so corrupt as their own, because they are engaged in perpetual and, as they are apt to think, Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And call not upon the LORD. 5 There were they in great fear: For God is in the generation of the righteous. 6 Ye put to shame the counsel of the poor, Because the LORD is his refuge. 7 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When the LORD bringeth back the captivity of his people, Then shall Jacob rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. hopeless encounter with its evils. Indeed, despair would be the result, did not the promise of the future lift them above the present (v. 7). P. There is a peculiar mark put upon this Psalm, in that it is twice in the Book of Psalms. The fourteenth Psalm and the fifty-third Psalm are the same, with the alteration of one or two expressions at most. And there is another mark put upon it, that the apostle transcribes a great part of it. Owen. 1. Fool. The language of the Old Testament is uncommonly rich in designations of the unwise. The simple and the silly form the lowest rounds of this ladder; the idiot and the lunatic, the uppermost. In the middle lies the notion of the fool or crack-brained, which signifies either to project, to be prominent, or to distend one's self, to relax, to become decrepit, to wither. "A fool" (thus Isa. 32: 6) "speaks folly and his heart works iniquity, to practise knavery and to utter foolish things against Jehovah, to leave empty the soul of the hungry, and to refuse drink to the thirsty." D.—The Hebrew is singularly rich in words expressing folly, with the inseparable notion of wickedness. Here the word chosen by David, nabal, means imbecile, a vapid, worn-out fool, one whose heart and understanding are degraded, incapable of seeing truth. It is a word never used of mere natural obtuseness, but of spiritual corruption. Cook. In his heart. Rather a practical than a theoretical atheism; not so much a denial of the being of a God, as a denial of His moral government of the world; and this evinced in their actions, rather than in their words. Their lives show what the thought of their hearts is (as indeed immediately follows). "The fool" is not the philosophic atheist with his arguments; but the man who, by the practice of wickedness so stifles and corrupts within him the knowledge of God that he virtually acknowledges no God. P. The atheist is morally as well as mentally a fool, a fool in the heart as well as in the head; a fool in morals as well as in philosophy. With the denial of God as a starting-point, we may well conclude that the fool's progress is a rapid, riotous, raving, ruinous one. He who begins at impiety is ready for anything. "No God," being interpreted, means no law, no order, no restraint to lust, no limit to passion. S.—The atheist's divinity is couched in one article, and that negative, too, clean contrary to the fashion of all creeds, "There is no God." The article but one; but so many absurdities tied to the train of it and itself so irreligious, so prodigiously profane, that he dares not speak it out, but saith it softly to himself, in secret, "in his heart." R. Clerke.—Atheism is too conscious to be venturous and open. That is the property of truth, the daughter of the light and of the day. South. It is not said, "The fool hath thought in his heart;" he saith it by rote to himself as that he would have, rather than that he can thoroughly believe it or be persuaded of it; for none deny there is a God but those for whom it maketh that there were no God. It appeareth in nothing more that atheism is rather in the lip than in the heart of man than by this, that atheists will ever be talking of that their opinion, as if they fainted in it within themselves and would be glad to be strengthened by the consent of others; nay more, you shall have atheists strive to get disciples, as it fareth with other sects; and, which is most of all, you shall have of them that will suffer for atheism and not recant; whereas, if they did truly think that there were no such thing as God, why should they trouble themselves? Bacon. Religion, as both the corner-stone and the keystone of morality, must have a moral origin; so far at least that the evidence of its doctrines could not, like the truths of abstract science, be wholly independent of the will. It were therefore to be expected that fundamental truths would be such as might be denied, though only by the fool, and even by the fool from the madness of the heart alone. Coleridge. Whosoever shall observe the disposition of all the parts of the world, their connection, sometimes, the variety of seasons, the swarms of different creatures, and the mutual offices they render to one another, cannot conclude less than it was contrived by an infinite skill, effected by infinite power, and governed by infinite wisdom. None can imagine the parts of the world to perform their several functions without a wise guide; considering the members of the body cannot perform theirs, without the active presence of the soul. The atheist, then, is a fool to deny that which every creature in his constitution asserts, and thereby renders himself unable to give a satisfactory account of that constant uniformity in the motions of the creatures. Charnock. In its investigations of questions of origins, science has made a discovery. It has seen plainly that atheism is unscientific. It is a remarkable thing that, after trailing its black length for centuries across European thought, atheism should have had its doom pronounced by science. H. Drummond. I had rather believe all the fables in the legend and the Talmud and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind; and therefore God never wrought miracles to convince atheism, because His ordinary works convince it. It is true that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them and go no further, but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and Deity. Bacon. The philosophy which eliminates the supernatural is hopelessly shattered in the court of every man's conscience. The denial of the living God involves discredit of the moral nature, whose ingrained sense of guilt and consciousness of weakness demand a pardoning and redeeming God. Hence, Tertullian speaks of the soul's testimony as naturally Christian; and Augustine describes the heart of man as restless until it found its rest in God. . . . As Descartes insisted that absolute doubt involved the existence of the doubter, defying elimination by any process of dialectics, so it may be said that personality is itself the affirmation of the supernatural, and that even he who denies the existence of a personal God proves that the idea of the supernatural is a perfectly indigenous and familiar form of thought. It is a waste of time to argue with an atheist or a pantheist. The short method with such people is the direct appeal to the sense of personal dependence, and of personal obligation. The only argument here is that of self-conviction; and that can never fail, for the soul is eternally at war with any system which eliminates the ethical, and the ethical means a personal and righteous God. Behrends. To see rare effects and no cause; an excellent government and no ruler; a motion without an immovable; a circle without a centre; a time without eternity; a second without a first; a thing that begins not from itself, and therefore not to perceive there is something from whence it does begin, which must be without beginning—these things are so against philosophy and natural reason, that he must needs be a beast in his understanding that does not assent to them; this is the atheist: “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” That is his character; the thing framed says that nothing framed it; the tongue never made itself to speak, yet talks against Him that did, saying, that which is made is, and that which made it is not. But this folly is as infinite as hell, as much without light or bound as the chaos or the primitive nothing. Jeremy Taylor. The wonder turns on the great process by which a man could grow to the immense intelligence that can know that there is no God. What ages and what lights are requisite for this attainment! This intelligence involves the very attributes of divinity, while a God is denied. For unless this man is omnipresent, unless he is at this moment in every place in the universe, he cannot know but there may be in some place manifestations of a Deity by which even he would be overpowered. If he does not know absolutely every agent in the universe, the one that he does not know may be God. If he is not himself the chief agent in the universe and does not know what is so, that which is so may be God. If he is not in absolute possession of all the propositions that constitute universal truth, the one which he wants may be that there is a God. If he cannot with certainty assign the cause of all that he perceives to exist, that cause may be a God. If he does not know everything that has been done in the immeasurable ages that are past, some things may have been done by a God. Thus unless he knows all things—that is, precludes another Deity by being one himself—he cannot know that the Being whose existence he rejects does not exist. But he must know that He does not exist, else he deserves equal contempt and compassion for the temerity with which he firmly avows his rejection, and acts accordingly. J. F.— Atheism robs the universe of all finished and consummate excellence even of idea. The admiration of perfect wisdom and goodness, for which we are formed and which kindles such unspeakable rapture in the soul, finding in the regions of scepticism nothing to which it corresponds, droops and languishes. In a world which presents a fair spectacle of order and beauty; of a vast family, nourished and supported by an almighty Parent; in a world which leads the devout mind, step by step, to the contemplation of the first fair and the first good, the sceptic is encompassed with nothing but obscurity, meanness, and disorder. R. Hall. A fatherless world it is which atheism presents to us; let no one tell me that it does not need a God! It is weak and sickly, and needs a strong Divine arm to lean upon, a strong Divine tenderness to nurse and shield it. It is a world in rags, cold, hungry, thirsty, wandering about without shelter under inclement skies; it needs a Heavenly Father to care for it, and give it home and fireside and raiment and daily bread. It is a sorrowful world, it needs a Heavenly and omnipresent Consoler; a world full of temptations and dangers, it needs a Heavenly and omnipresent Protector; a world full of wrong tendencies and actual disorders, wilful and wayward and corrupt to a miracle, it needs a Wise, Omnipotent, and yet Pitiful Heavenly Governor; a world full of ignorance and error, it needs a Heavenly and Omnipotent Counsellor and Enlightener. Burr. Atheism takes away Christ, but leaves sin. It forbids the remedy, but leaves the leprosy burning like fire into flesh and bones. It takes away the Gospel, and leaves the stern facts and realities of nature. Sorrow, affliction, remorse, sweat, labor, sickness, bereavement, death—it leaves them all in the world! It extinguishes no evil, wipes no tear, imparts no comfort; and hence it is that, granting all that infidelity ever claimed, it disbelieves nothing but the remedy, and leaves man to be broken and crushed by those great laws and facts of nature which roll over him more resistless than the mighty wheels which Ezekiel saw in his vision at Chebar. If any man disbelieves the Gospel of Christ, the only result is that he leaves himself in that very state in which he was without the Gospel. Infidelity is a mere negation. It does not pretend to supply the place which it has vacated. It takes away the Saviour who was born in Bethlehem, but does it substitute a better? It leaves man to suffer, sorrow, weep, and die, unconsoled, unhelped, uncheered, and unblessed! Leaves him as before, did we say? With one grave supplement of misery! The disease is exasperated when remedies are rejected; and the infatuation which refuses the friendly offices of the Redeemer can only treasure up and aggravate the miseries of remorse. W. Adams. It is not much that the good man ventures: after this life, if there be no God, he is as well as the bad; but if there be a God, is infinitely better; even as much as unspeakable and eternal happiness is better than extreme and endless misery. Tillotson.—Indisputably, the firm believers in the Gospel have a great advantage over all others—for this simple reason, that if true, they will have their reward hereafter; and if there be no hereafter, they can be but with the infidel in his eternal sleep, having had the assistance of an exalted hope through life, without subsequent disappointment, since (at the worst of them) “out of nothing nothing can arise,” not even sorrow. Lord Byron. They that deny a God destroy man’s nobility; for certainly man is of kin to the beast by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature. Bacon. Have done abominable works. Bad principles soon lead to bad lives. One does not find virtue promoted by the example of your Voltaires and Tom Paines. Those who talk so abominably as to deny their Maker will act abominably when it serves their turn. It is the abounding denial and forgetfulness of God among men which is the source of the unrighteousness and crime which we see around us. S.—Where has infidelity ever purified a heart, or blessed a family, or enriched and tranquillized a community, or built a hospital, or opened an asylum for orphans, or, in short, done any good thing? Morrison. Whatever defects and imperfections may attach to a few points of the doctrinal system of Calvin—the bulk of which was simply what all Christians believe—it will be found that Calvinism, or any other ism which claims an open Bible and proclaims a crucified and risen Christ, is infinitely preferable to any form of polite and polished scepticism, which gathers as its votaries the degenerate sons of heroic ancestors, who, having been trained in a society and educated in schools, the foundations of which were laid by men of faith and piety, now turn and kick down the ladder by which they have climbed up, and persuade men to live without God and leave them to die without hope. The worst kind of religion is no religion at all; and these men, living in ease and luxury, indulging themselves in the amusement of going without religion, may be thankful that they live in lands where the Gospel they neglect has tamed the beastliness and ferocity of the men who, but for Christianity, might long ago have eaten their carcasses like the South Sea Islanders, or cut off their heads and tanned their hides like the monsters of the French Revolution. When the microscopic search of scepticism, which had hunted the heavens and sounded the seas to disprove the existence of a Creator, has turned its attention to human society, and has found a place on this planet ten miles square where a decent man can live in decency, comfort, and security, supporting and educating his children unspoiled and unpolluted; a place where age is reverenced, infancy respected, womanhood honored, and human life held in due regard—when sceptics can find such a place ten miles square on this globe, where the Gospel of Christ has not gone and cleared the way and laid the foundations and made decency and security possible, it will then be in order for the sceptical literati to move thither, and then ventilate their views. But so long as these very men are dependent upon the religion which they discard for every privilege they enjoy, they may well hesitate a little before they seek to rob the Christian of his hope and humanity of its faith in that Saviour who alone has given to man that hope of life eternal which makes life tolerable and society possible and robs death of its terrors and the grave of its gloom. J. R. Lowell. 2. God’s judgment rests upon a knowledge of the actual state of the case, which is represented in such passages after the manner of men. God’s eyes, which take in everything and pierce through everything, review humanity. Is there one who shows discernment in thinking and in acting, one to whom fellowship with God is the highest good and therefore also that after which he strives?—so inquires God, who has His delight in such, and whose close and yearning search such would certainly not escape. D. Understand. Or, deal wisely. All men living without God are adventurers out upon God’s world, in neglect of Him, to choose their own course. There is nothing good preparing for any man who will not live in God’s plan. If he goes a prospecting for himself, and will not apprehend that for which he is apprehended, it cannot be to any good purpose. Nothing is more sad and painful to think of, to a soul properly enlightened by reason and God’s truth, than so many years of Divine good squandered and lost; whole years, possibly many years, of that great and blessed biography which God designed for a man, occupied by a frivolous and foolish invention of his own, substituted for the good counsel of God's infinite wisdom and love. Bushnell.—It is not for God that the disbelieving man is a merchant, an artisan, a man of property, a laborer, a citizen, or the head of a family; it is for himself. He is his own God and his own law. Events adverse and prosperous come by turns. They succeed each other without interruption, and always find him without God. Happy—he has no emotion of gratitude to the Lord. Unhappy—he does not receive the occasion of it as a reproof or a counsel. Sick—he thinks not of the great Physician. Dying—he has no hope of heaven. In a word, that thought of God which must be everything or nothing in the life is nothing in his; nothing, at least, worth estimating. He yields nothing to it, sacrifices nothing, offers nothing. All his actions prove that his thoughts are all as if there were no God! A. Vinet. 3. The whole has apostatized; together they have putrefied; there is none doing good; there is not even one. Total and universal corruption could not be more clearly expressed than by this accumulation of the strongest terms, in which, as Luther well observes, the Psalmist, not content with saying all, adds together, and then negatively, no, not one. It is plain that he had no limitation or exception in his mind, but intended to describe the natural condition of all men, in the widest and most unrestricted sense. The whole, not merely all the individuals as such, but the entire race as a totality or ideal person. A.—See how many words he uses that he may comprehend all, excluding none. First he says all, then together, and then no, not one. Luther.—Their sin is described in gradation. They do not understand, because a true knowledge of things Divine forms the basis of proper conduct toward God; they do not ask for God, because they only care for Him whose clear and sure insight apprehends Him as their highest possession; they are gone aside, because he who cares not for Him is sure to get estranged from Him, and to deviate from His paths; and they are altogether become filthy (i.e., worthless), because man's proper strength and fitness for virtue must well from the fountain of communion with God. Tholuck. Each age of men has its peculiarities—each country its peculiar temper and type of civilization. Each class has its good and weak points, its elevating convictions, its unworthy prejudices. No two human characters, as no two human faces, are exactly alike. But one thing there is that unites us all. One consciousness there is in which we all, of all ages and all countries, of all classes and tempers, sooner or later must agree, and that is, that we are sinners. It is now as it was in the ages of old. David's saying is alway true. "There is none righteous, no, not one." H. P. L.—All the advances in our latter-day science and philosophy have not in anywise affected the doctrine of depravity. The best natural man of the nineteenth century, with all that the centuries have done for him and all that he is able to do for himself, is still a sinner and conscious of his sin. He is as really and hopelessly involved in the meshes of guilt as was Cain when he cried, "My burden is greater than I can bear!" or David when he made his supplication, "Have mercy upon me, O God, and according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions." The same penalty that was pronounced upon sin in the beginning hangs over it to day. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." And the soul of the whole ruined race, groaning and travailing, utters forth as anxiously as ever the old question: "What shall I do to be saved?" D. J. Burrell. Sin is actually found in every one of us, from the moment he wakes to consciousness—that is, the moment he knows that he exists at all. It is an internal disease, and not on the surface. It is of the heart, and not of the hands and feet. It belongs to character before it belongs to conduct, or else it would never seriously estrange us from God. It is a vitiated state of the spiritual system and its circulations. Its forms are manifold; it breaks out into avarice, lust, temper, falsehood, slander, vanity, selfishness, profanity—the whole brood of vices, crimes, impieties, worldlinesses. But they all have one organic root in the heart. They press and goad us, they beset us in society and solitude, they follow after and irritate and corrupt us. And just so far as they master us, they drag us apart from God. Just as far as we yield to them, we lose sight of Him, and the blessed feeling of friendship which is our need. The difficulty is sin. F. D. H. Human nature as created is upright, as born or propagated, a corrupted and damaged nature. But however corrupted and damaged, however fallen, it has the original Divine impress on it, everywhere discernible. It has the same feelings, sentiments, powers of thought and affection, the same longings and aspirations, only choked in their volume, and crazed by the stormy battle of internal discord and passion in which they have their element. The most sad fact—fact and also evidence—of human depravity is, that the religious nature stands a temple still for God, only scarred and blackened by the brimstone fires of evil; more majestic possibly as a ruin than it would be if it did not prove its grandeur by the desolations it withstands. Bushnell.—The stately ruins visible to every eye bear in their front (yet extant) this doleful inscription—here God once dwelt. Enough appears of the admirable frame and structure of the soul of man to show that the Divine presence did once dwell in it, more than enough of vicious deformity to proclaim He is now retired and gone. Look upon the fragments of that curious sculpture which once adorned the palace of that Great King—the relics of common notions—the lively prints of some undefaced truth—the fair ideas of things—the yet legible precepts that relate to practice. Behold with what accuracy the broken pieces show these to have been engraven by the finger of God; and how they be torn and scattered, one in this dark corner, and another in that, buried in heaps of dust and rubbish. Howe. It is vain for any man who has a conscience, and who believes in Providence and law—it is vain for any man who has ever reflected upon his nature and his prospects, to allege that he is under no vows to God. We have all made them, and, alas! we have all broken them. Their wrecks may be seen along the whole course of our history. When I reflect upon the magnitude of human guilt in this single aspect of it, I am amazed and confounded at the long-suffering forbearance of God. I am ashamed of myself, I am ashamed of my species, when I recollect how false and faithless we have been. Who can boast of his honor, who can scorn the imputation of a lie, when there are promises in heaven unredeemed, vows that are forgotten or despised? Who dares glory in his righteousness when the first principles of justice are openly transgressed? No, no. We have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. But in His amazing goodness there is a remedy. All-guilty as we are, we can be pardoned and accepted; all-polluted as we are, we can be purified and cleansed. There is a fountain opened in the house of David for sin and uncleanness. Let us wash in that fountain, and we shall come forth new men—men of real truth, honor and integrity. The laws of God will be put into our minds and written upon our hearts, and the Spirit of all grace will effectually train us for glory, honor and immortality, and crown us with eternal life. Thornwell. 5. There.** It does not mean “there, i.e., some day,” as if it pointed to an indefinite future, but “there, i.e., then,” when God shall speak to them in His wrath. Then, when God’s longsuffering passes over into indignation and wrath, their inmost heart trembles with anguish at the prospect of judgment. On the other hand, however, this judgment of wrath is a revelation of love. D.—By generation we are not to understand merely contemporaries. Here, as often elsewhere, a moral meaning attaches to the word, and it denotes those who are of the same spirit, whether that be the spirit of the world or the spirit which is of God. P. 6. In consequence of the self-attestation of God in judgment, of which he has become so certain and the assurance of which fills him with such consolation, the Psalmist himself confronts his oppressors, full of joyous defiance. D.—Ye put to shame the counsel of the poor, because the Lord is his refuge. In the fifty-third Psalm it is, “Thou hast put them to shame, because God hath despised them.” Of course, the allusion is totally different in each; in this Psalm it is the indignant remonstrance of the Psalmist with “the workers of iniquity” for undervaluing and putting God’s poor to shame; the other affirms the final shame and confusion of the ungodly, and the contempt in which the Lord holds them. In either case it illustrates God’s care of His poor and lowly ones, the oppressed and the injured. It is this character of God which is so conspicuously delineated in His word. We may look through all the Shasters and Vedas of the Hindoo, the Koran of the Mohammedan, the legislation of the Greek, and the code of the Roman, aye, and the Talmud of the Jew, the bitterest of all; and not in one single line or page shall we find a vestige or trace of that tenderness, compassion, or sympathy for the wrongs, and oppressions, and trials, and sorrows of God’s poor, which the Christian’s Bible evidences in almost every page. Bouchier. 7. In this concluding expression is formulated the view that prevails throughout the whole Psalm, that in the midst of the world, and even in the midst of the so-called Israel, the “righteous generation” finds itself in a condition of oppression, imprisonment and bondage. When God shall turn this condition of His people, then Jacob shall exult and Israel be glad. To rejoice then is the grateful duty of the redeemed. And how could they do otherwise! D. Atheism, Pantheism, Superstition and Faith. There are those who discover reigning design in all God's works, and so are opposed to atheism; who discover evidence of a power separated from and above nature, a pure and benevolent God, and so have extricated themselves from the toils of pantheism; who observe a present God in the more striking agents which He employs, but who trace Him, too, in those daily gifts which are not less beneficent because they are constantly bestowed, and in those regular arrangements of Providence which are not less wonderful because they may have become familiar to us. It is a sound and enlightened faith. It keeps the mind in a vigorous and healthy state. The error of the atheist arises from his not observing the footsteps of a designing mind in the heavens and earth without us, or of a Governor and Judge in the moral sense or law within us. The error of the pantheist does not consist in his contemplating the laws of nature, so exact and so beautiful, but in refusing to look beyond them to a wise, an intelligent, a righteous, and benevolent Being, who not only gave to matter all its laws, but all its arrangements also, and uses them for the furtherance of moral ends. The error of the superstitious man consists in his seeing God only in those events which are fitted to startle his fears or stir his fancy, while he pays no regard to other portions of God's works reflecting no less clearly the perfections of his character. The atheist closes his cylinders, and asserts that there is no God because he will not open his eyes to behold the traces of Him. The philosophical and poetical pantheist, the worshipper of nature, opens his eyes only half-way; and amid the many lovely "dreams that wave before the half-shut eye," he refuses to gaze upon the still lovelier, but more dazzling image of a holy God. The victim of superstition opens and shuts his eyes by turns, opens them when there is anything to alarm or please, and shuts them against all that might enlighten the reason, or mould the character after the image of a perfect God. True faith opens the eyes, and keeps them fully directed upon the glorious works of nature, and wonderful events of Providence, till they rise in glowing admiration, to the perception of a light ever shining, with unchanged and unchangeable lustre, upon a universe rejoicing in its beams; and they continue to gaze till, "dazzled by excess of light," they shut themselves, in holy meditation and devout adoration. M' Cosh. He who thinks most deeply, and has the most intimate acquaintance with human nature, as exhibited in his own heart, will be the most apt to resolve all unbelief into atheism. Especially will this be the case at a time when physical science, in league with a subtle pantheism, is everywhere substituting its jargon of laws, and elements, and nebular star-dust, and vital forces, and magnetic fluids, for the recognition of a personal God, and an ever-wakeful, ever-energizing special Providence. Theism, we admit, is everywhere the avowed creed, but it wants life. It is too much of a mere philosophy. There are times when the bare thought that God is comes home to the soul with a power and a flash of light which gives a new illumination and a more vivid interest to every other moral truth. It is on such occasions the conviction is felt that all unbelief is atheism, or an acknowledgment of a mere natural power clothed with no moral attributes, and giving rise to no moral sanctions. We want vividness given to the great idea of God as a judge, a moral governor, the special superintendent of the world and all its movements, the head of a moral system, to which the machinery of natural laws serves but as the temporary scaffolding, to be continued, changed, replaced, or finally removed, when the great ends for which alone it was designed shall have been accomplished. Just as such an idea of God is strong and clear, so will be a conviction of sin, so will be a sense of the need of expiation, so will be a belief in a personal Redeemer, and so will follow in its train an assurance of all the solemn verities of the Christian faith, so strong and deep that no boastful pretension of that science which makes the natural the foundation of the moral, and no stumbling-blocks in the letter of the Bible, will for a moment yield it any disquietude. There is a want of such a faith, as is shown by the feverish anxiety in respect to the discoveries of science, and the results of the agitations of the social and political world. This timid unbelief, when called by its true name, is atheism. The next great battle-ground of infidelity will not be the Scriptures. What faith there may remain will be summoned to defend the very being of a God, the great truth involving every other moral and religious truth—the primal truth, that He is, and that He is the rewarder of all who diligently seek Him. T. Lewis. 1. LORD, who shall sojourn in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill? 2 He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, And speaketh truth in his heart. 3 He that slandereth not with his tongue, Nor doeth evil to his friend, Nor taketh up a reproach against his neigh- bour. THIS Psalm of David corresponds so closely with portions of Psalm 24 that we can scarcely hesitate to refer it to the same occasion—viz., the location of the ark on Mount Zion (see 2 Sam. 6 and 1 Chr. 13). It was thus made the visible dwelling-place of Israel's God, and there- fore would suggest the question, Who now shall be honored to dwell with God in this holy hill? Who shall enjoy this exalted privilege of spe- cial communion and fellowship with God, and consequently of His perpetual protection? This question it is the purpose of the Psalm to an- swer. As a description of the thoroughly right- cous man it stands in direct contrast with Psalm 14, which is a corresponding description of an intensely wicked man. C. 1. The tent of Jehovah and His holy hill are thought of here in their spiritual character as the places of the Divine presence and of the community of God that has gathered round this; and, accordingly, the sojourning and dwelling is not to be understood externally, but spiritually, with the setting aside and tran- seending of all limitations of space. This spir- itual deepening of the Old Testament view is found also in 27 : 4, 5 ; 61 : 5 ; it is already im- plied where the notion of diligently visiting the sanctuary rises into that of permanently dwell- ing therein (65 : 5 ; 84 : 4, 5). D. 2,3. The man with whom God will hold communion is now described, first as to what he is (v. 2), and then as to what he is not (v. 3). He is a man of whole heart and life, who does the will of God, and speaks the truth because he loves it; it dwells in his heart, and he speaks it there first, before he speaks it with his tongue. "It is a beautiful order," says Luther. "First the person must be acceptable by cleanness; then the work by righteousness; then the word by truth. So God has regard to Abel (himself) first, and then to his gifts." He is not one who 4. In whose eyes a reprobate is despised; But he honoureth them that fear the LORD. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and chang- eth not. 5 He that putteth not out his money to usury, Nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved. injures others either by word or by deed, or by listening to and propagating slander. P. 2. Three features of character are indicated: his blameless walk, his acting in accordance with God's will, and his unfeigned truthful- ness. D.—Walking perfect, and doing right, and speaking truth, in his heart. The Psalmist, speaking in behalf of God, here answers his own question. Walking is put for the habitual course of life. Perfect, complete as to all essen- tial features of the character, without necessa- rily implying perfection in degree. The next phrase, doing right, practising rectitude, may be either a synonymous parallel to the first, or a specification under it, parallel to speaking truth. The general idea of walking perfect is then resolved into the two particular ideas of doing right and speaking truth. In his heart, i.e., sincerely, as opposed to outward show or hypocritical profession. This phrase seems to qualify not merely what precedes, speaking truth, but the whole description, as of one who sincerely and internally, as well as outwardly, leads a blameless life by doing right and speak- ing truth. A. An external profession of faith and outward communion with the Church of God is not suffi- cient unto salvation, unless we lead an incor- rupt life correspondent to the same, doing the thing which is right and speaking the truth in our heart. The marks are not to be taken from an outward hearing of the word or receiving of the sacraments, but from the duties of right- eousness, giving every man his due, because the touchstone of piety toward God is charity toward our brother. "Herein," saith John, "are the children of God known, and the chil- dren of the devil: whosoever doth not right- eousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." John Boys. The way of uprightness is the surest for despatch, and the shortest cut toward the execution or attainment of any good purpose, securing a man from irksome expectations and tedious delays. It is fair and pleasant. He that walketh in it hath good weather and a clear sky about him; a hopeful confidence and a cheerful satisfaction do ever wait upon him. Being conscious to himself of an honest meaning and a due course in prosecuting it, he feeleth no check or struggling of mind, no regret or sting of heart. Barrow.—He walks steadily. A good conscience steers by fixed stars, and aims at fixed marks. An upright man is always the same man, and goes the same way; the external state of things does not alter the moral reason of things with him, or change the law of God. Sydney Smith.—He hath no fear of being detected, or care to smother his intents. The upright man is secure as to his honor and credit; he is sure not to come off disgracefully, either at home in his own approbation, or abroad in the estimation of men. H. Smith.—He hath perfect security as to the final result of his affairs, that he shall not be quite baffled in his expectations and desires. He shall prosper in the true notion of prosperity, explained by that Divine saying, “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace.” Barrow. Speaketh truth in his heart. Worded truth or veracity, precious as it is, is but as the outside, as the husk of a more precious reality inside. Worded truth is the outside, and acted truth is the inner kernel. Just as words themselves are but the wordings of the inner man, the abundance of the heart speaking; so truth in words is but the outer form, the external semblance, the visible shadow of truth in deeds, truth in life, truthful obedience, true concord in the heart between the acknowledged law and the will and deed of obedience. The essence of truth is in duty, in heart-whole devotion of duty to the sacred law of God’s truth. There is the source and spring of truthful words; there is the fountain of true honor, of noble, generous, manly confidence; there is the secret of self-respect, and with it of respect from others; of everything which makes the character of man lofty, honorable, and angelic. G. M. The pervading love of truth is the spirit which should regulate all of our opinions, the standard by which consistency is to be tried, the touchstone of intellectual integrity. Whatever doctrines or sentiments are not the results of its operation are prejudices, even should they chance not to be errors, and whatever changes are effected through its energy and influence are elements of progress, and contribute to the real perfection of our nature. He only deserves the commendation of firmness of opinion who begins with the predominating love of truth, and maintains it steadily and sincerely in all the subsequent periods of his history. The uniform ascendancy of candor, or the love of truth, is the life and soul of the only species of consistency which a wise man desires to possess. . . . If there be a moral principle to which, in every form, humanity has given utterance, it is the obligation of veracity. Truth is alike the perfection of the intellect and the glory of the heart. Thornwell. Truthfulness in the heart! Perfect transparency in the soul’s acting toward itself, toward man and God! What so beautiful, so near and like the acting of God Himself! It is not merely abstinence from words and deeds of insincerity or deceit, but the sensitive recoil of the spirit from the conception, which permits not the harboring of the thought of falsehood or deception. This most beautiful, most godlike attribute of soul is the spring or quicksener of all admirable qualities; it prompts to all excellence and beneficence in the deeds of the life; it is the foundation element of all greatness in human character, of all happiness in human doing. This speaking of truth to the heart and in the heart is that which is needed for our individual happiness, for the happiness of each household, for the welfare of our entire humanity. Practised by all men in all the relations of social intercourse, it would tend to make earth most like heaven. Above all, it is that which brings each soul nearer to and makes it like God, and prepares it by His communicated grace for His high and holy dwelling-place. B. 3. (Who) hath not slandered with his tongue, (who) hath not done his neighbor harm, and a scandal hath not taken up against his neighbor. The positive description of the foregoing verse is now followed by a negative one. The social virtues are insisted on, and their opposites excluded, because they are apt to be neglected by hypocrites, against whom this Psalm is directed. A. How thick do censures and reproaches fly in all places, at all tables, in all conventions! And this were the more tolerable, if it were only the fault of ungodly men, of strangers and enemies to religion. But alas! this plague is not only among the Egyptians, but Israelites, too. It is very doleful to consider how professors sharpen their tongues like swords against professors; and one good man censures and reproaches another, and one minister traduceth another; and who can say, "I am clean from this sin?" Poole.—The good name of a man, as saith Solomon, is a precious thing to every one, and to be preferred before much treasure, insomuch that it is no less grievous to hurt a man with the tongue than with a sword; nay, ofttimes the stroke of a tongue is grievouser than the wound of a spear. And therefore the tongue must be bridled, that we hurt not in any wise the good name of our neighbor. P. Baro. That panoply of sacred principle that lets no arrow of the adversary through any joint of its harness is the Christian's every-day garment. Every Christian cause is stronger for his hand and his tongue. No tempter is cunning enough to wring a scandal from his behavior. No neighbor shall hesitate on which side, in the grand division of the world, to reckon him. He is committed frankly. He is pledged irrevocably. He is consecrated manfully. If he is Christ's man, there is no situation, nor turn, nor emergency, where Christ is not honored in his life. And that because the Master's Spirit is in him. F. D. H. Nor evil to friend, nor reproach against neighbor. If thou neglectest thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou professest thy love to God; for by thy love to God the love to thy neighbor is begotten, and by the love to thy neighbor thy love to God is nourished. Quarles.—There is an element of power in the sweet habitude of mind that thinketh no evil and taketh up no reproach. Such people win their way everywhere. The door is open to them everywhere and every heart made ready. Their shadow always falls behind them, and their coming is only brightness. There are faces that are a benediction, and such faces create a great, sweet, compelling light around us while they are with us, and leave a long, quiet twilight in our memories after the sun-setting. C. H. P. 4,5. Again, his character is further described by affirmations and negations. He is one who turns away from the evil and honors the good, who regards as inviolable the sanctity of an oath (not a casuist who sets himself to find a pretext for breaking his word, when it is inconvenient to keep it). He is not one who loves usury or takes bribes. The taking of usury is strictly forbidden in the law, and denounced by the prophets. Kimchi's casuistic distinction, that it is lawful for the Jew to take usury of strangers, but not of his own people, is very significant; and, like too many Christian, as well as Jewish, interpretations of Scripture, framed to support a convenient and profitable practice. Thus, in heart, in tongue, in actions, in his conduct, as a member of society, he is alike free from reproach. Such is the figure of stainless honor drawn by the pen of a Jewish poet. Christian chivalry has not dreamed of a brighter. We have need often and seriously to ponder it. For it shows us that faith in God and spotless integrity may not be sundered; that religion does not veil or excuse petty dishonesties; that love to God is only then worthy the name when it is the life and bond of every social virtue. Each line is, as it were, a touchstone to which we should bring ourselves. To speak truth in the heart—to take up no reproach against a neighbor—would not the Christian man be perfect of whom this could be said? And that other trait in this Divine character—"who honoreth them that fear the Lord"—is there a surer test of our spiritual condition than this, that we love and honor men because they love Christ? P. 4. He sweareth to his own hurt.** The Christian swears to his own hindrance, and changeth not; yet knoweth that his oath cannot tie him to sin. Bacon.—He keeps his word, whatever it may cost him. He is faithful to his obligations, regardless of any inconvenience, or trouble, or loss, resulting from his fidelity. A character marked by such faithfulness seems to be, as it were, a very fragment of the Rock of Ages; and on its firmness and stability all who know it can rest securely. H. C. T. What care I to see a man run after a sermon, if he cozens and cheats as soon as he comes home? On the other side, morality must not be without religion, for if so it may change as I see convenience. Religion must govern it. He that has not religion to govern his morality is not a dram better than my mastiff-dog; so long as you stroke him and please him and do not pinch him, he will play with you as finely as may be, he is a very good moral mastiff; but if you hurt him he will fly in your face, and tear out your throat. John Seldon. 5. This usury is not interest on money which is borrowed to make more money with—a commercial transaction of which the Mosaic law had no occasion to speak; but is money loaned to a poor man as the law required bread to be loaned to the suffering, upon which no interest was permitted. In the current life of the Hebrew people, no man borrowed either money or bread save under the stress of hunger, necessity, of which stress no neighbor, well to do himself, was permitted to take advantage. A bribe to harm the innocent was an abomination to the Mosaic law—is so to all righteous law—to every upright conscience. “Shall never be moved”—shall have a sure standing in the house of God, evermore enjoying His protection and never jostled from His sure foundation. C. We nowhere learn from the institutes delivered by Moses that the simple taking of interest was forbidden to the Israelites; but the Divine law would give no countenance to the griping and extortionate practices to which miserly money lenders are always prone. The industrious poor might sometimes be reduced to such straits that pecuniary accommodations might be necessary to them; and toward such God would inculcate a kind and helpful spirit, and the precept is enforced by the relation which they sustained to Him: “Remember that you are lending to My people, My poor; and therefore take no advantage of their necessities. Trust Me against the fear of loss, and treat them kindly and generously.” Bush.—That the poor should receive compassion and help was a part of the judicial law which God appointed for the Jews in particular; but it is a common principle of justice, which extends to all nations and to all ages, that we should keep ourselves from plundering and devouring the poor who are in distress and want. Whence it follows that the gain which he acquires who lends his money upon interest, without doing injury to any one, is not to be included under the head of unlawful usury. Calvin. He that doeth. “Tis not said he that professes this or that, or he that believes thus and thus, or he that is of such or such an opinion or way of worship; ‘tis not he that hears much or talks much of religion; no, nor he that thinks much of these things and means well; but ‘tis he that “doeth these things”—that is actually employed about them—that is the religious and truly godly man. ‘Tis not, I say, a formal professor, a wild opinionist, a high-flown perfectist; it is not a constant hearer, or a mighty talker, or a laborious teacher, or a gifted brother, or a simple well-wisher must pass; but ‘tis the honest and sincere doer of these things that will abide the test and stand the trial. The harmless humor of meaning well is not enough to approve a man’s spiritual state, to acquit obligations, or to ascertain his expectations. For He that bids us “eschew evil” does immediately subjoin that we must “follow” and “hold fast that which is good.” It will be no good account not to have done evil, unless we make it appear that we have been doing good too; since the non-commission of great sins will not excuse our omission of great duties. A. Littleton. And now that his character is fully described, instead of concluding, such an one may sojourn, etc., the closing sentence is shaped otherwise, in conformity with the spiritual meaning of the Psalmist’s question, one that doeth thus shall never be moved, he stands fast, being upheld by Jehovah, hidden in His fellowship; nothing from without, no misfortune, can overthrow him. D.—Instead of “he that doeth these things shall dwell in the house of Jehovah,” etc., the answer is varied in form, “shall never be moved,” which is, in fact, the same truth in another and larger form. Such a man may not take up his dwelling in the earthly courts of the Lord; but, at least, he shall so live in the presence of God, and under the care of God, that his feet shall be upon a rock. The Epistle of James is the New Testament expansion of and comment upon this Psalm. For another treatment of the subject in the Old, see Isa. 33: 13–16. P. The citizen of Zion is one that is conscientiously honest and just in all his dealings, faithful and fair to all with whom he has to do. He worketh righteousness; he walks in all the ordinances and commandments of the Lord, and takes care to give all their due; is just both to God and man; and in speaking to both, he speaks that which is the truth in his heart; his prayers, professions, and promises to God come not out of feigned lips, nor dares he tell a lie, or so much as equivocate, in his converse or commerce with men. He walks by the rules of righteousness and truth, and scorns and abhors the gains of injustice and fraud; he reckons that that cannot be a good bargain, nor a saving one, which is made with a lie, and that he who wrongs his neighbor, though ever so plausibly, will prove in the end to have done the greatest injury to himself. He is one that values men by their virtue and piety, and not by the figure they make in the world. He thinks the better of no man’s wickedness for his grandeur. In his eyes a vile person is contemned. He thinks the worse of no man’s piety for his poverty, but he knows them that fear the Lord. He reckons that serious piety, wherever it is found, puts an honor upon a man, and makes his face to shine, more than wealth, or wit, or a great name among men does or can. He is one that always prefers a good conscience before any secular interest or advantage whatsoever; for if he has promised upon oath to do anything, though afterward it appear much to his damage and prejudice in his worldly estate, yet he adheres to it and changes not. He is one that will not increase his estate by any unjust practices. Not by extortion. He putteth not out his money to usury, that he may live at ease upon the labors of others, while he is in a capacity for improving it by his own industry. Not by bribery. He will not take a reward against the innocent; if he be any way employed in the administration of public justice, he will not for any gain, or hope of it, to himself, do anything to the prejudice of a righteous cause. The Psalm concludes with a ratification of this character of the citizen of Zion. He is like Zion-hill itself, which cannot be moved, but abides forever (125 : 1). Every true living member of the Church, like the Church itself, is built upon a Rock, which the gates of hell cannot prevail against. He that doeth these things shall never be moved; shall not be moved forever, so the word is. The grace of God shall always be sufficient for him, to preserve him safe and blameless to the heavenly kingdom; temptations shall not overcome him, troubles shall not overwhelm him, nothing shall rob him of his present peace or his future bliss. H. To engage in the performance of home duties faultlessly, without petulance, without haste, without fretting—to repress the sarcastic and unkind word, to be calm in the hot moment of anger, to do without weariness, and to suffer without murmuring, to be charitable in judgment and trample out of the heart the Pharisee spirit, deeming life at once too short and too costly for quarrels and for pride; to maintain a chivalrous honor in all business relations; to hold back from the temptations of doubtful or hasty gain; to wear “the white flower,” not “of a blameless life” only, but of a life cleansed from its earthliness and made pure by the Holy Spirit; to walk about the world and before men with a calm brow, conscious of integrity, and with a kind heart filled with love; to shed abroad the “sweet savor of Christ,” and allure men to the heaven to which they know you to be travelling—these are but many-sided exhibitions of the one holy character, many facets of the one jewel of fidelity by which you are to be “approved” of your Father which is in heaven. Punshon. In real life, up to the limit of his culture, a thoroughbred Christian is a thoroughbred gentleman. He cannot do a mean thing. He will not equivocate. The stories he tells are not elastic. He will not hang his veracity on the difference between the singular and the plural of a word. His word weighs on his conscience like an oath; he knows no difference. At the custom house his oath is as trusty as in the witness-box. In either, he is not conveniently afflicted with an intermittent memory. His silences he regulates by religious principles as honorably as his speech. Phelps. It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say that he is one who never inflicts pain. He carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the mind of those with whom he is cast—all clashing of opinion or collision of feeling, all restraint or suspicion or gloom or resentment; his great concern being to make every one at ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company, he is tender toward the bashful, gentle toward the distant, and merciful toward the absurd. He can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions on topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favors when he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort; he has no care for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets everything for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantages, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil, which he dare not say out. From long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, “That we should ever conduct ourselves toward our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend.” He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults, and is too well employed to remember injuries. Newman. 1. PRESERVE me, O God : for in thee do I put my trust. 2 I have said unto the LORD, Thou art my Lord : I have no good beyond thee. 3 As for the saints that are in the earth, They are the excellent in whom is all my delight. 4 Their sorrows shall be multiplied that exchange the LORD for another god : Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, Nor take their names upon my lips. 5 The LORD is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup : Thou maintainest my lot. 6 The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places ; Yea, I have a goodly heritage. 7. I will bless the LORD, who hath given me counsel : Yea, my reins instruct me in the night seasons. 8 I have set the LORD always before me : Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. 9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth : My flesh also shall dwell in safety. 10 For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol ; Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. 11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life : In thy presence is fulness of joy : In thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. THIS Psalm is remarkable for its evangelical spirit ; in none is the faith stronger, the hope, indeed the certainty, of immortal life, more fully developed. It is ascribed to David by Peter on two most solemn occasions. It is full of the spirit of David ; it is connected with the Psalms which precede and follow it by several thoughts and expressions ; and the style is recognized by critics usually captious in the question of Davidic authorship, as "belonging unquestionably to high antiquity," and bearing clear traces of transactions in David's reign. The freshness and vivid coloring, the warmth and brilliancy of imagery, may point to the early portion of David's reign ere yet the dark cloud had fallen on his spirit ; not improbably soon after his peaceful settlement, "when the king sat in his house, and the Lord had given him rest round about from all his enemies" (2 Sam. 7 : 1). Cook. The Psalm is bright with the utterance of a happiness which nothing earthly can touch. It expresses the conviction of a life rather than of any sudden emergency. The living God Himself is David's portion and inheritance (vs. 5, 6) ; stan is at his right hand (v. 8) ; is the joy of his heart now (v. 9), and will fill him with joy and gladness forevermore. P. — Throughout the whole Psalm there reigns a settled calm, an inward joy and a joyous assurance, which is certain that everything it may desire for the present and for the future it possesses in its God. D. 1. My Lord. There is a whole world between the man to whom God's revelation consists in certain doctrines given to us by Jesus Christ, and the man to whom it consists in that Christ Himself. Grasping a living person is not the same as accepting a proposition. True, the propositions are about Him, and we do not know Him without them. But equally true, we need to be reminded that He is our Saviour and not they, and that God has revealed Himself to us not in words and sentences, but in a life. A. M. 2. The Psalmist knows no fountain of true happiness save Jehovah ; in Him he has everything ; his treasure is in heaven. 3. The saints, and none but they, are also the illustrious in his estimation. His whole delight is in them ; all his affection and esteem are bestowed upon them. D. — By David's language, there were many singular saints in his day. The saints that are in the earth, the excellent, in whom is all my delight. Was it so then, and should it not be so now ? If we live in a more glorious dispensation, should we not maintain a more glorious conversation ? Seeker. Saints are not people living in cloisters after a fantastic ideal, but men and women immersed in the vulgar work of every-day life and worried by the small prosaic anxieties which fret us all, who amid the whir of the spindle in the mill, and the clink of the scales on the counter, and the hubbub of the market-place, and the jangle of the courts are yet living lives of conscious devotion to God. The root idea of the word, which is an Old Testament word, is not moral purity, but separation to God. The holy things of the old covenant were things set apart from ordinary use for His service. So, on the high-priest's mitre was written Holiness to the Lord. So the Sabbath was kept "holy," because set apart from the week in obedience to Divine command. Sanctity and saint are used now mainly with the idea of moral purity, but that is a secondary meaning. The real primary signification is separation to God. Consecration to Him is the root from which the white flower of purity springs most surely. There is a deep lesson in the word as to the true method of attaining cleanness of life and spirit. We cannot make ourselves pure, but we can yield ourselves to God, and the purity will come. But we have not only here the fundamental idea of holiness, and the connection of purity of character with self-consecration to God, but also the solemn obligation on all so-called Christians thus to separate and devote themselves to Him. We are Christians as far as we give ourselves up to God, in the surrender of our will and the practical obedience of our lives—so far and not one inch farther. We are not merely bound to this consecration if we are Christians, but we are not Christians unless we thus consecrate ourselves. Pleasing self, and making my own will my law, and living for my own ends, is destructive of all Christianity. Saints are not an eminent sort of Christians, but all Christians are saints, and he who is not a saint is not a Christian. The true consecration is the surrender of the will, which no man can do for us, which needs no outward ceremonial, and the one motive which will lead us selfish and stubborn men to bow our necks to that gentle yoke, and to come out of the misery of pleasing self into the peace of serving God, is drawn from the great love of Him who devoted Himself to God and man, and bought us for His own by giving Himself utterly to be ours. All sanctity begins with consecration to God. All consecration rests upon the faith of Christ's sacrifice. And if, drawn by the great love of Christ to us unworthy, we give ourselves away to God in Him, then He gives Himself in deep sacred communion to us. "I am Thine" has ever for its chord which complete the fulness of its music, "Thou art mine." And so "saint" is a name of dignity and honor, as well as a stringent requirement. A. M. 4. What did the grove of a demon-god conceal? Lust—blood—imposture. What sounds shook the fane? Alternate screams of anguish, and the laughter of mad votaries. What was the priest? The teacher of every vice of which his god was the patron and the example. What were the worshippers? The victims of every woe which superstition and sensuality can gender, and which cruelty can cherish. It was not then a blind national prejudice, any more than it was spiritual arrogance, that made the prophet-poet and king of Israel exult in the distinction of his people. Rather it was a righteous scorn which made him exclaim, when he thought of the errors of the nations, "Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, neither take their names into my lips." I. T. 5,6. Jehovah is my chosen portion, mine inheritance—the good which my soul rejoices in far above all other. These several words, "inheritance," "cup," "lot," concur in the common idea of one's chosen and accepted good. So in the same sense, "the lines," i.e., the measuring lines which lay out one's grounds and define his landed possessions—taken from the vocabulary of an agricultural people to signify the possessions themselves. C. 5. The Lord is our portion. What a large possession have we then! There is no confiscation of it, no banishment from it. Our portion fills heaven and earth, and is infinitely above heaven and below earth, and beyond both. D. Clarkson.—God Himself is His greatest gift. The loftiest blessing which we can receive is that we should be heirs, possessors of God. "The Lord is the portion of my inheritance," says David. "Ye are heirs of God," echoes Paul. On earth and in heaven the "heritage of the children of the Lord" is God Himself, inasmuch as He is with them for their delight, in them to make them "partakers of a Divine nature," and for them in all His attributes and actions. A. M.—"What must not he possess," says Savonarola, "who possesses the Possessor of all?" In the words of Paul, "All things are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." P. 6. An allusion to the ancient custom of marking out plots of land by measuring-lines. See the same phrase, Josh. 17:5. The line was said to "fall" as being "thrown" by lot. P.—The measuring-lines have fallen to him in a delightful district—viz., in the fellowship of God which is so rich in enjoyment; this most blessed domain of love has become his paradisaic possession. He rises from the fact to the full satisfaction that it affords him; such an inheritance even seems beautiful in his eyes; he has an intense delight therein. D.—This possession is as sure as God can make it. “Thou maintainest my lot.” The Divine power surrounds the man who chooses God for his heritage, and nothing shall take that heritage from him. He will help us, so that no temptations shall have power to make us rob ourselves of our treasure. And the man who thus elects to find his treasure and delight in God is satisfied with his choice. A. M. All things are his, as they will subserve his best interests in time and eternity—God being both the Judge and the Director of all. If health, if riches, if honor will promote his real good, they are his. If sickness, if poverty, if obscurity or reproach will be good for him, they are his. Pardon to remove his guilt, grace to aid him in the performance of duty, strength to sustain him under trials, fears and doubts and perplexities enough to keep him watchful, every needful supply for his temporal and spiritual well-being in time, immortal life and glory in the world to come. Thus everything in God and in creation, everything in time and everything in eternity, so far as the least value pertains to it, is the Christian’s. Such is his heritage—such his all-sufficient portion. God and the created universe are his. N. W. Taylor.—With Christ he hath all things which are subservient to the purposes for which Christ was delivered: pardon to remove his guilt; grace to aid him in the performance of duty; comfort to support him under the pressure of affliction; every needful supply during his journey through this world, and immortal life and happiness in the next. Hath not the Christian then “a goodly heritage,” who hath God and the creature, grace and glory, time and eternity; who is safe among enemies as well as among friends; who lives in communion with God on earth, and shall dwell with Him in heaven forevermore? R. Walker. 7. I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel.** The Holy Ghost is a spirit of counsel, powerfully instructing and convincingly teaching how to act and walk, for He directs us to set right steps, and to walk with a right foot, and thereby prevents us of many a sin, by seasonable instruction set on upon our hearts with a strong hand; as Isaiah says, He is the spirit of counsel and of might: of counsel to direct; of might to strengthen the inner man. Goodwin.—In the quiet of its silent hours, undisturbed by the passions, and unharassed by the conflicts of the world, we can commune with our own heart, and be instructed and guarded as to our future course even “in the night season.” David especially seems to have made these seasons sources of great profit as well as delight. Sometimes he loved to meditate upon God as he lay upon his bed; and it was no doubt as he meditated on the Lord’s goodness, and on the way by which He had led him, that he was, as it were, constrained, even at midnight, to arise and pray. While, therefore, we acknowledge the pillow to be a good counsellor, let us with David here acknowledge also that it is the Lord who gives the counsel, and sends the instruction in the night season. Bouchier. 8. I have set the Lord before me, at one time as well as another. In every place, in every condition, in every company, in every employment, and in every enjoyment, I have set the Lord equally before me; and this raised him, and this will raise any Christian, by degrees, to a great height of holiness. T. Brooks.—Setting God before our face carries with it a power of growth. God is not only always before us, He is always going before us, and beckoning us to follow. A man who has God always before him cannot be stationary. The vision of God ever draws us onward with sweet and powerful allurement. And the keeping of God constantly before the face engenders hope. Hope, if we are to believe Paul, is the very atmosphere in which a Christian lives and breathes. “We are saved in hope.” V. Bring God to the throne by placing Him in the chief purpose of a man, and at once He begins to take on reality. Cultivate the thought of Him by worship, and He seems yet more real. Act with direct aim to please Him, and every such act makes Him stand forth more distinctly. Pray to Him much, take Him into all your plans, ask His aid in the whole of life, and gradually He becomes a perpetual presence, and the most real of all beings. W. W. Patton.—We need more—far more—still communion with our Master. For want of it our energy is feverish, our patience soon exhausted, our devotion lacking in depth, our hopes in brightness, our whole lives in calmness. By all these motives, so strongly woven together in the words of our text, and by many more, we are called to the constant effort to “set the Lord always before us,” and, turning our happy thoughts to Him, even in the midst of our daily duties, to “walk all the day long in the light of His countenance.” A. M. To live day by day upon God is to keep close to Him; is to live in constant thought of Him, and of our need of Him and of His grace; is to put ourselves in the best possible position, and the likelihood of the best possible mood, to receive His blessing, and secure the benign guardianship of His love. As a rule, when we are in our best condition spiritually—most contrite, humble, earnest to do good, anxious to grow in grace, and to glorify God—we are living day by day upon Him; feeling every morning that His joy must be our strength and stay; feeling every night that it has been in Him that we have lived and moved and had our being, since the dawn; and so abiding in Him with a constant and habitual reference to Him as the God in whose hand our breath is, and whose are all our ways. Especially is this day-by-day life in God dear to us in periods of marked temptation or peculiar trial. Under every disappointment the perfect Saviour must ever be the model of the imperfect Christian, because he knows that though he cannot reach the standard set by Christ, yet, by constantly striving toward it, he shall reach a higher degree of holiness and purity than he would have been able to attain had he imitated anything short of perfection. Let not the Christian despair because he cannot get rid altogether of his sinfulness. We are not meant to get rid altogether of our sinfulness. Earth is not heaven. It is a place of pilgrimage and warfare and struggle. Anon. He that by faith eyes God continually as his protector in trouble “shall not be moved” with any evil that he suffers, and he that eyes God by faith as his pattern in holiness shall not be moved from doing that which is good. This thought—the Lord is at our right hand—keeps us from turning either to the right hand or to the left. Caryl. 9. My heart, my glory (i.e., soul), my flesh**; in other words, the whole man. P.—We have thus in this passage the threefold division of man’s nature: the heart, as the seat of the understanding; the soul, as the abode of spiritual instincts; and the flesh, or body. Each has its own blessing; even the lowest is secure of endurance; for though the words “shall rest in hope” mean primarily “will dwell in security,” or “confidence,” that confidence involves the thought of permanence or restoration. David, speaking as a prophet (Acts 2: 30), uses words which point to another life. Cook. 10. He now assigns the ground or reason of the confidence expressed in the preceding verse. “I am sure my soul and body will be safe, bebecause Thou canst not, without ceasing to be God and my God, give me up to the destroyer.” He does not say leave in, but to, i.e., abandon to, give up to the dominion or possession of another. The same Hebrew phrase occurs, with the same sense, in Lev. 19: 10; Job 39: 14, and in Psalm 49: 10. The Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades, the invisible world or state of the dead. A. 8-10. This passage is quoted by Peter as directly, or in its highest sense, applicable to the Messiah. It contains one of the very clearest and strongest declarations of belief in a blessed futurity which can be adduced from the Old Testament. As such it is recognized by ancient and modern interpreters, none speaking out more clearly than Ewald: “It goes beyond other words of David, nor is anything corresponding to it found in later Hebrew writers.” There is but one adequate explanation of such a fact—viz., that the Spirit of Christ, which was in David as a prophet (see 1 Pet. 1: 11), moved and controlled his utterances, so that, while they expressed fully his own yearnings, they signified beforehand the glory that should follow in the resurrection of Christ. Cook. That we have here a conscious prediction on the part of David is distinctly affirmed by Peter, speaking under the immediate inspiration of the Holy Ghost (Acts 2: 30, 31). The language which he uses is very remarkable. Alleging vs. 8-11 in proof of the resurrection of Christ, he tells us that David here spoke as a prophet; that he knew that his great descendant would be the Messiah, and that God would place Him on His throne; and that he foresaw and spake of the resurrection of Christ. It is plain from all this that, according to Peter’s view, David not only uttered words which might be applied to Christ, but that he used prophetic—that is, inspired language, and knew himself that he was prophesying. But we may still allow a primary and lower reference of the words to David himself, without lessening their prophetic import; in some parts even an exclusive reference, for it is not necessary (and, indeed, seems scarcely possible) to refer the whole Psalm to Christ, because a part of it points to Him. P. The application which the apostles make of this Psalm (Acts 2: 29-32; 13: 35-37) is based upon the consideration that David’s hope not to fall a prey to death was not realized in him to the unlimited extent in which the Psalm sets it forth, but that it was fulfilled in Jesus, who was not abandoned to Hades, and whose flesh did not experience the corruption of the grave; and that consequently the words of the Psalm are a prophecy of David pointing to Jesus the Christ, who was promised to him as the heir of his throne, and whom, on the ground of this promise, he had before him in prophetic consciousness. D. Corruption. The Septuagint Greek word, meaning corruption, passed into the New Testament and received the practical indorsement of the apostles because they made their main argument from prophecy for the resurrection of Christ turn on this precise sense of our word. The authorities are therefore quite decisive in favor of the meaning here, corruption. In this construction the sentiment is every way appropriate. It was fit that the Great Conqueror of death should burst its bands and come forth from its control before even His body had experienced that decomposition by which death and the grave despoil the beauty of man and remand his flesh back to dust. Of this the Messiah was made sure on the authority of prophetic inspiration. His own words to His disciples long before His death show that He knew He should rise from the dead and even on the third day, before corruption had really begun its work (see Matt. 16 : 21 and 20 : 19). C. He who in soul and body was pre-eminently God's "Holy One" was loosed from the pains of death because it was not possible that He should be holden of it. This is noble encouragement to all the saints; die they must, but rise they shall, and though in their case they shall see corruption, yet they shall rise to everlasting life. Christ's resurrection is the cause, the earnest, the guarantee, and the emblem of the rising of all His people. Let them, therefore, go to their graves as to their beds, resting their flesh among the clods as they now do upon their couches. S. 11. Not to fall a prey to Hades and corruption is only the external side of that which David hopes for himself; on its inward side it is a blessed and glorious life in the other world. The second half of v. 11 consists of two members, and depicts this life which he so confidently expects. D. The path of life. Not merely the life of the body. This is shown by the pleasure and the joy spoken of afterward, which are to be found in God's presence, and in communion with Him. Life, in the only true sense, is union with God; and from that springs, of necessity, the idea of immortality. It seems impossible to suppose that David, who here expresses such a fulness of confidence in God, such a living, personal relationship to Him, could have ever dreamed that such a relationship would end with death. Our Lord's words to the Sadducees apply here with especial force: "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. They to whom God has made Himself known, they who are one with Him, cannot lose that Divine life of which they are made partakers." At the same time, in the utterance of this confident persuasion and hope, David was carried beyond himself. He spake as a prophet, knowing that God had promised of the fruit of his body to raise up Christ to sit on his throne. The hope of his own immortality was based upon, and bound up in, the life of Him who was at once his Son and his Lord. What was true of David in the lower sense was true in the fullest and highest sense of Christ—was only true of David because it was true of Christ; and is only true of any of us in and through Him, according to His own words, "Because I live, ye shall live also." Briefly, then, it must be said that vs. 9-11, so far as they refer to David, express his confidence in God's protecting care in this life and his hope of a life to come. But as a prophecy of Christ they mean all that is drawn from them by Peter and Paul. In Christ's deliverance from the grave and His resurrection, the whole fulness of their meaning is exhausted. P. Hades could not detain Him who was to "lead its captivity captive;" and ere "His flesh should see corruption," He was to burst the bars of the prison, and return to the light of day; and thence ascending, should enter upon the fulness of joy. The Mediator is the Precursor of His people, on this "Path of Life," and an experienced Guide also in its dangers. In all things "He has the precedency," and advances in front of the host He is leading to the skies. By the right, both of conquest and experience, He exercises "domination over the dead and the living." There is no hazard of error in thus assigning its specific sense to the prophetic words of David; for the chief of the apostles, under the fresh influence of the Divine Spirit, applies and expounds them as fulfilled in none but Jesus—the Christ. I. T. In Thy presence is fulness of joy; in Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Mark, for quality, there are pleasures; for quantity, fulness; for dignity, at God's right hand; for eternity, forevermore. The joy of the saints in heaven is never ebbing, but always flowing to all contentment. The joys of heaven never fade, never wither, never die, nor never are lessened nor interrupted. The joy of the saints in heaven is a constant joy, an everlasting joy, in the root and in the cause, and in the matter of it and in the objects of it. "Their joy lasts forever whose objects remain forever." T. Brooks. We know that this mortal shall put on immortality, and that the body of the believer is to be fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body. The Christian shall see Christ, shall behold His glory, shall be like Him, shall be welcomed into the joy of his Lord. Faith will become sight and hope fruition. Now he knows in part, but then shall he know even as also he is known. He will sin no more, sorrow no more. His inheritance is incorruptible, undefiled and fadeth not away. Tears are wiped away from all faces. Entering heaven, the weary finds rest, the wanderer a home, and the pilgrim leaves his tent for a city that hath foundations. Earth's sinning Christians shall wear white robes. Earth's sorrowing disciples shall waken notes of joy from harps of gold. F. L. Patton. The saints on earth are all but wayfaring men, wandering pilgrims far from home; but the saints in heaven are safely arrived at the end of their journey. All we here are but strangers in the midst of danger, we are losing ourselves and losing our lives in the land of the dying. But ere long we may find our lives and ourselves again in heaven with the Lord of life, being found of Him in the land of the living. "Fulness of joy." In heaven they can want nothing unless it be want itself. They may find the want of evil, but never feel the evil of want. Evil is but the want of good, and the want of evil is but the absence of want. God is good, and no want of good can be in God. What want then can be endured in the presence of God, where no evil is, but all good, that the fulness of joy may be enjoyed? "In Thy presence, is." There it is, not there it was, nor there it will be, but there it is without cessation or intercision, there it always hath been, is and must be. It is an assertion eterna veritatis—that is, always true. "In Thy presence is the fulness of joy;" and herein consists the consummation of felicity; for what measure of joy can any man wish for more than fulness of joy? And where would any man wish to enjoy this fulness of joy rather than in the presence of God, which is the ever-flowing and the overflowing fountain of joy? And when would any man wish for this enjoyment of the fulness of joy in the very fountain of joy rather than presently, constantly, and incessantly? Now all these desirables make up the consummation of true felicity. Willan. The lawless or frivolous pleasures of mankind are only an ill sense put upon the language of nature. Let but the joy we seek be of celestial quality, and our pleasures such as ennoble and invigorate the soul, and then the true and ultimate purpose of existence is attained. Fulness of joy and perpetuity of pleasure were assuredly proposed as the end of that creation of which absolute Beneficence is the author. Who, can question that the several gradations of the intelligent universe rise in degrees of enjoyment, as they rise in degrees of power and virtue; that at each ascent there is less of what is subservient and more of what is primary; less toil and danger, and more tranquillity and joy? And thus must the progression advance, even to the mount of God—the Royal abode of eternal and unsullied Blessedness. I. T.—Our small measures could not contain that "fulness of joy." There the vessel will be inconceivably dilated; the body will be "raised in power," like that of angels who "excel in strength," endued with immortal vigor—with adamantine energy; the eye will be strengthened to behold those beams of Divine effulgence which, were they to be manifested to us now, would blind us with their blaze! The ear will be fitted to receive, the voice to respond, those eternal hallelujahs! Every cloud will be dispelled from the mind; every imperfection of its powers removed: "we shall see face to face, and know as we are known." There will exist a totally different scale of faculties, adapted to the magnitude of the objects to be comprehended—to the inconceivable splendors of the beatific vision! R. Hall. It ought to be assumed that the shoreless ocean of the Divine Felicity contains elements, and combinations of those elements, which utterly surpass all finite knowledge. And then the fact of such unsearchable depths being admitted, as a necessary deduction of reason, there will be open to created minds the peculiar emotion naturally springing up when, with the boundless radiance of Infinite Blessedness full in view, it is recollected that a vast unknown remains beyond and within that visible glory! Herein is comprehended a provision, never to be exhausted, for supplying new enjoyments to pure and intelligent beings. It is evident that to active natures, endowed with the power and desire of advancement, the eras of protracted duration must impart continually fresh accessions of capacity for discerning the perfections of the Infinite God. That which might not at all be known or conceived of in an early stage may be comprehended in a stage more advanced; and thus the Boundless Felicity which none shall ever fathom will be to all, and forever, a spring of perpetual pleasures. I. T. Forevermore. Eternity makes heaven to be heaven; 'tis the diamond in the ring. O blessed day that shall have no night! the sunlight of glory shall rise upon the soul and never set! O blessed spring that shall have no autumn or fall of the leaf! Its joys are eternal. Watson.—The enjoyments above, and the treasures proposed to us by our Saviour, are indefectible in their nature, and endless in their duration. They are still full, fresh, and entire, like the stars and orbs above, which shine with the same undiminished lustre, and move with the same unwearied motion, with which they did from the first date of their creation. Nay, the joys of heaven will abide when these lights of heaven shall be put out; and when sun and moon, and nature itself, shall be discharged their stations and be employed by Providence no more, the righteous shall then appear in their full glory; and, being fixed in the Divine presence, enjoy one perpetual and everlasting day—a day commensurate to the unlimited eternity of God Himself, the great Sun of Righteousness, who is always rising, and never sets. South. That which crowns all is, that the life above is eternal. This satisfies all our desires and excludes all our fears; for unchangeableness is an inseparable attribute of perfect felicity. The blessed are in full communion with God, the fountain of life, and Christ the prince of life. "Because I live," saith our Saviour, "ye shall live also." What can interrupt, much less put an end to the happiness of the saints? The love of God is immutably fixed upon them, and their love upon Him. Here their love is subject to decays and gradual alienations; as the needle in the compass, though it always has a tendency to the North Pole, yet sometimes it declines, and has its variations. But in heaven the love of the saints is directly and constantly set upon God. The light of His countenance governs all their affections. It is as impossible to divert their desires from Him, as to cause one that is inflamed with thirst to leave a clear flowing spring for a noisome puddle. In short, heaven is filled with eternal hallelujahs; for there is no appearance of sin, no shadow of death there; all miseries are vanished, and all that is desirable is possessed by the saints; the circle of their employment is to enjoy and praise the Divine goodness forever. Bates. Death is not the end, but the beginning. It is not loss, but gain. It is not into darkness, but into marvellous light. It is not to silence and stillness, but into life far more real and active. It is not away from joy and gladness and beauty, but is out of the mere hints and shadows and hopes of blessedness into the full revelation of Christ, into His very presence, where there is fulness of joy, where there are pleasures forevermore. We see hints and gleams, and we have glimpses now and then, of far more glorious life than we have yet reached. The highest attainments here are but the beginnings of sanctified life. The peace, joy, love, unselfishness, service, purity, holiness, reached in the ripest experiences of earthly sainthood are only dim intimations of what we may become—ay, of what we shall become. Our life is hid, concealed, with Christ in God. . . . Since we are to be some day like Christ, we should grow every day in grace; we should be getting ever a little more like Christ in feeling, in temper, in disposition, in affection; our aim should be to bring every thought and emotion and desire into sweet subjection to Christ. We should not only cherish the blessed vision, but should seek daily to grow into its Divine beauty. J. R. M. We may cherish the hope of a social heaven. Man's course begins in a garden, but it ends in a city. The final condition will be the perfection of human society. There all who love Christ will be drawn together, and old ties, broken for a little while here, be reknit in yet holier form, never to be parted more. The all-important question for each of us is how may we have such a hope, like a great sunset light shining into the western windows of our souls? If you can humbly say, To me to live is Christ, then is it well. Living by Him, we may be ready quietly to lie down when the time comes, and may have all the future filled with the blaze of a great hope that glows brighter as the darkness thickens. That peaceful hope will not leave us till consciousness fails, and then when it has ceased to guide us Christ Himself will lead us, scarcely knowing where we are, through the waters, and when we open our half-bewildered eyes in brief wonder, the first thing we see will be His welcoming smile, and His voice will say, as a tender surgeon might to a little child waking after an operation, "It is all over." We lift our hands wondering, and find wreaths on our brows. We lift our eyes, and lo! all about us a crowned crowd of conquerors, "And with the morn those angel faces smile A. M. Every image which denotes the purest joy is introduced into the apostle's description of the ultimate blessedness of the redeemed. They are clad in white, the wedding garments of a great festivity. Music is the natural utterance of their delight. Nor is this a strained and artificial expression. It is full-toned chorus; it is hearty praise; it is jubilant adoration. There is waving of incense from golden censers. There is the lifting up of triumphant palms. There is the casting of golden crowns at the feet of the enthroned. There is "the voice of harpers harping with their harps." And the song of multitudes, whom no man can number, ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, is as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and as that doxology of the Redeemer waxes louder and fuller, the very pillars and arches of heaven are tremulous with joy. Divested of all that is tropical and symbolical in form, the one idea conveyed to us is that the climacteric of redemption is full, irrepressible, eternal joy. A religion which falls short of positive and unfailing pleasure, as the ultimate law of life, cannot meet the necessities of humanity. Redemption is an advance on creation. It more than regains what was lost, more than restores what was original. The burden of that heavenly song is salvation, blessing, and thanksgiving. The second Paradise is better than Eden. The joy of man redeemed, restored, and perfected is greater than that of man in the glory of his innocence. W. Adams. The immortal welfare of the soul, supreme and consummate, will never have been realized till it is reconciled with its Maker through faith in Christ and repentance from sin; till in it has been developed and cultivated a godlike character, such as was revealed, present and personal, through the incarnation of Christ and through His subsequent work and suffering; till there have been unfolded in it those grandest faculties, not as yet fully revealed, in which the condition and the basis are shown of a glory that we cannot yet comprehend; till we have thus become prepared for the largest operation, the grandest offices, which even immortality shall open to us. All this is implied in God's amazing constitution of our being. And as the fruit of all these comes the last element essential to the perfect well-being of the soul—a constant, sweet, and immortal felicity in the presence of God, in sympathy with Him and with the seraphim and saints who are gathered about Him; a felicity that shall flow like a river in the soul, deep and bright, filling it with its rich experience; a felicity that shall be as a shining atmosphere around that soul, beneath whose radiance all spiritual graces shall start forth and flourish; in whose inspiration each voice shall be one of constant song, and every thought of joy and praise! And that well-being shall be as eternal as the being of God Himself! R. S. S. 1. HEAR the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry; Give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. 2 Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; Let thine eyes look upon equity. 3 Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; Thou hast tried me, and findest nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress. 4 As for the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the ways of the violent. 5. My steps have held fast to thy paths, My feet have not slipped. 6 I have called upon thee, for thou wilt answer me, O God: Incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech. 7 Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest them which put their trust in thee From those that rise up against them, by thy right hand. 8 Keep me as the apple of the eye, Hide me under the shadow of thy wings, 9 From the wicked that spoil me, My deadly enemies, that compass me about. 10 They are inclosed in their own fat : With their mouth they speak proudly. 11 They have now compassed us in our steps : They set their eyes to cast us down to the earth. 12 He is like a lion that is greedy of his prey, And as it were a young lion lurking in secret places. 13 Arise, O LORD, Confront him, cast him down : In this Psalm a servant of God, conscious of his own uprightness, and surrounded by enemies, prays to be kept from the evil world, and from evil men who persecute him; and then from the dark present looks forward with joy to the bright future. Every tried and tempted servant of God may find in it the touchstone whereby to prove himself; the sure refuge whither to betake himself; the hope which is the anchor of the soul, and which entereth within the veil. The Psalm may be, as the inscription states, a Psalm of David; and if so, we may probably attribute its composition to the time of Saul's persecution. It may be divided into three strophes: I. The Psalmist's confidence in his appeal to God (vs. 1-5). This is based upon the righteousness of his cause, and the absence of all hypocrisy in his prayer (vs. 1, 2). The consciousness of this integrity further declared, and that even on the closest scrutiny. Both heart (v. 3) and life (vs. 4, 5) are free from reproach, notwithstanding the evil by which he is surrounded. II. Prayer to be kept in the evil world (vs. 6-12). The appeal to God's marvellous loving-kindness and tender affection, that he may be protected against his enemies. The description of their bitterness (v. 9), their pride (v. 10), and their relentless persecution (vs. 11, 12) is then given. III. Prayer that the sword of Jehovah may overtake his enemies (v. 13). And then the broad contrast, not without its consolation; their portion, at the best, is for this life, and then perishes; mine is in the presence and the vision of God, and, therefore, cannot be taken from me (vs. 14, 15). P. Psalm 17 is placed immediately after Psalm 16 because it likewise concludes with the hope of a blessed and soul-satisfying vision of God. In other respects also the two Psalms have much in common. D. Deliver my soul from the wicked by thy sword; 14. From men, by thy hand, O LORD, From men of the world, whose portion is in this life, And whose belly thou fillest with thy treasure: They are satisfied with children, And leave the rest of their substance to their babes. 15 As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. This Psalm is called "a prayer;" how appropriately we have but to glance through it to see. It is full of petition—of strong, clear pleading, intense and passionate, such as rises only from scenes of danger, such as comes only out of a sufferer's heart. It is called a prayer of David. Who, indeed, except David, had such experiences of "suffering" and "danger," and such susceptibilities to be touched and wrung by them, as have expression in this Psalm? We owe our whole salvation to the suffering of Christ; but, in a secondary sense, how much also do we receive from or through the sufferings of men! The world will never know, until its whole history is reviewed and all its mysteries explained, how much instruction, comfort, incitement have flowed from the trials and sufferings of this one man. In this respect David [and Job] and Paul have done more for the race than perhaps any men who ever lived. Raleigh. 1. The right, righteousness or justice in the abstract, here put for a just cause, or perhaps for one who is in the right, who has justice on his side. The prayer that God will hear the right implies that no appeal is made to partiality or privilege, but merely to the merits of the case. The righteousness claimed is not merely that of the cause, but that of the person, not inherent but derived from the imputed righteousness of faith according to the doctrine of the Old as well as the New Testament. The quality alleged is not that of sinless perfection, but that of sincere conformity to the Divine will. A. 1-3. Assertions of innocence in the Psalms. We find in the Psalms many assertions of uprightness, of innocence, of freedom from transgression, which almost startle us. Such expressions have sometimes given offence, as if they savored of a self-righteous spirit. But a little reflection will show how mistaken such a notion is. We have but to turn to the passages in which they occur, to see at once that the words are not the words of a proud boaster, ignorant alike of his own heart and of the law of God. Take, for instance, such passages as this: "Thou hast proved my heart; Thou hast visited (me) by night; Thou hast tried (me) and findest no evil thought in me; neither does my heart transgress" (v. 3). The words are bold words, no doubt. Such an assertion of innocence is one which we might tremble to make. But it is not self-righteous. It is made solemnly in the presence of God, with a direct appeal to Him as knowing the heart: "From Thy presence let my judgment go forth; Thine eyes behold uprightness" (v. 2). It is fully explained by other language immediately preceding: "Give ear to my prayer which (is uttered) by no deceitful lips" (v. 1). These last words show us the sense in which such a passage is to be taken. The Psalmist is not asserting his freedom from sin, but the uprightness and guilelessness of his heart toward God. He is no hypocrite, no dissembler; he is not consciously doing wrong. P. He knows himself to be righteous not only in his relation to men, but also in his relation to God. In all such assertions of the pious self-consciousness, what is meant is a righteousness of life that has its ground in a righteousness by faith. The self-righteousness is only in appearance; for the righteousness to which the Psalmists appeal is not the merit of works, not a sum of good deeds, that are recounted to God with a claim for reward, but a bending of the will and a shaping of the life that is in accordance with the mind of God, that has its roots in the emptying of self and in the surrendering of one's self to Him, and that looks upon itself as the result of His justifying, sanctifying, preserving and guiding grace. The Old Testament looks at this matter more after the manner of James than after that of Paul; but even the Old Testament righteousness of life is rooted in the grace of God the Redeemer toward sinful man, who in himself is devoid of righteousness before God. There is, therefore, no self-righteousness in David's praying that the righteousness, which in his person is persecuted and cries for help, may be heard. D. 3. This verse expresses the consciousness not of sinlessness, but of sincerity; the Psalmist needs, and invites, the fiery process of testing and refining, but with a certainty that it will result in a recognition of his integrity. Cook.—It is not absolute innocence which the Psalmist here asserts; he is appealing to God as knowing his uprightness of heart and honesty of purpose. The latter part of this verse might be rendered, with Delitzsch: "Thou hast tried me, and findest nothing: Have I cherished an evil thought?—it shall not pass my mouth." Hast proved, hast tried. Both words used of the testing of metals, and especially the latter, which means properly to melt in the fire, so as to separate the dross from the ore. By night, as the season of quiet thought and self-examination. P. It is night that lets us measure ourselves. We cannot know self by day. We are mixed with the busy, distracting world, dispersed and confused in action and enjoyment. The night comes to let the thoughts concentrate and fall back on their real strength, to make them feel what basis they have within: "Thou hast proved my heart, Thou hast visited me in the night." It is night that lets us measure the real universe. By day it is shut. We see only this earth and earthly sun. By night God withdraws the veil, reveals eternity with its far-off shores of sparkling worlds, and fills the soul with infinite longings, which make it conscious it has a universe within greater than the universe without, and which can be satisfied only with God. Ker.—Viewed in its relations to the life of man, the night is pre-eminently an interruption. It breaks in upon and suspends human occupations, of whatever kind; it writes on the face of the heavens the veto of God on uninterrupted work. This enforced suspension of activity suggests not merely the limited stock of strength at our disposal, but it also reminds us that we have a higher life than that which is represented and made the most of by the activity of this life, which will last when all that belongs to this life shall have passed away, a life for the nutriment and development of which God thus makes provision, and invites us to make provision, lest we should be swept without thought, without purpose, down the stream of time into the vast eternity that awaits us. H. P. L. 4. By the word of Thy lips. The Word is called, "The sword of the Spirit." In spiritual conflicts there is none like to that. The more ready the Scripture is with us, the greater advantage in our conflicts and temptations. When the devil came to assault Christ, He had Scripture ready for him, whereby He overcame the tempter. It is a great advantage when we have the word not only by us but in us, engrafted in the heart; when it is present with us we are more able to resist the assaults of Satan. Either a man forgets the Word, or hath lost his affection to it, before he can be drawn to sin. Manton.—What the Scripture forbids, avoid; what it affirms, believe; what it commands, do; what it reproves, amend. As many as walk by this rule, peace on them, and on the Israel of God. T. Adams. I have kept me from the ways. They whom Christ saves are they who at once attempt to save themselves, yet despair of saving themselves; who aim to do all, and confess they do naught; who are all love and all fear; who ever seek to please Him, yet feel they never can. All this seems a contradiction to the natural man; but those whom Christ enlightens understand that it is possible to work out their own salvation, yet to have it wrought out for them. Newman. To keep the even tenor of one's way in sunshine and storm, through evil as well as through good report, amid afflictions and reproaches as well as smiles and benedictions, is a proof of integrity which he is thrice blessed who can appropriate to himself. To be always the same, at all times, in all places, in all conditions, in all companies; to stand firmly by our principles at every sacrifice of interest or of fame; to consent to be misunderstood and maligned rather than let go our integrity; to count nothing a good but duty, nothing ill but wrong—this is a perfection of character which, while it is incumbent upon all to pursue, such is the melancholy weakness of human nature that it has never been realized but once. Our efforts are at best but faint approximations. We press forward; we have not already attained, but the prize is in view. We have but one rule to go by. The law of the Lord must be in our hearts, must be the controlling law of our wills, if we would keep us from the ways of the violent. Thornwell. 6-12. The prayer to be kept in the evil world. The earnest, affectionate cleaving to God, the prayer to be hidden in the shadow of His wings, is proof enough that the former part of the Psalm is no merely self-righteous boast. P. 6,7. It is only now, when he has laid bare his very heart and his walk before Jehovah, that he resumes the petition which he has thus justified and grounded, and unfolds it in detail. Being such an one as he has described himself to be according to the testimony of his conscience, he may call upon God, for God hears such and will therefore also hear him. D. 7. This verse is remarkable for its compact brevity. What the Hebrew gives in six words the common version takes twenty-six to convey. Chambers.—“Show Thy marvellous loving-kindness” is, more precisely, show Thy loving-kindness to be marvellous—make the manifestations of it to be glorious in the case of Thy servant. Beautiful indeed is the form of this address to the Hearer of prayer—“O Thou that savest by Thy right hand all who trust in Thee from their uprising foes.” C.—Thy marvellous lovingkindness. Marvellous in its distinguishing character, its faithfulness, its immutability, and above all, marvellous in the wonders which it works. That marvellous grace which has redeemed us with the precious blood of God's only begotten is here invoked to come to the rescue. S. 8. Both the images in this verse, alike expressive of the affection of the Psalmist and of his deep sense of God's tender care and love to him, are borrowed from the beautiful passage in Deut. 32: 10, 11. For the former, see also Zech. 2: 8. The latter occurs frequently. In the New Testament our Lord uses the still more tender image of the hen gathering her brood under her wings. P. The pupil or apple of the eye is a proverbial type of that which is most precious and most easily injured, and which therefore has a double claim to sedulous protection. A.—Both God's care in the construction of the eye, and the instinct of man under a consciousness of its priceless value, conspire to the keeping of the eye above all other keeping, thus making it an admirable illustration of the care with which we fitly pray God to keep us from all sin and harm. C. Shadow of thy wings. In his great hymn (Deut. 32) Moses already speaks of God's wings; but the double figure of the shadow of God's wings (here and 36: 8; 57: 2; 63: 8) was coined by David. “God's wings” are the spreadings out, i.e., the manifestations, of His love, which takes the creature under the protection of its intimate fellowship, and the “shadow” of these wings is the refreshing rest and security which the fellowship of this love affords to those who hide themselves in it from the heat of outward and inward conflict. D. 10. “Their fat have they shut up.” This may refer both to the outward condition and the state of heart. These men led a luxurious and selfish life (as is further said, v. 14), in consequence of which they had become proud and unfeeling. Others render, “they have closed their heart,” i.e., they have no feeling of compassion. P. 12,13. The foe springs upon David like a lion; may Jehovah—so he implores—in his defence stand in the way of this lion and cast him down. D. 14. The simplest construction is that given in the Prayer-Book version, which takes the preposition in the same sense before both nouns—“from the men, and from the evil world.” World is then simply a collective equivalent to the plural men. The men of the world are represented as having their largest wishes gratified not only in the number, but the prosperous condition of their children. See Psalms 127: 3; 128: 3, 4; Job 21: 111. The whole is only a description of things as they seem to man, before God’s judgments interpose to change them. A. 14. Men of the world.** The word here used for “world” (cheled) denotes the transitory nature of the world as a thing of time. Men of the world are those who have made it their home, and who, together with the world and the lust thereof, are passing away. Being thus worldly-minded, they have their portion in life, i.e., in the brief years of their existence upon earth. Then this love of the world is opposed to the love of the Father, not the present to the future so much as the temporal to the eternal, the world to God. The contrast to “their portion in this life” is to be found in v. 15. On the one side, the outward, the transitory, the unreal; on the other, the inward, the abiding, the true. We have here a view of the world and of life very remarkable for the Old Testament—a kind of anticipation of the contrast between the flesh and the spirit which Paul gives us, or the love of the world and of God of which John speaks. P.—The contrast is not so much between this life and the life to come, as between the world (life) and God. Here we see right into the very heart of Old Testament faith. For Old Testament faith all the blessedness and glory of the future life, which the New Testament discloses, is bound up in Jehovah. Jehovah is its highest good, in the possession of whom it is raised above heaven and earth, life and death; to yield itself to Him blindly, without any explicit knowledge of a future blessed life, to find its satisfaction in Him, to rest in Him, to hide itself in Him when face to face with death, is the characteristic feature of Old Testament faith. D. Whose portion is in this life. Time and this lower world bound all their hopes and fears. They have no serious believing apprehensions of anything beyond this present life; therefore have nothing to withhold them from the most injurious violence, if thou withhold them not; men that believe not another world are the ready actors of any imaginable mischiefs and tragedies in this. Howe.—Self-denial is the grand law of all holy living. It is living with reference to the future. Self-indulgence lives for the present, and the immediate present, and utterly disregards a future that is often by no means very remote. Accordingly the Bible represents it—as a damning sin to be content, as are “men of the world,” to “have their portion in this life.” Dives is charged with neither immorality nor inhumanity, but simply with having by his own choice, in his “lifetime, received his good things!” Pierson. 15. Worldly men have their satisfaction in this life, in treasures, in children; David hopes to be satisfied with the likeness of God. P.—The Hebrew makes the antithesis between the writer and his rich and powerful enemies very strong: I, for my part, have a far different lot from theirs. My treasures are not of the earth, consist not in being satisfied with children and with wealth enough to enjoy with them while I live and to leave for them at my death; but it shall suffice for me to behold Thy face in purity and integrity so as to ensure Thy favor; it shall be enough for me to have the blissful satisfaction of awaking from the sleep of death in Thine own blessed image! I prefer the construction which refers this passage to the future life. In support of it I urge, (1) that the words themselves not only admit but with considerable force demand this construction. “Beholding the face of God” will not have its legitimate meaning filled out until we reach heaven. “Awaking” is painfully meagre and inept if applied to rising from one’s nightly sleep, but is not only pertinent but sublimely glorious when said of the resurrection from the grave. “With Thy likeness” a Hebrew word which legitimately means form, image, as of what is shaped, fashioned, has no proper sense if applied to each morning’s rising from sleep, but is pregnant with grand significance as spoken of the resurrection body clothed upon with immortality. I also urge, (2) that the context—the relation of thought in this antithesis between David and his wicked persecutors—demands the reference of his words to the future life. They are “men of this world,” he of another; “they have their portion in this life,” he in the next; they are satisfied with children, he with his final awaking in the Divine image; they make out a sort of immortality by leaving their wealth to their sons and to their sons’ sons after them; but David’s immortality is simply that of the just—the glorious inheritance laid up for God's children. These two comprehensive considerations constitute in my view the legitimate arguments by which the main question must be determined. C. The language is quite free from obscurity. I, says David, as before (v. 6) emphatically—I, such as I am, poor, persecuted, but innocent, and God's friend, shall behold Thy countenance in righteousness. So far there is no substantial difference between commentators. David set against the prosperity of his enemies the single fact that he is sure of a vindication of his righteousness in God's own presence. But the next clause goes much farther. "When I awake"—what can that mean? Not from sleep, David had no thought of sleeping; not from the present danger, that had no connection with repose; what could it be but from death? His enemies are satisfied in this life with the hid treasures of Providence; when David awakes out of the sleep, which will be the end of all happiness to them, he will be satisfied with God's likeness. The word likeness does not mean the "likeness and image" of Gen. 1, but the Form of God Himself, called in the New Testament morphee and idos, of which all we know is that it is inconceivable, but of which we believe that it will be beheld and realized in the Person of the Son. David believed, if we may trust these words, that when life was gone, and the sleep of death terminated, all his longings would be satisfied by the manifestation of that Form. Cook. I cannot doubt that the reference is to "the waking from the sleep of death," and therefore to a resurrection. In opposition to this interpretation, it is commonly asserted that the truth of a resurrection had not yet been revealed, and that, consequently, if we find the doctrine here, the Psalm must be of later date—after the Exile. But this is mere assertion. First, as regards the use of the figure. "Waking" from death occurs in 2 Kings 4 : 31. Death is spoken of as a sleep from which there is no awaking [Job 14 : 12 ; Jer. 51 : 39]. Next, "Awake—ye that sleep in the dust" (Isa. 26 : 19), plainly refers to the resurrection. (Hence critics who think this truth could not be known before the Exile are obliged to suppose that this chapter was written after that time.) Again, why should not David have attained, in some degree, to the knowledge of a truth which in later times was so clearly revealed as it was to Ezekiel (who makes use of it as the image of the resurrection of Israel, 37 : 1-14) and to Daniel (12 : 2)? Is it astonishing that a truth should first appear somewhat dimly expressed, and afterward shine with a greater brightness? In all times there are men whom God takes into a nearer communion with Himself, and who attain to an insight and an utterance beyond that of the dull, unripe world. P. Religion has its commencement in the knowledge of what are termed the natural attributes of God, which in fact are subservient only to higher perfections; it receives its next considerable enhancement from a knowledge or spiritual perception of His attributes of Holiness and Goodness; it reaches its consummation in an immediate perception or open vision of His unchanging and unsullied Blessedness. This absolute felicity of God is the ultimate point of theology; and the eras of eternity shall be occupied in learning all that it comprises. Of these three stages of knowledge, the first is acquired chiefly by the deductions and inferences of reason. The second, by the testimony of Scripture, along with that inward communication, or "teaching of the Spirit," by which the heart is quickened. The third must wait for the immediate or real and direct knowledge of its object in the future world. I. T. Everlasting life and salvation in heaven is not a truth revealed only by the Gospel, but was well known and firmly believed by the saints of old. They had assurance of this, that they should live with God forever in glory. "When I awake with Thy likeness." "Thou wilt receive me to glory" (Psalm 73 : 24). "In Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore" (Psalm 16 : 11). They looked for another country, whereof Canaan was but a type and shadow, as the apostle shows in the Epistle to the Hebrews (11 : 16). They did believe this in those days. Samuel Mather. "When I awake." How apt and obvious is the analogy between our awaking out of natural sleep, and the holy soul's rising up out of the darkness and torpor of its present state into the enlivening light of God's presence! It is truly said so to awake at its first quitting these darksome regions, when it lays aside its cumbersome night-veil. It doth so more perfectly in the joyful morning of the resurrection-day, when mortality is swallowed up in life, and all the yet hovering shadows of it are vanished and fled away. Nor doth this interpretation less fitly accord to the other contents of this verse; for to what state do the sight of God's face, and satisfaction with His likeness, so fully agree, as to that of future blessedness in the other world? The contexture of discourse in this and the foregoing verse together seems plainly to determine us to this sense; for what can be more conspicuous in them than a purposed comparison, an opposition of two states of felicity mutually to each other? That of the wicked, whom he calls men of time, and whose portion, he tells us, is in this life; and the righteous man's, his own, which he expected not to be till he should awake—that is, not till after this life. Howe. The soul is but finite, but God is infinite. Though God be a good that satisfies, yet He does not surfeit. Fresh joys spring continually from His face; and He is as much to be desired after millions of years by glorified souls as at the first moment. There is a fulness in God that satisfies, and yet so much sweetness that the soul still desires. If there be so much delight in God, when we see Him only by faith (1 Pet. 1:8), what will the joy of vision be when we shall see Him face to face! T. Watson.—The nature of the satisfaction. "Thy likeness." Like the body of Jesus we are to believe our new resurrection body will be. Only it will have passed through a great change: no longer carnal, but spiritual; not dull, but glorious; not a hinderer, but a helper, of the soul; framed and moulded in exquisite adaptation, first to hold a perfected spirit, and then to be as wings to execute all the pure and unlimited desires of the soul for the glory of God. And so with the spiritual nature of man. "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." J. V. When we live again it will not be by any external transfer to us of the benefit of our Saviour's resurrection, any more than our being forgiven our sins will be by any external transfer of the benefits of our Saviour's suffering. Both are inward participations, living gifts, gained by faith, growing up under a living law—the law of the Spirit of life. "If we have been planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection." Straight out of the redemption, like the flower from the broken seed, springs our future as our only present peace and purity. Heaven is a place of white garments, and nothing makes them white but the precious blood. Jesus died to set us free from the bondage of a hard, compulsory, unsatisfying, unloving sort of obedience, to lead us out into the liberty of a free and loving service where faith and thankfulness are the ever fresh incentives. And so the Christian's resurrection life will be the perfection of that liberty, the unclouded sunshine of the presence of the Lord. It will be "likeness"—likeness in the resurrection because likeness in the death; likeness wrought by believing, and loving, and serving; and when the trustful and affectionate servant, having passed from death unto life, awakes up in it, he will be "satisfied." F. D. H. The truth which David felt when he said, "I shall be satisfied when I awake," is that the spirit, because emancipated from the body, shall spring into greater intensity of action, shall put forth powers that have been held down here, and shall come into contact with an order of things which here it has but indirectly known. To our true selves and to God we shall wake. Here we are like men asleep in some chamber that looks toward the eastern sky. Morning by morning comes the sunrise, with the tender glory of its rosy light and blushing heavens, and the heavy eyes are closed to it all. Here and there some lighter sleeper, with thinner eyelids or face turned to the sun, is half conscious of a vague brightness, and feels the light, though he sees not the colors of the sky nor the forms of the flimsy clouds. Such souls are our saints and prophets, but most of us sleep on unconscious. To us all the moment comes when we shall wake, and see for ourselves the bright and terrible world which we have so often forgotten, and so often been tempted to think was itself a dream. A. M. The spirits of just men are made perfect in heaven. The soul is the glory of man, and grace is the glory of the soul, and both are then in their exaltation. All the faculties of the soul are raised to the highest degrees of natural and Divine perfection. In this life grace renews the faculties, but does not elevate them to their highest pitch. It does not make a mean understanding pregnant, nor a frail memory strong, nor a slow tongue eloquent, but sanctifies them as they are. But when the soul is released from this dark body of earth, the understanding is clear and quick, the memory firm, the will and affections ardent and vigorous. And they are enriched with Divine light and love and power, that makes them fit for the most noble and heavenly operations. The lineaments of God's image on the soul are first drawn here, but then it receives His last hand. All the celestial colors are added, to give the utmost life and lustre to it. Here we are advancing, but by death we arrive at perfection. Bates. To say of a man that he is just, justified in Christ, is the beginning of glory. But to say the just made perfect is to reach a point where angels and principalities and powers will never be wearied with gazing; where all that they have beheld in the past eternity of God's wonders of wisdom, power, and love, will leave them still astonished and enraptured, with a new surpassing rapture, at this before inconceivable revelation of the glory of God in the Saviour seen through His saints. This is that glorification together with Christ to which the Apostle Paul refers, when he speaks of the glory which shall be revealed in us; the glory of those who are glorified together with Christ, being that of those who are without fault before the throne of God. Well may the earnest expectation of the creature wait for and long after such a manifestation of the Sons of God. G. B. C. What is heaven? Likeness to God! Love, purity, fellowship with Him; the condition of the spirit and the relation of the soul to Him. The noblest truth about the future world flows from the words of our Master—"This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." Not, "this brings;" not, "this will lead up to;" not, "this will draw after it;" but "this is;" and whosoever possesses that eternal life hath already in him the germ of all the glories that are round the throne, and the blessedness that fills the hearts of perfected spirits. If so, if already eternal life in the bud standeth in the knowledge of God in Christ, what makes its fruitage and completeness? Surely, not physical changes or the circumstances of heaven, at least not these primarily, however much such changes and circumstances may subserve our blessedness there, and the anticipation of them may help our sense-bound hopes here. But the completion of heaven is the completion of our knowledge of God and Christ, with all the perfecting of spirit which that implies and produces. The faith, and love, and happy obedience, and consecration which is calm, that partially occupied and ruled the soul here are to be thought of as enlarged, perfected, delivered from the interruption of opposing thoughts, of sensuous desires, of selfish purposes, of earthly and sinful occupations. And that perfect knowledge and perfect union and perfect likeness are perfect bliss. And that bliss is heaven. And if, while heaven is a place, the heaven of heaven be a state, then no more words are needed to show that, then, heaven can be no dead level, nor can all stand at the same stage of attainments, though all be perfect; but that in that solemn company of the blessed, "the spirits of just men made perfect," there are indefinitely numerous degrees of approximation to the unattainable perfection, which stretches above them all, and draws them all to itself. A. M. The source of heaven's blessedness and power is the likeness of the soul to Christ. He is the image of the unseen Father, who has taken the copy from the Divine side and transferred it to the human for our example. He has removed by His life and death all the guilt which barred our way to God, and He has secured all the Spirit's power to make that image ours. Slowly we are drawn to His image here by the cords of love, as they strengthen their hold on us; but the image at best remains incomplete and dim. When He shall appear "we shall see His face, and His name shall be on our foreheads." It shall be deeper—in our souls; and all of God's truth and grace that can be communicated to a creature shall enter into the depth of the spiritual nature through Christ. If the active soul finds scope for work in God's material universe, the Mary-like spirit which delights to sit at the feet of Christ and hear His word shall have unrebuked leisure in the heavenly home. We may trust that in some way the sisters, Service and Meditation, will interchange gifts, and be perfectly at one when they reach His higher presence. Ker. Now we see God as by a dim reflection, but then face to face; now we know Him in part, but then even as we are known; then this imperfect vision of faith will be changed into a Divine and beatific manifestation of God. All that majesty which now overawes us will then be revealed to our prepared spirits; the Divine beauty will then fill all the powers and irradiate all the recesses of the mind. And to those who have here delighted to trace God in His works, His providence, and more especially in His word and grace, how delightful will be this intimate knowledge of the Father of spirits! R. Hall.—Here we meet with checks and hindrances to development manward and Godward—in absorption in the world's business—in the multiplicity of its cares—in the weariness of the body, rendering torpid the susceptibilities of the soul—in the isolations, the coldness, the discords of life—in the rareness of noble examples showing what hearts may be—in the dimness, the contradictions, the divisions, the sectarianisms of earth—in the faint apprehensions of God, of Christ, of eternity; in all these we find sad clogs to the growth of the heart's higher life. But in heaven all these will be gone. There will be found all that can give elevation, expansion, depth, power to the affections, clearness of insight into spiritual realities, the overshadowing presence and inflowing glories of God, the purest society of congenial spirits, all whose ways and all whose attractions will be on high, noble examples of the affections in lovely embodiment, sweet amenities, open souls all about us with prompt hospitalities and fellowship—everything to inspire us to flow out in confidence and love—no repressions or repulsions, all inviting to perpetual outgushings of heart—God the Father over us and all good souls about us. These will be the incitements, the nourishment of our affections; and in this Divine atmosphere they will have a growth, exhibit a luxuriance, effloresce in a beauty now inconceivable to us. The heart that has ever been really quickened to a Divine life, that has ever been put beside the beating heart of God and felt its Divine pulsations however faintly, such a heart shall live forever. J. Drummond. The place of our future life is obscure. How there can be relation to place without a body we do not know, and even when the body is restored, we cannot tell the locality of the resurrection-world. Nothing in reason and nothing certain in revelation connects it with any one spot in God's universe. The outward manner of our final existence is also uncertain. That it will be blessed and glorious, freed from all that can hurt or annoy, we may well believe. That it will be proportioned to the future material frame, we may reasonably infer. We may calculate that, in the degree in which the incorruptible and immortal body shall excel the body of sin and death, our final home, with its scenes of beauty and grandeur, its landscapes and skies, shall surpass our dwelling-place on this earth. There is a measure in the works of God on which we can reckon, both in the patterns of things in the heavens, and in the heavenly things themselves. Many of the modes of thought and feeling, in that life to come, perplex us. The great laws of mind and spirit must remain the same, because in them we are formed after the image of God. In these we are His offspring, and draw not simply from His will, but from His nature. Truth must forever continue truth, and goodness eternally commend itself to the soul, else our training for the future life would be valueless, and our confidence in the reality of things shaken. We can never admit that the perceptions of the spiritual world will be reversed or essentially altered. But there may be large modifications, through the extension and elevation of our thoughts. There are three things promised us which are all connected with each other: Christ's manifestation —“He shall appear.” A full vision on our part—“We shall see Him as He is.” And complete assimilation as the result—“We shall be like Him.” Ker. That future life gives us two elements, an infinite God and an indefinitely expansible human spirit: an infinite God to fill, and a soul to be filled, the measure and the capacity of which has no limit set to it that we can see. What will be the consequence of the contact of these two? Why this, for the first thing, that always, at every moment of that blessed life, there shall be a perpetual fruition, a perpetual satisfaction, a deep and full fountain filling the whole soul with the refreshment of its waves and the music of its flow. And yet, and yet—though at every moment in heaven we shall be satisfied, filled full of God, full to overflowing in all our powers—yet the very fact that the God who dwells in us, and fills our whole natures with unsullied and perfect blessedness, is an infinite God; and that we in whom the infinite Father dwells are men with souls that can grow, and can grow forever, will result in this, that at every moment our capacities will expand; that at every moment, therefore, the desire will grow and spring afresh; that at every moment God will be seen unveiling undreamed-of beauties, and revealing hitherto unknown heights of blessedness before us; and that the sight of that transcendent, unapproached, unapproachable, and yet attracting and transforming glory, will draw us onward as by an impulse from above, and the possession of some portion of it will bear us upward as by a power from within; and so, nearer, nearer, ever nearer to the throne of light, the centre of blessedness, the growing, and glorifying, and greatening souls of the perfectly and increasingly blessed shall mount up with wings as eagles. Heaven is endless longing, accompanied with an endless fruition—a longing which is blessedness, a longing which is life! Seeing God we shall be satisfied. With all lesser joys the eye is not satisfied with seeing, but to look on Him will be enough. Enough for mind and heart, wearied and perplexed with partial knowledge and imperfect love; enough for eager desires, which thirst, after all draughts from other streams; enough for will, chafing against lower lords and yet longing for authoritative control; enough for all my being—to see God. Here we can rest after all wanderings, and say, “I travel no further; here will I dwell forever—I shall be satisfied.” And as we reckon up the rich treasure of our immortal hopes, our faith grows bold, and pauses not even at the lofty certainty of God without us, known directly and adequately, but climbs to the higher assurance of God within us, flooding our darkness with His great light, and chang- ing us into the perfect copies of His express Image, His only-begotten Son. A. M. 27. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, And are at their wits' end. 28 Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, And he bringeth them out of their distresses. 29 He maketh the storm a calm, So that the waves thereof are still. 30 Then are they glad because they be quiet; So he bringeth them unto the haven where they would be. 31 Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, And for his wonderful works to the children of men! 32 Let them exalt him also in the assembly of the people, And praise him in the seat of the elders. 33 He turneth rivers into a wilderness, And watersprings into a thirsty ground; 34 A fruitful land into a salt desert, For the wickedness of them that dwell therein. 35. He turneth a wilderness into a pool of water, And a dry land into watersprings. 36 And there he maketh the hungry to dwell, That they may prepare a city of habitation; 37 And sow fields, and plant vineyards, And get them fruits of increase. 38 He blesseth them also, so that they are multiplied greatly; And he suffereth not their cattle to decrease. 39 Again, they are minished and bowed down Through oppression, trouble, and sorrow. 40 He poureth contempt upon princes, And cause h them to wander in the waste, where there is no way. 41 Yet setteth he the needy on high from affliction, And maketh him families like a flock. 42 The upright shall see it, and be glad; And all iniquity shall stop her mouth. 43 Whoso is wise shall give heed to these things, And they shall consider the mercies of the LORD. WE have now arrived at the last collection of Psalms, which includes some older Psalms along with a few composed in or after the captivity of seventy years. This is a Psalm of providence, celebrating the kindness of the Lord to those wandering in the wilderness, in nine verses; to those sitting in darkness and captivity, in seven verses; to those in affliction and sickness, in six verses; to those in a storm at sea, in ten verses, and to those who turn with penitence to the Lord under any corrective visitation, in eleven verses. Four parts are cases of difficulty or trouble in which men are wont to cry unto the Lord, and being delivered are exhorted to give thanks. The crying and the exhortation recur in each of these parts. The wanderer and the prisoner form a contrast; the latter has no liberty, the former no resting-place. The bedridden and the tempest-tossed present a similar contrast. The four are the most striking forms of the perils of life. M. This Psalm describes various incidents of human life; it tells of the perils which befall men and the goodness of God in delivering them, and calls upon all who have experienced His care and protection gratefully to acknowledge them; and it is perfectly general in its character. The four or five groups, or pictures, are so many samples taken from the broad and varied record of human experience. There can be no doubt as to the great lesson which the Psalm inculcates. It teaches us not only that God's providence watches over men, but that His ear is open to their prayers. It teaches us that prayer may be put up for temporal deliverance, and that such prayer is answered. It teaches us that it is right to acknowledge with thanksgiving such answers to our petitions. This was the simple faith of the Hebrew poet. It is needless to say how readily such a faith is shaken now. First, there is the old and obvious objection that all such prayers, even when offered by men of devout mind, are not answered. To this it may be replied, that answers to prayer are not all of one kind; and that God as really answers His children's supplication when He gives them strength and resignation in prison or in sickness, as when He "breaks in pieces the bars of iron," or "sends His Word and heals them;" when He suffers them to sink beneath the raging waters, with heaven open to their eyes, as when He "brings them to their desired haven." Closely akin to this there arises another question. Does God ever answer prayer by direct action upon the material world? It may be replied that it is not for the most part by immediate action in the material world that God grants our petitions. Even if we were forced to concede that now, since the age of miracles is past, God never so acts, still, this should not trouble us, seeing how wide the region is in which indirectly our prayers even for temporal blessing may be answered. How often we speak of happy inspirations, little knowing what we FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN. A PSALM OF DAVID THE SERVANT OF THE LORD, WHO SPAKE UNTO THE LORD THE WORDS OF THIS SONG IN THE DAY THAT THE LORD DELIVERED HIM FROM THE HAND OF ALL HIS ENEMIES, AND FROM THE HAND OF SAUL: AND HE SAID, 1. I LOVE thee, O LORD, my strength. 2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; My God, my strong rock, in him will I trust; My shield, and the horn of my salvation, my high tower. 3 I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised: So shall I be saved from mine enemies. 4 The cords of death compassed me, And the floods of ungodliness made me afraid. 5 The cords of Sheol were round about me: The snares of death came upon me. 6 In my distress I called upon the LORD, And cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of his temple, And my cry before him came into his ears. 7 Then the earth shook and trembled, The foundations also of the mountains moved And were shaken, because he was wroth. 8 There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, And fire out of his mouth devoured: Coals were kindled by it. 9 He bowed the heavens also, and came down; And thick darkness was under his feet. 10 And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: Yea, he flew swiftly upon the wings of the wind. 11 He made darkness his hiding place, his pavilion round about him: Darkness of waters, thick clouds of the skies. 12 At the brightness before him his thick clouds passed, Hailstones and coals of fire. 13 The LORD also thundered in the heavens, And the Most High uttered his voice; Hailstones and coals of fire. 14 And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; Yea, lightnings manifold, and discomfited them. 15 Then the channels of waters appeared, And the foundations of the world were laid bare, At thy rebuke, O LORD, At the blast of the breath of thy nostrils. 16 He sent from on high, he took me; He drew me out of many waters. 17 He delivered me from my strong enemy, And from them that hated me, for they were too mighty for me. 18 They came upon me in the day of my ca- lamity: But the LORD was my stay. 19 He brought me forth also into a large place; He delivered me, because he delighted in me. 20 The LORD rewarded me according to my righteousness; According to the cleanness of my hands hath he recompensed me. 21 For I have kept the ways of the LORD, And have not wickedly departed from my God. 22 For all his judgments were before me, And I put not away his statutes from me. 23 I was also perfect with him, And I kept myself from mine iniquity. 24 Therefore hath the LORD recompensed me according to my righteousness, According to the cleanness of my hands in his eyesight. 25 With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; With the perfect man thou wilt shew thyself perfect; 26 With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; And with the perverse thou wilt shew thy- self froward. 27. For thou wilt save the afflicted people ; But the haughty eyes thou wilt bring down.28 For thou wilt light my lamp ; The LORD my God will lighten my darkness.29 For by thee I run upon a troop ; And by my God do I leap over a wall.30 As for God, his way is perfect ; The word of the LORD is tried ; He is a shield unto all them that trust in him.31 For who is God, save the LORD ? And who is a rock, beside our God ?32 The God that girdeth me with strength, And maketh my way perfect.33 He maketh my feet like hinds' feet ; And setteth me upon my high places.34 He teacheth my hands to war ; So that mine arms do bend a bow of brass.35 Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation ; And thy right hand hath holden me up, And thy gentleness [condescension] hath made me great.36 Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, And my feet have not slipped.37 I will pursue mine enemies, and overtake them ; Neither will I turn again till they are consumed.38 I will smite them through that they shall not be able to rise ; They shall fall under my feet.39 For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle ; Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. In this magnificent hymn the royal poet sketches in a few grand outlines the tale of his life—the record of his marvellous deliverances and of the victories which Jehovah had given him—the record, too, of his own heart, the truth of its affection toward God, and the integrity of purpose by which it had ever been influenced. Throughout that singularly checkered life—hunted as he had been by Saul before he came to the throne, and harassed perpetually after he became king by rivals who disputed his authority and endeavored to steal away the hearts of his people, compelled to fly for his life before his own son, and engaged afterward in long and fierce wars with foreign nations—one thing had never forsaken him—the love and the presence of Jehovah. By His help he had subdued every enemy, and now, in his old age, looking back with devout thankfulness on the 40. Thou hast also made mine enemies turn their backs unto me, That I might cut off them that hate me.41 They cried, but there was none to save ; Even unto the LORD, but he answered them not.42 Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind ; I did cast them out as the mire of the streets.43 Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people ; Thou hast made me the head of the nations ; A people whom I have not known shall serve me.44 As soon as they hear of me they shall obey me ; The strangers shall submit themselves unto me.45 The strangers shall fade away, And shall come trembling out of their close places46 The LORD liveth ; and blessed be my rock ; And exalted be the God of my salvation ;47 Even the God that executeth vengeance for me, And subdueth peoples under me.48 He rescueth me from mine enemies ; Yea, thou liftest me up above them that rise up against me ; Thou deliverest me from the violent man.49 Therefore I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the nations, And will sing praises unto thy name.50 Great deliverance giveth he to his king ; And sheweth lovingkindness to his anointed, To David and to his seed, for evermore. past, he sings this great song of praise to the God of his life. With a heart full of love, he will tell how Jehovah delivered him, and then there rises before the eye of his mind the whole force and magnitude of the peril from which he had escaped. So much the more wonderful appears the deliverance, which, accordingly, he represents in a bold poetical figure, as a stooping of the Most High from heaven to save him ; who comes, as He came of old to Sinai, with all the terror and gloom of earthquake and tempest and thick darkness. But God delivers those only who trust in Him, and who are like Him. There must be an inner life of communion with God, if man will know His mercy. Hence David passes on to that covenant relationship in which he had stood to God. He had ever been a true Israelite ; and therefore God, the true God of Israel, had dealt with him accordingly. And thus it is at the last that the servant of Jehovah finds His reward. Jehovah, to whom he had ever looked, did not forsake him, but girded him with strength to the battle, and made even distant nations the vassals of his sway. The hymn concludes, as it had opened, with a joyful thanksgiving to Jehovah, who had done so great things for him. The inscription, which informs us that this hymn was composed toward the close of David's life, is confirmed by the fact that we have the same account given of its composition in 2 Sam. 22, where this hymn is also found, though with a number of variations. (See Vol. iii., p. 400.) The Psalm consists of three divisions, together with an introduction and conclusion: Introduction, setting forth all that Jehovah is to the Psalmist (vs. 1-3). The record of David's sufferings and peril, and the mighty deliverance by which he was rescued (vs. 4-19). The reason for this deliverance as based upon the character of God and the principles of His moral government (vs. 20-30). The blessings which he had received in his life; his own preservation and that of his race (v. 28); help and strength in battle, rule over all enemies (vs. 31-45). Conclusion, consisting of a joyful thanksgiving and acknowledgment of all God's mercies (vs. 46-50). P. The author of the Books of Samuel found the song already existing as Davidic; the difference between his text and that of the Psalter shows that even when he wrote, the song had been handed down by tradition for a considerable length of time; here and there writers of the period of the later kings speak in echoes of it; it bears throughout the mark of the classical period of the language and poetry. Everything points us to David and constrains us to admit his authorship; and it is to him also that all the other songs that are introduced as Davidic in the second Book of Samuel (those referring to Saul and Jonathan, to Abner, etc.) really belong. This, the greatest of them all, has sprung entirely from the new self-consciousness, to which he was raised by the promises in 2 Sam 7; toward the end it even expressly refers to these promises; for David's assurance of the eternal duration of his house and of God's gracious covenant with it rests upon the announcement made by Nathan. D. How thickly sown the Psalm is with metaphors, which, in David's mouth, have a peculiar force and beauty. Such are the names by which he addresses God. Thrice he speaks of God as a rock: "Jehovah is my rock, my fortress, my buckler, the horn of my salvation, my high tower." And again, "Who is a rock, save our God?" And yet again, "Jehovah liveth, and blessed be my rock." How suitable are such epithets as coming from one who when hunted by Saul had so often taken refuge among the rocks and fastnesses, the almost inaccessible crags and cliffs of Palestine! As he had escaped by swiftness of foot, so he tells how God had made his feet like the feet of the hinds or gazelles, which he had so often seen bounding from crag to crag before his eyes, and had set him "upon high places" beyond reach of the hunter's arrow. To the same class of metaphors belong also others in the same Psalm: "Thy right hand hath holden me up," "Thou hast made room for my steps under me, that my ankles have not slipped;" while the martial character of the whole is thoroughly in keeping with the entire tenor of David's life, who first, as captain of a band of outlaws, lived by his sword, and who afterward, when he became king, was engaged in perpetual struggles either with foreign or domestic enemies. P. It is one long outpouring of rapturous thankfulness and triumphant adoration, which streams from a full heart in buoyant waves of song. Nowhere else, even in the Psalms—and if not there, certainly nowhere else—is there such a continuous tide of unmingled praise, such magnificence of imagery, such passion of love to the delivering God, such joyous energy of conquering trust. It throbs throughout with the life blood of devotion. The strong flame, white with its very ardor, quivers with its own intensity as it steadily rises heavenward. All the terrors and pains and dangers of the weary years—the black fuel for the ruddy glow—melt into warmth too great for smoke, too equable to blaze. The plaintive notes that had so often wailed from his harp, sad as if the night wind had been wandering among its chords, have all led up to this rushing burst of full-toned gladness. The very blessedness of heaven is anticipated, when sorrows gone by are understood and seen in their connection with the joy to which they have led, and are felt to be the theme for deepest thankfulness. Thank God that, for the consolation of the whole world, we have this hymn of praise from the same lips which said, "My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing." "We have seen the end of the Lord, that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy." The tremulous minors of trustful sorrow shall swell into rapturous praise; and he who, compassed with foes, cries upon God, will, here or yonder, sing this song "unto the Lord, in the day that the Lord delivers him from the hand of all his enemies.” A. M. It is a Psalm of deliverance or salvation; the two words are the same. The whole history of the Bible from beginning to end pertains to what God calls deliverance. We find in David’s history a history of deliverance. David was a man of like passions with ourselves, not faultless, not perfect, but falling again and again into sin, and yet plucked out of that iniquity into which he fell by the interposing hand of Him who had great deliverances always in store for him. Israel’s history is a history of deliverance, and very remarkably so. Each section of Israel’s history contains a gospel for us. Each one of Israel’s deliverances proclaims glad tidings of great joy to us in our weakness, weariness, and exposure to continual danger from enemies on the right hand and on the left. The history of the Church is a history of deliverance—deliverances just at the time when she was lowest, deliverances which put a new song in her mouth, and sent her on a new career of gladness and usefulness. The history of each believer is a history of deliverance—deliverance from first to last, deliverance at the hand of the faithful Deliverer. He who came in the name of the Lord to save us, who is able to save unto the uttermost them that come unto God by Him. H. Bonar. Title. Servant of Jehovah. After Moses and Joshua David is the first who receives this epithet in a special sense. For he, with whom the kingship of promise began, served the people of God in no less epoch-making a manner than Moses, by means of whom they obtained the land of promise. D. 1-3. Looking back upon his eventful life, David pours out his heart, first in the expression of strong and tender love (the verb in this meaning occurs only here) to his God; and then in the attempt to set forth in some measure, by employing one figure after another, all that God had been to him during the days of his pilgrimage. P. The first clause strikes the key-note. “I love Thee, O Jehovah, my strength.” That personal attachment to God, which is so characteristic of David’s religion, can no longer be pent up in silence, but gushes forth like some imprisoned stream, broad and full even from its well head. The common word for “love” is too weak for him, and he bends to his use another, never elsewhere employed to express man’s emotions toward God, the intensity of which is but feebly expressed by some such periphrasis as, “From my heart do I love Thee.” The same exalted feeling is wonderfully set forth by the loving accumulation of Divine names which follow, as if he would heap together in one great pile all the rich experiences of that God, unnamed after all names, which he had garnered up in his distresses and deliverances. They tell so much as the poor vehicle of words can tell what his Shepherd in the heavens had been to him. A. M. All these designations of God are fruits of the affliction out of which David’s song has sprung—viz., his persecution by Saul, when, living in a country that was rich in caves but poor in respect of forests, he betook himself to rocks, and mountains served him as fortresses. In the refuge which the mountainous country afforded him in these days, and in the happy accidents which occasionally brought about his deliverance when he was in situations of the very greatest danger, David sees only special manifestations of that which Jehovah Himself was to him in the last result. The confession of the God who has authenticated Himself in so many ways is continued in v. 4, a statement of a general fact of experience. D. 2. Jehovah (is) my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; my God (is) my rock, I will trust in Him; my shield and my horn of salvation, my height (or high place). By this accumulation of descriptive epithets the Psalmist represents God as the object of his trust and his protector. The first two figures, my rock and my fortress, contain an allusion to the physical structure of the Holy Land, as well as to David’s personal experience. The caves and fissures of the rocks, with which the land abounded, had often afforded him shelter and concealment when pursued by Saul. A.—Christ is my “shield,” my “rock.” A shield protects me by receiving the arrow aimed at my heart. A rock shelters me by enduring for me the fury of the billow or the blast. Therefore if Christ be my Saviour, He not only hath borne my sins, but He does every day bear my sorrows. And so let the load which comes upon my poor, weak, sinful soul be terrible as it may, if I only hear the footstep of my gracious Master, I know that He comes to lift off my burden, and thus my burden is really His burden, and therefore is light. C. Wadsworth. In Him will I trust. Faith is that act and habit of the soul by which the idea of God is brought in from the far distance and enthroned over character and over life. It is an act of the whole mind, not of the intellect only which sees, but also of the conscience which responds; of the heart which adores and loves and trusts, and of the will which chooses. It is the act and habit of the soul by which the fact concerning God becomes a present and potent reality, filling the whole sphere of vision and of thought, and holding under its domination all plans, all purposes, all sentiments and estimates and desires and affections. Bishop Andrews. Faith is sometimes spoken of in the New Testament as "toward Christ Jesus," which describes that great act of the soul by its direction, as if it were a going out or flight of the man's nature to the true goal of all active being. It is sometimes spoken of as "on Christ Jesus," which describes it as reposing on Him as the end of all seeking, and suggests such images as that of a hand that leans or of a burden borne, or a weakness upheld by contact with Him. But more sweet and great is the blessedness of faith considered as "in Him," as its abiding place and fortress-home, in union with and indwelling in whom the seeking spirit may fold its wings, and the weak heart may be strengthened to lift its burden cheerily, heavy though it be, and the soul may be full of tranquillity and soothed into a great calm. Toward, on, and in—so manifold are the phases of the relation between Christ and our faith. In all, faith is the same simple confidence, precisely like the trust which we put in one another. It covers the whole ground of man's relation to God. All religion, all devotion, everything which binds us to the unseen world is included in or evolved from trust in God. And this trust is the foundation of love to men and of everything else good and fair. A. M. 4-6. Then follows the record of his past experience, which gives the reason both for his love of Jehovah, and his prayer to Him. As he looks back on the past, he gathers into one all the perils to which he had been exposed, all the sufferings which he had endured, and so measures them not by the depth or intensity of any one, but by their aggregated volume and pressure. It was as if they had risen and swelled above him, wave upon wave; he had been as a swimmer, beaten and buffeted to and fro till his strength was spent, and it had like to have gone hard with him for his life. He was sinking, and, like Jonah, seemed beyond reach of succor; or, varying the figure, he had been taken in the toils which death, like a mighty hunter, had cast about him (v. 5). But even in this his uttermost strait he was not beyond the reach of God's arm. Neither the depths of the sea nor the gates of death can resist Jehovah's power. Therefore, when from the lowest depths the prayer goes up to Jehovah in heaven, He reaches forth His hand from the highest heaven to the uttermost abyss, and plucks His servant from the jaws of death. P.—The more earnest we have been with God for deliverance, the more direct answer it is to our prayers. David's deliverances were so. David was found a praying man, and God was found a prayer-hearing God. If we pray as he did we shall speed as he did. H. 6. In my distress.** If you listen even to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearselike airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Spirit hath labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes. We see, in needleworks and embroideries, it is more pleasing to have a lively work upon a sad and solemn ground, than to have a dark and melancholy work upon a light-some ground; judge, therefore, of the pleasures of the heart by the pleasures of the eye. Certainly virtue is like precious odors—most fragrant when they are crushed; for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue. Bacon.—How true is that saying, that "Faith is safe when in danger, and in danger when secure; and prayer is fervent in straits, but in joyful and prosperous circumstances, if not quite cold and dead, at least lukewarm." Oh, happy straits, if they hinder the mind from flowing forth upon earthly objects, if they favor our correspondence with heaven and quicken our love to celestial objects, without which what we call life may more properly deserve the name of death! Leighton. I called upon the Lord and cried. Prayer is not eloquence, but earnestness; not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; it is the cry of faith to the ear of mercy. Hannah More.—Fervent prayer prevails much. Cold prayers, like cold suitors, never speed. Prayer without fervency is like a sacrifice without fire. Fervency is to prayer as fire to the incense; it makes it ascend to heaven as a sweet perfume. Prayer without fervency is speaking, not praying: lifeless prayer is no more prayer than the picture of a man is a man. Christ prayed with strong cries (Heb. 5: 7). Watson. 7-15. This passage, unsurpassed in sublimity and grandeur, describes a Theophany, or personal manifestation of the Lord. Natural phenomena supply the imagery, and are described with the minute and graphic accuracy characteristic of Hebrew poetry: earthquake followed by dense smoke, an outburst of flame, and showers of burning coals; then heavy clouds, thick darkness, a sound as of chariot-wheels sped by rushing winds; black thunder-clouds rifted by sudden flashes, then the crash of thunder, Jehovah's voice; hailstones intermingled with frequent lightnings. In the brief account of David's victories (1 Sam. 8) no mention is made of natural convulsions, but it is hard to resist the impression that the Psalmist describes a storm which he saw, and in which he realized the outward manifestation of God's Presence. Cook. I know not anything in all Greek, Latin, or English poetry that matches the sublimity and grandeur, the magnificent sweep, of this description of the providence of God as manifested in the phenomena of nature. It is Hebraistic to the core; Gentile poetry has nothing like it. F. Bowen.—No comment can heighten and no translation can adequately represent, while none can altogether destroy, the unapproachable magnificence of the description which follows, of the majestic coming forth of God in answer to his cry. It stands at the very highest point, even when compared with the other sublime passages of a like kind in Scripture. A. M. 7-19. David's deliverance was, of course, not really accompanied by such convulsions of nature, by earthquake and fire and tempest, but his deliverance, or rather his manifold deliverances, gathered into one, as he thinks of them, appear to him as marvellous a proof of the Divine power, as verily effected by the immediate presence and finger of God, as if He had come down in visible form to accomplish them. The image is carefully sustained throughout. First, we have the earthquake, and then, as preluding the storm and as herald of God's wrath, the blaze of the lightning (vs. 7, 8). Next, the thick gathering of clouds, which seem to touch and envelop the earth; the wind, and the darkness, which shrouds Jehovah riding on the cherubim (9-11). Lastly, the full outburst of the storm, the clouds parting before the presence and glory of Jehovah, and pouring upon the earth the burden with which they were heavy—the thunder, and the lightning, and the hail—the weapons of Jehovah by which, on the one hand, He discomfits His enemies, and, on the other, lays bare the depths of the sea, and the very foundations of the world, that He may save His servant who trusts in Him (12-16). The image with which the description opened in v. 4, of a sinking, drowning man, is resumed in v. 16, and thus completes the whole. In vs. 17-19 the figure is dropped, and the language falls into a lower key. P. In order to thoroughly appreciate the beauty and truthfulness of the figure, we should endeavor to realize the full power of an Oriental storm, as it is described in Psalm 29. Solitary lightning precedes the discharge—this is meant by the coals in v. 8; the clouds approach the mountain summits—the heavens bow, as v. 9 has it; the storm shakes its pinions; enwrapped in thick clouds, as in a tent, God descends to the earth; hail (not unfrequently attending Eastern storms) and lightning issue from the black clouds, through the dissolving layers of which is seen the fiery splendor which hides the Lord of nature. He speaks, and thunder is His voice; He shoots, and flashes of lightning are His arrows. At His rebuke, and at the blast of His breath, the earth recedes—the sea foams up, and its beds are seen—the land bursts, and the foundations of the world are discovered. And lo! an arm of deliverance issues forth from the black clouds, and the destructive fire grasps the wretched one who had cried out from the depths, pulls him forth, and delivers him from all his enemies! Yes, the hand of the Lord has done marvellous things in the life of David. But the eye of faith alone could perceive in them all the hand of God. Thousands whose experiences of the delivering hand of God are not less signal than those of David, stop short at the powers of nature, and instead of bending the knee before the All-merciful God, content themselves to express with cold hearts their admiration of the changes of the destiny of man. Tholuck. Every circumstance that can add to the splendor of Jehovah's descent upon His enemies is thrown into the narrative by the inspired poet. It is not enough that the heavens should bend beneath Him, and that clouds of darkness should be seen rolling, in terrible majesty, under His feet; cherubic legions also are the willing supporters of His throne, and, swift as air, He flies "upon the wings of the wind." Into this amazing scene the awful appendages of the mercy-seat are introduced; on the bending heavens, the cloudy chariot rides sublime, and the winds of heaven bear it majestically along. J. Morison. 16. The majestic self-revelation of God as the deliverer has for its occasion the Psalmist's cry of distress, and for its issue, "He drew me out of many waters." All the splendor flames out because a poor man prays, and all the upheaval of earth and the artillery of heaven has simply this for its end, that a poor man may be delivered. The paradox of prayer never found a more bold expression than in this triumphant utterance, of the insignificant occasion for, and the equally insignificant result sought by, the exercise of the energy of Omnipotence. The Divine deliverance is set forth under the familiar image of the coming of God in a tempest. Before it bursts, and simultaneous with the prayer, the "earth rocks and quivers," the sunless "pillars of the hills reel and rock to and fro," as if conscious of the gathering wrath which begins to flame far off in the highest heavens. There has been no forth-putting yet of the Divine power. It is but accumulating its fiery energy, and already the solid framework of the world trembles, anticipating the coming crash. The firmest things shake, the loftiest bow before His wrath. A. M. 20-24. God deals with men according as He sees their heart to be toward Him. Those who walk before Him in simplicity and uprightness of heart may expect His succor. And David here, as in the last Psalm, asserts not his freedom from sin, but the consciousness of his own integrity. The general tenor of the Psalm everywhere breathes a spirit of confidence and trust in God, as far removed as possible from the spirit of self-righteousness. The words are, in truth, words of childlike, open-hearted simplicity, not of arrogant boastfulness. P.—The righteousness here claimed is not an absolute perfection or entire exemption from all sinful infirmity, but what Paul calls submission to the righteousness of God (Rom. 10: 3), including faith in His mercy and a sincere governing desire to do His will. This is a higher and more comprehensive sense than innocence of some particular charge, or innocence in reference to man though not in reference to God. A.—No apology whatever is needed for the language of the Psalmists. It proceeds not out of any unseemly arrogance, but from "the free and princely heart of innocence." It is the childlike, joyful declaration of conscious integrity of purpose, and uprightness of heart toward God, as against all imputations of dissembling and hypocrisy. Paul had the same rejoicing in the testimony of his conscience, to his own "simplicity and godly sincerity." D. F. 24. I have not wickedly departed from my God**—that is, with a purpose and resolution of heart to continue in a way of sinning; and that is the property of sincerity. A man indeed may be overtaken and surprised by a temptation, but it is not with a resolution to forsake God and to cleave unto the sin, or rest in it. He will not sleep in it, spare it, or favor it. 23. I was upright before Him.** Hence observe: first, that a godly man may have his heart upright and perfect even in the imperfection of his ways. Secondly, a man that is sincere is in God's account a perfect man; sincerity is the truth of all grace, the highest pitch that is to be attained here. Thirdly, sincerity of heart gives a man boldness even in the presence of God, notwithstanding many failings. It is a strange boldness that the saints have in the presence of God by virtue of the new covenant. All their sins shall be laid open at the last day as a cancelled bond; but the same spirit of sonship that shall give them perfect boldness then doth give them boldness in a great measure even now in this life; that they shall be able to say, "Neither height nor depth," nothing "shall separate us from the love of Christ." W. Strong. 25,26. What he had previously mentioned as the method of God's dealings toward himself he now describes as a general law of the Divine administration. The essential idea is that God is, in a certain sense, to men precisely what they are to Him. The particular qualities specified are only given as examples, and might have been exchanged for others without altering the general sense. The form of expression is extremely strong and bold, but scarcely liable to misapprehension. No one is in danger of imagining that God can act perversely even to the most perverse. But the same course of proceeding which would be perverse in itself or toward a righteous person, when pursued toward a sinner becomes a mere act of vindicatory justice. A.—God requires the ardent love of the godly man with cordial love, the entire surrender of the upright man with a full communication of grace, the striving after purity with an unreservedly loving mind, moral self-perversion with paradoxical judgments, by giving the perverse man over to his perverseness (Rom. 1: 28) and leading him by strange ways to final damnation. D. It is God's way to carry to men as they carry to Him. If thou hast a design to please Him, He will have a design to please thee; if thou wilt echo to Him when He calls, He'll echo to thee when thou callest. On the other side, if a man will wrestle with God, He will wrestle with him; if thou wilt be fast and loose with Him, and walk frowardly toward Him, thou shalt have as good as thou bringest; if thou wilt provoke Him with never-ending sins, He will pursue thee with never-ending torments. R. Steele.—As all things are pure unto the pure, so all things are lovely unto the loving, all things good unto the good; and, universally, such as thou art thyself, such is God Himself unto thee, though He is not a creature. He is perverse unto the perverse, and holy unto the holy. Hence nothing can be good or saving unto him who is evil; nothing sweet unto him unto whom the law of God is not sweet. Luther.—God is pure and upright with the unclean and hypocritical as well as with the pure and upright, and His actions show Him to be so. God shows Himself froward with the froward when He deals with him as He hath said He will deal with the froward—deny them and reject them. God shows Himself pure with the pure when He deals with them as He hath said He will—hear them and accept them. Though there be nothing in purity and sincerity which deserveth mercy, yet we cannot expect mercy without them. Our comforts are not grounded upon our graces, but our comforts are the fruits or consequences of our graces. Caryl. These declarations concerning God, in which human emotions and changes in these emotions are attributed to Him, are not to be regarded purely as figurative expressions. They actually express real relations of God to the world, and are only designated after the analogy of human conditions. If a change of such conditions is spoken of, this means only a change of the relation in which the Divine holiness, which is in itself changeless, enters to changeable man. The same God whose guidance approves itself to the pious as pure and good must appear like a malicious power to the perverse whose path He crosses. O.—By the very necessity of our moral nature God appears to man what man is to God: loving to the loving, upright to the upright, pure to the pure, and froward to the froward. Our thoughts of God are shaped by our moral character; the capacity of perceiving depends on sympathy. “Unless the eye were light, how could it see the sun?” The self-revelation of God in His providence, of which only the Psalm speaks, is modified according to our moral character, being full of love to those who love, being harsh and antagonistic to those who set themselves in opposition to it. There is a higher law of grace, whereby the sinfulness of man but draws forth the tenderness of a father’s pardoning pity; and the brightest revelation of His love is made to froward prodigals. But that is not in the Psalmist’s view here, nor does it interfere with the law of retribution in its own sphere. A. M. 27. With the froward, the impetuous, the headstrong, the men who act from the impulse of their own intractable wills, God will evince a strength and determination of will that shall utterly overmaster and overthrow them. It is thus that while He saves the afflicted people He brings down the high looks. Chalmers. 28. My lamp.** The lamp lighted in the house is the image at once of prosperity and continuance of life and happiness. On the other hand, the extinction of the royal race is compared to the quenching of the lamp (2 Sam. 21: 17). P. Lighten my darkness. Three dark shadows fall across every human life. There is, first of all, the shadow of sin. It falls dark and thick upon the life of human beings. Sin is the transgression in will or in fact of the eternal moral law, of that law which, unlike the law of nature, could not be other than what it is unless God could be other than what He is, of that law which is not an arbitrary enactment of His will, but the outflow of the expression of His very being. Sin thus is the contradiction of God, the resistance of the created will to the will of the Creator. And this resistance means darkness, not in the sky above our heads, but, far worse, darkness in the moral nature, darkness in the moral intelligence, darkness at the centre of the soul. There is also the shadow of pain. As the races and generations pass, whatever else may distinguish them from each other, whatever else they may have in common, they pass each and all, sooner or later, under the weird shadow of pain. How to deal with pain, how to alleviate it, how to do away with it—these have been questions which men have discussed for thousands of years; and anodynes there are, such as they are, for pains of body and pains of mind, anodynes of very varying moral worth, but of which this much must be said, that they do but at most curtail the fringe of the great realm of pain. And there is the shadow of death. The thought that death must come at last casts over thousands of lives a deep gloom. There is the uncertainty of the time and manner of its approach; there is the unimaginable experience of what in itself it will be; there is the dread of what may or may not follow it. Sin, pain, death—these are the three shadows that fall across the life of men in this day of preparation for the great future; and that our Lord makes these dark shadows to be light is the experience in all ages of thousands of Christians. Only a robust faith in the unseen, only the faith of our Lord and God, can relieve the human heart when face to face with these solemn and irremovable conditions of our human life. So long as they last, the religion of the Crucified will last too. H. P. L. 29. By thee I have run through a troop.** David ascribes his victories to God, declaring that, under His conduct, he had broken through the wedges or phalanxes of his enemies, and had taken by storm their fortified cities. Thus we see that, although he was a skilled and valiant warrior, he arrogates nothing to himself. Calvin. 30. The word of the Lord is tried.** Like silver refined in the furnace. The doctrines are glorious, the precepts are pure, the promises are faithful, and the whole revelation is superlatively full of grace and truth. David had tried it, thousands have tried it, and it has never failed. S.—Christ's own teaching, the doctrine of His apostles, the tradition of the Jews, the universal consent of the Christian Church of all times, place the Divine authority of both Old and New Testaments on a foundation which cannot be moved. To let go the blessed truth of the plenary inspiration of Holy Scripture is to lose the sheet anchor of Revelation, and to drift away toward the dark and restless sea of human speculation, and science, falsely so called. But there is internal as well as external evidence of this inspiration; hundreds and thousands of simple Christians, who know nothing of argument or controversy, have discovered, through the witness of God's Spirit in their own hearts, that the Bible is the very voice of God; and there is no argument half so efficacious with the great majority of readers, for proving the Divine authorship of Scripture, as the spiritual, hallowing influence that the Bible itself seems to breathe over us when we bring ourselves into real contact with its contents. Bishop Thorold. The company of the Divine Scriptures is a haven free from billows, a wall that cannot be broken, a tower that cannot be shaken, a glory that cannot be taken away, armor impenetrable, gladness imperishable, pleasure uninterrupted, and every good thing you can mention. It keeps off sadness, it preserves cheerfulness, it makes the poor man wealthier than the rich, it compasses the rich with security, it makes the sinner righteous, it places the righteous in safe keeping, it plucks up evils that exist, it plants the good that existed not, it drives away wickedness, it leads back to virtue—and not only so, but it roots virtue in men, and makes it remain steadfast; it is a spiritual medicine, a Divine, mysterious spell, a destroyer of passions. Chrysostom.—Of all books, the Bible loses least of its force and dignity and beauty from being translated into other languages, wherever the translation is not erroneous. One version may indeed excel another, in that its diction may be more expressive, or simple, or more majestic; but in every version the Bible contains the sublimest thoughts uttered in plain and fitting words. It was written for the whole world, not for any single nation or age; and though its thoughts are above common thoughts, they are so as coming from the primal Fountain of Truth. Anon. The Word of the Lord is tried in respect of endurance. Think how much the Bible has had to stand from the mere lapse of time. Every one knows that it is the oldest book in the world; that it is as old, some part of it, and perhaps older, than the pyramids of Egypt; that it is perhaps the oldest human monument as it certainly is the oldest human writing in existence; that the part of it to which David referred was already hundreds of years old in his time, when not a single book of any nation besides that has come down to us yet existed; and that the very latest part of it has an age of nearly eighteen centuries. All that time the Bible has had no miraculous guard upon it; no sacred ark, except for a comparatively brief period, to enshrine it; no company of angels to keep watch around it; no caste of priests even, or learned men, to hand it down as their sole business from age to age. It has been submitted to the chances of all other writings; its original copies have long perished; it has been left to the care of those who loved it to transcribe it, to preserve it, to keep it separate from other books, like the Apocrypha, calling themselves, or called by others, Divine. It has come down to us with the marks of time upon it—such slighter changes as occur even now in the misprints of our Bibles or the errors of spelling, and occasionally in so putting one word for another as would be done by some hundreds of scholars if they were all set to copy the same piece of writing. Yet the Bible, either in the Old Testament or in the New, has suffered no essential change in all these processes of transcription from age to age. It has been attacked by argument and sophistry. A long line of unbelievers, unhappily not yet ended, have directed against it every kind of missile that bore the shape of reasoning, denying its miracles, affirming that its prophecies were mere guesses or written after the event, denouncing its morality as narrow, gloomy, and bigoted, controverting its history, and triumphing in its fancied contradictions—accusing its doctrine now of being a mere theft from human reason, and now of being a flagrant outrage to it, and assailing its hopes and revelations of the future as no better than delusion and enthusiasm. Multitudes more that could not reason could mock, could shoot out the lip and wag the head at the Bible, as if it were at length expiring on the cross—could make it the jest of the profane and the song of the drunkard, reading it only to extract materials of ribaldry, and dealing with it as Herod with Christ—to array it in a fool's dress and send it away, as fit only to be the serious care of dotage and superstition. All this has been; and yet what is the result! Where are the tyrants, the sophists, the mockers and blasphemers? We will not judge them: that belongs to God. But we know where the Bible is, after this torrent of violence and breath of slander, as from the bottomless pit, has to some extent spent its rage. It is read, and the books written against it are unread; it endures, and they are forgotten. The Bible has been tried and has come forth as gold. Their opposition has only developed its energies; their strokes only drawn forth, like the axe from the sandal-tree, its perfumes and odors. They came to curse, but the curse has been turned into a blessing; and the Church has had its faith in the Bible only strengthened by the unsuccessful attacks of all its adversaries, and can triumphantly say, in a way it could not before such onsets were made, "Where is the wise? where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? The Bible has been tried in point of efficiency. It deals with infinity and eternity. It lifts man from hell to heaven, from earth to God. It secures pardon, purity, peace with God; hope beyond the grave. What other book even proposes so much, far less effects it? We see men who were distressed and spirit-broken through the terrors of guilt finding in the Bible a peace that irradiates their countenances, and shines through their lives. We see those who grovelled in the dust elevated by it, as by a magnet, toward the skies. We see those who trembled like an aspen leaf at the very mention of death in the state of nature, and passed every hour by day and upon their bed in sad foreboding of its approach, meet it at length cheerfully, with the Bible clasped in their embrace, and confronting the last enemy with a word that prostrated him, and opened a level path to heaven: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" Show us achievements like these attempted or realized in any other quarter than where the Bible holds sway, and then we will admit that its trial is indecisive! Cairns. Unto all them that trust in Him. In the midst of the clearest and strongest statements of God's Word some people are not willing to believe that God will do all that He promises; whereas, if they did take hold of the Word of God with a firm grasp, it would lift them up into the very atmosphere of heaven. Now what we want is a faith in God that shall be somewhat suitable to His infinite grace and to our needs—a faith steady as the nature and promises of God Himself—as broad and as comprehensive as the promises of God to man. Bishop Andrews. 31-45. For this division of the Psalm the way has already been prepared in vs. 28-30, as descriptive both of what God is and of the help which He had vouchsafed to His servant. David now dwells in a strain of triumph on the victories and successes which God had given him. The central thought is the relation in which David stands to God. Before the holy God he has walked in his integrity (vs. 20-27); and therefore, on the one hand, God delivered him from his peril (4-19), and, on the other, made him victorious over all enemies (31-45). 35. Yet it is not the bow of brass which has been David's protection; but Jehovah's shield covered him; Jehovah's right hand held him up; Jehovah's wonderful condescension (by which he was taken from the sheepfolds to be king) made him great; Jehovah made room for him to stand, and subdued those that rose up against him. Thy gentleness, lit. "meekness," "lowliness," a very remarkable word as applied to God, and just one of those links connecting the Divine with the human, which in the Old Testament so strikingly foreshadow an incarnation. P.—The original word, as applied to men, means usually humility, lowliness; and as used of God, condescension, said, it would seem, with special reference to God's bending low to his prayer and coming down low, i.e., from the high heavens above, in His glorious help. The Hebrew verb from which this noun comes means both to answer and to be lowly—ideas which naturally blend, for all answering implies more or less inclination toward, but especially is this true of God's answering to His lowly creature, man. C. The God of revelation, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, hides His power and withholds the stress of His will, that He may put confidence and courage in the feeling of His children. Let us not shrink then from this epithet of Scripture, as if it must imply some derogation from God's real greatness and majesty; for precisely here do His greatness and majesty culminate. It means that He does not set Himself, as a ruler, to drive His purpose straight through, but that, consciously wise and right, abiding in His purposes with majestic confidence, and expecting to reign with a finally established supremacy, He is only too great to fly at His adversary, and force him to the wall, if he does not instantly surrender; that, instead of coming down upon him thus, in a manner of direct onset, to carry His immediate submission by storm, He lays gentle siege to him, waiting for his willing assent and choice. He allows dissent for the present, defers to prejudice, watches for the cooling of passion, gives room and space for the weaknesses of our unreasonable and perverse habit to play themselves out, and so by leading us round, through long courses of kind but faithful exercise, He counts on bringing us out into the ways of obedience and duty freely chosen. Force and crude absolutism are thus put by; the irritations of a jealous littleness have no place; and the great God and Father, intent on making His children great, follows them and plies them with the gracious indirections of a faithful and patient love. Bushnell. Spiritual greatness — sanctified character, beauty of soul, the likeness of God upon the life, heart-qualities—shall endure forever. Into this true spiritual greatness God wants to train every one of us. Many Christians grow sadly disheartened because they seem never to become any better. Year after year the struggle goes on with the old tempers and ugly dispositions, the old selfishness, pride and hatefulness, and they appear never to be growing victorious. Yet Christ is a most patient teacher. He never wearies of our slowness and dulness as scholars. He will teach the same lesson over and over until we have learned it. If we only persevere, He will never tire of us, and His gentleness will make us great. J. R. M. Consider how the gentleness of a loving correction makes God's children great. For we ought, all of us, to wish to be great—great in the school of Christ, great in the Divine life, great in holiness, great in usefulness. A real sorrow takes us out of the old groove of triviality; it restores things to their right proportion, making the little great and the great little. Correction, whatever else it does, sets a man free, and puts him in a position that he may become great. A time of sorrow is and must be a time of thought. And what most of us want is to be brought really to think. It is not too much to say that every one who is at the pains to think and to think truly will become great. But it specially leads us to think about our own state before God, for as soon as ever we are in sorrow it is in the gentleness of God that He wishes to comfort us. J. V. He wants no slaves about His throne. He refuses, therefore, to subdue us unless by some such method that we may seem, in a certain other sense, to subdue ourselves. Most true it is that He carries a strong hand with us. He covers up no principle, tempers the exactness of no law. There is no connivance in His methods, no concealment of truths disagreeable and piercing, no proposition of compromise or halving in a way of settlement. His providence moves strong. His terrors flame out on the background of a wrathful sky. He thunders marvellously with His voice. And so His very gentleness stands glorious and strong and sovereignly majestic round us. Were He only soft or kind, bending like a willow to our wicked state, there were little to move and affect us even in His goodness itself. But when we look on Him as the Almighty Rock, the immovable Governor and Keeper of the worlds, girding Himself in all terrible majesty when He must, to let us know that impunity in wrong is impossible, then it is that we behold Him in the true meaning of His gentleness—how good! how firm! how adorably great! Come nigh, O thou sinning, weary prodigal, and acknowledge and receive in blissful welcome the true greatness of thy God! Be not jealous any more that religion is going to depress your manly parts, or weaken the strength of your high aspirations. In your lowest humiliations and deepest repentances you will be consciously raised and exalted. Every throb of heaven's life in your bosom will be only a throb of greatness. Every good affection, every holy action, into which your God may lead you, all your bosom struggles, your hungers, and tears, and prostrations, will be the travailing only of a princely birth, and a glorious sonship with God. Bushnell. In the temper which is most fitted to be victorious over sin, the warp of a sunny gentleness must be woven across the woof of a strong character. That will make the best tissue to stand the wear and tear of the world's trials. Our Lord was divinely gentle, but He was also strong with a wondrous strength and firmness. W. H. Lyttleton.—Where there is great strength, full of sweet and gentle dealing, there is gentleness in its most perfect form. And the true Christian disposition is seen when a man is clothed with all manner of vigor and power and knowledge and intuition, and carries them in the midst of an offending, sinful world, not only with the utmost longsuffering, but with extreme gentleness. Anon.—God is calling us even to be great, great in courage and candor, steadfast in honor and truth, immovable in our promises, heroic in our sacrifices, right, and bold, and holy—men whom He is training, by His own great spirit, for a world of great sentiment, and will, and might, and majesty. Be it ours to live, then, with a sense of our high calling upon us, abiding in all the holy magnanimities of love, honor, sacrifice and truth; sincere, exact, faithful, bountiful and free; showing thus to others and knowing always in ourselves that we do steadily aspire to just that height of good into which our God Himself has undertaken to exalt us. Bushnell. 36-45. That which makes him victorious is not the brazen bow by itself, but the helping strength of his God. Jehovah's salvation covered him like a shield, from which every blow of the enemy rebounded; Jehovah's right hand supported him, so that his hands did not become weak in battle. So fighting in God's strength, with God's weapons, and with God's assistance, he smote, overthrew, destroyed all his enemies both in foreign and in civil wars. D. 46-59. The hymn now concludes with the praise of Jehovah, who had done so great things for David and for his seed. And as Jehovah has not only placed him on the throne of Jerusalem, but has given him dominion over foreign nations, he will proclaim among these also the name and the praises of his God. Here we have the first utterance of a hope, which in later times became clear and distinct, that the heathen should learn to fear and worship Jehovah. P. 46. Again he recurs to the one thought which flows like a river of light through all the Psalm—that all his help is in God. The names which he lovingly heaped together at the beginning are in part echoed in the close. "The Lord liveth, and blessed is my rock, and the God of my salvation is exalted." His deliverances have taught him to know a living God, swift to hear, active to help, in whom he lives, who has magnified His own name in that He has saved His servant. A. M. Honors die, pleasures die, the world dies; but "the Lord liveth." My flesh is as sand; my fleshly life, strength, glory, is as a word written on sand; but "blessed be my Rock." Those are for a moment; this stands forever. Let outward salvations vanish; let the saved be crucified; let the "God" of our salvations "be exalted." This Lord is my rock; this God is my salvation. Peter Sterry. The whisper in the heart of the moral fool, "There is no God," can never add to his stock of moral strength. This faith of the Psalmist, "The Lord liveth," is at once followed by the exclamation, "and blessed be my strong helper, and praised be the God of my salvation." The soul cannot rest upon the void which is the result of that vast negation; it can and does draw comfort, strength, support, determination, as it grasps and leans upon this greatest of all assertions. Liddon.—Were we but familiar with this kind of reasoning with God, how undaunted we should be in all troubles! We should be as secure in time to come as for the time past; for all is one with God. We do exceedingly wrong our own souls and weaken our faith by not minding God's favors. Every former mercy should strengthen our faith for a new, as conquerors whom every former victory encouraged to a new conquest. Sibbes. 49. Paul quotes this verse (Rom. 15: 9), as well as Deut. 32: 43, and Psalm 117: 1, as proof that the salvation of Christ belonged, in the purpose of God, to the Gentiles as well as the Jews. The Psalm therefore looks beyond David. David and David's rule over the nations are but a type and image of Christ, and of that spiritual kingdom which he came to establish. P. 50. In Christ, the son of David, David's fallen throne has lasting continuance, and in Him everything that was promised to David's seed has eternal truth and reality. According to its final purport, the praise of Jehovah, the God of David, His anointed, is praise of the Father of Jesus Christ. D. David. This is the only passage in which David names himself; it may be with reference to the special promise through Nathan "to thy servant David," or because the Psalm was intended for public recitation, reminding the whole nation of the grounds on which their allegiance to the house of David rested. The question whether the text of the Psalm is more ancient or more accurate in the Book of Samuel or here has been much discussed. Both texts have internal proofs of independence and originality; in fact, it is now admitted that neither could have been taken from the other, nor are the deviations generally such as could be accounted for by inaccurate transcription. The most natural and probable explanation is, that David toward the close of his reign prepared a revision for public recitation. Cook. 1. THE heavens declare the glory of God : And the firmament sheweth his handy-work. 2 Day unto day uttereth speech, And night unto night sheweth knowledge. 3 There is no speech nor language ; Their voice cannot be heard. 4 Their line is gone out through all the earth, And their words to the end of the world. 5 In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, And rejoiceth as a strong man to run his course. 6 His going forth is from the end of the heaven, And his circuit unto the ends of it : And there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. 7 The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul : The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. 8 The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart : The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. 9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever : The judgments of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold : Sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. 11 Moreover by them is thy servant warned : In keeping of them there is great reward. 12 Who can discern his errors ? Clear thou me from hidden faults. 13 Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins ; Let them not have dominion over me : then shall I be perfect, And I shall be clear from great transgression. 14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my rock, and my redeemer. THIS Psalm consists of two distinct parts, in which are contrasted God's revelation of Himself in nature and His revelation of Himself in His Word. It speaks first of His glory as seen in the heavens, and then of His glory as manifested in His law. It may have been written, perhaps, in the first flush of an Eastern sunrise, when the sun was seen "going forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber, and rejoicing as a mighty man to run his course." The song breathes all the life and freshness, all the gladness and glory of the morning. The devout singer looks out, first, on the works of God's fingers, and sees all creation bearing its constant though silent testimony to its Maker; and then he turns himself with a feeling of deep satisfaction to that yet clearer and better witness concerning Him to be found in the inspired Scriptures. Thus he begins the day; thus he prepares himself for the duties that await him, for the temptations that may assail, and the sorrows that may gather as a cloud about him. He has made trial of the preciousness of that word. He knows its deep, hallowing, soul-sustaining power. He knows that it is full of life and healing. But he knows also that it is a word that searches and tries the heart, that reveals the holiness of God and the sinfulness of man; and therefore he bows himself in prayer, saying, "As for errors—who can understand them? Cleanse thou me from secret faults." P. This Psalm is in two parts : in the first (vs. 1-6) the visible heavens come before us as witnesses for God ; in the second (vs. 7-14) God's written law is presented, both in its qualities and in its moral effects. Comprehensively we might say here is, first, nature; secondly, revelation. Both are thought of as books from God ; both as proclaiming His character, witnessing to His glorious majesty and His matchless wisdom and beneficence. The Psalm has been admired in all ages for its exquisite poetry, its comprehensive and pertinent thought, and for its sublime moral lessons. C.—The object of the Psalm is not to contrast the moral and material revelations, but rather to identify their author and their subject. The doctrinal sum of the whole composition is, that the same God who reared the frame of nature is the giver of a law, and that this law is in all respects worthy of its author. A. Let it be noted that the names of the Deity used here are not taken up at random, but are wisely chosen. "El," the Mighty One, the Great Creator and Ruler of all, is He whose glory the heavens are telling. It is as such a glorious Creator and disposer of all the worlds in space that the heavens are forever proclaiming His glory. On the other hand, the giver of the law (vs. 7-14) is "Jehovah," the God of the Covenant, the God of the promises, the God who first revealed the significance of this name, "Jehovah," to Moses and to Israel (Ex. 6: 3 and 3: 11-15), in calling His people forth from Egypt and giving them then His moral law together with statutes and judgments under which they might walk in communion with Him as their revealed Lord and Father. C. This Psalm, universally regarded as one of the profoundest and most affecting of David's compositions, is especially remarkable for the vivid contrast, and at the same time the inner harmony, which it recognizes between the results of natural and revealed religion. The heavens, as Bacon observes, declare the glory, but not the will of God: that is known only by His law, revealed to man as the perfect expression of that will, for his conversion, instruction and guidance. Cook. No natural scene or object in the Old Testament is ever pictured for its own sake, to leave the impression of itself. The Psalmist gazes at the starry heavens by night, he views the wondrous march of the sun by day, but his words are no pen-pictures of these brilliant objects; no, these are nothing in themselves, only in their grandeur speaking silently of God. E. L. Curtis.—"The glory of God" is no other than the glorious qualities of His character—His wisdom, power, and beneficence. Everything in this vast field of nature above our heads is magnificent and beautiful, grand in its order and method, vast in its proportions, and, above all, beneficent in its provisions of light and heat for the good of man and of all sentient beings. C.—Nature is but one grand symbol by which God shadows forth His own invisible Being and character—and the chief glory of nature lies not in her vastness or her order—in the beauty and grandeur of her forms, or the exquisite harmony of her adaptations—but in this, that rock and stream and star and sea, the gleam of her sunshine and the gloom and mystery of her night, the voice of her waters and the silent majesty of her hills—all her mute and material and all her animate creatures alike are but types and symbols of the invisible and eternal glory of Him concerning whom "day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night teacheth knowledge." Caird. 1. The Psalm opens with the impression produced on the poet's mind by the magnificence and the order of creation. Of the two clauses of this verse, the first states the fact that the heavens publish God's glory; the second explains how this is done—viz., by testifying that He has made them. This is the true meaning of the heavens and their pomp. That splendor which fills their arch, that beauty which so attracts the eye, that everlasting order by which day and night follow in sweet vicissitude—these things are not the offspring of chance; they are not the evolution of some blind spirit enchained within the mass which it vivifies; much less are they the work of some evil power whose kingdom and whose triumph are to be seen in the material universe. God created them, and they show forth His glory. His fingers fashioned them. He clothed them with light as with a garment, and put the sun in the midst of them to show forth His praise. P.—When we contemplate the celestial bodies, can we fail of conviction? Must we not acknowledge that there is a Divinity, a perfect Being, a ruling intelligence, which governs; a God who is everywhere and directs all by His power? Anybody who doubts this may as well deny there is a sun that lights us. Time destroys all false opinions, but it confirms those which are formed by nature. Cicero. Would you gain some idea of the Wisdom of God, look to the admirable adjustments of the magnificent retinue of planets and satellites which sweep around the sun. Every globe has been weighed and poised, every object has been measured and bent to its beautiful form. All is changing, but the laws fixed by the wisdom of God, though they permit the rocking to and fro of the system, never introduce disorder or lead to destruction. All is perfect and harmonious, and the music of the spheres that burn and roll around our sun is echoed by that of ten millions of moving worlds, that sing and shine around the bright suns that reign above. O. M. Mitchell.—Turn to the millions of stars in the Milky Way. Our sun is neither more nor less than just one, and one unimportant, star in that Milky Way. To David, when he said that the heavens declared the glory of God, only were known two or three thousand stars visible to the naked eye. To us are known somewhere about fifty millions. To us is known that the Galaxy is but the fused light of stars innumerable, that the nebulae of the Centaur and the clouds of Magellan are composed of star clusters so infinitely distant that, though separated from us by abysses of the heaven, they seem by myriads to touch each other, so that our whole solar system would be but a speck in the infinite expanse; and that our whole firmament is but one of some five thousand firmaments, and that each one of those so-called fixed stars is a flaming sun, perhaps with its attendant planets, of which the nearest of all—the star Sirius—is supposed to be fifteen times larger than our own sun, and is rushing away from the earth at the rate of twenty miles a second, and yet separated from us by a space so inconceivably immeasurable that it is as bright as it was two thousand years ago. And, yet, I say again that the Christian is not in the least appalled by all this vastness. Space is nothing to that God who extends through all extent, and in the hollow of whose hand all those worlds lie as though they were but a single waterdrop. Farrar. See what the stellar universe reveals concerning God. Wherever we look, however profoundly we penetrate the depths of space, we find, so far as we can see, one power, one law, one reasonable intelligence pervading and controlling all; an intelligence which we can recognize as harmonizing with our own wherever we can follow it. We find distant worlds moving just as they would move if the same law of gravitation prevailed with them as it does with us; and terrestrial mathematics, mechanics, and optics apply to them as well as to the earth. Meteors fall, and bring us from interplanetary space only familiar elements. In the luminous music of the rays of distant stars we detect familiar indications of familiar earthly substances. In the spectrum of such a star as Capella, iron and sodium, magnesium and hydrogen, manifest themselves precisely as they do in our sun, or on the earth. The heavens declare the essential unity of matter, and inferentially that of God Himself. C. A. Young. Nature and the supernatural are generous witnesses for God; they vie with each other in the richness of their testimony. The wide campus of matter swept by microscope and telescope as far as yonder picket nebula is everywhere covered with hieroglyphics of Him which no Champollion is needed to decipher, everywhere tracked with His giant foot-prints vastly more scientifically intelligible than any of these fossil scriptures which so nobly enrich our mumusseums; while the supernatural evidence carries itself still more regally in a God who has often spoken audibly with men; has often stood among them in visible personal forms; has made the future visible, the dead to live, the earth to tremble, the heavens to blaze, the angels to fly singly or in armies along the sky in attestation of Himself; indeed, has even personally come down in presence of forewarned and expecting hosts, embosomed in a storm of miracles and with ineffable pomp; and, finally, has scattered these direct manifestations and these attesting miracles, with their diaconate of special providences, through the ages as liberally as can be shown consistent with their best effect, bridging the intervals between them with well-accredited and well-believed traditions from amid whose mighty arches and colonnades and picturing perspectives they can, not improbably, be seen to better advantage by the majority of mankind than from the portico itself. Barr. The upholding of the world is a continual causing of it. If therefore the creation do wonderfully declare the power and wisdom and goodness of God, so also doth the conservation. And is it not as great a declaration of the power of God that He causes the sun to shine, and to keep its wondrous course from age to age, as if He did such a thing but for a day or hour? and as if He caused it to stand still a day? And is it not as great a demonstration of His knowledge also, and of His goodness? Baxter. 2. Day to day shall pour out speech, and night to night shall utter knowledge.** Both verbs are peculiar to the poetical dialect and books of the Old Testament. Pour out, in a copious, ever-gushing stream. Speech means the declaration of God's glory, and knowledge the knowledge of the same great object. The idea of perpetual testimony is conveyed by the figure of one day and night following another as witnesses in unbroken succession. A.—To the personification of the heavens succeeds that of day and night. The words may either be rendered as in the text, or "one day after another," "day after day, night after night." This verse expresses not so much the progressive character, as the never-failing continuance of the testimony. There is no pause, no change in the stately procession; none of them thrusts or breaks his ranks; forever they abide the same. 3. No speech and no words; their voice is not heard;** lit. "is inaudible." This seems to be a kind of correction or explanation of the bold figure which had ascribed language to the heavens. They have a language, but not one that can be classed with any of the dialects of earth. They have a voice, but one that speaks not to the ear, but to the devout and understanding heart. P.—Though day and night are silent in their coming and going, though they utter no audible voice, no articulate speech, yet do they give forth a testimony for God co-extensive with the earth and the heaven. “Like an unbroken chain, their message is delivered from day to day, and from night to night. At the silence of one herald, another takes up his speech; and holy silence itself is a speech to the listening soul.” J. P. T.—Luther’s rendering is, “There is no language nor speech, where one does not hear their voice,” i.e., as Calvin also explains it: the testimony of the heavens to God is understood by the peoples of all languages and tongues. D. The Psalmist adds, no words, to show that he here uses speech in the strict sense of articulate language. The absence of articulate language, far from weakening the testimony, makes it stronger. Even without speech or words, the heavens testify of God to all men. A.—The lessons of day and night it were well if all men learned. It should be among our day-thoughts and night-thoughts to remember the flight of time, the changeful character of earthly things, the brevity both of joy and sorrow, the preciousness of life, our utter powerlessness to recall the hours once flown, and the irresistible approach of eternity. Day bids us labor, night reminds us to prepare for our last home; day bids us work for God, and night invites us to rest in Him; day bids us look for endless day, and night warns us to escape from everlasting night. S. 4. Once more, this testimony is not only full and clear and unbroken, it is universal. Everywhere the heavens span and compass the earth, and everywhere they preach the same Divine sermon. P.—The revelation is universal, continuous, copious. Every day pours forth the story, as full streams flow from inexhaustible sources; and night is represented as breathing knowledge, imparting it freely and without stint. True, there is no speech and there are no words. No lips are seen to move, no articulate sentences are heard. Yet no oratory is so penetrating nor reaches so far. Their line goes out into all the earth, and their unspoken words are heard in all the habitable world. It is a beautiful picture. The line is the string of a lyre or harp, and so comes to stand for the sound which the harp emits when its strings are swept by the hand. Nature is a harp, whose vibrating tones reach to the earth’s boundaries, over mountains and seas, into desert and cave, through all the heights and all the depths, and wherever men go to build their homes, they hear the sweet and familiar music. And that music is the glory of God—His power, His wisdom, His unchanging goodness. These home voices precede and follow us; make populous and radiant the bleakest solitude. Never are you alone; never need you lack for inspiring and profitable companionship. Behrends.—How vast and precious an influence would these scenes and elements of nature exert in building up our being, if we were properly alive to them! There would be “transferred into the internal economy of ideas and sentiment something of a character and a color correspondent to the beauty, vicissitude, and grandeur which continually press upon the senses.” And this internal economy of ideas and sentiment, of which John Foster so beautifully speaks, would not be intellectual merely, but full of the sense of God and heaven. There would be the home-feeling of a father’s house, the tracing of a father’s hand, the sense of a father’s presence, the enjoyment of every natural blessing by a father’s kind arrangements. When God Himself is in the soul, diffusing there the spirit of His love, how every created particle of matter and variety of form shines in His light! Cheever. 5,6. He sweeps athwart the heavens from the distant East to the farthest West, and nothing can escape the heat of his beams. Vegetation starts into fresh life at his touch: all living things and creatures rejoice in his light and heat. His ministries of good pervade the wide earth from the end of heaven, the eastern horizon, to the uttermost end of it on the face of the western sky. C.—This vast, portentous globe of fire is made to subserve the humblest purposes of man. It is but one thirty-second millionth of this sun’s light that this earth receives; and yet that mere fraction of its effluence gives man temperate warmth. It gives him golden days. It evaporates the waters. It ripens the fruit. It quickens the seedling. It tinges the odorous blossom of the rose. When we know what the sun is—what it does for us—ought not three thousand years of additional knowledge to have infused new adoration and new intensity into David’s words? “It goeth forth from the uttermost part of the heaven, and runneth about unto the end of it again; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof.” And yet the sun—nay, even our whole solar system—is a mere nothing—is no more in the sidereal heavens than a mote in that sun's beam. Farrar. There is nothing hid from the heat thereof. This is literally the case. The earth receives its heat from the sun, and by conduction, a part of it enters the crust of our globe. By convection, another portion is carried to the atmosphere, which it warms. Another portion is radiated into space, according to laws yet imperfectly understood, but which are evidently connected with the color, chemical composition, and mechanical structure of parts of the earth's surface. At the same time the ordinary state of the air, consisting of gases and vapor, modifies the heat rays and prevents scorching. Thus, the solar heat is equalized by the air. Nothing on earth or in air is hid from the heat of the sun. E. Sidney. When the foundations of the globe were laid, there were collected in the atmosphere all the essential elements of organized beings. From this inexhaustible storehouse the plant absorbs water, carbonic acid, and ammonia, which were placed there for its use, and which have been made to serve as its nourishment and food. It is the special office of the plants to elaborate from these few mineral substances, and a small amount of earthy salts, all the materials of organized beings. The animal receives these crude materials already prepared, and builds with them its various tissues; but no sooner are the cell-walls finished, and the structure ready to discharge its vital functions, than it is consumed by almost the very act which gave it life. The carbonic acid, water, and ammonia are restored to the atmosphere, and the cycle is complete. Of this Divine economy the sun's rays are the great moving cause, and it is their mysterious power which is constantly reappearing in all the varied phases of organic life. And not in these alone; for this same gentle influence keeps in motion the aerial currents which blow our ships across the ocean. It raises the water which turns the wheels of our factories. It drives the locomotive over the iron road, and impels the steamer through the waves. It roars at the cannon's mouth, and charges the grander artillery of the skies. There is no motion on the globe which cannot be traced directly or indirectly to the sun, and were his rays to lose their mysterious power, all nature would become silent, motionless, and dead. Attempt to bring together in imagination all the energies acting at one moment on the earth, and unite them in one tremendous aggregate. Begin with the moving power of the air, the hurricanes, the tornadoes, the storms, and the gentler winds which are everywhere at work from the Arctic to the Antarctic Pole, omitting in making the estimate, if you choose, the lightning and the thunder, which, though brilliant and noisy demonstrations of power, would hardly increase by a unit the vast sum. Add to this the mechanical power in the mighty flow of waters, the ocean currents, the rivers, the cataracts, the glacier-streams, and the avalanches, all over the globe. Bring into the calculation the forces at work in the various phases of animal and vegetable life. Remember the conflagrations, the furnaces, the fires, and the other manifestations of the terrible energies of the atmospheric oxygen, whenever it is aroused. Do not even forget the comparatively insignificant power which man is wielding with the aid of powder and of steam. Making now an immense allowance for what you must have overlooked, sum this all up—if you can without bewilderment—and what part is it of the whole? Why, it has been calculated that it is equal to but one 2,300,000,000th of the force which the sun is every moment pouring into space. And what is the sun? A small star in the infinitude of space, where shine Sirius and Arcturus, Regulus and Aldebaran, Procyon and Capella, with unnumbered others, all shedding forth a far mightier effluence than our feeble star; yet the grand total of the power streaming from all the suns which human eye has seen, or which still lie undiscovered in the depths of space, alone represents the active energy of the universe. Of two theories of causation, one regards this energy as an unintelligent power. The other sees in it simply the will of the Eternal Jehovah. Which is the more probable? Cooke. The glorious sun is an eminent example of nature's testimony to God. For that great orb God has pitched a tent, and has fixed for it His law and its abiding-place. Its grand apparent march through the heavens, joyfully emerging from the chambers of the East, and climbing the heavenly vault, and then returning by an unseen path to the place whence it arose—all this presents at least one important manifestation of Divine power. Nor is the sun merely a grand processionist or a magnificent firework. It is a beneficent practical distributor of light and heat, "There is nothing hid from the heat thereof." This noble personification of the sun farther connects itself with the fact that in the spiritual world Christ is the "Sun of Righteousness," whose going forth is from everlasting, and who is the sole dispenser of salvation, as the great orb of day is of material quickening to all nature. J. W. Dawson.—Conspicuous among this great company of singers and teachers is the sun, who as their chief never wearies in proclaiming the greatness and glory of God. Every morning he flings aside the curtains of darkness radiant and refreshed. He is eager for the race. He leaps upon the path like a man of might who does not know what to do with his superabundant strength. He takes no rest. He does not so much as stop to take breath in making the vast circuit from dawn to dawn, and with each daybreak he answers the call. Nothing is hidden from his heat. The mists scatter, the clouds melt away, the mountain-tops grow bare, the rivers break their icy fetters, the birds wake, the summer hastens, the harvests grow golden. We may judge the Maker by this single specimen of His handiwork. If the sun is so unwearied, so prompt and rapid, so mighty, pervasive and beneficent, what must He be who made the sun? This is the undertone: God is never weary, His resources are abundant. He moves with rapid and strong step, and nothing can resist His power, an energy which enlightens and enriches. Thus the sun suggests the very perfections of God which His word brings into clearer prominence and on which faith reposes. Behrends. In looking to heaven as the model of our service, we need not pass by the visible heavens from which David so constantly drew lessons for himself. To see how God's will should be done, we have but to turn the eye to the "unworn sky," old in the service of God, but fulfilling His will as at first. We see the precise regularity which should characterize our service also. We see how unweariedly all perform their parts, the great sustaining the small, the small reflecting and enhancing the glory of the great; all as members of one system, obeying in peaceful harmony Him who calls them all by their names. We see how the sun morning after morning comes forth rejoicing to run his race, how the moon observes her appointed seasons, and the sun knoweth his going down; how all, though it be in an unvarying course, fulfil the will of God untiringly. Dods.—Every world sweeps round its orbit without the delay of a second; every planet completes its august circuit through the heavens to the instant; suns rise and set century after century, and the sublime movement of the universe goes forward without the loss of a moment. The heavens which declare the glory of God declare also His promptness; the business of the universe is always done on time. Anon. The natural sun is a symbol of the spiritual. Ere he is fully arisen, and while his glories are still under veil, he calls up the breeze to chase away the usurping vapors of the night season, and thus converts the air itself into the minister of its own purification: not surely in proof or elucidation of the light from heaven, but to prevent its interception. For religion passes out of the ken of reason only where the eye of reason has reached its own horizon; and then faith is but its continuation; even as the day softens away into the sweet twilight, and twilight, hushed and breathless, steals into the darkness. It is night, sacred night! the upraised eye views only the starry heaven, which manifests itself alone; and the outward beholding is fixed on the sparks twinkling in the awful depth, though suns of other worlds, only to preserve the soul steady and collected in its pure act of inward adoration to the great I AM, and to the filial Word, that reaffirmeth it from eternity to eternity, whose choral echo is the universe. Coleridge. What a glorious heaven is this which Thou hast spread over our heads! With how precious a vault hast Thou walled in this our inferior world! What worlds of light hast Thou set above us! These things which we see are wondrous, but those which we believe and see not are yet more. Thou dost but set out these unto view to show us what there is within. How proportionable are Thy works to Thyself! If the lowest pavement of that heaven of Thine be so glorious, what shall we think of the better parts yet unseen? And if this sun of Thine be of such brightness and majesty, oh, what is the glory of the Maker of it! And if such a sky be prepared for the use and benefit even of Thine enemies also upon earth, how happy shall those eternal tabernacles be which Thou hast sequestered for Thine own! Bishop II. 7-10. Despite the seeming abruptness, there is a point of connection between the two portions of the Psalm. What the sun is in the natural world, that the law is in the spiritual—the one quickens and cherishes all animal life, the other quickens and cherishes the life of the soul. P.—The transition from the one part of the Psalm to the other is not marked by anything external; it is indicated, however, by the circumstance that the Divine name Jehovah now takes the place of El. Whereas the word of nature reveals God as El, the word of Scripture reveals Him as Jehovah; the former proclaims God's power and glory, the latter also His counsel and will. The encomiums upon the law are warranted also from a New Testament point of view. Even Paul says, "The law is holy and spiritual; the commandment is holy and righteous and good." The law deserves these encomiums in itself; and for him who stands in the state of grace, it is indeed no longer a law pronouncing a curse, but a mirror of the God who is gracious in holiness, a mirror into which he can look without slavish fear, and a rule of hearty and willing obedience. D. The turn from the outer world to the better light of God's Word is most natural; the abruptness of it is artistic and impressive; the difference of style and measure gives emphasis to the contrast. There is also an obvious connection between the two parts, inasmuch as the law is described by epithets, which in part hint at its being a brighter sun, enlightening the eyes. The Word which declares the will of the Lord is better than the heavens which tell His glory. The abundance of synonyms for that word show how familiar to his thoughts it was. To him it is "the law," "the testimonies" by which God witnesses of Himself and of man: "the statutes," the fixed settled ordinances; that which teaches "the fear of God," the "judgments" or utterances of His mind on human conduct. They are "perfect, firm, right, clean, pure"—like that spotless sun—"eternal, true." "They quicken, make wise, enlighten," even as the light of the lower world. A. M. The God whose glory is thus shown forth by the material creation is the author of a spiritual law, which the Psalmist now describes in the next three verses by six characteristic names, six qualifying epithets, and six moral effects produced by it. A.—Here are six corresponding and nearly parallel statements in three pairs, all treating of essentially the same written law of God, though under six different designations: "law," "testimony," "statutes," "commandments," "the fear of the Lord," and "His judgments;" in each case giving one defining characteristic in a single word, and then adding one statement as to its precious results or effects—all with the same systematic order. C.—The order in which the six words describing God's law occur should be observed: 1. The law, of which the fundamental principle is instruction (Heb. thorah, from yarah, teach). 2. The testimony, i.e., warning; God's appeal to the conscience, bearing witness to the law. 3. Statutes, or, more exactly, visitations, securing obedience, or checking infringements of the law. 4. Commandments, i.e., precepts, better understood as man advances under the teaching of the law. 5. The fear of God, the settled habit of the soul informed by the law. 6. The judgments, the final awards of the Giver of the law. The omission of "the Word" is noticeable. David may have regarded it as synonymous with "the law;" and in this passage his object is specially to set forth the beauty of "the law" as the rule of life, and the expression of God's will. Cook. 7-11. From the knowledge which David had gained by an attentive study of himself, and of the world in which he lived, he turned to the study of the Law—the Bible in his hands; and he exhausts his vocabulary in describing its excellence and its salutary effects. It is pure, as incapable of improvement as is the sunbeam; it is perfect, all its parts thoroughly consistent; it is sure, an eternal Amen, dealing only with indisputable truth; it is clean, enduring forever. The purest gold, in unlimited abundance, cannot so enrich the soul. The dropping of honeycombs is not so sweet. There is safety in the admonition of the Divine precepts; there is great reward in their observance. Behrends. The law of the Lord is perfect. Adapted to the exigencies of a lost world, it speaks on all those subjects on which no speech is heard from the heavens, and is attended with glorious efficacy. It converts the soul; it makes wise the simple; it rejoices the heart; it produces a fear of the Lord, which endures forever; and to all who have felt its sanctifying power, it is more precious than gold, and sweeter than honey. L. Beecher.—David sets open the word in its perfection, its certainties, and firmness; its righteousness, purity and truth; and then in its efficacy—that it is a converting word, an enlightening word, an instructing word, a rejoicing word, a desirable word, a warning word, and a rewarding word. O. Solgwick. We have here the expression of a strong personal affection for the law of God. In the first Psalm, where the character of the righteous man is portrayed in contrast with that of the wicked, it is summed up in these words: "In the law of Jehovah is his delight, and in His law doth he meditate day and night." The longest Psalm in the whole collection, the hundred and nineteenth, might be entitled "The praise of the law;" for it sets forth in ceaseless variety of application the value of the law, the statutes, the judgments of God. With affectionate tenderness the sacred poet lavishes his epithets of admiration upon this word of God. In its nature he declares it to be perfect, sure, right, pure, standing fast forever, the very truth itself, righteous altogether. These epithets mark it as reflecting the holiness of God (pure, righteous, etc.), as being in its nature worthy of all reliance, as that which cannot be set aside or tampered with. It is no leaden rule that may be bent and twisted by the unsteady hand of human caprice to suit its own selfish purposes; but the truth, that we may believe it; pure, that it may lift us out of our sin; standing fast forever, that we may find in it at all times the same unerring guide. The love and affection here expressed toward the law are expressed toward it regarded simply as the reflection of the pure and perfect and holy will of God. To the spiritually minded Jew under the Old Testament, that law was not merely an outward letter of restraint; his heart and conscience consented thereto. And one capital object of the teaching of the prophets was to represent it in its truly spiritual meaning, and so to set forth as a proper object of affection to every heart which waited upon God. P. 7. The law, the testimony. These are the collective terms embracing the whole body of "statutes," "judgments," etc., afterward mentioned. This revelation has the name of "testimony;" as testifying, bearing witness of, God's character both in His good-will toward those who obey Him, and in His displeasure against transgression. Restoring the soul. It calls it back from its wanderings by reminding it of its ingratitude, by setting before it its high destiny, by bringing it to its true Shepherd and Guardian. P. The doctrine revealed by God he declares to be perfect, and yet David had but a very small part of the Scriptures; and if a fragment, and that the darkest and most historical portion, be perfect, what must the entire volume be! How more than perfect is the book which contains the clearest possible display of Divine love, and gives us an open vision of redeeming grace! S. Another effect ascribed to the law is that of making wise the simple, not the foolish, in the strong sense in which that term is applied to the ungodly, but those imperfectly enlightened and still needing spiritual guidance, a description applicable to all believers. It is a singular fact that while this usage of the Hebrew word is peculiar to David, Solomon constantly applies it to the culpable simplicity of unconverted men. In like manner Paul describes the "sacred Scriptures" as able to make wise unto salvation. A.—Humble, candid, teachable minds receive the word, and are made wise unto salvation. Things hidden from the wise and prudent are revealed unto babes. The persuadable grow wise, but the cavillers continue fools. As a law or plan the Word of God converts, and then as a testimony it instructs; it is not enough for us to be converts, we must continue to be disciples; and if we have felt the power of truth, we must go on to prove its certainty by experience. S. 8. Enlightening the eyes. The very essence of truth is plainness and brightness; the darkness and crookedness is all our own. The wisdom of God created understanding fit and proportionable to truth, the object and end of it, as the eye to the thing visible. If our understanding have a film of ignorance over it, or be blear with gazing on other false glisterings, what is that to truth? If we will but pursue with sovereign eye-slave that intellectual ray which God has planted in us, then we would believe the Scriptures protesting their own plainness and perspicuity, calling them to be instructed, not only the wise and learned, but the simple, the poor, the babes, foretelling an extraordinary effusion of God's Spirit upon every age and sex, attributing to all men, and requiring from them the ability of searching, trying, examining all things, and by the Spirit discerning that which is good; and as the Scriptures themselves pronounce their own plainness, so do the fathers testify of them. Milton.—When this perfect law was unfolded before the vision of the human race, it was like a sun irradiating all things by its light, and penetrating with its subtle virtue to the very thoughts of the heart. It was like a mirror, reflecting not what we are, but what we ought to be and what we might be. It was like a deeper moral consciousness, penetrating below the surface of our common thoughts and aims, and disclosing to us our inner, yea, our inmost selves. For when man comes to know the law aright, then he also knows himself aright; he sees what he ought to be—that he ought to be wholly holy in all his desires and thoughts and acts, and that, so long as he is not thus pure, he has failed of attaining the great end for which he was made. For the law is made for man's soul as much as light is made for man's eyes; and to let the light of the law in upon the soul is a revelation no less clear and distinct than to let the light of the visible sun in upon eyes that may long have had a film gathering over them. H. B. Smith. 9. The fear of Jehovah. Another name for the law, but as contemplated in its working on the heart. Not the religious feeling itself is here meant, but the law as intended to evoke and guide that religious feeling, and therefore identified with it. P.—As the law was designed to teach men how to fear the Lord (Deut. 17: 19), the phrase may here be understood as a description of the law viewed in reference to this peculiar purpose, the fear of the Lord being put for that which leads or teaches men to fear Him. A.—The doctrine of truth is here described by its spiritual effect—viz., inward piety, or the fear of the Lord; this is clean in itself, and cleanses out the love of sin, sanctifying the heart in which it reigns. “Enduring forever.” The grace of God in the heart being a pure principle, is also an abiding and incorruptible principle, which may be crushed for a time, but cannot be utterly destroyed. S. 10. As the preceding verses describe what the law is in itself and in its general effects, so this seems to express what it is to the Psalmist’s apprehensions and affections, thus affording a transition from the comprehensive doctrines of the foregoing context to the practical and personal appropriation of those doctrines, which now follows and concludes the Psalm. A.—“More to be desired”—strictly, loved, cherished, valued—and measured here by that which men most prize and by general consent have made the standard of value—gold. So the next figure compares the sweetness of this law of the Lord to that of honey, even when dripping fresh from the comb. Thus the love of the heart for God and His law is set forth as stronger than the strongest earthly passions of men. C. It is more desirable than gold, than fine gold, than much fine gold. Gold is of the earth, earthy, but grace is the image of the heavenly. Gold is only for the body, and the concerns of time; but grace is for the soul, and the concerns of eternity. H.—Bible truth is enriching to the soul in the highest degree; the metaphor is one which gathers force as it is brought out;—gold—fine gold—much fine gold; it is good, better, best. As spiritual treasure is more noble than mere material wealth, so should it be desired and sought after with greater eagerness. “Sweetest also than honey and the honeycomb.” Trapp says, “Old people are all for profit, the young for pleasure; here’s gold for the one, yea, the finest gold in great quantity; here’s honey for the other, yea, live honey dropping from the comb.” The sweetest joys, yea, the sweetest of the sweetest falls to his portion who has God’s truth to be his heritage. S. The most learned, acute, and diligent student cannot, in the longest life, obtain an entire knowledge of this one volume. The more deeply he works the mine, the richer and more abundant he finds the ore; new light continually beams from this source of heavenly knowledge, to direct the conduct and illustrate the work of God and the ways of men; and he will at last leave the world confessing that the more he studied the Scriptures, the fuller conviction he had of his own ignorance and of their inestimable value. Walter Scott. 11-14. And then the twofold contemplation rises into the loftier region of prayer. He feels that there are dark depths in his soul, gloomier pits than any into which the noontide sun shines. He speaks as one who is conscious of dormant evils which life has not yet evolved, and his prayer is more directed toward the future than the past, and is thus very unlike the tone of the later Psalms, that wail out penitence and plead for pardon. “Errors” or weaknesses—“faults” unknown to himself—“high handed sins”—such is the climax of the evils from which he prays for deliverance. He needs not only a God who sets His glory in the heavens, nor even one whose will is made known, but one who will touch his spirit—not merely a Maker, but a pardoning God; and his faith reaches its highest point as his song closes with the sacred name of the covenant Jehovah, repeated for the seventh time, and invoked in one final aspiration of a grateful heart, as “my Rock, and my Redeemer.” A. M. The same God who speaks to us of His wisdom and beneficence, His might and majesty, in the glory of the sun and the stars, addresses our moral nature through His revealed Word, His law of truth and right and purity, the perfection of love. Like the sun in the Syrian sky, this law searches everything by its light and heat—the secret faults, the unconscious errors, no less than wilful and presumptuous sins. Yet the Psalmist would not shrink from this all-penetrating presence of God in His Word; for as the light of the sun is health to the body, so this searching light of the Bible is cleansing also; and, in the degree that the truth purifies the life, it rejoices the heart. Through and above the light that exposes and condemns, the trembling, repentant soul discerns the Lord, its strength and its Redeemer. J. P. T. 11. In keeping of them there is great reward.** Those who make conscience of their duty will not only be no losers by it, but unspeakable gainers. There is a reward, not only after keeping, but in keeping God’s commandments; a present great reward of obedience in obedience. Religion is health and honor, it is peace and pleasure; it will make our comforts sweet and our crosses easy, life truly valuable and death itself truly desirable. H.—“In keeping of Thy commandments”—and not merely after or for keeping them—“there is great reward.” Think of what will be escaped—the bitterness after the sweetness of the bread eaten in secret; the gnawings of conscience; the retributions in kind; the desolation over much of the life; and the fearful prospect. Think of what obedience brings—a quiet heart, reflecting a calm heaven, that spreads blue above it; increased susceptibility for all that is good; increased capacity for service; diminished love of evil; Peace and Power, Righteousness and Joy, all these are the linked attendants of Obedience, the leader of the chorus. A. M. When grace is improved and exercised, gracious services are easily performed. The more our natural strength is exercised and improved, with the more ease and pleasure are all physical duties discharged; so, the more grace is acted and exercised, with the more profit and delight all Christian services are performed. Such souls find wages in their very work; they find that not only for keeping, but also in keeping of His commandments there is great reward. The joy, the rest, the refreshing, the comforts that saints now enjoy in the ways of God are so precious that they would not exchange them for ten thousand worlds. Oh, if there be so much to be had in the wilderness, what then shall be had in paradise! T. Brooks. There is no work like God’s; in the keeping of His commands there is reward. Sin brings shame and sorrow, but gracious actions leave a savor of sweetness, and diffuse a joy throughout the soul. Conscience of duty gives the purest contentment to the mind. Sinful satisfactions are bought with clamor of conscience, and then they are bought very dear. What a great reward may we expect, since we have so much joy and peace in the expectation of it! How great must be the joys of heaven when the very interest in them casts such a lightsome brightness upon the soul! If the mere taste be such, what is the fulness? If the morning glances and forerunning beams be so glorious, what will the high noon be? If there be songs in your pilgrimage, you will have hallelujahs in your country! Manton. 12,13. But with all this affection for God’s Word, there is mingled awe and reverence. That Word lays a man bare to himself. It judges him; it shows him what is in him, convinces him how much there is that needs to be purged, how far even one who loves it is from a perfect obedience. It is at once a copy of the will of God, and a mirror of the heart of man. Hence it calls forth the penitent confession, “As for errors, who can understand them?” and the prayer both to be absolved—“pronounce me free” (like the New Testament brauvio)—and to be kept from sin; first for pardon, and then for sanctification. P. After this survey of the works and word of God, he comes at last to peruse the third book, his conscience. And what finds he here? A blurred copy that he is puzzled how to read; “who,” says he, “can understand his errors?” Those notions which God had with His own hand imprinted upon conscience in legible characters are partly defaced and slurred with interlinings of “secret faults,” partly obliterated and quite razed out with “presumptuous sins.” And yet this manuscript cannot be so abused but it will still give in evidence for God; there being no argument in the world that can with more force extort an acknowledgment of God from any man’s conscience than the conviction of guilt itself labors under. For the sinner cannot but know he has transgressed a law, and he finds within him, if he is not past all sense, apprehensions that “for all these things God will bring him into judgment.” The conscience being thus convicted of sin, where there is any sense of true piety the soul will, with David, address itself to God for pardon, that it may be “cleansed from secret faults,” and for grace, that by its restraints, and preventions, and assistances, it may be “kept back from presumptuous sins,” and if unhappily engaged, that it may be freed at least from the “dominion” of them. A. Littleton. Face to face with the greatness of God, in power, wisdom, holiness and love, the Psalmist is startled by his own ignorance and moral imperfection. He dares not trust his own judgment. The approval of conscience is good, but he does not rest in that. God is the only infallible judge, and therefore he is anxious that God shall pronounce him innocent. Strength of will is good, nay, indispensable, in resisting temptation, but that does not make him invulnerable and infallibly secure; and therefore he asks God to keep him. These are the three things in his earnest prayer: His inmost heart is set upon being holy in God’s sight. He pleads for the Divine forgiveness and he implores the continued almighty protection of God. He holds fast to God, and asks Him never to permit him to wander from His side. So intent is he on having the Divine approval that he wants not only his spoken words, but the murmur of his heart to be acceptable to God, whom he addresses as his Rock, unmoved and immovable, and as his Redeemer, his God, his Kinsman and Defender, who is pledged to maintain his cause against all enemies. It is a great thing to have God's approval of our conduct. It is a greater thing to have God's approval of all we say, kept from all hastiness and bitterness of speech. But the greatest thing is to have a heart that never vibrates to a false note, whose lowest murmur makes the face of God smile with loving approval. Ah! that prayer cuts deep. It leaves no room for self-complacency. But the peace that endures forever, and the joy that is unspeakable and unclouded come only with a purity in which the murmur of the heart answers the holiness of God. That is the redemption we need; none other can satisfy us; and the promise of God in Jesus Christ pledges its ultimate and eternal possession to every penitent and trusting heart. Behrends. 12. Errors who shall understand? Clear Thou'me from hidden ones!** The word translated errors is akin to one sometimes used in the Law to denote sins of inadvertence, error, or infirmity, as distinguished from deliberate, wilful, and high-handed sins, such as are deprecated in the next verse. Against such sins no wisdom or vigilance can wholly guard. The word translated clear is also borrowed from the Law, and means not so much to cleanse by renovation of the heart as to acquit by a judicial sentence. (See Num. 14: 18.) Such an acquittal, in the case of sinners against God, involves the idea of a free forgiveness. A,—Errors, sins both of ignorance and infirmity, those which are done unintentionally and unconsciously; “For we are entangled in so many nets and snares of Satan, that none of us can perceive the hundredth part of the evils that cleave to him.” Calvin. Secret (faults); lit. things hidden, i.e., not only from others, but from our own hearts, through inobservance, through a too ready forgetfulness of them when observed, through the habit of self-deception, or even through their being wilfully cherished. P.—Few, indeed, are the hearts that would bear the revolution of its workings for a single day without exciting a blush; and few are the inhabitants of this world who would be willing that their secret views and thoughts and plans, for any considerable period of their lives, should be laid open before their best friends. Barnes. Hidden sins may be sins of conscience. How many “secret faults” then we may be cherishing under the protecting mantle of conscience itself! How many little graces in ourselves we may be admiring, which, after all, are but vices in saintly apparel! Or they may be sins of ignorance. What a multitude of such sins hide in the nooks and crannies of the human heart! Even the wisest of us—those best skilled in the Christian morality—are perpetually stumbling through ignorance. Again, unconscious sins may be sins of inadvertence. Who does not every day and every hour commit sins of thoughtlessness;—sins of sudden impulse; sins of drifting revery; sins of uncontrolled memory; sins of an unsentinelled, careless car; sins of an unguarded, unleashed tongue; sins of unconscious, wild abandonment in the turmoil and shocks of life's battle, even as the drumbeat is unheard in the booming of the cannonade? These sins of inadvertence, how they throng and litter life's pilgrimage, as countless as the autumn leaves on the highway, and as unnoticed! Again, unconscious sins may be sins of omission. Sins of omission are the most positive of sins. For man owes to his Maker the unintermittent and perfect obedience of his lifetime; so that one single sin of omission is a debt which he can never find time or means to pay; and therefore the Lord teaches us to pray, “Forgive us our debts.” In fact, the parent sin—the sin of sins, that root sin of which it is one of the offices of the Holy Spirit to convict the world—is a sin of omission: “Of sin, because they believe not on Me.” Alas! most persons are troubled only with those sins which are called sins of commission—outward, manifest sins. They forget that by far the larger proportion of our sins in God's sight are sins of simple neglect. Boardman. We have every one of us besetting sins, not one, but many; sins, that is, which more easily get advantage over us than others to which we have a mournful proclivity, an especial predisposition; it may be through natural temperament, it may be through faults in our education, it may be through the circumstances in which we are placed, it may be through having given way to them in times past, and thus broken down on their side more than on any other the moral defences of our soul. It is, then, a point of obvious prudence to strengthen the defences of the city of the soul there, where they are felt and known to be weakest—where, that is, every one who has kept any close record of the sad secrets of his own spiritual life will in his own case abundantly know—to watch and pray against all sin, but, above all, with especial emphasis and earnestness against the sin which most easily besets us. Trench. Fine grains of sand will bury travellers in the desert. Fine flakes of snow, so light that they seem to hang in the air and scarce to fall, will, if they gather over the sleepy wayfarer, extinguish life; if they drift, they will bury whole houses and their dwellers. Fine, delicate sins, as people think them, will chill the soul and take away its life. Pusey.—The worst sin is not some outburst of gross transgression, forming an exception to the ordinary tenor of a life, bad and dismal as such a sin is; but the worst and most fatal are the small continuous vices which root underground and honeycomb the soul. Many a man who thinks himself a Christian is in more danger from the daily commission, for example, of small pieces of sharp practice in his business, than ever was David at his worst. White ants pick a carcass clean sooner than a lion will. A. M. The force of habit makes sins once known become secret sins. To the force of habit must be added that of custom. The most religious men, unless they are specially watchful, will feel the sway of the fashion of their age, and suffer from it, as Lot in wicked Sodom, though unconsciously. Our chief guide amid the evil and seducing customs of the world is obviously the Bible. "The world passeth away; but the Word of the Lord endureth forever." How much extended then, and strengthened, necessarily must be this secret dominion of sin over us when we consider how little we read Scripture! To think of these things, and to be alarmed, is the first step toward acceptable obedience; to be at ease is to be unsafe. We must know what the evil of sin is hereafter if we do not learn it here. Newman. Take heed of secret sins. They will undo thee if loved and maintained: one moth may spoil the garment; one leak drown the ship; a penknife stab and kill a man as well as a sword; so one sin may damn the soul; nay, there is more danger of a secret sin causing the miscarrying of the soul than open profaneness, because not so obvious to the reproofs of the world; therefore take heed that secret sinnings eat not out good beginnings. Burroughs.—If secret faults are indulged, they will sooner or later break out like smothered fires, and the true character of the heart will be developed. They cannot always be concealed, and God designs that they shall not always be. It is well, under the Divine administration, that the true state of the heart should be made manifest, and that it should be seen what man is. Accordingly, few things are more common than such sudden developments of character, and outbreakings of the secret faults of the soul. We are often shocked by such cases, and our philosophy about man seems to fail, and we are at a loss to account for the instances of sudden depravity that appall the community. But these painful disclosures are not departures from the great principles of human nature. There is a maxim in law that no one suddenly becomes eminently vile. These melancholy lapses into sin are but exponents of the real character of the man: the regular results of a long course of guilt; the regular outbreakings of secret faults—like the breaking out of the volcano, or like the tumbling down of a bowing wall, or the fall of a house that has been long undermined by secret streams. Barnes. 13. Presumptuous sins are those done with a high hand. Against these he prays that they may not get the full mastery over him. This completes the climax, which begins with involuntary and advances to hidden, presumptuous, and at length ruling sins, which leave a man their hopeless slave. P.—The sin becomes presumptuous when it is the fruit of deliberation and contrivance; when the person ruminates and plots, and lays schemes for executing his criminal designs. The presumption is farther heightened when obstinacy is added to knowledge and deliberation; when the transgressor "holdeth fast his iniquity, and will not let it go," but rusheth forward in his wicked course, "even as the horse rusheth into battle." R. Walker. As sins of presumption are more difficultly cured, so they waste the conscience infinitely more than any other sins. As really as blows and wounds weaken the body and by degrees dispose it to its final dissolution, so certainly do some sins shake and batter and tear down the constitution of the soul. Guilt upon the conscience, like rust upon iron, both defiles and consumes it, by degrees gnawing and creeping into it, as that does, till at length it has eaten out the very substance of the metal. The inward as well as the outward man has his proper health, strength, and soundness naturally belonging to him; and in proportion has also his diseases and distempers, arising from an irregular course of living. And every act of presumption is to him as a spiritual debauch or surfeit, things that bring a present disorder, and entail a future decay upon nature. This kind of sin is marvellously apt to grow and prevail upon him that gives way to it. Every presumption is properly an encroachment, and all encroachment carries in it still a farther and a farther invasion upon the persons encroached upon. It enters into the soul as a gangrene does into the body, which spreads as well as infects, and, with a running progress, carries a venom and a contagion over all the members. Presumption never stops in its first attempt. He that wades so far as to wet himself, cares not how much he trashes farther. When the ten lerness of the soul is lost, and its first awe of God and religion broke by a bold sin, it grows venturous, and ready to throw itself upon all sorts of outrages and enormities. It steps undauntedly into that stream that is like to carry away and swallow it up forever. South. There is that in every one of us which is always ready to take the part of sin, to plead for sin, to be upon sin's side, sin having a natural correspondence and affinity with everything which is corrupt and fallen within us. There is our love of ease; our love of pleasure; our pride. All the pride as well as all the passions of man are enlisted on the side of sin. How shall we deliver ourselves from these sorceries of sin? How shall we understand our errors, or at least understand that we can never understand them to the full, and thus seek of God that He would cleanse us from them? Grasp with a full and firm faith the blessed truth of the one sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction made for your sins. Remember that He who made that atonement for your sins, and so enabled you to look them in the face—for they are sins not imputed any more—is also the Giver of the Spirit, of that Spirit which convinces us of sin, of righteousness, of judgment to come. Ask of God, and ask earnestly, and ask continually, for this convincing Spirit. Trench.—When sin is dethroned in the heart, the most secret faults bow it in humility before the Lamb. To His precious blood the believer has recourse for cleansing; he finds daily need of it. He cannot understand all his errors. Many secret faults cleave unto him. He is sensible that even these must be washed away, lest they defile his conscience and spread a cloud over his mind. It is the peculiar wisdom of disciples not only to observe the bud, blossom, and fruit of sin; but also to consider the evil root, the polluted nature from which it springs. Here is the exercise of watchfulness. This calls for their daily prayer to be kept by the power of God. W. Mason. 14. Finally the singer prays for a gracious acceptance of his prayer, in which mouth and heart accord, he himself being upheld by the rock-like faithfulness and redeeming love of his God. D.—The prayer or expectation of acceptance derives peculiar beauty from the obviobvious allusion to the frequent use of the same Hebrew phrase in the law of Moses, to denote the acceptance of the sacrificial offerings, or rather the acceptance of the offeror on account of them. This allusion also serves to suggest the idea, not conveyed by a translation, of atonement, expiation, as the ground of the acceptance which the Psalmist hopes or prays for. A. The meditation of my heart. As meditation is the best preparative for prayer, so prayer is the best issue of meditation. Meditation and prayer should go together. It is when we thus consider our prayers, and then only, that we may expect that God will consider them, and take that to His heart which comes from ours. H. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 1. THE LORD answer thee in the day of trouble; The name of the God of Jacob set thee up on high; 2 Send thee help from the sanctuary, And strengthen thee out of Zion; 3 Remember all thy offerings, And accept thy burnt sacrifice; [Selah] 4 Grant thee thy heart's desire, And fulfil all thy counsel. 5 We will triumph in thy salvation, And in the name of our God we will set up our banners: The LORD fulfil all thy petitions. 6. Now know I that the LORD saveth his anointed; He will answer him from his holy heaven With the saving strength of his right hand. 7 Some trust in chariots, and some in horses But we will make mention of the name of the LORD our God. 8 They are bowed down and fallen: But we are risen, and stand upright. 9 Save, LORD: Let the King answer us when we call. A PRAYER for the use of the ancient Church in time of war. Addressing her visible head, she wishes him Divine assistance and success (vs. 1-5), and expresses a strong confidence that God will answer her petition (vs. 6-8), which she then repeats and sums up in conclusion (v. 9). There is no trace of this Psalm having been composed with reference to any particular occasion, its contents being perfectly appropriate to every case in which the chosen people, under their theocratic head, engaged in war against the enemies of God and Israel. A. This Psalm was composed for the emergency of a pending war, of which the indications are "the day of trouble" (v. 1); prayer for help in battle is the strain of the whole Psalm; the offering of special sacrifices preliminary to the going forth to war (v. 3); the setting up of military banners in the name of their God (v. 5); the fact that their enemies gloried in chariots and in horses, God's people in His name alone (v. 7); and that in this conflict their enemies fell and they rose in strength and victory (v. 8). C. 1-5. Intercession for the king who is in distress, and who causes sacrifices to be offered for himself in the sanctuary. D.—The army, ready drawn up for action, as we may fancy, prays for the king, who, according to custom, brings sacrifices and offerings before the fight. "Jehovah hear thee in the day of trouble; the name of the God of Jacob defend thee, send thee help from the sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion, remember all thine offerings, and accept thy burnt sacrifice." Then, as they wave their standards in the sunshine, or plant before the ranks of each tribe its cognizance, to be defended to the death, the hoarse shout rises from the files, "In the name of our God we will set up, or wave, our banners." A. M. 1. "The name of the God of Jacob," in the second clause, is used instead of the word "Lord" (Jehovah), or simply, "God of Jacob," to express the fact that the petitions offered, and the promises implied in them, are founded upon the actual known character of God and His revealed relation to His people. This is made clear by the declaration of the ground of confidence which follows the petitions. "Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God;"—that is, we will call to mind what God is in Himself, and has made known about Himself to us, and has promised to do for us. W. F. Wilkinson. The name of the God of Jacob defend thee. Here is an assurance of protection and safety in the midst of foes, and of perseverance to the end. Get encircled with covenant engagements and covenant blood, covenant promises and covenant securities; then will "the Lord hear you in the time of trouble, and the name of the God of Jacob will defend you." J. Irons.—A sweeter wish, or a more consolatory prayer for a child of sorrow, was never uttered by man. And who is there of the sons of men to whom a "day of trouble" does not come, whose path is not darkened at times, or with whom is it unclouded sunshine from the cradle to the grave? "Few plants," says old Jacomb, "have both the morning and the evening sun;" and one far older than he said, "Man is born to trouble." A "day of trouble," then, is the heritage of every child of Adam. How sweet the wish, "The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble"! It is the prayer of another in behalf of some troubled one, and yet it implies that the troubled one himself had also prayed, "The Lord hear thee"—hear and answer thine own prayer! Bouchier. 2. Send thee help from the sanctuary.** Why "from the sanctuary," but because the Lord presented Himself there as upon the mercy-seat! The sanctuary was in Zion, the mercy-seat was in the sanctuary, the Lord was in the mercy-seat; He would have Himself set forth as residing there. Herein they pray, and pray in faith, for help and strength. Clarkson.—Mercies out of the sanctuary are the sweetest mercies, such as are the tokens of God's peculiar love; the blessing of God, even our own God. Strength out of Zion is spiritual strength, strength in the soul, in the inward man, and that is it we should most desire, both for ourselves and others, in services and sufferings. 3. "The Lord give thee the victory and success which thou didst by prayer with sacrifices ask of Him." By this we may now know that God accepts our spiritual sacrifices, if by His spirit He kindles in our souls a holy fire of pious and Divine affection, and with that makes our hearts burn within us. H.—Very excellent are Luther's remarks here, and capable of wide application. After observing that the sacrifices of the old law are done away in Christ, he continues, "Notwithstanding, at the present day others, as well as David, may use this Psalm in prayer; for as the person, the circumstances, the time, and place are all different in the new law, so likewise is the sacrifice; but one faith and one spirit abide through all ages, and amid all diversities of places, works, persons. The external varies; the internal remains ever the same." 4. Fulfil all thy counsel.** All thy plans and measures in the war. P.—Those who make it their business to glorify God may expect that God will, one way or other, gratify them; and they who walk in His counsel may promise themselves that He will fulfil theirs. Thou shalt devise a thing, and it shall be established unto thee. H. 5. In the name of our God we will set up our banners.** We will wage war in His name, we will see that our cause be good, and make His glory our end in every expedition; we will ask counsel at His mouth, and take Him along with us; we will follow His conduct, implore His aid, depend upon it, and refer the issue to Him. We will celebrate our victories in His name. When "we lift up our banners" in triumph, and set up our trophies, it shall be "in the name of our God." He shall have all the glory of our success, and no instrument shall have any part of the honor that is due to Him. H.—Confession of Christ, as the only name whereby we can be saved, is the "banner" which distinguishes His faithful people. Oh, that this confession were more distinct, more pure, more zealous, in those who seem to be His followers, then would they be more united, more bold, in the profession of their religion, more successful in the cause of Christ, terrible as an army with "banners"! W. Wilson. The union of patriotic devotion and of religious fervor is not an incidental and occasional feature in the records of the Bible. It colors all the history and emerges in all its literature. Every one of the prophets, from Moses down to Malachi, through a period of fifteen hundred years, was both a preacher of righteousness and a patriot. They were as ardent lovers of country as they were lovers of God; and were always found at the front in times of national danger and despondency. When twelve hundred years ago and more the sword of Mahomet swept over the East and invaded Europe, patriotism became intensely religious, and for nearly one thousand years afterward prayers were earnestly offered in all the churches of Christendom for protection from the Turk. When Holland stood resolute against Charles V. and Philip II.; when Germany bore the brunt of the Thirty Years' War, the cause of patriotism was the cause of religion. Had there been no Cromwell there had been no free England; had there been no William the Silent, there had been no Leyden, giving refuge to the Pilgrims, and this Republic would never have been born. Patriotism has an ethical and spiritual root; it is devotion to a moral ideal. The state is no man's creation, however great he may be; nor is it a mere compact between many men; it is the voluntary subjection of the many to the sovereignty of law, to the maintenance of order, to the supremacy of righteousness. And intelligent, ardent, habitual regard for law means reverence and love for God. Thus patriotism and religion coalesce; a true love of country issues from and merges in true love for God; and true love for God involves true love for all men. In this spirit we may set up and wave our banners in the name of God. Thus we may put our religion into our patriotism. Behrends. 6-8. While vs. 1-5 were being sung, it is probable that the offering of the sacrifice was going on. Now, after a considerable pause, one voice is raised, very likely the voice of a Levite, and gives expression to the confidence that flashes up in their minds, that the sacrifice which has been offered by the priest has been graciously accepted. D. 6. The hope suddenly changes into certainty, now know I that Jehovah hath saved, hath given the victory. The singer speaks in the full assurance of faith that the prayer is heard, and as if he already saw the victory gained. The prayer had been (vs. 1, 2) that God would hear and send help from the earthly sanctuary or Zion. Now the answer is said to come from his holy heaven. For if God then condescended to dwell in visible glory among men, yet He would teach His people that He is not limited by the bounds of time and space. He sends help out of Zion; but the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him. P.—Here, as in Psalm 18: 50, His Messiah or Anointed One includes the whole succession of genuine theocratic kings, not excepting Him whose representatives they were, and in whom the royal line was at the same time closed and made perpetual. A. 7. Some trust in chariots.** In war, chariots, horses, navies, numbers, discipline, former successes, are relied on; but the battle is not to the strong. "Providence favors the strong battalions" may sound well, but neither Providence nor the Bible so teaches. In peace, riches, friends, ships, farms, stocks are relied upon, yet they can neither help nor save. Let him that glorieth glory in the Lord. W. S. Plumer.—Some there are who put their trust (as the Psalmist says) in chariots and horses, and dream they shall live forever in those palaces which are but the outhouses of the grave. There are very few men, in fact, who are capable of withstanding the constant effect of artificial distinctions; it is difficult to live upon a throne and to think of a tomb; it is difficult to be clothed in splendor and to remember we are dust; it is difficult for the rich and the prosperous to keep their hearts as a burning coal upon the altar, and to humble themselves before God as they rise before men. In the mean time, while pride gathers in the heart, the angel is ever writing in the book, and wrath is ever mantling in the cup. Sydney Smith. We will mention the name of the Lord. Great certainly is the faith which hath such courage by remembering the name of the Lord. Soldiers in our day are wont, when they go into battle, to recall to mind the brave exploits of their fathers, or former victories, and the like, wherewith to warm and stir their hearts. But let our princes remember the name of God, wherein all salvation and victory do stand. Luther.—The life wholly occupied with the present is necessarily superficial. Recollection and anticipation broaden and deepen life. Memory enriches it by making us grateful for Divine goodness, humble in the consciousness of our failings and infirmities, wise from the lessons of experience, and diligent to redeem the time that remains. Adeney. 8. How different the end of those whose trusts are different! The enemies of God are uppermost at first, but they belong are brought down by force, their chariots are burned in the fire, and their horses die of pestilence, and where is their boasted strength? As for those who rest on Jehovah, they are often cast down at the first onset, but an Almighty arm uplifts them, and they joyfully stand upright. The victory of Jesus is the inheritance of His people. The world, death, Satan, and sin shall all be trampled beneath the feet of the champions of faith; while those who rely upon an arm of flesh shall be ashamed and confounded forever. S. 9. The hymn concludes congregationally, as it had begun, and is rounded off by reverting to its original tone, praying for the fulfilment of that which has been besought and pledged. D. 1. THE king shall joy in thy strength, O LORD; And in thy salvation how greatly shall he rejoice! 2 Thou hast given him his heart's desire, And hast not withholden the request of his lips. [Selah] 3 For thou preventest [comest to meet] him with the blessings of goodness: Thou settest a crown of fine gold on his head. 4 He asked life of thee, thou gavest it him; Even length of days for ever and ever. 5 His glory is great in thy salvation: Honour and majesty dost thou lay upon him. 6 For thou makest him most blessed [to be blessings] for ever: Thou makest him glad with joy in thy presence. 7 For the king trusteth in the LORD, And through the lovingkindness of the Most High he shall not be moved. In the preceding Psalm the people, interceding for their king, cried to him, "May Jehovah fulfil all thy desires;" in this they can say thankfully to God, "The desire of his heart hast Thou granted him." In both Psalms the people appear before God in connection with matters that concern their king; in the former desiring and praying, in the latter thanking and hoping; here as well as there in the midst of war; here, however, now that the king has recovered, in the assurance that the war will be brought to a victorious issue. The Targum and the Talmud understand this Psalm as referring to king Messiah. Raschi remarks that, because of the Christians one should rather give up this Messianic interpretation. But even Christian exegesis cannot be disposed to maintain the Messianic interpretation in the rigid and direct manner of earlier days. The two Psalms treat of David; David's cause, however, in its way through suffering to victory, is typically the cause of the coming Christ. D.—Like the last, this Psalm is Messianic, and in the same sense. Each Jewish monarch was but a feeble type of Israel's true King; and all the hopes and aspirations of pious hearts, however they might have for their immediate object the then reigning monarch, whether David him- 8. Thine hand shall find out all thine enemies: Thy right hand shall find out those that hate thee. 9 Thou shalt make them as a fiery furnace in the time of thine anger. The LORD shall swallow them up in his wrath, And the fire shall devour them. 10 Their fruit shalt thou destroy from the earth, And their seed from among the children of men. 11 For they intended evil against thee: They imagined a device, which they are not able to perform. 12 For thou shalt make them turn their back, Thou shalt make ready with thy bowstrings against the face of them. 13 Be thou exalted, O LORD, in thy strength: So will we sing and praise thy power. self or one of David's children, still looked beyond these to Him who should be David's Lord as well as his son. P 1. The king shall joy in Thy strength, O Lord. This king is David. The Hebrew word lacks the article which distinguishes it from the King, the great King of Psalm 20:9. Yet the relations were close between David, the Lord's chosen and anointed king of Israel, and the Great Anointed One (Messiah), his prophetic son and his successor on an eternal throne. The tone of this verse is that of exultant joy in the strength of the Most High, who had given David a signal victory over his most formidable enemies. C.—David wrote of himself in the third person, and as "the king." He penned the Psalm, not so much for his own use, as for his people's. It is, in fact, a national anthem, celebrating the majesty and glory of David, but ascribing both to God—expressing confidence in David's future, but building that confidence upon God alone. S. Martin. In Thy salvation shall he rejoice. Oh, it is good rejoicing in the strength of that arm which shall never wither, and in the shadow of those wings which shall never cast their feathers! in Him that is not there yesterday and here to day, but the same yesterday, to-day, and forever! For as He is, so shall the joy be. Launcelot Andrews. 3. Thou preventest him with blessings of goodness.** Mercy, in the case of many of us, ran before our desires and prayers, and it ever outruns our endeavors and expectancies, and even our hopes are left to lag behind. Prevenient grace deserves a song: we may make one out of this sentence. All our mercies are to be viewed as "blessings;" gifts of a blessed God, meant to make us blessed; they are "blessings of goodness," not of merit, but of free favor; and they come to us in a preventing way, such as only preventing love could have arranged. In this light the verse is itself a sonnet! S. "Thou goest before him—with goodness," The words "blessings of goodness" suggest that God's gifts are God's love embodied and expressed. And this greatly enhances the value of our blessings—that they are cups as full of God and of God's kindness as of happiness and blessedness. S. Martin.—A large portion of our blessing is given us before our asking or seeking. Existence, reason, intellect, a birth in a Christian land, the calling of our nation to the knowledge of Christ, and Christ Himself, with many other things, are unsought bestowed on men. Plumer. 4. The last clause shows that the life which David prayed for was not personal longevity, but the indefinite continuation of his race, an honor which was granted to him, even beyond his hopes and wishes, in the person of our Saviour. A.—The form of expression here and v. 6 supposed to be inapplicable to any earthly monarch, has led some to refer the Psalm to the Messiah. Still, this would not exclude a primary reference to David, although we know that whatever was true of the glory and dignity and length of life of David as king of Israel, is far truer in its spiritual and eternal sense of Christ the Son of David. P.—See also, and rejoice in, the length of the days of Christ's kingdom. He was dead indeed, that we might live through Him; but He is alive, and lives forevermore, and of the increase of His government and peace there shall be no end; and because He thus lives, we shall thus live also. H. 5. Great shall be his majesty in Thy salvation; glory and honor Thou wilt put upon him. His personal experience of God's saving grace, and his connection with the great scheme of salvation for mankind, would raise him to a dignity far beyond that of any other monarch, and completely justifying even the most exalted terms used in Scripture from the charge of adulation or extravagance. 6. For Thou wilt make him a blessing to eternity. He shall not only be blessed himself, but a blessing to others, the idea and expression being both derived from the promise to Abraham in Gen. 12:2, an allusion which serves also to connect the Davidic with the Abrahamic covenant, and thus to preserve unbroken the great chain of Messianic prophecies. Make him a blessing literally, place him for (or constitute him) blessing. The plural form suggests variety and fulness. A. "Thou hast set him to be blessings forever" (so the margin reads it), "Thou hast made him to be a universal, everlasting blessing to the world, in whom the families of the earth are and shall be blessed; and so Thou hast made him exceeding glad with the countenance thou hast given to his undertaking, and to him in the prosecution of it." See how the spirit of prophecy gradually rises here to that which is peculiar to Christ, for none besides is blessed forever, much less a blessing forever to that eminence that the expression denotes; and of him it is said, that God made him full of joy with His countenance. H. Glad with joy. The language shows that when the light of God's countenance shines, and men walk in it, there is no stint, no limit, no measure, to the full heart's joy. Exceeding gladness is not gladness which can be measured. It is gladness which capacity does not equal and even desire cannot surpass, gladness beyond our utmost wish, in excess of our largest conception. Long as our capacity for enjoyment lasts, God's countenance makes the heart glad. If God has lifted upon us the light of His countenance, let us try constantly to realize what that means and be of good cheer. W. Landels. 7. A reason why the blessing is vouchsafed. It is a blessing given to faith. The king trusts not in himself, not in chariots or horses, but in the Most High. The king, who was spoken of in the third person at the beginning of the Psalm, is here again also spoken of in the third person. And thus a preparation is made for the transition to a direct address, with which the next strophe opens. P. 8. Thy hand shall find out all Thine enemies; Thy right hand shall find (those) hating Thoe. Having shown what God would do for His anointed, the Psalm now describes what the latter shall accomplish through Divine assistance. By a kind of climax in the form of expression, hand is followed by right hand, a still more emphatic sign of active strength. To find, in this connection, includes the ideas of detecting and reaching. A.—It is not meant only of a discovery of a person (though it be a truth that the Lord will discover all that are His enemies), but Thine hand shall find them out, it shall take hold of them, grasp them, and arrest them. “Thine hand shall find out” all “thine enemies,” though close, though covert enemies; not only Thy above-ground enemies, but Thy under-ground enemies; as well those that undermine Thee, as those that assault Thee. Caryl. 9. Thou shalt make them like a fiery furnace at the time of Thy presence. To make them like a furnace here means, not to make them the destroyers of others, but, by a natural abbreviation, to make them as if they were in a fiery furnace. At the time of Thy presence, literally, Thy face, which may be understood to mean, when Thou lookest at them. A. 9-12. There is no escaping God’s avenging eye, no going out of the reach of His hand; rocks and mountains will be no better shelter at last than fig-leaves were at first. The destruction will be an utter destruction. Their fruit and thir seed shall be destroyed (v. 10). The enemies of God’s kingdom, in every age, shall fall under the same doom, and the whole generation of them will at last be rooted out, and all opposing rule, principality, and power shall be put down. The arrows of God’s wrath shall confound them and put them to flight, being levelled at the face of them (v. 12). That will be the lot of daring enemies that face God. Those that might have had Christ to rule and save them, but rejected Him and fought against Him, shall find that even the remembrance of that will be enough to make them to eternity a fiery oven to themselves; it is the worm that dies not. H. 1. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? 2 O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou answerest not; And in the night season, and am not silent. 3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. 4 Our fathers trusted in thee: They trusted, and thou didst deliver them. 5 They cried unto thee, and were delivered: They trusted in thee, and were not ashamed. 6 But I am a worm, and no man; A reproach of men, and despised of the people. 7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, 8 Commit thyself unto the LORD; let him deliver him: Let him deliver him, seeing he delighteth in him. 9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb; Thou didst make me trust when I was upon my mother’s breasts. 10 I was cast upon thee from the womb: Thou art my God since my mother bare me. 11 Be not far from me; for trouble is near; For there is none to help 12 Many bulls have compassed me: Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. 13 They gape upon me with their mouth, As a ravening and a roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint: My heart is like wax; It is melted in the midst of my bowels. 15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; And thou hast brought me into the dust of death. 16 For dogs have compassed me: The assembly of evil-doers have inclosed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I may tell all my bones; They look and stare upon me: 18 They part my garments among them, And upon my vesture do they cast lots. 19. But be not thou far off, O LORD : O thou my succour, haste thee to help me. 20 Deliver my soul from the sword ; My darling from the power of the dog. 21 Save me from the lion's mouth ; Yea, from the horns of the wild-oxen thou last answered me. 22 I will declare thy name unto my brethren : In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. 23 Ye that fear the LORD, praise him ; All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him ; And stand in awe of him, all ye the seed of Israel. 24 For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted ; Neither hath he hid his face from him ; But when he cried unto him, he heard. 25 Of thee cometh my praise in the great con- gregation : I will pay my vows before them that fear him. THE Psalm has three distinct parts. The first (1-11) describes the deep anguish of the sufferer apparently forsaken by God, and de- spised by man, alternating with strong expres- sions of trust in God's holiness and love. In the second (12-21), the circumstances which cause the anguish are vividly portrayed, but the description is blended with earnest and de- vout supplication. In the third part (22-31), the strain changes suddenly, the Psalm calls on all to join in praising God for an accomplished deliverance, and announces the extension of God's kingdom to all kindreds of the earth. The Messianic character of the twenty second Psalm is vindicated by a remarkable variety of evidences, which are separately strong, and in their combination overwhelming. We have, in the first place, positive evidence : the use of the first words by our Lord in His last agony. This may, of course, be explained away either as a simple reminiscence, or at the most a recogni- tion of the typical character of the Psalmist's sufferings ; but, considering the solemnity of the occasion, we most naturally regard this, like other words and acts connected with the crucifixion, as a seal and attestation to prophe- cy. This is confirmed by the direct and un- qualified testimony of the Apostle John, and by direct quotations and many clear references in the other evangelical accounts of the cruci- fixion. We have, in the second place, a corre- spondence with all the details of the sufferings of Christ so minute and exact as to make it cer- 26. The meek shall eat and be satisfied : They shall praise the LORD that seek after him : Let your heart live for ever. 27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto the LORD : And all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. 28 For the kingdom is the LORD's : And he is the ruler over the nations. 29 All the fat ones of the earth shall eat and worship : All they that go down to the dust shall bow before him. Even he that cannot keep his soul alive. 30 A seed shall serve him ; It shall be told of the Lord unto the next generation. 31 They shall come and shall declare his right- eousness Unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it. tain that, if those details are truly narrated by the evangelists, they were the fulfilment of prophecy. At the same time it is certain that the traits in their combination are wholly in- applicable to David. There is not only a total absence of consciousness of sin, which might be partly accounted for, supposing them to be a product of his early manhood ; but, as is shown in the commentary, from first to last the feelings and events are true of the Man of sor- rows, and, to a great extent, of Him alone. The only explanation which meets and satisfies all the conditions of a sound exegesis, that which has been held fast by the Church in all times, and has a sure foundation in Holy Scrip- ture, is that the Psalmist was moved by the Spirit of Christ, so that, whether consciously or unconsciously, he recorded his afflictions, and expressed his hopes, in language which found its perfect fulfilment in the Messiah, of whom David undoubtedly was, and knew him- self to be, one of the very chiefest types. Cook. The passages which are quoted from it by the New Testament writers are declared, or as- sumed to be, prophecies of Christ ; the language of this Psalm is appropriated by Christ and used of Himself ; and is also taken up, unwit- tingly, we suppose, yet very suggestively, by Christ's enemies. The very mode of Christ's death is indicated, and this mode is utterly for- eign to Jewish usage in capital punishment ; and such a death and even such wounds are un- known to Jewish history save in the death of Christ. Furthermore, the co-relation between the latter and former portions of the Psalm conclusively show its Messianic character. The latter portion gives us the results of these sufferings. And what are they? First, I will declare Thy name unto My brethren'—words which appear in the last verses of the longest recorded prayer of Jesus (John 17: 23), and are here as one of the great ends of His mission to earth. Next a thanksgiving feast in which the sufferer pays his vows after the manner of pious Israelites. This remarkably shades off into the great Gospel feast, probably suggesting this current usage of Jesus and of the Gospel historians; for in this case, as in that of Gospel history, the 'meek' (i.e., the humble, the broken of heart for sin) 'shall eat and be satisfied;' their mouths are filled with praise; their 'hearts live forever' with that eternal life which none can give but Jesus; and then the range and scope of these blessings spread out to embrace the 'wide, wide world,' for 'all the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee.' The Gospel goes forth conquering and to conquer; the rightful rule of the Lord Jehovah becomes supreme over all the nations. Generation after generation, down through the lapse of the ages, this supremacy endures, His kingdom an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion one that has no end. Such are the results of glorious victory and triumph to the Gospel and to the kingdom of Christ over the nations which come of the sufferings through which this Great Sufferer is presented in this Psalm as passing. These results can be no other than those which attend the sufferings of the great Messiah. In Him we see them fully developed. That His sufferings and the consequent 'glory' were bound together by the strongest mutual co-relation is signified in those comprehensive words of Peter, giving the gist of Old Testament prophecy, in which 'the Spirit of Christ testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow' (1 Pet. 1: 11). Precisely this co-relation appears in Isaiah 53, where, 'making His soul an offering for sin,' but seeing the fruit of this agony to His full satisfaction, and 'dividing the spoil with the mighty,' are the attendant results. The scope of this Psalm, co-relating such results of Gospel victory with such sufferings, shut us up to Christ only and alone as fulfilling this Psalm. C. The first half of this Psalm coincides with the passion of Jesus Christ, and the second with the consequences that have resulted from His resurrection. It is the agonizing situation of a crucified one that is pictorially and faithfully presented to us in vs. 14-17: the spreading out of the limbs of the naked body, the torturing of the hands and feet, and the burning thirst which the Redeemer, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, announced in the cry, John 19: 28. Men who reviled Him and shook their head at Him passed by His cross just as v. 7 says; scorners cried to Him: 'Let the God in whom He trusts deliver Him,' just as v. 8 says; His garments were divided and lots were cast for His coat in order that v. 18 of our Psalm might be fulfilled. The third last of the seven words of the dying one is the first word of our Psalm and the appropriation of the whole. And the Epistle to the Hebrews (2: 11 f.) quotes v. 22 as the words of Christ, in order to show that He is not ashamed to call those His brethren, whose sanctifier God has appointed Him to be, just as the risen One has actually done (Matt. 28: 10; John 20: 17). We are far from having exhausted the reciprocal relations. The Psalm so sets before our eyes not merely the suffering of the crucified One, but also the redemption of the world that resulted from His resurrection and the sacramental appropriation of that redemption. For us, who look upon the whole Psalm as the words of David, it does not thereby lose anything of its prophetic character. It is a typical Psalm. The very same God, who communicates His thoughts of redemption to the spirit of man and there causes them to become the word of prophetic proclamation, has also so shaped history itself that it has become a prefigurative representation of the coming salvation; and the evidence for the truth of Christianity which may be deduced from these prophetic facts of history is no less convincing than that which may be deduced from verbal prophecy. That David, the anointed of Samuel, before he reached the throne had to go a way of suffering which resembles the way of suffering of Jesus, the Son of David baptized by John, and that this typical suffering of David is fixed for us in the Psalms as in images reflected from a mirror—this is also an appointment of Divine power, grace, and wisdom. But this Psalm is not merely typical. For in it David descends with his complaints to a depth that lies beyond the depth of his suffering, and rises with his hopes to a height which lies beyond the height of the reward of his suffering. The typical is elevated into the prophetic. Since David has been anointed with the oil of royal consecration and at the same time also with the Holy Spirit, the official Spirit of the kingship of promise, he looks upon himself as the Messiah of God, to whom the promises point; and in virtue of this way of looking at himself in the light of the highest calling that could be assigned to one in connection with the history of redemption, the historical reality of his experiences becomes idealized to him, and both what he experiences and what he hopes for thereby acquire a depth and height of background which reach out into the history of the final and true Christ of God. He sees in himself the coming One, the image of whom does not till somewhat later detach itself from him, and whose history will completely coincide with all that is hyperbolical in the expressions that he employs. For as God the Father fashions the history of Jesus Christ in conformity with His own counsel, so His Spirit fashions also the statements of David, the type of the coming One, regarding himself, with a view to that history. By means of this Spirit, which is at once the Spirit of God and of the coming Christ, David's typical history, as he narrates it in his Psalms and more especially in this one, has acquired that ideal depth, transfiguration and intensity, in virtue of which it is far more than a mere statement of typical facts, penetrates to the root of these facts in the Divine counsel, and grows to be the word of prophecy; so that, to a certain extent, it may rightly be said that Christ speaks here through David, inasmuch as the Spirit of Christ speaks through him and makes the prefigurative suffering of His ancestor the means whereby His own future passion is represented. Without the recognition of this irrefragable state of the case, this Psalm can neither be understood nor sympathetically reproduced. D. Loaded with the sins of the world, Jesus began the Psalm upon the Cross to show that it was His. Four out of the last Seven Words certainly are taken from, or refer to, this portion of the Psalter. From the first verse on, there is scarcely a line which might not have come from the pen of an evangelist. Instead of a colorless scene, instead of unmitigated darkness and inextricable confusion, there is color and detail. The echo of part of this very Psalm, hideously distorted and caricatured, comes up in the ears of the Forsaken One. Burning thirst; violent tension of suspended members, making the frame like that of a living skeleton; rude spectators gambling over the raiment; some wrong, probably piercing, done to the hands and feet; the feeling strange and out of place in God's universe—all these are represented vividly and powerfully. Nineteen centuries of contemplation at the foot of the Cross have shown faith no discord between the Crucified Lord whom she adores, and Him who cries "Eli, Eli." If she ever tries in vain to get a glimpse of His features, it is because she cannot see distinctly for tears. But there is more than this. The sufferer passes to glory by the edge of the sword (or a violent death), from the lion's mouth, from the claws of the dog, from the horns of the unicorn. The minute touch in the twenty-second verse, referred to in the Epistle to the Hebrews ("He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare Thy Name unto My brethren"), might not, by itself, attract our attention; but then it comes from Him who has cried, "Eli, Eli," whose hands and feet have been pierced; and we note that twice only, in quick succession, just after the Resurrection, our Lord is recorded to have applied the word "brethren" to His servants. The wonder of the Psalm is brought to a climax by the ordered development in which all is given. First, He who suffers is laid into the very dust of death. Then, risen from that dust, He proclaims His Name to His brethren, beginning from the Jews, and ending with the Gentiles from the very furthest parts of the earth. Bishop Alexander. 1-11. The cry of anguish, which begins with a lamentation over prolonged desertion by God, struggles through to a trustful prayer. The question (v. 1) is not an expression of impatience and despair, but of surprise and yearning. The sufferer feels himself to be rejected by God; the feeling of Divine wrath surrounds him entirely with darkness; and yet he knows himself to be united to God in fear and love; his present condition is wholly out of keeping with the real nature of his relationship to God; and it is this very contradiction that urges him to put the plaintive question, which rises from the lowest depths. Why hast Thou forsaken me? But notwithstanding this feeling of desertion by God, the bond of love is not broken; the mourner calls God, my God; urged on by the longing that God would grant him once more to feel this love, he calls Him my God! my God! The crucified One's desertion by God, however, must not be measured by that of David and of other sufferers who thus complain when they find themselves exposed to sore trial. The crucified One is even to His latest breath the Holy One of God, and the propitiation, for which He offers Himself, is God's own eternal, gracious will, which is now being realized in the fulness of the times; but seeing that He submits Himself with the sin of His people and of the whole of humanity to God's judgment, it cannot be spared Him to experience God's wrath against sinful humanity as if He were personally guilty; and out of the infinite depths of this tasting of wrath, which in His case rests upon no mere appearance but upon the sternest reality, there comes His complaint, which penetrates the wrath and appeals to God's love. D. 1. Why?** Not the "why" of impatience or despair, not the sinful questioning of one whose heart rebels against his chastening, but rather the cry of a lost child who cannot understand why his father has left him, and who longs to see his father's face again. It is the question of faith as well as of an anguish that cannot be told. For he who asks "why," nevertheless calls God "my God," and repeats the appropriating word again and again, with the very emphasis of faith. Indeed, such a question can only be asked by one whom God has taken into covenant with Himself, and to whom He has vouchsafed His promises. What these words were in the lips of the Holy One of God, heart of man may not conceive. For a moment, in that last agony, the Perfect Man was alone—alone with the sin of the world. But it is going beyond Scripture to say that a sense of God's wrath extorted that cry. For to the last breath He was the well-beloved of the Father, and the repeated "My God," "My God," is a witness even then to His confidence in the Father's love. Stier says, with great truth: "Neither could the damned in hell so call to God and ask, nor could Christ have done so if He were really to be considered here as suffering in their place." P. When God chose that costliest means of our deliverance, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, we may be quite sure that at no lower price would our redemption have been possible, that nothing short of this could have satisfied that righteousness of His, which He was bound to maintain; which He could not forego, without shaking to their strong foundation those eternal pillars on which the moral universe reposes; we may be quite sure that no weaker or poorer motives than those in this way presented to man would have ever succeeded in making him holy, and thus capable of blessedness. Trench. The Incarnation is not the whole Gospel. The body of His flesh becomes the means of our reconciliation "through death." Christ's death has so met the requirements of the Divine law that the Divine love can come freely forth, and embrace and forgive sinful men. That fact is the very centre of the revelation of God in Christ, the very secret of His power. He has died. Voluntarily and of His own love, as well as in obedience to the Father's loving will, He has borne the consequences of the sin which He had never shared, in that life of sorrow and sympathy, in that separation from God which is sin's deepest penalty, and of which the solemn witness comes to us in the cry that rent the darkness, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" and in that physical death which is the parable in the material sphere of the true death of the spirit. We do not know all the incidence of Christ's death. The whole manner of its operation has not been told us, but the fact has been. It does not affect the Divine heart. That we know, for "God so loved the world, that He sent His Son." But it does affect the Divine government. Without it, forgiveness could not have been. Its influence extends to all the years before, as to all after Calvary, for that Man continued to be after Man had sinned, was because the whole Divine government then had respect to the sacrifice that was to be, as now it all is moulded by the merit of the sacrifice that has been. As for us, that wondrous love—mightier than death, and not to be quenched by many waters—is the one power that can change our alienation to glad friendship, and melt the ice of indifference and dread into love. That, and that alone, is the solvent for stubborn wills, the magnet for distant hearts. The cross of Christ is the keystone of the universe and the conqueror of all enmity. A. M. 2,3. He hears nothing from God as to the deliverance prayed for, yet no murmuring at God's proceedings; nay, quite the contrary, for he justifies and praises God: "But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel." Observe whether thou canst not gather something from the manner of God's denying the thing prayed for, which may sweeten it to thee! Haply thou shalt find He denies thee, but it is with a smiling countenance, and ushers it in with some expressions of grace and favor that may assure thee His denial proceeds not from displeasure. Gurnall. 3. And Thou (art) holy, inhabiting the praises of Israel. Here begins his statement of the grounds on which he might claim to be heard, and all which may be summed up in this, that Jehovah was the covenant God of Israel. The word translated holy, in its widest sense, includes all that distinguishes God from creatures, not excepting what are usually termed His natural perfections. Hence the epithet is often found connected with descriptions of His power, eternity, etc. A. Thou art holy. Does it seem strange that the heart in its darkness and sorrow should find comfort in this attribute of God? No, for God's holiness is but another aspect of His faithfulness and mercy. And in that remarkable name, "the Holy One of Israel," we are taught that He who is the "holy" God is also the God who has made a covenant with His chosen. It would be impossible for an Israelite to think of God's holiness without thinking also of that covenant relationship. "Be ye holy; for I, the Lord your God, am holy," were the words in which Israel was reminded of their relation to God. P. Inhabitest. Or, "dwellest among." God is thus represented as enthroned in His sanctuary, where the praises and adorations of His worshippers, symbolized by the streams of incense, rise continually before Him. The word "inhabitest" refers to the throne, of which the cherubim, whose forms were on the mercy-seat, are the mystic supporters. The appeal expresses with infinite tenderness and delicacy the thought that, since God is ever receiving the prayers of His people, He will surely answer them in the person of their representative; a thought enlarged upon in the following verses. Cook. 6. Each word re-echoes in the second part of the Book of Isaiah. There, as here, Israel is called a worm (41 : 14); there all these traits of suffering are found in the picture of the Servant of God (49 : 7 ; 53 : 3), and more especially in 52 : 14: "So marred was His visage, that He no longer looked like a man." D. 7,8. The scornful ridicule of our Lord was universal; all sorts of men were unanimous in the derisive laughter, and vied with each other in insulting Him. Priests and people, Jews and Gentiles, soldiers and civilians, all united in the general scoff, and that at the time when He was prostrate in weakness and ready to die. Which shall we wonder at the most, the cruelty of man or the love of the bleeding Saviour? How can we ever complain of ridicule after this? On reading these verses one is ready, with Trapp, to ask, Is this a prophecy or a history? for the description is so accurate. We must not lose sight of the truth which was unwittingly uttered by the Jewish scoffers. They themselves are witnesses that Jesus of Nazareth trusted in God; why then was He permitted to perish? Jehovah had aforetime delivered those who rolled their burdens upon Him; why was this man deserted? Oh, that they had understood the answer! Note further, that their ironical jest, "seeing He delighted in Him," was true. The Lord did delight in His dear Son, and when He was found in fashion as a man, and became obedient unto death, He still was well pleased with Him. Jehovah delights in Him, and yet bruises Him; is well pleased, and yet slays Him. S. 8. Trust in Jehovah! He will deliver him, He will save him, for He delights in him. The literal meaning of the first clause is: roll to (or on) Jehovah, which would be unintelligible but for the parallel expressions in Psalm 37 : 5, roll thy way upon Jehovah, and in Prov. 16 : 3, roll thy work upon Jehovah, where the idea is evidently that of a burden cast upon another by one who is unable to sustain it himself. This burden, in the first case, is his way, i.e., his course of life, his fortune, his destiny, and in the other case, his work, i.e., his business, his affairs, his interest. In evident allusion to these places the Apostle Peter says, casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. By these three parallels light is thrown on the elliptical expression now before us, roll, i.e., thy burden or thy care, upon Jehovah. Perhaps the best solution of the syntax is to make this clause a quotation or derisive repetition of the sufferer's own words, as if they had said: 'This is he who was so fond of repeating the precept, Trust in Jehovah! Let him now try its virtue in his own case. He in whom he has trusted, and exhorted others to trust also, will no doubt deliver him.' A. The Hebrew word translated "trusted" (i.e., "on the Lord") means primarily to roll, i.e., to devolve upon the Lord whatever may be your burden. It stands here in the imperative—a fact best explained by supposing that his revilers tauntingly retort his own words: "Thou who hast so often said, Roll every burden upon Jehovah, try it in thine own time of need. God will doubtless deliver thee! God will rescue him, for He delights in him!"—all said in contemptuous irony. The men who thus reviled him were the last men in the world to believe one word of it. All these words were said by the scribes and Pharisees to the suffering Jesus in the very spirit which is here indicated. Unconsciously to themselves they were fulfilling prophecy, altogether unaware that "thus it was written, and thus it behooved Christ to suffer" (Luke 24 : 46). C. 9-11. He mentions his mother twice. Throughout the whole of the Old Testament there is no mention whatever of a human father, i.e., begetter, of the Messiah; it is always only His mother or bearer that is spoken of. The words of the one who is praying here also imply that, looked at with respect to its outward circumstances, the beginning of his life was poor and needy; and this likewise accords with the picture of Christ drawn in the Old Testament, as well as with that in the New. On the ground of his fellowship with God, which reaches so far back, there is now (v. 11) raised the cry for help, which already runs through all he has as yet said, but which only now finds expression. D. 9. "Thou drew me out of the womb, and caused me to hope upon the breast." Thus David claims kindness to God, because he is His workmanship, that he may draw nearer to Him, to clasp Him, as a Redeemer. The most tempted soul cannot deny but it is God's creature; and those who are most hardly exercised and doubt if ever Christ minded to save them, and will disclaim Him as a Redeemer, yet will they not disclaim Him as a Creator. If then, in the time of sore tentation, thou wilt grant that thou art His creature, are there not some bands between thee and God? Claim to God as thy creator, to get farther kindness; by this means a door is open to go in to God's outer court, and from that to the inner court also. Dickson. 14,15. The comparison with water is applied to moral weakness also in Gen. 49: 4. The parting of the bones may either denote dislocation or extreme emaciation, making the bones prominent. In either case the essential idea is still that of desperate exhaustion and debility. A.—These various phrases combine to give the idea of extreme nervous exhaustion. Such we know to have been the last hours of Jesus. A whole night, not only sleepless but full of earnest thought and intense emotion; the passover, the long conversations and prayer which fill five precious chapters in John's narrative (13-17); the scenes of Gethsemane, the betrayal and arrest; the preliminary examination before Ananias; the more protracted one before Caiaphas and the Sanhedrim; the hearing before Pilate; then before Herod; then again before Pilate; the decree for His crucifixion; the weary faintness which sunk under the wood of His own cross—all these things were at once the causes and the proofs of exhaustion really extreme, leaving no nervous energy to bear up against the terrible agony of crucifixion. C. 16. For dogs are come about me. The enemies are still compared to savage animals, but the figure is somewhat different; "dogs," not only as fierce, but as unclean. Almost the only trait of bitterness in the Psalm. We must remember that these dogs are the savage wild dogs of the East. P.—Every Oriental city and village abounds with troops of hungry and half-savage dogs, which own allegiance to the place rather than to persons, and wander about the streets and fields, howling dismally at night, and devouring even the dead bodies of men when they can reach them. Tristram. The word for "pierced" has tasked the labors of critics to the utmost. In view of all the evidence in the case I concur in the conclusion reached by Feurst, the latest authority in lexicography—viz., that "it should be translated either 'piercing,' or 'they pierced my hands and my feet.'' This sense being granted, the passage becomes a remarkably definite prediction of the manner of the Saviour's death on the cross. C.—The fulfilment by the nailing of the hands and (at least the binding fast) of the feet of the crucified One is exceedingly plain. Not only here is it prophesied that the coming Christ will be murderously pierced, but also in Isa. 53: 5, where He is said to be pierced through because of our sins, and in Zech. 12: 10. D.—The very manner of His death is described, though never in use among the Jews. They pierced my hands and my feet, which were nailed to the accursed tree, the effect of which must needs be the most exquisite pain and torture. There is no one passage in all the Old Testament which the Jews have so industriously corrupted as this, because it is such an eminent prediction of the death of Christ, and was so exactly fulfilled. H. Of all sanguinary punishments, that of crucifixion is one of the most dreadful—no vital part is immediately affected by it. The tearing asunder of the tender fibres of the hands and feet, the lacerating of so many nerves and bursting so many blood-vessels, must be productive of intense agony. The nerves of the hand and foot are intimately connected with the nerves of the whole body; their laceration therefore must be felt over the entire frame. When, therefore, the hands and feet of our blessed Lord were transfixed with nails, He must have felt the sharpest pangs shoot through every part of His body. John Stevenson.—Some have thought that those scars remain still in His glorious body, to be showed at His second appearing: "They shall see Him whom they have pierced." That is improbable, but this is certain; there remains still an impression upon Christ's hands and His heart, the sealing and wearing of the elect there, as precious jewels. T. Adams. 17. Some suppose, not improbably, that this verse presents the sufferer as stripped by His enemies, and looking with grief and wonder at His own emaciation, while they gaze at it with delight, as the Hebrew phrase implies. 18. They (are about to) divide my garments for themselves, and on my clothing they (are ready to) cast lots. This is the last stroke necessary to complete the picture. Having stripped him, nothing more is left but to appropriate his garments, whether from cupidity or in derision. The futures intimate that things can go no further without actual loss of life, and that the case is therefore an extreme one. The providential realization of this ideal scene in our Lord's history is expressly mentioned by all the four evangelists. A.—From the pen of John (19: 23, 24) we have the particulars in full. The crucifixion was performed by four Roman soldiers. According to usage, the clothes of the malefactor were their perquisite. In the present case they divided all except the seamless robe into four parts, but this robe (such as the priests wore), a garment woven without seam, was so peculiar and so valuable they said, Let it not be rent, i.e., for division among us, but let the lot determine who shall have it. It is safe to say that such a series of particulars could not be combined in any merely human prophecy and its fulfilment more than once in ten thousand public executions. Such cases test the genuineness of prophecy. No eye save that of God could foresee such minute yet improbable events. C. How deep must be the humiliation of the King of glory! The twenty-second Psalm answers: He shall be abased even unto abandonment by God, unto desertion and mockery at the hands of all men. He shall be as a crushed worm. His hands and feet shall be pierced; yea, even His clothes shall be taken and divided under the eyes of the Martyr, as though He were already dead, and the inheritance had fallen to His murderers. Go to Golgotha, and there see the fulfilment. Jesus prays: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" His disciples forsake Him in Gethsemane. Those who pass by the cross blaspheme and mock Him with the words: "If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." They pierce His hands and His feet with iron nails, and under the cross the soldiers cast lots for His garments. A. Caspars. "Vicarious suffering!"—it is strange to hear the mighty uproar which is made about it; when, indeed, in lower forms—not low in themselves, though low as compared with the highest—it is everywhere where love is at all. For, indeed, is not this, of one freely taking on himself the consequence of others' faults, and thus averting from those others, at least in part, the penalties of the same, building what others have thrown down, gathering what others have scattered, bearing the burdens which others have wrapped together, healing the wounds which others have inflicted, paying the things which he never took, smarting for sins which he never committed—is not this, I say, the law and condition of all highest nobleness in the world?—is it not that which God is continually demanding of His elect, they approving themselves His elect, as they do not shrink from this demand, as they freely own themselves the debtors of love to the last requirements which it makes? And if these things are so, shall we question the right of God Himself to display this nobleness which He demands of His creatures? Shall we wish to rob Him of the opportunity, or think to honor Him who is highest love, by denying Him the right to display it? Trench. 19-21. Christ's desertion is preventive of our final desertion. Because He was forsaken for a time we shall not be forsaken forever. For He was forsaken for us. Flavel.—There was no failure in Christ's obedience, and yet Christ was forsaken in point of comfort; therefore desertion, in point of comfort, may consist with truth of grace, yea, with the highest measure of grace; so it did in our Saviour. John Roe. 22-31. In these verses the great plaintive prayer concludes with thanks and hope. In the assurance of being answered there follows the vow of thanksgiving. His fellow countrymen, who are connected with him not only by ties of nature, but also, as the following expression, "Ye that fear Jehovah," shows, by spiritual ties, he calls "brethren." The sufferer is conscious of the significance that his lot of suffering has in connection with the history of redemption. He will, therefore, make the salvation which has been granted him common property. The community shall hear the Gospel of his deliverance. In v. 23 there follows the preamble of this proclamation of salvation, a proclamation which is addressed to the whole of Israel, so far as it fears the God of revelation. D. 22,23. The whole strain changes; the clouds are dispersed; from the depth of humiliation, the prostration of strength, the agony of death, the dust of the grave, the speaker passes at once into a state of perfect peace and exultation. Such a transition David may have been able to realize by events in his own life, else had the representation been unreal and cold; but in order to realize it so vividly his spirit must have been raised into a sphere of spiritual life, which gave a new meaning to all that he had experienced. We may also surely infer that this Psalm could not have been written in the midst of afflictions so terrible—then the joy would have been premature; nor could it have been written afterward by David in his own person, for the sufferings are represented as present, and as terminating in death. Spoken in the person of Christ all is clear; the transition of feeling corresponds exactly to that described in the last verses of the fifty-third and the first part of the fifty-fourth chapters of Isaiah, where the joy of God's sacrificed servant is shared by the redeemed people, and sealed by the conversion of the heathen. 22. I will declare.** See Heb. 2: 12, where these words are expressly assigned to the "Captain of our salvation" made "perfect through sufferings." Cook.—The same that began the Psalm complaining, who was no other than Christ in His humiliation, ends it here triumphing, and it can be no other than Christ in His exaltation. And as the first words of the complaint were used by Christ Himself upon the cross, so the first words of the triumph are expressly applied to Him (Heb. 2: 12), and are made His own words: I will declare Thy name unto My brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee. The certain prospect which Christ had of the joy set before Him not only gave Him a satisfactory answer to His prayers, but turned His complaints into praises; He saw of the travail of His soul, and was well satisfied; witness that triumphant word wherewith He breathed His last, It is finished. H.—The very point affirmed here, "I will declare Thy name unto My brethren," expresses in briefest, most comprehensive terms, one of the main purposes of His earthly mission, and, moreover, in the very language which Himself used in His remarkable prayer (John 17: 26): "I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it." That is, I have done what the Spirit of prophecy by the mouth of David indicated as the first and chief end of My earthly mission touching My redeemed brethren. "In the midst of the congregation will I praise thee"—following in the manner of public praise the usages of pious Israelites in the age of David. So we should expect. How else could the sense be conveyed save by words and allusions familiar to those Hebrew readers? C. **23. Fearers of Jehovah, praise Him! All the seed of Jacob, glorify Him! And be afraid of Him, all the seed of Israel! These words are uttered, as it were, in the midst of the ideal congregation mentioned in the verse preceding. That the call, though formally addressed to the whole race, was really intended for the spiritual Israel, excluding wicked Israelites and including the righteous of whatever name or nation, is indicated by the words of the first clause, while the last shows that the praise required is not familiar, but in the highest degree reverential. A. 25. Of thee cometh my praise.** True praise is of celestial origin. The rarest harmonies of music are nothing unless they are sincerely consecrated to God by hearts sanctified by the Spirit. Oh, when shall our service of song be a pure offering! S. 26. The meek shall eat and be satisfied.** The words of blessing are, they shall eat and be satisfied. In order to teach men how to be satisfied, it is necessary fully to understand the art and joy of humble life—this, at present, of all arts or sciences being the one most needing study. Humble life—that is to say, proposing to itself no future exaltation, but only a sweet continuance; not excluding the idea of foresight, but wholly of foresorrow, and taking no troublous thought for coming days; so, also, not excluding the idea of providence or provision, but wholly of accumulation; the life of domestic affection and domestic peace, full of sensitiveness to all elements of costless and kind pleasure; therefore largely to the loveliness of the natural world. Ruskin. The Mosaic thanksgiving festival became the germ of the New Testament Gospel feast to which our Lord so often compared the Gospel "kingdom of heaven." Of this it is here said, "The meek shall eat and be satisfied." The "meek" in the sense of the Hebrew are the afflicted who have borne their sufferings in patient submission; the humble, the lowly of heart—the very class whom our Lord continually invites to the great Gospel feast. They shall find this provision all-sufficient, and adapted perfectly to their wants. Then they who thus seek God shall have infinite cause to praise Him. "Their heart shall live," in the highest, noblest sense of life, forever. Such life lacks no element of real bliss. Its blessedness shall be eternal at God's right hand! Surely this can be nothing less than the blessedness which comes through the glorious Gospel of Jesus! Thus manifestly does this thanksgiving festival bring us into the very marrow and fatness of Gospel blessings. C. It is the same great feast of which Isa. 25: 6 prophesies, and which he accompanies there with the music of his words. And what the Gospel of the great deed of deliverance effects is not only of unlimited universality, but also of unlimited duration; it propagates itself from generation to generation. That God has accomplished what He proposed to Himself when He anointed the son of Jesse and the Son of David to be the mediators of His work of salvation; that He has accomplished it by leading the former through suffering to the throne and by making the cross the ladder whereby the latter ascended to heaven: this is the purport of the preparatory Gospel as well as that of the Gospel in its fulfilment, the purport of the Divine proclamation which is transmitted from generation to generation. D. A spiritual banquet is prepared in the Church for the "meek" and lowly in heart. The death of Christ was the sacrifice for sin; His flesh is meat indeed and His blood is drink indeed. The poor in spirit feed on this provision in their hearts by faith, and are satisfied; and thus while they "seek" the Lord, they "praise" Him also, and their souls are preserved unto eternal life. Anon.—The meek shall eat and be satisfied; eat of the bread of life, feed with an appetite upon the doctrine of Christ's mediation, which is meat and drink to the soul that knows its own nature and case. They that hunger and thirst after righteousness in Christ shall have all they can desire to satisfy them and make them easy, and shall not labor for that which satisfies not. They that are much in praying shall be much in thanksgiving; they shall praise the Lord that seek Him, because through Christ they are sure of finding Him; and the more earnest they are in seeking Him the more will their hearts be enlarged in His praises when they have found Him. The souls that are devoted to Him shall be forever happy with Him—"Your heart shall live forever. Yours that are meek, that are satisfied in Christ, that continue to seek God; whatever becomes of your bodies, your hearts shall live forever; the graces and comforts you have shall be perfected in everlasting life. Christ has said, Because I live, ye shall live also, and therefore that life shall be as sure and as long as His." H. 27. Remember and return to Jehovah shall all the ends of the earth, and worship before Thee all the kindreds of the nations. As the joyful effects of this deliverance were to be extended to the great congregation of God's people, so, too, we now read that they shall not be confined to any one race, but made to embrace all. The ends of the earth, here put for the remotest nations. These are named as the least likely to be comprehended in the promise, but, of course, without excluding those less distant. As if he had said, the ends of the earth and all that is between them. A.—The Church of Christ, and with it the kingdom of God among men, should extend itself to all corners of the earth, and should take in all sorts of people. Whereas the Jews had long been the only professing people of God, now all the ends of the world should come into the Church, and, the partition-wall being taken down, the Gentiles should be taken in. It is here prophesied that they should be converted; they shall remember, and turn to the Lord. Serious reflection is the first step, and a good step, toward true conversion. We must consider and turn. The prodigal came first to himself, and then to his father. That then they should be admitted into communion with God, and with the assemblies that serve Him: they shall worship before Thee. H. 28. For unto Jehovah is the kingdom, and (He is) governor among the nations. This will not be a gratuitous extension to the Gentiles of what properly belongs to Israel alone, but a restoration of God's mercies, after ages of restriction, to their original and proper scope. For Jehovah is not the king of Israel only, but of all mankind. A.—He who by His own power reigns supreme in the domains of creation and providence has set up a kingdom of grace, and by the conquering power of the cross that kingdom will grow until all people shall own its sway and proclaim that "He is the governor among the nations." Amid the tumults and disasters of the present the Lord reigneth; but in the halcyon days of peace the rich fruit of His dominion will be apparent to every eye. Great Shepherd, let Thy glorious kingdom come. S. 29. The distinction of ranks shall be as little regarded at this feast as that of nations. Eaten and worshipped, partaken of the sacrificial feast in honor of this great salvation. Fat, a common Oriental figure for the prosperous and especially the rich. The idea is, that this enjoyment shall be common to the rich and those who are ready to perish, or, as it is expressed in the last clause, he who cannot keep his soul (or himself) alive, a strong expression for the extreme of destitution. He who before, or a little while ago, no longer kept himself alive, but was just about to perish, is now seen kneeling at the sacrificial feast in honor of this great salvation. A.—As if he had said, rich and poor, high and low, the king and the beggar, have alike need of salvation by Jesus Christ, and must submit unto Him, that they may be saved; for, as it follows, "none can keep alive his own soul." The captivity of the Jews in Babylon is expressed under those notions of death, and of dwelling in the dust (Isa. 26: 19); to show how low, that no power but His who can raise the dead could work their deliverance. Caryl. 31. They. This new generation, this church which the Lord has planted. His righteousness** not only as manifested in the deliverance of His righteous servant, but as manifested in all His great work of salvation, both in the suffering and in the exaltation of Christ, and also in providing the feast for all who will partake thereof. In the latter part of the Psalm—from the words "Thou hast answered me" (v. 21) to the last word, "He hath done it"—the heart lifts itself up on the wings of faith, and the prophet sees visions ever brighter and brighter opening before his gaze. First, he will praise God in the congregation of Israel, and make known His name to his brethren. Then, all nations shall come and sit down at the banquet of fat things, and worship before the Lord. Lastly, to future ages also shall God's righteousness be declared. P. He hath done it, the great deed of righteousness, at the same time a deed of salvation through grace. The great consummating act of mercy and truth was the death and resurrection of the Messiah, the Son of God, who died to make atonement, and rose again as the Righteous One. This transcendent deed is the foundation of salvation; and accordingly, when Jesus was in the act of accomplishing it, He cried out, "It is finished," with no obscure allusion to this closing sentence. This Psalm is truly the plaint of the sufferer pleading in hope. It takes its flight, especially in these last strains, far above the region of David, the son of Jesse. M. The Psalm opens with the most despairing cry ever wrung from a troubled soul: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" It pictures the sufferer oppressed with all manner of physical pains and tortures, and set upon by enemies who make a mock of his anguish, and taunt and revile him. All these sorrows meet in Jesus on the cross. Yet in them all He clung to His Father: "My God, My God!" was still His cry. And at last that cry was answered in the vision of that feast of redeeming love, to which the high and the low shall be brought together; of that seed gathered out of all nations to serve and glorify the Lord. For this Christ stands as the High Priest of His people, leading their praises to the God of Israel. J. P. T. I believe that Jesus, the Lord, became in the flesh a sacrificer and a sacrifice for sin; a satisfaction and price to the justice of God; a meriter of glory and the kingdom; a pattern of all righteousness; a preacher of the Word which Himself was; a finisher of the ceremonies; a corner-stone to remove the separation between Jew and Gentile; an intercessor for the Church; a lord of nature in His miracles; a conqueror of death and the power of darkness in His resurrection; and that He fulfilled the whole counsel of God, performing all His sacred offices and anointing on earth; accomplished the whole work of the redemption and restitution of man to a state superior to the angels; whereas the state of man by creation was inferior; and reconciled and established all things according to the eternal will of the Father. Bacon. The Psalter emptied of Christ would still be a collection of lyric poems of admirable beauty, breathing a pure and lofty devotion, representing in vivid colors the events and persons of the most remarkable people in the world's history. It would retain its position among the noblest and most interesting products of human genius. But to the Christian it would have no voice, no meaning. Cook. THE LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. 2. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. 3. He restoreth my soul: He guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. 4. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me: THERE could not be a finer arrangement than that the Psalm which speaks of a great feast of grace prepared for humanity should now be followed by a Psalm which praises Jehovah as the shepherd and host of His own. D.— This Psalm breathes throughout a spirit of the calmest and most assured trust in God; it speaks of a peace so deep, a serenity so pro- found, that even the thought of the shadow of death cannot trouble it. Perhaps there is no Psalm in which the absence of all doubt, mis- giving, fear, anxiety, is so remarkable; and certainly no image could have been devised more beautifully descriptive of rest and safety and trustful happiness than that of the sheep lying down in the deep, rich meadow-grass, beside the living stream, under the care of a tender and watchful shepherd. This feeling of confidence is expressed in three different ways: first, "I cannot want;" next, "I will fear no evil;" lastly, "I will dwell in the house of Jehovah forever." On the other hand, God's care for the soul is represented under a twofold image. First, Jehovah is the true shepherd. Next, He is the bountiful host, who exercises princely hospitality toward His guests. It is unnecessary to refer this Psalm to any particu- lar period of David's history. As the outpour- ing of a heart which has found perfect rest in God, it was most probably written in advanced years, after a long experience of God's good- ness. P. This inimitable ode is the Christian Psalm of life. In it is delineated with exceeding tender- ness, pathos, and beauty the spiritual experi- ence of the soul associated with Jehovah by ties of acknowledged dependence and affectionate confidence. Here is a child of God living under the earlier dispensation, at a far advanced stage of an eventful life, succinctly recalling in thank- Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. 5. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over. 6. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: And I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever. ful song the particulars of Jehovah's loving- kindness, through expressions which perfectly apply to believers in all dispensations. B. This beautiful ode has touched the heart of all ages. Its calm and peaceful strain speaks of a time when David was dwelling in safety after the trials, dangers, and struggles of his early life. It tells of want, but it no longer exists; of danger, but its terrors are gone; of enemies, but their day of power is at an end. M. This is an ode which for beauty of sentiment is not to be matched in the circuit of all litera- ture. In its way down through three thousand years or more, this Psalm has penetrated to the depths of millions of hearts; it has gladdened homes of destitution and discomfort; it has whispered hope and joy amid tears to the utterly solitary and forsaken, whose only refuge was in heaven. Beyond all range of probable calcu- lation have these dozen lines imparted a power of endurance under suffering and strength in feebleness, and have kept alive the flickering flame of religious feeling in hearts that were nigh to despair. The Divine element herein embodied has given proof, millions of times re- peated, of its reality and of its efficacy, as a formula of tranquil trust in God, and of a grateful sense of His goodness, which all who do trust in Him may use for themselves, and use it until it has become assimilated to their own habitual fulness. Isaac Taylor. This Psalm, justly admired for its exquisite beauty, its sweet simplicity, and its precious spiritual experiences, bears in every feature the impress of David's hand and no less of David's heart. Through all his early years at home amid flocks and folds, green pastures and quiet waters—familiar with everything pertaining to the care and comfort of his charge, he knew how to use this comparison to represent the like care and sympathy of his own Jehovah over himself and his fellow-Israelites. As to date, we must place this Psalm in the later years of his life. The goodness and mercy with which God had shielded him from earlier dangers confirmed his faith in God for similar protection through all his future days. C. The king who had been the shepherd-boy, and had been taken from the quiet sheepcotes to rule over Israel, sings this little Psalm of Him who is the true Shepherd and King of men. We do not know at what period of David's life it was written, but there is a fulness of experience about it, and a tone of subdued, quiet confidence which speaks of a heart mellowed by years, and of a faith made sober by many a trial. A. M.—In the Psalms, more perhaps than in any other part of the Bible, the thoughts of God in nature, and of nature pointing up to God, are emphasized; and David's utterances of this kind are largely the fruit of those early wanderings with his sheep, in green pastures, and by still waters, and through gloomy ravines, in the quick flashing bursts of the Eastern dawn, and under the gleam of the midnight stars. And if that shepherd life had furnished nothing else than the materials for this wonderful pastoral ode, we should all be inclined to say that no period of David's history would have compensated the Church for the loss of his shepherd life. Yet the Psalm is not the utterance of the shepherd days, though it perpetuates their memory. Had it been thus, men might have said that it was but the natural outflowing of a confiding boy's heart, unversed in care or struggle. But this peaceful idyl is a voice out of the maturer life of the Psalmist; out of memories of care and battle and treachery; a voice that tells that peace and rest of heart depend not upon the absence of life's burdens, nor on the presence of nature's tranquilizing scenes, but solely upon the shepherding of God. V. Its central thought is the close relation between the believer and his God, and this is made vivid by the choice of the one earthly relation which expresses it better than any or all others combined. What the best of human shepherds is to a poor, wayward sheep, that and more is Jehovah to the soul that trusts in Him. And this is the heart of all true experience. It has been greatly illuminated and intensified by the coming of Him who is the Good Shepherd, the great shepherd of the sheep, who knows His own even as the Father knows Him, and who actually laid down His life on their behalf. But in the earlier dispensation, as well as the later, the consummate flower of religious character was walking with God as one's guide, deliverer, friend and portion. T. W. C. He is conscious of dependence, but he is above want and fear. He does not ask, he has—he possesses God, and is at rest in Him. He is satisfied with that fruition which blesseth all who hunger for God, and is the highest form of communion with Him. As the present has no longings, the future has no terrors. All the horizon is clear, all the winds are still, the ocean at rest, "and birds of peace sit brooding on the charmed wave." If there be foes, God holds them back. If there lie far off among the hills any valley of darkness, its black portals cast no gloom over him, and will not when he enters. God is his shepherd, and, by another image, God is his host. The life which in one aspect, by reason of its continual change, and occupation with outward things, may be compared to the journeyings of a flock, is in another aspect, by reason of its inward union with the stability of God, like sitting ever at the table which His hand has spread as for a royal banquet, where the oil of gladness glistens on every head, and the full cup of Divine pleasure is in every hand. For all the outward and pilgrimage aspect, the Psalmist knows that only Goodness and Mercy—these two white-robed messengers of God—will follow his steps, however long may be the term of the days remaining of his life; for all the inward, he is sure that, in calm, unbroken fellowship, he will dwell in the house of God, and that when the twin angels who fed and guided him all his changeful life have finished their charge, and the days of his journeyings are ended, there stretches beyond a still closer union with his heavenly Friend, which will be perfected in His true house "forever." We look in vain for another example, even in David's Psalms, of such perfect, restful trust in God. These clear notes are perhaps the purest utterance ever given of "the peace of God which passeth all understanding." A. M. The Lord is a strong refuge and a high tower, into which we run when our spears are broken and our shields trampled into dust. We think only of ourselves, and our speech is burdened with the enumeration of our wants. But it is far more important that God should have His way with us than that we should have our way with Him. For God knows us infinitely better than we know ourselves, and we shall ask most wisely when we let Him show us His mind. The twenty-third Psalm is the sweetest of all religious lyrics, because of its discovery that God is the Shepherd of the soul. That not only secures against want; it drives out the very thought of want, so that David has no request to make. The path is always luminous, the table is always a royal banquet, the way is always secure, and even the grave is within the enclosure of the Divine pasturage. Rehrends. 1. Jehovah (is) my shepherd, I shall not want.** This is the general theme or idea of the whole Psalm, that the believer's relation to Jehovah carries with it necessarily the full supply of all his wants. Spiritual gifts are neither excluded nor exclusively intended. The future form, I shall not want, includes the present, I do not want, with an additional assurance that the provision will be still continued. A. — "The Lord is my shepherd; I want nothing!" thus it may be equally well rendered, though in our version it is in the future tense. Macduff. Long before, Jacob had spoken of Him as the "Shepherd of Israel;" but it was reserved for David to bring that sweet and wonderful name into closer relations with the single soul; and, with that peculiar enthusiasm of personal reliance and recognition of God's love to the individual which stamps all his Psalms, to say, "The Lord is my shepherd." These dumb companions of his, in their docility to his guidance and absolute trust in his care, had taught him the secret of peace in helplessness, of patience in ignorance. The green strips of meadow land where the clear waters brought life, the wearied flocks sheltered from the mid-day heat, the quiet course of the little stream, the refreshment of the sheep by rest and pasture, the smooth paths which he tried to choose for them, the rocky defiles through which they had to pass, the rod in his hand that guided, and chastised, and defended, and was never lifted in anger—all these, the familiar sights of his youth, pass before us as we read; and to us, too, in our widely different social state, have become the undying emblems of the highest care and the wisest love. A. M. This poem is impregnated with one feeling—the feeling of trust in God. The illustration of this trust is taken from pastoral life. The case of the Oriental shepherd and the trustfulness of the sheep furnish a symbol to David of the mutual relations between himself and God. In the first verse we find two of the activities of faith: it appropriates God, "The Lord is my shepherd." It sees the invisible in the visible. The scenery and life which moved round David was merely scenery and life, and no more; to him the whole was a parable of which God was the interpretation. The veil of the phenomenal was lifted up, and he beheld the spiritual. Brooke. The Psalm centres in this thought of God as a shepherd. All its ideas and images spring from this, and group themselves round it. Hence the key-note of the whole song is, God's servant finds his all in God. He wants nothing. Here is the eternal, vital truth that man lives by God and not by His gifts. This being true, it follows that the true end of every man's life is to become one of God's flock. V. I shall not want. Or, "I cannot want," as describing not only the present experience, but as expressing confidence for all time to come. These words are the key-note of the Psalm. David speaks them out of the fulness of his own experience. As he had watched over, provided for, and tended his flock, leading them to the greenest pastures, and finding for them the water which in that country was so scarce, and guarding them by night from beasts of prey, so he felt his God would provide for and watch over him. P.—He who has Jehovah, the possessor of all things, has everything; he does not lack whatever is good in itself and would be good for him. "I shall not want"—for food, for drink, for grace and beauty, for quietness, for companionship, for guidance, for a welcome back again when I have wandered. Want is the excess of the desire beyond the possession. But he whose heart is right with God, as David's was, will not desire what it is not in God's providence that he shall possess. J. V.—In David's way of putting it, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. In Paul's way of putting it, it is, My God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Bishop Thorold. 2. He . . . me.** What, without exaggeration, may be called a personal friendship is established between the Lord and each of His disciples. He comes in among them, sees them one by one, and has personal communication with each suitable to Himself and unknown to all the rest, calling Him by His own name, and expressing a personal love in the calling. A. R.—He has a clear individualizing knowledge of each; each separately has a place in His mind or heart. To each He says, "I know thee by name." He loves the world, because He loves every single soul with a distinct love. And His messages of blessing are as specific and individualizing as the love from which they come. He speaks to each of us as truly as when His voice from heaven said, "Saul, Saul." English names are on His lips as really as Jewish ones. He calls to thee by thy name—thou hast a share in His love. A. M. He calls that He may lead. He utters the name that he, that she who answers to it may, at the thrilling word, arise and follow Him whithersoever He goeth. "He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out"—"out," of course, from the whole natural sinful life, from all its darkness and misery, into the light and joy of acceptance; "out" of infantine feebleness into manly strength; "out" of narrow views into wider; "out" of first experiences into more matured; "out" of mistakes and disappointments into wiser ways and better fortunes; "out" of dreamy indolence into those activities by which alone it can be escaped; "out" of overstrained activity into some quiet hour or time of "refreshing from the presence of the Lord;" "out" of besetting sin into waiting duty; sometimes "out" of safety into perils which lie on the way to a higher safety; and so on and on in a movement which cannot cease until at length, in His own time and way, it will be "out" of earth into heaven. A. R. To lie down in green pastures. What are these "green pastures" but the Scriptures of truth—always fresh, always rich, and never exhausted? Sweet and full are the doctrines of the Gospel; fit food for souls, as tender grass is natural nutriment for sheep. When by faith we are enabled to find rest in the promises, we are like the sheep that lie down in the midst of the pasture; we find at the same moment both provender and peace, rest and refreshment, serenity and satisfaction. S.—Here are many pastures, and every pasture rich, so that it can never be eaten bare; here are many streams, and every stream so deep and wide that it can never be drawn dry. The sheep have been eating in these pastures ever since Christ had a church on earth, and yet they are as full of grass as ever. The sheep have been drinking at these streams ever since Adam, and yet they are brim full to this very day, and they will so continue till the sheep are above the use of them in heaven! Ralph Robinson. With guidance to "green pastures," the Psalmist has, with good reason, associated guardianship beside "still waters:" for as we can only appropriate the Word through the Spirit, so we shall ordinarily receive the Spirit through the Word; not indeed only by hearing it, not only by reading it, not only by reflecting upon it. But the effect of His coming will ever be the realization of some promise, the recognition of some principle, the attainment of some grace, the understanding of some mystery, which is already in the Word, and which we shall thus find, with a deeper impression and with a fuller development, brought home with power to the heart. T. Dale. Lie down. A godly life, if it be healthful, must be both an active and a contemplative life. In this age we are so constantly urged to active life that we are in some danger of losing sight of the claims of the contemplative life. While it is true that no life is more unhealthful and more fruitful in evil of some kinds than the life of the cloister—the life of pure contemplation as it is styled—it is equally true that the life of pure activity without contemplation is also unhealthful. If the one tends to paralysis, the other tends to fever. There are times when a man needs to lie still, like the earth under the spring rain, letting the lessons of experience and the memories of the Word of God sink down to the very roots of his life, and fill the deep reservoirs of his soul. Those are not always lost days when his hands are not busy, any more than rainy days in summer are lost, because they keep the farmer indoors. They are growing days; and for this side of the godly man's life the great Shepherd provides in His green pastures, He makes His servant to lie down there. There are times when men say they are too busy to stop; when they think they are doing God's service by going on. Now and then God makes such an one lie down; and then the active, bustling man learns the much-needed lesson of rest in the Lord, and of waiting patiently for Him, because he can do nothing else but rest. Many a man has had to thank God for some enforced season of rest, in which he first learned the sweetness of meditation on the Word, and of lying still in God's hands and waiting God's pleasure. V. Still waters. By waters of rest we are not to understand still or quiet waters, a sense which the Hebrew word has nowhere else, and which would here suggest the idea of stagnation, or at least that of silence, which is far less agreeable than that of an audible flow. The idea really conveyed is that of waters by or at which rest may be enjoyed. The repose is not that of the waters themselves, but of the flocks reclining near them. A. The Psalm puts the rest and refreshment first, as being the most marked characteristic of God's dealings. After all, it is so. The years are years of unbroken continuity of outward blessings. The reign of afflictions is ordinarily measured by days. Weeping endures for a night. But outward blessings are precious chiefly as emblems of the better spiritual gifts; and it is not an accommodation of his words, but is the appreciation of their truest spirit, when we look upon them, as the instinct of devout hearts has ever done, as expressing both God's gift of temporal mercies and His gift of spiritual good, of which higher gift all the lower are meant to be significant and symbolic. Thus regarded, the image describes the sweet rest of the soul in communion with God, in whom alone the hungry heart finds food that satisfies, and from whom alone the thirsty soul drinks draughts deep and limpid enough. A. M. 3. My soul He will restore; He will lead me in paths of right (or rectitude) for His name's sake.** To restore the soul, here as in Psalm 19: 7, is to vivify or quicken the exhausted spirit. Paths of right may either mean right paths, as opposed to those which are devious and dangerous, or paths of righteousness, not man's but God's, not ways of upright conduct on the Psalmist's part, but ways of faithfulness on God's part. The righteousness of God, so often appealed to by the ancient saints, includes His covenanted mercy, the exercise of which, according to His promise, was ensured by His essential rectitude. A.—First is intimated the believer's liability to fall, or deviate even within the fall of the Church, else wherefore should he need to be "restored"? Next is declared the promptitude of the Good Shepherd to interpose for his rescue. "He restoreth my soul." Then Christ's subsequent care to "lead him in the paths of righteousness;" and lastly, the reason assigned wherefore He will do this—resolving all into the spontaneousness, the supremacy, the omnipotence of grace. He will do all "for His own name's sake." T. Dale. Consider what is true of any real disciple, who is straying from Christ—viz., that his Holy Shepherd, folding the flock and caring for it as a shepherd should, does not let him go, or take it only as a fact that the flock is diminished by one, not caring by what one. He knows what one it is, and, if the wanderer will listen, he may hear the shepherd calling his name. The love of Christ, as we have seen, is personal and particular, and He watches for His flock with a directly personal care. Do not imagine, then, if you consciously begin to fall off, or stray, that you are no longer cared for by the Shepherd. Christ follows you with His personal and particular love, and will not let you go. That same tenderness which melted the heart of an apostle, when he said, "who loved me and gave Himself for me," pursues you still. It is faithful, patient, forgiving, and true; it waits and lingers, it whispers and calls, saying, "Will ye also go away?" holding on upon you by a personal and persistent love, that will not be content till you are gathered back into the fold, to be, as before, a follower. Bushnell. God's children could tell of very various methods by which He restores souls. Very often it is by thorns planted just outside the hurdles, for this very end, that the sheep may feel their hard points and be glad to run back. All afflictions are restorative processes, and very few indeed retrace their steps without afflictions. Some are brought back by the Word. Or an inward voice will do it, as Elijah found it in the desert. When the whole map is laid out, you will be astonished to see how providence worked with grace, and grace worked with providence, all ranging to one end—to correct your strayings, and bring you at last safe home. J. V. Of all the phases of restoration it is to be observed that they are radical: they act upon the springs of the life. "He restoreth my soul—my life." Is it forgiveness? He puts "a new heart" into man. Is it refreshment? Its fountain-head is rest of heart. Is it consolation? His words go deeper than the cold conventionalities of men; they bring the abiding peace of settled trust in fatherly love, and of the vision of eternal joy. And in the man once restored, God shows forth His own righteousness. He makes him a partaker of the Divine nature. He does more than bring him back to the fold; his restoration is only the beginning of the Divine manhood in him. Nor does God set Himself to develop some single virtue merely. He leads him not in one path, but in paths of righteousness. The new character permeates the man's whole being, and all this is for His name's sake; "that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus." V. He keeps and leads us on in that way into which He hath brought us; He leaves us not again to try our own skill, if we can walk to heaven alone, being set into the path of it; but He still conducts us in it by His own hand, and that is the cause of our persisting in it and attaining the blessed end of it. L.—The soul thus restored is then led on another stage; "He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake"—that is to say, God guides us into work. Life is not a fold for the sheep to lie down in, but a road for them to walk on. All our blessings of every sort are indeed given us for our delight. But, then, when joy fills the heart and life is bounding in the veins, we have to learn that these are granted not for pleasure only, but for pleasure in order to power. Rest is to fit for work, work is to sweeten rest. All this is emphatically true of the spiritual life. Its seasons of communion, its hours on the mount are to prepare for the sore sad work in the plain; and he is not the wisest disciple who tries to make the Mount of Transfiguration the abiding place for himself and his Lord. It is not well that our chief object should be to enjoy the consolations of religion; it is better to seek first to do the duties enjoined by religion. The basis of obedience is the sense of salvation. We work not for the assurance of acceptance and forgiveness, but from it. First the restored soul, then the paths of righteousness for His name's sake who has restored me, and restored me that I may be like Him. A. M. 4. Shadow of death conveys more than the original, and fails to reproduce its compound form. The effect is heightened by the mention of a valley, as a deep place, often overhung with woods, and naturally darker than a plain or mountain. There may be some allusion to the dread of darkness on the part of sheep and other timid animals. The rod and the staff are mentioned as badges of the shepherd and as tokens of His presence. A. —The shepherd invariably carries a staff or rod with him when he goes forth to feed his flock. It is often bent or hooked at one end, which gave rise to the shepherd's crook in the hand of the Christian bishop. With this staff he rules and guides the flock to their green pastures, and defends them from their enemies. This staff is associated as inseparably with the shepherd as the goad is with the ploughman. W. M. Thompson. —The Palestine shepherd bears about with him a "club" and a "staff," two entirely different instruments, with distinct and special uses, but both employed in caring for the sheep. The club, in Arabic naboot, is used to protect himself and his charge from assailants. It is about two feet long, and often has a large number of heavy iron nails driven into its rounded head. It may often be seen hanging from the shepherd's girdle during the daytime, but at night he carries it in his hand. He also carries a long shepherd's staff, called assayah. In general it is simply a straight, strong rod. Its use answers to our shepherd's crook, to guide the sheep, to rescue them from danger, to rule the stragglers into order, and at times to chastise the wilful. Neil. With the fourth verse we pass into another scene. The recollections of the natural scenery amid which David fed his sheep give coloring to the Psalm and shape its imagery. Often his wanderings had brought him to one of those gloomy ravines which penetrate the cliffs overhanging the Dead Sea: places beset with dangers; for here the robber made his haunt, and the beast of prey lurked. In the figurative meaning of these words, the Psalmist's reference was not primarily to death. A "valley of death" or of "death-darkness" was simply a very dark and gloomy valley; but the Church in all ages has delighted to find, as it rightfully may, an allusion to the last and sorest strait of the believer—the agony of death; and these words have been quoted by more dying lips than any ten texts of Scripture together. We need not therefore try to divert the thought from this familiar channel. Here where he most needs Him, God's child finds the shepherd with His rod and staff. V. Valley of death-shade. The Hebrew term applies to any scenes of great darkness, distress, trial, peril. We need not exclude these scenes which are wont to precede death, nor need we exclude many other scenes in which death is not near nor even to be seriously apprehended. Probably David had in his mind those years of peril in which, hunted by Saul and fleeing before him, his life-path lay through a valley of darkness almost like that of the grave itself. Yet even so, he says, "I am ever within the touch of my Shepherd's crook, and I can feel it guiding my steps through this darkness dense as the shadow of death." This seems to be the precise conception here—strictly pastoral, in harmony with the scope of the entire Psalm. The precious sentiment here is that in the midst of whatever danger, darkness, perplexity; though all other hopes and helpers should fail, yet God is the strength of his heart—his comfort, his joy, his sure salvation. C. The "valley of the shadow of death" means any and every gloomy valley of weeping through which we have to pass. Such sunless gorges we have all to traverse at some time or other. It is striking that the Psalmist puts the sorrow, which is as certainly characteristic of our lot as the rest or the work, into the future. Looking back he sees none. Memory has softened down all the past into one uniform tone, as the mellowing distance wraps in one solemn purple the mountains which, when close to them, have many a barren rock and gloomy rift. All behind is good. And, building on this hope, he looks forward with calmness, and feels that no evil shall befall. So to the Christian heart there may be the conviction that sorrow when it comes will not be evil, because God will be with us; and the conviction that the hand which guides us into the dark valley will guide us through it and up out of it. Yes, strange as it may sound, the presence of Him who sends the sorrow is the best help to bear it. The assurance that the hand which strikes is the hand which binds up makes the stroke a blessing, and turns the rod which smites into the staff to lean on. A. M. Comfort me. The Hebrew word means far more than simply to console. It signifies to tone up the whole nature, to strengthen a man so that all his energy can be brought to bear. If anywhere he needs comfort in this sense, it is in the valley of the shadow; and so God comforts him first with His rod, the instrument of correction. Aye, comforts him with the rod: for the very afflictions and pains which wait about the entrance to the valley are God's messengers and instruments of perfection to make him meet for a better inheritance. And, then, when the rod has done its work, the staff is given. When the pilgrim's knees begin to totter, then come "the everlasting arms," and the strong staff makes firm his step, and naught can shake his foothold until he passes out of the shadow into the light of heaven. V. It is not "the valley of death," but "the valley of the shadow of death," for death in its substance has been removed, and only the shadow of it remains. Some one has said that when there is a shadow there must be light somewhere, and so there is. Death stands by the side of the highway in which we have to travel, and the light of heaven shining upon him throws a shadow across our path; let us then rejoice that there is a light beyond. S.—Death itself to God's people is but a walk in this valley, a gentle, pleasant walk; the wicked are chased out of the world, and their souls are required; but the saints take a walk to another world as cheerfully as they take their leave of this. It is a walk through it; they shall not be lost in this valley, but get safe to the mountain of spices on the other side of it. H.—Christ's victory over death is His people's. "At that moment I am with you," whispers Christ; "the same arm you have proved strong and faithful all the way up through the wilderness, which has never failed, though you have been often forced to lean on it all your weakness." "On this arm," answers swers the believer, "I feel at home; with soul-confidence I repose on my Beloved, for He has supported through so many difficulties from the contemplation of which I shuddered. He has carried over so many depths, that I know His arm to be the arm of love." Powerscourt. The Syrian sheep does not follow its shepherd by fits and starts; seeking to be near him only when the wolf is prowling, or when the dog is on its track; when the night shadows are falling, or the pasture is diminishing. It is generally found close to its protector and guide. It is an undeviating, trustful companionship, in sunshine and storm, in fulness and in drought, in summer and winter. So it is, or ought to be, with the believer—a constant, consistent, habitual following of his Lord, seeking ever to have a realizing sense of His nearness. Not merely when trouble is nigh; in the hour of affliction and sad calamity, or of impending death; but in the midst of life's joyous sunshine, when verdure is on the mountain side, when the rills are singing their way down to the lower valley, and the tinkling bells, answering from fold to fold, tell of nothing but peace, and safety, and repose. Macduff. No pain that aches for immortal purity can be dreadful. No grief that strengthens your aspiration for triumph over sin, and the holiness of Christ's heart, can be a calamity. Over no falling tears and heaving sighs that wash your affections white, and put temptation under your feet, and throw open a clear and fearless communion with God, can you ever exclaim, "Lord, if Thou hadst been here, these would not have befallen me;" but rather, "Be these my perpetual, solemn guests, if thereby, in this Thy inward presence, and with these immortal gifts, Thou, my Lord, mayest be led to draw nigh, and come to me!" Immortal gifts! "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith." There is no one of us, not the weakest, not the timidest, that may not pass through the furnace of trial, and under the shadows of death, with the song of that triumph on his lips. Not by scaffolds, not through blood, but by silent martyrdoms, by slow sufferings, as sharp sometimes and needing the heroism of patience more, must faithful spirits still walk toward God, their hands in their Master's, "Thy rod and Thy staff comforting." F. D. H. In this Valley of Humiliation our Lord formerly had His country-house. He loved much to be here. He loved also to walk these meadows, for He found the air was pleasant. This is a valley that nobody walks in but those that love a pilgrim's life. And though Christian had the hard hap to meet here with Apollyon, and to enter with him a brisk encounter, yet I must tell you that in former times men have met with angels here, have found pearls here, and have in this place found the words of life. "Then said Mercy, I think I am as well in this valley as I have been anywhere else in all our journey. The place, methinks, suits with my spirit." Bunyan. 5. The figure of the shepherd has faded away, and that of the host makes its appearance. His enemies must look on without being able to offer any opposition, and see how sumptuously Jehovah provides for His guest, how He anoints him with sweet perfumes as at a joyous, magnificent feast, and fills his cup even to overflowing. D.—David changes the image of himself as a sheep into that of a guest. The Psalm rises in thought and feeling from preservation in the midst of trouble to the possession of abounding joy. The idea of the valley of the shadow of death melts into a picture of Oriental plenty. Stoughton. My cup runneth over. He had not only a fulness of abundance, but of redundance. Those that have this happiness must carry their cup upright, and see that it overflow into their poor brethren's emptier vessels. Trapp.—Wherefore doth the Lord make your cup run over, but that other men's lips might taste the liquor? The showers that fall upon the highest mountains should glide into the lowest valleys. "Give, and it shall be given you," is a maxim little believed. W. Secker. The mercy is more strikingly portrayed as being granted in warfare. Life is a sore fight, but to the Christian man, in spite of all the tumult, life is a festal table. This is our condition—always the foe, always the table. A. M.—The whole of the twenty-third Psalm is essentially spiritual, and David's prepared table was certainly a holy one. And to this every child of God will set his seal and add his witness, that God does most surely and most strangely provide spiritual food for us, just what and when and where we need. There is another table yet to be, when a prepared people shall meet at a prepared banquet, and the appointed ones gather round their appointed King. J. V. 6. The Psalm is a series of pictures of a believer's life and confidences, and after "the valley of the shadow of death" come the prepared table, and the anointed head, and the mantling cup, and goodness and mercy following to the end, and then the death, or rather no death at all, for it is leapt over, or left out as almost a thing which is not. "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;" and then, without one break, "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." The Hebrew word translated "surely" more often means only, i.e., goodness and mercy only—nothing else—will follow me. The translation would be more accurate grammatically if read: "Goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever." He does not think of coercing, forcing, the manifestations of goodness and mercy, nor should the word "will" be made emphatic. A simple future is all he aims to express. C.—There is no ground in this last verse of the Psalm for distinguishing between shall and will and using them according to modern fashion, as though the goodness and mercy were to follow as matter of necessity, or as though David here professed an act of choice. He appears to be dwelling upon his future privileges and blessed hopes rather than his own resolutions; upon the objects of his desire rather than the determination of his will. Stoughton. Dwelling in the house of Jehovah does not mean frequenting His sanctuary, but being a member of His household and an inmate of His family, enjoying His protection, holding communion with Him, and subsisting on His bounty. A. The last verse combines the retrospect and the prospect of faith. David glances over his whole life, and declares that it has been very good: "Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life." That is the expression, not of a youthful shepherd's, but of a man's experience, and it is an expression of triumphant faith. Brooke.—The sense of trustfulness becomes more positive as the Psalm proceeds, until, in the last verse, it culminates in an exultant outburst of assurance as respects the writer's future lot. The future is no less secure than the present. "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." And note that the basis of this assurance is not the fact that God has allotted him his place in green pastures, but in the fact that the Lord is his Shepherd. He clearly perceives that it may be God's pleasure to change this happy lot and to direct his course into the gloomy valley of the shadow; but the goodness and the lovingkindness shall none the less be his. Goodness and mercy do not mean to God's child flowering meads and wells of refreshment only; they may equally mean rocky defiles, and rough paths, and darkness, and enemies. When Paul promises the Corinthians all things in Christ, he couples, in the most natural and matter-of-course way, death and things to come, with life and things present, treating them all alike as God's good gifts. It is all one so long as they are Christ's. Goodness and lovingkindness, now and evermore, are represented to David simply by those five words—The Lord is my Shepherd. Darkness, roughness, hostility, will be goodness and mercy still, so long as they shall not separate him from his Shepherd's society, guidance, and comfort. A. M. Goodness and mercy follow him always, all the days of his life, the black days as well as the bright days, the days of fasting as well as the days of feasting, the dreary days of winter as well as the bright days of summer. Goodness supplies our needs, and mercy blots out our sins. S.—“All the days of my life.” Life is made up not so much of years as of days. Goodness and mercy have been our companions through past days. Their hands held us up in childhood; they have been the guardians of our youth; they have been ministering angels in our manhood; they have been a refuge and strength in old age. Goodness and mercy are our companions to-day. To-day we walk with them and talk with them; to-day we receive their benediction. And to-morrow goodness and mercy will accompany us. There is nothing in any day or days of life to separate us from goodness and mercy. The day is not too long, not too dark, not too stormy, the days are not too many, for these Divine companions. S. Martin. These two angels of God—Goodness and Mercy—shall follow and encamp around the pilgrim. The enemies whom God held back while he feasted may pursue, but will not overtake him. They will be distanced sooner or later; but the white wings of these messengers of the covenant shall never be far away from the journeying child, and the air shall often be filled with the music of their comings, and their celestial weapons shall glance around him in all the fight, and their salt arms shall bear him up over all the rough ways, and up higher at last to the throne. So much for the earthly future. But higher than all that rises the confidence of the closing words, “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” This should be at once the crown of all our hopes for the future, and the one great lesson taught us by all the vicissitudes of life. The sorrows and the joys, the journeying and the rest, the temporary repose and the frequent struggles—all these should make us sure that there is an end which will interpret them all, to which they all point, for which they may all prepare. God provides for us here in the presence of our enemies; it is wilderness food we get, manna from heaven, and water from the rock. We eat in haste, staff in hand, and standing round the meal. But yonder we sit down with the Shepherd, the Master of the house, at His table in His kingdom. We put off the pilgrim dress, and put on the royal robe; we lay aside the sword, and clasp the palm. Far off, and lost to sight, are all the enemies. We fear no change. We go no more out. A. M. All His sweeter mercies and sharper corrections are to make me partaker of His holiness, and lead me to glory in the way in which my Saviour and all His saints have gone before me. All things work together for the best to me, by preparing me for that which is best indeed. Both calms and storms are to bring me to this harbor; if I take them but for themselves and for this present life, I mistake them, unthankfully vilify them, and lose their end, life, and sweetness. Every word and work of God, every day's mercies and changes, look at heaven, and intend eternity. God leads me no other way; if I follow Him not, I forsake my hope in forsaking Him; if I follow Him, shall I be unwilling to be at home, and arrive at the end of all this way? Baxter. In conclusion, think of the grand home-gathering in the house of the Lord! “I beheld, and, lo! a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb.” There is the destination of the pilgrim Church. There is the home and resting-place of all pious souls since the world began—of the vast procession of the saints of God, increasing in number from age to age. “Before the Throne”—in the immediate presence of God; “before the Lamb”—in the immediate presence of Christ. Stoughton.—The resting place of the pilgrim is the eternal temple. To dwell in the temple of God, to go no more out—that is the highest strain of the Christian hope. W. B. Pope. This Psalm and the tenth chapter of John form two links in a chain which finds its completing link in the seventh chapter of Revelation—“Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple, and He that sitteth on the throne shall spread His habitation over them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun ever light upon them, no, nor any heat; because the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall shepherd them, and shall guide them to the fountains of the waters of life; and God shall wipe away every tear out of their eyes." V. 1. THE earth is the LORD's, and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein. 2. For he hath founded it upon the seas, 3. Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? 4. He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity. And hath not sworn deceitfully. 5. He shall receive a blessing from the LORD, And righteousness from the God of his sal- vation. 6. This is the generation of them that seek after him, That seek thy face, O God of Jacob. [Selah 7. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; And be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors: And the King of glory shall come in. 8. Who is the King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, The LORD mighty in battle. 9. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; Yea, lift them up, ye everlasting doors: And the King of glory shall come in. 10. Who is this King of glory? The LORD of hosts, He is the King of glory. [Selah THIS grand choral hymn was in all probability composed and sung on the occasion of the removal of the ark from the house of Obed-Edom to the city of David on Mount Zion (2 Sam. 6). It was a day of solemn gladness and triumph. No long period had elapsed since David had wrested the stronghold of Zion from the last remnant of the hill-tribes of the Canaanites which lingered in Palestine. Henceforth this mountain-city, deemed by its ancient inhabitants impregnable, was selected by the conqueror as the seat of the royal residence, and the centre of religious worship; and thither, after having subdued his enemies, he determined to bring the ark, which for nearly fifty years had been left neglected at Kirjath-Jearim. It is difficult for us to conceive the feelings, at once of the most exalted and fervent patriotism and of the deepest religious enthusiasm, which would be awakened in the hearts of the people by such an event. The land was now indeed their own land; the king of their choice reigned over them; the most sacred emblem of Jehovah's presence and blessing was to be fixed in a central and permanent abode. King and priests and people, the elders of Israel and the captains over thousands (1 Chr. 15: 2), in solem procession, and with all the accompaniments of music and song, conducted the ark to its resting-place on the holy mountain. It was then that this majestic anthem rose to heaven: "Jehovah's is the earth, and the fulness thereof;" and the gates of that gray old fortress were bid to lift themselves up, as being too narrow to admit the King of glory. P. This Psalm consists of two distinct and, it may seem at first sight, unconnected parts. The first praises God as the universal sovereign by right of creation (vs. 1, 2), and describes the moral requisites to intimate communion with Him (vs. 3-6). The second represents Him, in a striking figurative form, as entering some place provided for His residence (vs. 7-10). The idea common to both parts is the supremacy of God, both in holiness and majesty. A.—In each we have question and answer, as in Psalm 15, which belongs to the same period. The first half replies to the question, "Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord, and who shall stand in His holy place?" The answer is a description of the men who dwell with God. The second half deals with the correlative inquiry, "Who is the King of glory?" and describes the God who comes to dwell with men. Both portions are united by a real internal connection, in that they set forth the mutual approach of God and man which leads to communion. A. M. Adopted into Israel's hymn-book, this Psalm became an Old Testament advent hymn in honor of the Lord, who should come to His temple (Mal. 3 : 1) ; and the cry, " Lift up your heads, O ye gates," acquired essentially the same meaning as the voice of the herald in Isa. 40 : 3 : " Prepare ye Jehovah's way, make level in the desert a highway for our God." In the New Testament consciousness, the place of the first advent is taken by the second, the coming of the Lord of glory to His Church, which is His spiritual temple, and which is called upon in this Psalm to prepare a worthy reception for Him. D.—Most fitly, in its Christian application, this Psalm celebrates the return of Christ as the King of glory to His heavenly throne, and the inauguration of that dominion which He thence exercises in the world. It will be fully accomplished when the doors of all hearts, all temples, and all kingdoms shall be thrown wide before Him ; when He shall be acknowledged upon earth as He is acknowledged in heaven. P. 1. The earth is the Lord's by the sovereign right of Creatorship, the right to a thing which we intuitively recognize as resting in him that made it. This right covers the earth and all that fills it ; the inhabited world and all that dwell therein. The Hebrew for " world" means the earth considered as productive and inhabited, the fitting abode of man. C. 2. For He above the seas has settled it, and above the streams has fixed it. The pronoun is emphatic ; He and no one else. He has made the earth what it is, and is therefore the sovereign, both of it and its inhabitants. The idea is not that of subterraneous waters bearing up the land, but simply that of the habitable earth, raised above the surface of the waters which surround it. The sense of the two verses, taken in connection, is that since Jehovah is the God who collected the waters and caused the dry land to appear, He is the rightful sovereign of the habitable earth and of those whom it sustains. A.—He is the owner of the world, because its creator. He has founded it upon seas, i.e., the ocean and its floods ; for the waters were before the dry land was created, and the latter emerged from them at God's omnipotent word. D. All the parts and regions of the earth are the Lord's, all under His eye, all in His hand ; so that, wherever a child of God goes, he may comfort himself with this, that he does not go off his Father's ground. That which falls to our share of the earth and its productions is but lent to us, it is the Lord's ; what is our own against all the world is not so against His claims. H.—Under man's tutored hand the world is coming to a greater fulness than ever, but it is all the Lord's ; the field and the fruit, the earth and all earth's wonders are Jehovah's. We look also for a sublimer fulness when the true ideal of a world for God shall have been reached in millennial glories, and then most clearly the earth will be the Lord's and the fulness thereof. S. 3-6. David takes the occasion of the inauguration of the tabernacle on Mount Zion to inculcate the fundamental principles of morality, above all, purity of heart, as the conditions of acceptance. Cook. 3,4. Heaven is God and God is heaven. How can a soul possess God, and find its heaven in possessing Him ? Certainly only by likeness to Him, and loving Him. The old question, " Who shall stand in the holy place ?" has no answer in the Gospel, which reduces the conditions, or negatives the old reply. The common sense of every conscience answers, and Christianity answers, as the Psalmist does, " He that hath clean hands and a pure heart." A. M.—It is not stately walls nor beauteous spires that tell for Christ, nor eloquent sermons, nor artistic anthems, but lives that are clean, hearts that are glad with the light of Christ, and hands that are loaded with mercy. Anon. 4. The true worshipper of Christ must possess a moral fitness. There must be : 1. Rectitude of conduct. " He that hath clean hands." The ceremonially unclean were not allowed to touch the sacred things of the Temple, and certainly the morally impure, whose hands are defiled with wrong-doing, cannot enter into hallowed fellowship with God. The conscience that is not upright in the practical, commonplace duties of life cannot be sincere and blameless in the solemn worship of God. 2. Purity of heart. " And a pure heart." It is not enough for the outward life to be consistent, the inward experience must be holy. The inner life is everything to us ; if we are wrong there, we are wrong everywhere and in everything. There is a moral sympathy between the worshipper and the worshipped, and the tendency is to become increasingly like the object of our adoration. The holy God can accept nothing but what is the offering of a holy heart. Hence the perpetual need of the sanctifying merits of the great Mediator ; without His aid the best effort of the worshipper is imperfect and impure. 3. Truthfulness of thought and speech. "Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity." "Unto vanity, i.e., either the perishing things of earth or falsehood, which signification passes over into a wider one of moral evil in general; or false gods, idols. It may be taken here in the widest sense of all that the human heart puts in the place of God." P.—The word "vanity" is used for things vain and empty; also for things false and for idols; and is perhaps used comprehensively for sin. The man described here, therefore, is he who has not given his heart in love to any sin. C.—"Nor sworn deceitfully;" or inured his tongue to any dishonoring of God, or deceiving of others. Perjury is here instanced for the rest, as one of the most heinous. But Peraldus reckoneth up four and twenty several sins of the tongue, all which every burgess of the New Jerusalem is careful to avoid, as no way becoming his pure lip. Trapp. Accepted worshippers are such as make conscience of being inwardly as good as they seem to be outwardly; they have pure hearts. We make nothing of our religion if we do not make heart-work of it. This is a pure heart which is sincere and without guile in covenanting with God, which is carefully guarded, which is purified by faith and conformed to the image and will of God. They are such as do not set their affections upon the things of this world; as do not lift up their souls unto vanity, whose hearts are not carried out inordinately toward the wealth of the world, the praise of men, or the delights of sense; who do not choose these things for their portion. They are such as deal honestly both with God and man. In their covenant with God and their contracts with men they have not sworn deceitfully, nor broken their promises, violated their engagements. Those that have no regard to the obligations of truth or the honor of God's name are unfit for a place in God's holy hill. H. An honest, earnest, true heart; a hand that will not stain itself with unjust gain, or hold an unequal balance, or sign a deceitful letter; a tongue that will not twist itself to a falsehood or take up an evil report; a soul that points as true as a compass to highest ideal of manhood or womanhood—these are the marks and qualities of God's people everywhere. And when these qualities are exalted and manifested, when a Christian means one whose word is his bond, who can be trusted with unknown treasure, whose praise is an honor and whose friendship is a jewel of priceless value; one who does his duty toward his fellow-men as a service to his God; one whose outward integrity is the proof of his inward purity—then the Church will have great praise and large triumph. H. Van Dyke. A Christian that is evangelically "perfect" is made up of these two parts—holiness and righteousness; though holiness be the chief, as that which doth difference the saint, yet righteousness is so requisite that there can be no true Christian without it. The saint is described sometimes by a "pure heart," so also sometimes by "clean hands," because he has both; the holiness of his heart is seen at his fingers' ends. Swinnock.—It is not he who fasts or watches so many days, nor he who divides his own among the poor, nor he who preaches to others, nor he who lives quietly, kindly, and friendly; nor, in fine, is it he who works all virtuous and all good works that ever any man spoke or read of, but it is he alone who is pure within and without. Luther. God will be served with the whole heart; for all our good is in God, and therefore all our hearts must make out after God. God must have perfect obedience in the desire and endeavor, or else He will have none. Certainly that which must make any man acceptable is not so much that there is somewhat done, but that that which God commands is done, or done in regard of the endeavor; for that indeed will be acceptable; though we cannot do all at once, if we bring somewhat to God as a part, and acknowledging the whole debt, work for the remainder, it will be accepted. If thou hast an upright heart, and dost bring God but part and labor after the whole, He will accept it; but if thou bringst Him ten times more than a sincere heart can bring Him, it will not be acceptable. Burroughs.—Christ could not, if He would, take a man to His right hand whose heart was not the home of simple trust and thankful love, whose nature and desires were unprepared for that blessed world. A. M. How greatly they err who consider the old economy as nothing but a burdensome ritual, a round of ceremonies, never penetrating beneath the surface! Here, in the praise-book of the nation, in the songs of the sanctuary, is incorporated an utterance that passes by altar, and sacrifice, and incense, and makes no mention of ancestral names however great or sacred, and insists simply upon purity of heart and conduct as the prerequisites for acceptable worship. T. W. C. 5. "He shall receive the blessing from Jehovah, and righteousness from the God of his salvation." Then that righteousness, which he who honestly attempts to comply with such requirements will soon find that he does not possess, is to be received from above, not elaborated from within; is a gift from God, not a product of man's toils. God will make us pure, that we may dwell with Him. A. M.—To receive righteousness is to have the gift of righteousness, grace to resemble God in His essential attributes, and conformity to the Divine will and the Divine nature. It also includes the substantial fact of justification, for such a man has righteousness imputed to him. It is a phrase of great importance in its bearings upon the doctrinal teaching of the Psalms. The man who brings the conditions of acceptance, honesty of heart, and uprightness in dealings, will receive grace for grace. Cook. "He shall receive his righteousness," saith the prophet; and "the gift of righteousness," saith the apostle. It is then another, to be given us and to be received by us, which we must seek for. And whither shall we go for it? Job alone dispatcheth this point (15: 15; 4: 18; 25: 5). Not to the heavens or stars, they are unclean in his sight. Not to the saints, for in them he found folly. Not to the angels, for neither in them found he steadfastness. Now, if none of these will serve, we see a necessary reason why Jehovah must be a part of this name, "the Lord our righteousness." Lancelot Andrewes.—They do not ascend the hill of the Lord as givers but as receivers, and they do not wear their own merits, but a righteousness which they have received. Holy living ensures a blessing as its reward from the thrice Holy God, but it is itself a blessing of the New Covenant and a delightful fruit of the Spirit. S. 6. "This is the generation seeking Thee, those seeking Thy face (O Jehovah), (the true Israel)." The sudden apostrophe to God Himself makes the sentence more impressive without making it obscure. The distinction here made between the nominal and real Israel was peculiarly necessary on occasions which were suited to flatter the national pride of the chosen people, such as that of Jehovah's solemn entrance into Zion, as the peculiar God of Israel. A.—This is the generation of those who seek Thy face—the real Jacob—in the same sense in which the Scriptures speak of the true Israel: "They are not all Israel who are of Israel," but only they who are "Israelites indeed in whom is no guile." (See Rom. 9: 6 and John 1: 47.) On an occasion like this it was specially pertinent to impress the sentiment that none could hope for the favor of the Great and Holy God save such as came before Him pure in heart and hand; humbly seeking His face in the spirit of His true and sincere worshippers. C. The men who receive righteousness are the men who seek it from God. "This is the generation of them that seek Him, that seek Thy face," and, as the last words ought to be rendered, "This is Jacob, the true Israel." To desire is to have; to seek is to possess; to wish is to be enriched with all this purity. A. M.—This is the generation of seekers. Heaven is a generation of finders, of possessors, of enjoyers of God. But here we are a generation of seekers. It is a state of seeking here because it is a state of want; we want something alway. Sibbes. 7-10. The entry of Jehovah as King of glory into His sanctuary. The festal procession has now reached the gates of the city of Zion. "The singers go before; the minstrels follow after;" and in the midst of these is the ark, "whose name is called by the name of the Lord of Hosts, that dwelleth between the cherubim" (2 Sam. 6: 2); so that the entry of the ark is the entry of Jehovah Himself into Zion (Num. 10: 35). P.—The procession is now supposed to have arrived at the entrance of the citadel or walled town of Zion, the acropolis of Jerusalem. The gates of this acropolis are those personified in this fine apostrophe. They are called perpetual or everlasting on account of their antiquity, and not in mere anticipation of their subsequent duration. They are called upon to raise their heads, that He who is about to enter may not debase Himself by stooping to pass through them. A. To the gates of the citadel of Zion the cry is addressed, to expand themselves conformably with the dignity of the Lord who is entering in and for whom they are too mean and diminutive. Rejoicing in the great honor of which they are deemed worthy, the ancient doors are to open themselves high and wide. Then from the gates of Zion, which are wont to allow only great lords to enter, there echoes back to the festal procession the question, "Who, then, is this glorious king?" and they describe Him more particularly: it is the heroic God, by means of whom Israel has wrested this Zion from the Jebusites with the sword, and by means of whom it has hitherto always proved victorious. D. 8. The answer is prompt and clear. The Lord, the Creator, the performer of all His promises; strong to overcome all resistance, mighty to maintain the cause of the oppressed. The Lord mighty in war. The repetition is emphatic. War implies the encounter of good and evil. The Lord defends the right and defeats the wrong. M. 10. The gates of Zion again put their question; no longer, however, hesitatingly, but in order once more to hear the praise of the great King. The gates are silent and open, and Jehovah, enthroned above the cherubim of the sacred ark, enters Zion. D. There is a more material variation in the answer, where instead of the two phrases, Jehovah strong and mighty, Jehovah mighty in battle, the Psalmist substitutes the single but still more expressive title, Jehovah Zobaoth or of Hosts. This description of Jehovah as the God of heaven no less than of earth, while it sensibly strengthens the expressions of v. 8, at the same time brings us back in the conclusion to the sublime assertion of v. 1, the universal sovereignty of God. The whole Psalm is then brought to a solemn and sonorous close by making the answer echo the terms of the interrogation, He is the King of glory! These points of difference between vs. 8 and 10 impart a beautiful variety to the repeated sentence, without impairing in the least the rhetorical or musical effect of the repetition itself, which is followed only by the customary indication of a pause, both in the sense and the performance. A. The closing note is inexpressibly grand. Jehovah of hosts, Lord of men and angels, Lord of the universe, Lord of the worlds, is the King of glory. All true glory is concentrated upon the true God, for all other glory is but a passing pageant, the painted pomp of an hour. The ascended Saviour is here declared to be the Head and Crown of the universe, the King of glory. Our Immanuel is hymned in sublimest strains. Jesus of Nazareth is Jehovah Sabaoth. S. Look at the application of these words to the Christ who will dwell in your hearts. The very central idea of the Gospel is this, that if you will open the gates of your hearts, He will come in, in all the plenitude of His victorious power, and dwell in your hearts, their Conqueror and their King. A. M. The Saviour permitted His exaltation to be revealed through the ascension, in that He thereby made known His boundless dominion over heaven and earth, and made His Godhead manifest. Before the foundation of the world had the Lord possessed this boundless dominion, and His Godhead was evident and known in heaven; but through His ascension He entered again into His former glory, which He had resigned at His incarnation. But what a difference! The Man-Jesus receives a share in the omniscience and omnipresence of the Son of God. The Son of God and the Man-Jesus are one person; and this one Divine and human person has the Divine dominion which the Son of God had from all eternity. Caspars. Human nature is, at this moment, the most glorious of created natures, taken, in its assumption by the Son, into a nearness of union with the Godhead which none other enjoys; and where our Head is, there all His true members shall in due time be. As the man Christ Jesus passed through all suffering into glory, even so His people, exposed to dangers which others never knew, and made triumphant through His Spirit dwelling in them, rise to honors with which others can never be crowned; and, living monuments of all those Divine perfections which were displayed in their redemption, living records of the glory of God, they will awaken among the hosts of heaven a song which throughout eternity will be ever new. Dods. For God to adorn His Son with all this glory in His ascension, thus to make Him ride conqueror up into the clouds, thus to go up with sound of trumpet, with shout of angels and with songs of praises, and, let me add, to be accompanied also with those that rose from the dead after His resurrection, who were the very price of His blood—this does greatly demonstrate that Jesus Christ by what He has done has paid a full price to God for the souls of sinners, and obtained eternal redemption for them; He had not else rode thus in triumph to heaven. Consider those glorious circumstances that accompany His approach to the gates of the everlasting habitation. The everlasting gates are set, yea, bid stand open: "Be ye open, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in." The King of glory is Jesus Christ, and the words are a prophecy of His glorious ascending into the heavens, when He went up as the High Priest of the Church, to carry the price of His blood into the holiest of all. Bunyan.—Yes, but not He alone. When the triumphs of the chariots of God swept behind Him in their unseen procession, the everlasting portals closed not after them. They are open still, open to us and to our race, and through them pass and shall pass till the end of time the thronging souls of the redeemed. He went to prepare a place for those He loved. He went as the great forerunner of His people, and we must follow in His course. Where the Head is there should the members be; and our treasure, our life, our affection are meant to be with Him at the right hand of God Furrar. Christ is gone to heaven as a victor, leading sin, Satan, death, hell, and all His enemies in triumph at His chariot wheels. He has not only overcome His enemies for Himself, but for all His people, whom He will make conquerors, yea, "more than conquerors." As He has overcome, so shall they also overcome; and as He is gone to heaven a victor, they shall follow in triumph. He is in heaven as a Saviour. When He came from heaven it was in the character of a Saviour; when on earth He obtained eternal salvation; in heaven He lives as a Saviour; when He comes again from heaven He will come as a Saviour; and when He will return, He will return as a Saviour. He is also gone to heaven as the rightful heir. He is not gone to heaven as a sojourner, but as "the heir of all things." He is the heir of heavenly glory and happiness, and believers are "heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ." Pendlebury. 1. UNTO thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul. 2 O my God, in thee have I trusted, Let me not be ashamed; Let not mine enemies triumph over me. 3 Yea, none that wait on thee shall be ashamed: They shall be ashamed that deal treacherously without cause. 4 Shew me thy ways, O LORD; Teach me thy paths. 5 Guide me in thy truth, and teach me; For thou art the God of my salvation; On thee do I wait all the day. 6 Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses: For they have been ever of old. 7 Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: According to thy lovingkindness remember thou me, For thy goodness' sake, O LORD. 8 Good and upright is the LORD: Therefore will he instruct sinners in the way. 9 The meek will he guide in judgment: And the meek will he teach his way. 10 All the paths of the LORD are lovingkindness and truth Unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies. 11. For thy name's sake, O LORD, Pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. 12 What man is he that feareth the Lord? Him shall he instruct in the way that he shall choose. 13 His soul shall dwell at ease; And his seed shall inherit the land. 14 The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him; And he will shew them his covenant. 15 Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD; For he shall pluck my feet out of the net. 16 Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; For I am desolate and afflicted. 17 The troubles of my heart are enlarged: O bring thou me out of my distresses. 18 Consider mine affliction and my travail; And forgive all my sins. 19 Consider mine enemies, for they are many; And they hate me with cruel hatred. 20 O keep my soul, and deliver me: Let me not be ashamed, for I put my trust in thee. 21 Let integrity and uprightness preserve me, For I wait on thee. 22 Redeem Israel, O God, Out of all his troubles. This is an acrostic or alphabetical Psalm, the first verse beginning with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and the other letters following in order at the beginning of each successive verse. The order is not perfectly observed. Other Psalms which are constructed on a similar principle are the thirty-seventh, the one hundred and eleventh, one hundred and twelfth, one hundred and nineteenth, and one hundred and forty-fifth. The general character of all these Psalms is didactic; and it is probable that this artificial arrangement was intended to be an assistance to the memory. P. It is a calmly confident prayer for help against enemies, and for the instructing, pardoning, and guiding grace of God, without any distinct historical background indicative of its date, and without any clearly marked traits of individuality. It contains nothing which is not in harmony with the believing consciousness of the Church of all ages—nothing specifically distinctive of the Old Testament or of Israel. D. 1. The text illustrates the voluntary contact of a human soul with the Divine. “Unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.” Communion with God is sought. In a sense He is ever with us. But in a higher sense He is with us when we let the soul go out toward Him in loving trust and affection, receiving in return incomes of wisdom, power, courage, faith—in short, everything included in that significant word, grace S. E. Herrick.—Taking this verse as the key-note of the Psalm, and therefore expressing comprehensively its main ideas, we shall see that it covers essentially the whole field of prayer and communion with God—the soul lifted up to Him in prayerful trust for protection against enemies, in supplication for Divine guidance into all truth and duty, giving moreover a large place to prayer for the pardon of sin and for constant preservation from its approaches and temptations. No language could more perfectly express the constant experience of the Christian heart. O my God, I lift up my soul continually, imploringly, trustfully, unto Thee. In sorrow or in joy; in straitened or in large places; in sickness or in health; what time “all these things are against me,” or what time all goes well—alike always and everywhere, Thou art my friend, my hope, my joy; therefore my heart looks evermore unto Thee. C.—Unto Thee in the fulness of Thy merits, unto Thee in the riches of Thy grace; unto Thee in the comforts of Thy Spirit; unto Thee that Thy thorns may be my crown, Thy blood my balsam, Thy curse my blessing, Thy death my life, Thy cross my triumph. Thus is my “life hid with Christ in God;” and if so, then where should be my soul but where is my life? And therefore “unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.” R. Mossom. 2. Trusted.** Faith is not, as appears to be very often understood, any belief in something about God which is not God; no belief in a proposition, or truth, or doctrine, or fact, even though it be an atonement made, or legal justification provided—these things have a certain relationship and preparative concern, but the faith is a wholly transactional matter toward God Himself. It is the man’s new, self-committing, trusting act, by which he puts himself out on trust, and begins to live suspensively on God, as every created spirit, whether under sin or clear of it, is made to live. It is a trusting of person to person, substantive being to substantive being, sinner to Saviour. Bushnell. 4. Thy ways, Jehovah, make me know; Thy paths teach me. As the ways of God throughout this Psalm are the same as in Deut. 32: 4, namely, His dispensations toward His people, the way in which He orders their condition and disposes of their lot, the teaching prayed for must be that of experience. “Let me know in my own case what it is to be guided and protected and provided for by God Himself.” A.—He pleads for instruction as to the way in which, according to God’s direction, he is to go. God’s will, no doubt, lies before us in His written Word, but for the right understanding of it God is Himself the needful interpreter. He asks for full knowledge; but that he may translate it into a full living actuality, he needs God again; he needs, in other words, both His enlightening and also His guiding grace. D. 5. Teach me.** There is a Divine teaching. When we have read and heard, spoken and written the soundest truth and strongest arguments, we still know as if we knew not, and believe as if we believed not, unless God powerfully impresses the same things on our minds, and awakens our souls to feel what we know. All men may easily know that there is an almighty, omniscient, omnipresent, eternal, and perfectly holy and good God, the maker, preserver, and governor of all, who deserves our whole trust, love, and obedience; but how little of this knowledge is to be perceived in men’s hearts or lives? All men know that the world is vanity, that man must die, that riches then cannot profit, that time is precious, and that we have but little time to prepare for eternity; but how little do men seem to have of the real knowledge of these plain truths? Only when God comes in with His powerful awakening light and love, then those things appear as different as if we were beginning to know them. Baxter. The longer one lives, provided his mental and moral habits are in any measure correct, the more will he feel the depth of his ignorance, the more will he see that he has as yet caught only a glimpse of the fragments of truth, the less confidently will he speak of the certainty of his knowledge, the profounder will be his consciousness that immeasurable tracts lie beyond his feeble ken, and the more earnestly will he ask for that illuminating spirit that searcheth the dark things of God, the more grateful will he be that there is an open door to One in whom dwelleth all the fulness of wisdom. B. B. E. Experimental teaching is the burden of this prayer. Lead me according to Thy truth, and prove Thyself faithful; lead me into truth that I may know its preciousness, lead me by the way of truth that I may manifest its spirit. David knew much, but he felt his ignorance and desired to be still in the Lord's school. It were well for many professors if, instead of cutting out new paths of thought for themselves, they would inquire for the good old ways of God's own truth, and beseech the Holy Ghost to give them sanctified understandings and teachable spirits. S. On thee do I wait all the day. The child of God breaks his own self-will, and desires to have no will of his own. God's will is his will; and he inquires what God's will is before undertaking anything, that he may fulfil it, and after finishing anything, that he may prove himself thereby. Caspars.—To wait on God is to live a life of desire toward God; to wait on Him with earnest desire to receive supplies from Him. It is to live a life of delight in God and dependence on God, as the child waits on his father, whom he has confidence in, and on whom he casts all his care. To wait on God is to expect all good to come to us from Him, as the worker of all good for us and in us, the giver of all good to us, and the protector of us from all evil. It is to live a life of devotedness to God, as the servant waits on his master, ready to observe his will and to do his work, and in everything to consult his honor and interest. To wait on God is entirely and unreservedly to refer ourselves to His wise and holy directions and disposals, cheerfully to acquiesce in them and comply with them. The servant that waits on his master chooseth not his own way, but follows his master step by step. Thus must we wait on God, as those that have no will of our own but what is wholly resolved into His, and must therefore study to accommodate ourselves to His. H. Out of holy waiting upon God comes the resolute action for men; out of childlike looking upward into the spiritual world, the manliest pressing forward into enterprises for the world around you; out of the believing prayer, each duty of the day. Faith hallows the evening and the morning, and makes them a day of the Lord. The consecrated disciple rises to each new encounter with his lot in a reverent vigilance for every beckoning of God's hand. He falls asleep each night with a sacred curiosity to hear that further revelation of the great secret and mystery of being which the daybreak is sure to tell from the Spirit. He finds a path through the intricacies of earthly duty by a simple reference to the benignity of the Lord, like the Psalmist, who fled from the onset of his enemies, and the strife of tongues, to the "pavilion of the Most High." F. D. H. 6,7. When we consider how utterly impossible it is that the infinite mind of God should ever forget, or ever recall to mind things for a time out of his thought, we may get some sense of that condescending accommodation to our limited capacities under which God allows us to speak to Him according to our human ideas, or after the manner of men with men. In these verses the Psalmist prays God to remember one class of things, and not to remember certain other things. Very appropriately, too, for it is simply calling the Divine attention to these points and beseeching Him to think of His tender mercies which He has constantly manifested through all the ages past; and next that He would not remember against him the sins of his youth, but blot them from His book of remembrance and fully forgive. What is prayer in any possible case but calling the attention of our Great Father to our wants, reminding Him as the case may be of His promises, and resting our plea on His revealed mercy and goodness—"For Thy goodness' sake, O Lord!" C. 6. "Faith," saith Dickson, "must make use of experiences and read them over unto God out of the register of a sanctified memory, as a recorder to Him who cannot forget." With an unchangeable God it is a most effectual argument to remind Him of His ancient mercies and His eternal love. By tracing all that we enjoy to the fountain-head of everlasting love we shall greatly cheer our hearts. S. 7. Remember not the sins of my youth.** The true significance of the present is not revealed in the present. Only the lapse of years makes us dispassionate judges of our earlier selves. The text is the utterance of a man who is letting a sorrowful and faithful past come home to his matured judgment to be tried by its higher standards and its clearer discrimination. "Remember not the sins of my youth." The truth assumed in these words is one which concerns the character of God—the truth, namely, that God cannot be passive in any moral relation. For God to remember sin is to assume an active and hostile relation to sin. In answer to such an appeal as this, we are not to expect either that God will shut sin out of His remembrance, or change His attitude toward sin. But His remembrance of the sinner involves all the infinite activity of His love toward the sinner. It is on this relation of God to the sinner that David throws himself. V The prayer, "Remember not against me the sins of my youth," holds out hope to such as have let slip this precious time. Thank God, they are not to despair. Still, though almighty grace may work a saving change at a later and even in the latest period of life, not only does the probability of that grow less with every year's practice of sin, persevered in and prolonged over a period of guilty years, so blunts the conscience that it never recovers the fineness of its edge; nor is the heart capable of receiving the most delicate and beautiful impressions of Christ's image unless they are stamped on it while, like metals or melted wax, it is soft and tender, ere it has grown hard and cold. It is well to give Jesus even blighted affections and a broken heart; it is well when the world cannot fill our hearts to turn our trembling steps from its broken cisterns to the fountain of living water; it is well when men turn from shattered fortunes and mothers from their sweet, lifeless coffined idols, to throw themselves at the feet or into the arms of Jesus. But it is better still, seeking Him early, to give our youth to Christ; with its glistening dews to bathe the Rose of Sharon; to honor God with our first-fruits. Guthrie. 7. According to Thy mercy, not mine; for Thy goodness' sake, not mine, for in me dwelleth no manner of thing that is good. Let Thy goodness, then, be the motive, Thy mercy the rule of all that grace and of all those blessings Thou vouchsafest unto my soul. Mosson. 8. Here are two most opposite characters: a good and upright Lord, and perverse sinners. Good and upright as the Lord is, He might justly give sinners up to perdition; but no, He will not leave them to perish in their ignorance and obstinacy; He will teach them. This implies that sinners are so ignorant of Divine truth that no teaching besides that of the Lord the Spirit can instruct and make them wise unto salvation. By repentance unto life in His way of peace, in the walk of faith, in the path of love, truth and holiness, the Spirit will teach redeemed sinners on earth till He brings them to glory; His teaching shall be as effectual to their glorification as the death of Christ for their salvation. W. Mason. 9. He will guide the humble in justice, and teach the humble His way. The common version of meek is too restricted and descriptive of mere temper. The Hebrew word is the nearest equivalent to humble in its strong religious sense. The omission of the article may be explained as a poetic license, and the word translated the humble, so as to include the whole class. A. The meek will He guide, the meek will He teach, those that are humble and low in their own eyes, that are distrustful of themselves, desirous to be taught, and honestly resolved to follow the Divine guidance. These He will guide in judgment—that is, by the rule of the written Word; He will guide them in that which is practical, which relates to sin and duty, so that they may keep conscience void of offence; and He will do it judiciously—that is, He will suit His conduct to their case; He will teach sinners with wisdom, tenderness, and compassion, and as they are able to bear. He will teach them His way. All good people make God's way their way, and desire to be taught that; and those who do so shall be taught and led in that way. H.—These words bind earth to heaven. There is here below therefore a way which leads to God, a way where we can walk with God; in the midst of all these roads which cross each other, and which nearly all lead to vanity, there is a way which ends in no abyss, and which crosses victoriously the valley of the shadow of death. Would you know the way that leads to God? Be humble. Pride wants to see God face to face, and His splendor blinds it. Humility bends itself before Him, and sees its path all flooded by His light. The Lord teaches His way to the humble. E. Bersier. In some trying condition, where the Christian has not been able by the understanding to settle any wise course of proceeding, how very clear has everything been made to him, step by step, by the simple and consciously single-eyed impulse of love to his Master! And when all is over, and his crisis is past, how plain is it to him that he has been guided by a wisdom in his loving affinities which he had not in the reasons of his understanding! Bushnell.—The Lord presents Himself to us when treading faith's dark path, and greets us now with kindly word, now with some great, astounding deed. Bonds that must needs be broken through, He will Himself both quietly and easily unloose. Mists that might rise before us He dispels, ere they can hide the sun from us. There falls not to the ground a single word of all the good which He has promised to bestow on us when entering upon the narrow path; and actual experience soon shows that we are strengthened for accomplishing all that He promises we shall be able to effect, using our staff of faith. Van O. Our difficulty in ascertaining His will is not at all where God works independently of us; it is where He works with us and we with Him; where events are apparently as much our own bringing about as His, and where in the use of means, at the best imperfect and unreliable, we seem to take all pains sometimes only to go wrong. What rules are there, in such a case, beyond diligence, and patience, and obedience, and prayer? Surely none. Diligence in consulting friends and in procuring information, and in weighing our case on all sides. Patience, for half our mistakes in life come from being in a hurry, and we are just as likely to go wrong if we rush on in advance of God's providence as if we lag idly behind it. Obedience, for to be willing to do God's will is the real crux of the matter. Then prayer, honest, humble, simple, persevering prayer; and we can do no more. Anything is more possible than that God should not guide the meek in judgment. Bishop Thorold. 10. We may be very sure that God will teach His erring but penitent people all the ways of life that please Him, for His own ways of dealing with them are wholly merciful and truthful, i.e., are infinitely kind and faithful to His covenant. The "paths of the Lord" are here His own ways of dealing with His covenant people. C.—The paths are those in which, in conformity with His revelation, will and purpose, He walks with men. These paths are "grace," for the salvation of men is their goal, and "truth," for at every step they confirm the trustworthiness of His promises. Grace is their Alpha and truth is their Omega. But only those who faithfully and obediently keep His covenant and His testimonies are made partakers in His grace. To the Psalmist the name of Jehovah, which unfolds itself in grace and truth, is dear. On it he bases the prayer which follows. D. Mercy and truth are the paths in which God constantly walks in reference to the children of men; and so frequently does He show them mercy, and so frequently does He fulfil His truth, that His paths are easily discerned. How frequent, how deeply indented, and how multiplied are those tracks to every family and individual! But He is more abundantly merciful to those who keep His covenant and His testimonies; i.e., those who are conformed not only to the letter, but to the spirit of His pure religion. A. Clarke.—As His nature is love and truth, so all His ways are mercy and truth. They are "mercy" in respect of aiming at our good, and "truth" in respect of fulfilling His promises and faithful carriage to us; therefore, whatsoever befalls thee, though it be clean contrary to thy expectation, interpret it in love. T. Goodwin. 11. For Thy name's sake, O Lord, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.** The Psalmist useh two arguments, God's name and the greatness of his sin. And both are as good arguments as they were then. Charnock.—In the phrase, "For Thy name's sake," the nature of God, His attributes of character, are really expressed under the word "name." The force of the plea therefore as used in prayer is that on the ground of His infinite love, pity, compassion, He would show mercy in this particular case. C.—The greater the weight of misery under which you lie, the more need you have of mercy, and the more will be the glory of it in you. It is strange kind of argument used by the Psalmist, and yet a sure one; it concludes well and strongly. Lord, pardon my iniquity, for it is great. The soul pressed with the greatness of its sin lying heavy upon it may make that very pressure an argument to press the forgiveness of it at the hands of free mercy; it is for Thy name's sake, that makes it strong. Leighton. Mercy with relation to an offender is a disposition to forgive. Mercy in reference to a sufferer is a disposition to relieve. In the case of man and the Divine conduct toward him these two are inseparably united. Under the government of a holy and benevolent Deity misery uniformly presupposes guilt, and guilt as necessarily infers misery as an inevitable sequence. When the guilty are pardoned, the miserable are made happy. And when the miserable are made happy, it is by the taking away of the sin from which their misery originated. R. Wardlaw. In order to obtain remission of his sins, the sinner alleges to God that they are many and great. Verily so; and that not for love of the sinner nor for the love of sin, but for the love of the honor and glory of God; which glory, by how much the sins He forgives are greater and more numerous, by so much the more ennobles and exalts itself. And as the greatness of the Divine mercy is immense, and the multitude of His lovingkindnesses infinite, in order that the one and the other may in a certain manner have a proportionate material of glory, it is necessary to the very greatness of mercy that the sins to be pardoned should be great, and necessary to the very multitude of lovingkindnesses that they should be many. Viegra. The more miserable men are in their own sense, the fitter objects they are for God to show mercy unto. Thus it was with the publican, and so with the prodigal; therefore never doubt, though thy iniquities be never so great, there is a sea of mercy in God. Bernard well observes the difference between justice and mercy : justice requires that there should be desert, but mercy looks upon them that are miserable ; and, saith the father, true mercy doth affect misery : mercy doth not stand upon inquisition, but it is glad to find occasion of exercising itself. Stock. He confesses his great iniquity ; he pleads pardon for it. On what does he found his plea ? For Thy name's sake, O Lord ; Thou hast taken upon Thee that precious name, Jesus ; Thou wilt be salvation to the ends of the earth. Thy blood cleanseth from all sin ; wash me in it and I shall be whiter than snow ; all manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men. While these glorious truths stand upon record, I cannot doubt, I dare not despair ; the belief of them causes me to pray, and plead, and hope ; great as mine iniquity is, great as my distress is, yet Thou art a great God and Saviour, to pardon my sin and give peace to my soul. "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." Therefore heaven rings with acclamations of joy from such pardoned, glorified sinners, giving glory "unto Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood." W. Mason. Good people sometimes wonder, and sometimes are made doubtful and sad about themselves by this abiding and even increased consciousness of sin. There is no need to be so. The more our lives are brought into fellowship with the perfect life, the more shall we feel our own shortcomings. Let us be thankful if our consciences speak to us more loudly than they used to do. It is a sign of growing holiness, as the tingling in a frost-bitten limb is of returning life. Let us seek to cultivate and increase the sense of our own imperfection, and be sure that the diminution of a consciousness of sin means not diminished power of sin, but lessened horror of it, lessened perception of right, lessened love of goodness, and is an omen of death, not a symptom of life. A. M. 12. He guides him and will guide him. There is not only an affirmation, but a promise. The way, as in the foregoing context, is the providential way in which God directs the course of a man's life. His choosing it implies not only sovereign authority, but a gracious regard to the interests of His servant. 13. The land. The land of Canaan ; and as this was the standing promise of the law, uttered even in the decalogue (Ex. 20 : 12), it became a formula for all the blessings implicitly embraced in the promise of Canaan to the ancient Israel, and is so used even by our Lord Himself (Matt. 5 : 5). 14. The friendship of Jehovah is to (those) fearing Him, and His covenant to make them know. The word translated friendship means originally a company of persons sitting together (Psalm 111 : 1) ; then familiar conversation (Psalm 55 : 14) ; then confidential intercourse, intimacy, friendship (Prov. 3 : 32) ; then a confidence or secret (Prov. 11 : 13). The meaning of the whole verse seems to be that Jehovah condescends to hold familiar intercourse with those who fear Him, and enters into covenant relation with them for the purpose of making them know all that they need know for His service or their own advantage. A. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him. There is a vital sense in which "the natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God," and in which all the realities of Christian experience are utterly hid from his perceptions. To speak to him of communion with God, of the sense of pardon, of the lively expectation of heaven, of the witness of the Holy Ghost, of the struggles of the spiritual life, would be like reasoning with a blind man about colors, or with one deaf about musical harmony. J. Morison.—There are conditions by compliance with which God's Spirit comes into the soul with all its revelations—such conditions as these : "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." "With this man will I dwell, even with him that is of a meek and contrite spirit." "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine"—reverence, love, meekness, contrition, obedience ; these conditions having taken place, God enters into the soul, whispers His secret, becomes visible, imparts knowledge and conviction. F. W. R. —Seek earnestly the faith of full assurance ; and as a means to it, practise daily the faith of steady adherence. Love and obey God as faithfully as if you were absolutely certain of acceptance at last, and you will soon be certain of it here. "If any man will do the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine ;" and "Whosoever shall do the will of God," says our Saviour, "the same is My brother and sister and mother." F. D. H. If we are humble in our ignorance and confiding in our devotion ; if we submit ourselves to His discipline as not knowing what is best, and as not wishing to choose for ourselves ; as satisfied that He who has all power and knows all things will order all wisely, He will give us proofs of the wisdom of our trust ; the secret of the Lord will become ours ; we shall feel He "sees all as if that all were one ; loves one as if that one were all." H. Hooker.—Albeit the Lord's covenant with the visible Church be open, and plain in itself to all men in all the articles thereof, yet it is a mystery to know the inward sweet fellowship which a soul may have with God by virtue of this covenant; and a man fearing God shall know this mystery, when such as are covenanters only in the letter do remain ignorant thereof; for to the fearers of God only is this promise made—that to them the Lord will show His covenant. Dickson. It is neither learning nor labor that can give insight into God's secrets, those "mysteries of the kingdom of heaven." These things come by revelation, and must therefore be obtained by prayer. Those that diligently seek Him shall be of His Cabinet Council, shall know His soul secrets, and be admitted into a gracious familiarity and friendship. "Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of My Father I have made known unto you." Trapp.—Walking with God is the best way to know the mind of God; friends who walk together impart their secrets one to another: "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him." Noah walked with God, and the Lord revealed a great secret to him, of destroying the old world, and having him in the ark. Abraham walked with God, and God made him one of His privy council: "Shall I hide from Abraham that thing which I do?" T. Watson. Fellowship with God! the real communion of our minds with His!—what tongue can express it? what heart adequately conceive it? And yet this honor have all the saints. It is not a figure, not a flourish of rhetoric, no dream of the mystic. It is a great fact; and in reflecting upon it I have often been impressed with the words of a dying saint: "Preach it at my funeral, publish it at my burial, that the Lord converses familiarly with man." His secret is indeed with them that fear Him, and He will show them His covenant. How coarse and degrading by the side of this doctrine do those views of happiness appear which make it consist in pleasure; which, instead of setting man upon the improvement of himself, the perfection of his nature and the expansion of his energies in communion with God, send him in quest of the beggarly elements of earth, which all are to perish in the using! Thornwell. 15. He who has his eyes directed steadily toward God is ever in the praying mood, which cannot remain unanswered. This constant looking at God aims here at deliverance from hostile nets. It is He alone who can pull him out of the net of entangled circumstances of life into which he has come to be ensnared, not without guilt on his own part. D.—The writer claims to be fixed in his trust and constant in his expectation; he looks in confidence, and waits in hope. We may add to this look of faith and hope the obedient look of service, the humble look of reverence, the admiring look of wonder, the studious look of meditation, and the tender look of affection. Happy are those whose eyes are never removed from their God. S. 18. It is doubly painful that a sense of sin toward God should blend itself with countless other sorrows and trials, so that with every prayer for help must be mingled a cry for pardon of sin. But such is Christian experience, the purest joy of which is evermore that our Father above is plenteous in mercy and loves to blot out the sins of His penitent, believing people. C. 20. "O keep my soul" out of evil, "and deliver me" when I fall into it. This is another version of the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil." S. 22. Redeem, O God, Israel out of all his troubles! As the Psalm was designed, from the first, to be a vehicle of devout feeling and desire for the whole Church, it is here wound up with a petition showing this extent of purpose. The Psalmist prays no longer for himself, but for all Israel. A. The tendency of Christian mystics to divert the attention from Christ to the soul in which God and Christ dwell, so that self becomes the object of contemplation, is subtle, attractive, and dangerous. To contemplate what Christ effects in us, instead of what Christ is—to dwell on what He has given us, instead of the unsearchable riches and fulness of the Lord—will produce self-deception instead of self-judgment, and can only lower the standard of perfectness, which is none other but Christ Himself. Our great and constant desire ought to be to know Christ, and, having no confidence in the flesh, to rejoice in Him, waiting for His coming, when, delivered from the body of sin, we shall be like Him. The constant watching of the growth of the inner man leads us also "to mistake passing emotions for real and abiding love of good," and to exalt any peculiar intuition into a source of self-glorification. The minds that feel most attracted by the mystic writers need most to be on their guard in reading them. Let everything lead us to the spiritual and diligent study of the perfect, healthful, and precious Word of God. A. Saphir. 1. JUDGE me, O LORD, for I have walked in mine integrity : I have trusted also in the LORD without wavering. 2 Examine me, O LORD, and prove me ; Try my reins and my heart. 3 For thy lovingkindness is before mine eyes ; And I have walked in thy truth. 4 I have not sat with vain persons ; Neither will I go in with dissemblers. 5 I hate the congregation of evil-doers, And will not sit with the wicked. 6 I will wash mine hands in innocency ; So will I compass thine altar, O LORD : 7. That I may make the voice of thanksgiving to be heard, And tell of all thy wondrous works. 8 LORD, I love the habitation of thy house, And the place where thy glory dwelleth. 9 Gather not my soul with sinners, Nor my life with men of blood : 10 In whose hands is mischief [or, crime], And their right hand is full of bribes. 11 But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity : Redeem me, and be merciful unto me. 12 My foot standeth in an even place : In the congregations will I bless the LORD. THERE are wanting in this Psalm those touching confessions of sinfulness and pleadings for forgiveness which in the twenty-fifth Psalm are thrice repeated. Here is only the avowal of conscious uprightness—an avowal solemnly made as in the sight of the Searcher of hearts, and deriving, no doubt, much of its intensity and almost impassioned force from the desire, on the part of the singer, to declare his entire separation from and aversion to the vain and evil men by whom he is surrounded. 1. Judge me; i.e., vindicate my cause, so that my innocency may be made manifest; do me justice. Integrity; not moral perfection, but uprightness of heart, conscious sincerity of intention is meant, and this as resting on that unwavering trust in God which follows. P.—He cannot justify himself against the charge of sin; he owns his iniquity is great, and he is undone if God in His infinite mercy do not forgive him; but he can justify himself against the charge of hypocrisy, and has reason to hope that, according to the tenor of the covenant of grace, he is one of those that may expect to find favor with God. It is a comfort to those who are falsely accused that there is a righteous God, who sooner or later will clear up their innocency, and a comfort to all who are sincere in religion, that God Himself is a witness to their sincerity. H.—A good cause, a good conscience, and a good deportment, are good grounds of appeal to God. Ingram Cobbin. The Scriptures speak of integrity; in manifold and bold forms they commend it, and the good men of the Scripture times testify their consciousness of it in their appeals to God. David says repeatedly, “I have walked in mine integrity.” The Proverbs testify in language still more unqualified, “That the integrity of the upright shall preserve them;” “The just man walketh in his integrity.” In the same view it is that good men are so often called “the upright” and “the just”—“Mark the perfect man and behold the upright;” “The way of the just is uprightness, Thou most upright dost weigh the path of the just.” They are called “righteous” too and “right” in the same manner, and it is even declared that they “shall deliver their own souls by their righteousness.” And lest we should imagine that the integrity honored by so many commendations and examples is only a crude and partial conception, belonging to the piety of the Old Testament, the Christian disciples of the New are testifying also in a hundred ways to the integrity, before God and man, in which they consciously live. They dare to say that they have a conscience void of offence, that they serve God with a pure conscience, that they count it nothing to be judged of man’s judgment, when they know that God approves them. They rejoice in the confidence that they are made manifest unto God, and tenderly hope that they may be made manifest also in the consciences of men. They are so assured in the sense of their own integrity, as followers of Christ, that they even dare to exhort others to walk as they have them for examples. And this holy consciousness of being right with God, of being wholly offered up to Him, of wanting to know nothing but Christ, of losing all things for His sake, appears and reappears in as many forms as language can possibly take. They spend their life, as it were, in the testimony that they please God. Making the strongest confessions of ill desert, and resting their salvation everywhere on the justifying grace and righteousness of God, they still are able, somehow, to be free in professing their own conscious integrity in their discipleship, and the sense they have of being right and true—whole men, so to speak, in the service of their Master. A man of integrity (in the Psalmist's meaning) is a man whose aim, in the right, is a whole aim, in distinction from one whose aim is divided, partial, or unstable. It is such a state of right intention as allows the man to be consciously right-minded, and to firmly rest in the singleness of his purpose. It does not mean that he has never been a sinner or that he is not now, but simply that whatever may have been his life or the guilt of it, he is now turned as regards the intent of his soul to do and be wholly right; firmly set, of course, to receive all the possible helps in his reach, for maintaining a life wholly right with God and man. Bushnell. 2. Try me, Jehovah, and prove me; assay my reins and my heart. The first verb is supposed by etymologists to signify originally trial by touch, the second by smell, and the third by fire. In usage, however, the second is constantly applied to moral trial or temptation, while the other two are frequently applied to the testing of metals by the touchstone or the furnace. This is indeed the predominant usage of the third verb, which may therefore be represented by the technical metallurgic term, assay. Reins and heart are joined, as seats of the affections. The prayer of this verse is an appeal to God's omniscience for the Psalmist's integrity of purpose. A.—It is not so much a challenge that God would satisfy Himself of his innocence as rather a prayer to prove the state of his mind; and if it be not as he himself deems, that He would make that clear to him. D. Prove, purify. Words used of testing metals; the last especially of trying and refining them by means of smelting. The reins, as the seat of the lower animal passions; the heart, as comprising not only the higher affections, but also the will and the conscience. He thus desires to keep nothing back; he will submit himself to the searching flame of the Great Refiner, that all dross of self-deception may be purged away. P. As gold by fire is severed and parted from dross, so singleness of heart and true Christian simplicity is best seen and made most evident in troubles and afflictions. In prosperity every man will seem godly, but afflictions do draw out of the heart whatsoever is there, whether it be good or bad. Cawdray.—God knows every man's true character, for He knows the thoughts and intents of the heart, and sees through every disguise. David prays, Lord, examine me; which intipates that he was well pleased that God did know him, and truly desirous that He would discover him to Himself, and discover him to all the world. H.—This is a very bold appeal, and made by a man like David, who feared the Lord exceedingly, it manifests a most solemn and complete conviction of innocence. The expressions here used should teach us the thoroughness of the Divine judgment, and the necessity of being in all things profoundly sincere, lest we be found wanting at the last. S. Here is the true and proper method of self-examination: it must be accomplished under and through the scrutiny or inspecting power of God; we truly prove ourselves when He proves us, and may rightly approve ourselves only when He approves us. God is manifested always in the consciousness of them that love Him, and are right toward Him. They need not go into any curious self-examination that will only confuse and obscure the witness. They will know God by an immediate knowledge or revelation. They will have His Spirit witnessing with theirs. They will have the testimony that they please God. In their simple love they will know God's love to them; for he that loveth knoweth God. For a man then to be obliged to examine himself, and study and cipher over himself to find out whether he is a child of God or not, is no good sign; for if he is, he should have a witness more immediate, and should want no such information at all. God knows him perfectly, and if God has revealed Himself in the consciousness, if he has the witness of God and the testimony that he pleases God, what more can he have? and if he has not this at all, what can he have, or what, by self-scrutiny, find to make good the want of it? Bushnell. God's proving does not mean that He stands by watching how His child will behave. He helps us to sustain the trial to which He subjects us. Life is all probation; and because it is so, it is all a field for the Divine aid. The motive of His proving men is that they may be strengthened. He puts us into His gymnasium to improve our physique. If we stand the trial, our faith is increased; if we fall, we learn self-distrust and closer clinging to Him. A. M. 3. He tells us how confidingly he sets himself in God's light. God's grace is that on which his eye is fixed, the delight of his eye, and he walks in God's truth. This lovingkindness of God has hitherto been steadily the model of his life, this truth of God the rule and boundary of his walk. D. To be duly effective, truth must not merely fall from the lip, but breathe forth from the life; it must come, not like incense from the censer that only holds it, but like fragrance from a flower, exhaling from a nature suffused with it throughout. Caird.—If we set God's lovingkindness before us as our pattern, to which we endeavor to conform ourselves, if we set it before us as our great engagement and encouragement to duty, and are afraid of doing anything to forfeit God's favor, and in care by all means to keep ourselves in His love; this will not only be a good evidence of our integrity, but will have a great influence upon our perseverance in it. "I have walked in Thy truth, according to Thy law, for Thy law is truth." Those only may expect the benefit of God's lovingkindness that live up to His truths, and His laws that are grounded upon them. 4. This also was an evidence of his faithfulness to his God, that he never associated with those who he had any reason to think were disaffected to religion, or were open enemies or false friends to its interests. Great care to avoid bad company is both a good evidence of our integrity and a good means to preserve us in it. H. 5. Friendship, according to the philosopher, is one soul in two bodies. But how can they ever be of one soul that are as different as air and earth, and as contrary as fire and water? All true love is a motion of the soul toward the enjoyment of God for himself and his neighbors for God's sake; so that he can never truly love man who doth not love his Maker. God is the only foundation upon which we can build friendship; therefore such as live without Him cannot love us in Him. Swinnock. 6. Not content with abstaining from all share in the counsels of the wicked, he is fully resolved to adhere to the service of the Lord. He will cleanse himself from all that would unfit him for that service, and then cleave to the sanctuary where God dwells. The idea expressed is that of close adherence and devoted attachment. A.—The washing of the hands is elsewhere a symbolical act, it is here merely a figurative confession of his consciousness of innocence, and is naturally suggested in this form, from the idea of the priest washing himself preparatory to service being associated with the idea of the altar. D. "So will I compass Thine altar, O Lord." Priests unto God must take great care to be personally cleansed; the brazen laver was as needful as the golden altar; God's worship requires us to be holy in life. We must not bring our thank offerings with hands defiled with guilt. We see from this verse that holy minds delight in the worship of the Lord, and that it is their deepest concern never to enter upon any course of action which would unfit them for communion with God. S.—One morning, as Gotthold was pouring water into a basin, he recollected the words of Scripture: "I will wash my hands in innocence." Upon this he mused, and said, "Henceforth, my God, when I pour out water to wash with, let me call to mind my duty to cleanse my hands from wicked actions, my mouth from wicked words, and my heart from wicked desires, that so I may be enabled to lift holy hands unto Thee, and with unspotted lips and heart worship Thee." "Emblems." 7. "And tell of all Thy wondrous works." God's people should not be tongue tied. God's works of love are wondrous if we consider the unworthiness of their objects, the costliness of their method, and the glory of their result. And as men find pleasure in discoursing upon things remarkable and astonishing, so the saints should rejoice to tell of the great things which the Lord hath done for them. S.—In his attendance on God's ordinances he aimed at the glory of God, and was much in the thankful praise and adoration of Him. He had an eye to the place of worship as the place where God's honor dwelt, and therefore made it his business there to honor God and to give Him the glory due to His name; to publish with the voice of thanksgiving all God's wondrous works. God's gracious works, which call for our thanksgiving, are all wondrous works, which call for our admiration. We ought to publish them and tell of them for His glory and the excitement of others to praise Him; and we ought to do it with the voice of thanksgiving, as those that are sensible of our obligations. H. 8. Jehovah, I have loved the habitation of Thy house, and the place of the dwelling of Thy glory. This verse shows that his compassing the altar was intended to denote his love for the earthly residence of God, the altar being there put for the whole sanctuary, which is here distinctly mentioned. A.—If there is to be a real, lasting love for our churches in the hearts of Christian men, it must be because we believe them to be centres of Christian life through the grace of God. No external beauty, no desire to improve the outside of religion, can avail if there be rottenness within. To love the Lord Jesus Christ, to adhere to those plain, simple Gospel doctrines which are set forth in the New Testament—this must be the strength of our reformed Church. To this its ministers and people are pledged by their very declaration that they rest all their hopes on the pure word of God. A. C. Tait. 9. The Lord hath a harvest and a gleaning time also, set for cutting down and binding together in the fellowship of judgments God's enemies, who have followed the same course of sinning; for here we are given to understand that God will "gather their souls," and so will let none escape. Dickson. 11. Trusting in God, the Psalmist resolves that the plain way of righteousness shall be his choice, and those who will may prefer the tortuous paths of violence and deceit. Yet he is by no means a self-righteous vaunter of his own strength, for he cries for redemption and pleads for mercy. Our integrity is not absolute nor inherent, it is a work of grace in us, and is marred by human infirmity; we must, therefore, resort to the redeeming blood and to the throne of mercy, confessing that though we are saints among men, we still bow as sinners before God. S. 12. The epilogue. The prayer is changed into rejoicing, which is certain of the answer that shall be given. Hitherto shut in, as it were, in deep trackless gorges, he even now feels himself to be standing upon a pleasant plain, commanding a wide range of vision, and now blends his grateful praise of God with the song of the worshipping congregation and its full-voiced choirs. D.—The even place upon which our foot stands is the sure covenant faithfulness, eternal promise and immutable oath of the Lord of Hosts; there is no fear of falling from this solid basis or of its being removed from under us. Established in Christ Jesus by being vitally united to Him, we have nothing left to occupy our thoughts but the praises of our God. Let us not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, and when assembled, let us not be slow to contribute our portion of thanksgiving. S. 1. THE LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? 2 When evil doers came upon me to eat up my flesh, Even mine adversaries and my foes, they stumbled and fell. 3 Though an host should encamp against me, My heart shall not fear: Though war should rise against me, Even then will I be confident. 4 One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after; That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in his temple. 5 For in the day of trouble he shall keep me secretly in his pavilion: In the covert of his tabernacle shall he hide me; He shall lift me up upon a rock 6 And now shall mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round about me; And I will offer in his tabernacle sacrifices of joy; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises unto the LORD. 7 Hear, O LORD, when I cry with my voice: Have mercy also upon me, and answer me. 8 When thou saidst, Seek ye my face; my heart said unto thee, Thy face, LORD, will I seek. 9 Hide not thy face from me; Put not thy servant away in anger: Thou hast been my help; Cast me not off, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation. 10 For my father and my mother have forsaken me, But the LORD will take me up. 11 Teach me thy way, O LORD; And lead me in a plain path, Because of mine enemies [them that lie in wait for me]. 12. Deliver me not over unto the will of mine adversaries : For false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty. THE Psalmist breathes his longing for the Divine fellowship, which shall be at once vision and guidance, and hidden life in distress, and stability, and victory, and shall break into music of perpetual praise. A. M.—To remain all his life near to God's house is here his one prayer, and that, delivered from his enemies, he will there yet present his thank-offering is his confident expectation. D.—The expression of confidence occurs at the beginning and the end, the description of the danger and the prayer for deliverance in the body of the Psalm. If God be for him and admit him to His household, he is satisfied and safe (vs. 1-6). With this persuasion he implores that God will interpose for his deliverance from present danger (vs. 7-12). If he did not believe that God would grant his request he must despair; but as he does believe it, he encourages himself to wait for it (vs. 13, 14). There is no apparent reference to any particular historical occasion, but an obvious intention to provide a vehicle of pious sentiment for all God's people under the form of trial here described. A. The Psalm consists of an expression of the most assured confidence in Jehovah, whatever enemies may threaten, and an earnest cry for help and comfort in present need, out of which the soul rises again to hopeful trust in God. P.—He must have little knowledge of the fluctuations of the devout life who is surprised to find so swift a passage from confidence to conscious weakness. While the usual order in the Psalms, as the usual order in good men's experience, is that prayer for deliverance precedes praise and triumph, true communion with God is bound to no mechanical order, and may begin with gazing on God, and realizing the mysteries of beauty in His secret place, ere it drops to earth. It is perhaps a nobler effect of faith to begin with God and hymn the victory as if already won, than to begin with trouble and to call for deliverance. But with whichever we commence, the prayer of earth must include both; and so long as we are weak, and God our strength, its elements must be "supplication and thanksgiving." The prayer of our Psalm bends round again to its beginning, 13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. 14. Wait on the LORD : Be strong, and let thine heart take courage ; Yea, wait thou on the LORD. and after the plaintive cry for help breaks once more into confidence (vs. 13, 14). A. M. I. Though darkness break in upon him, the darkness of night, of trouble, of temptation, Jehovah is his light, and if he is in Him, he is in the light, and there shines on him a sun which never sets and suffers no eclipse. That God is light is no metaphor. David calls Him his salvation in view of all that oppresses him, and the stronghold of his life in view of all which endangers him; in Jehovah he overcomes far and wide, in Him is his life hidden as in a rocky fortress. D. My light. This is the first, and, in the Old Testament, the only passage in which the term "light" is expressly applied to the Lord; although expressions full of the same beautiful thought occur in Isa. 60: 1-20 and Micah 7: 8. In the New Testament we read "God is light" (1 John 1: 5); Christ "the true light" (John 1: 7-9); and the Lamb the light of the Church (Rev. 21: 23). Cook. The combination of the two ideas, "light and salvation," is very suggestive. Light is essential to life, health, and growth. Owing to this healing, life-giving power of natural light, we see how it becomes the salvation of the natural man. He owes to it all the vital force by which he conquers and beats back the foes of nature that seek to destroy his life. And in regard to our souls, the Lord is our salvation because He is our light. What the sunlight is to the plant, God is to the soul. He is the source of our spiritual life. Between Him and the nature which He formed in the image of Himself there is the closest and the most intimate relationship. They are co-natural. Apart from Him the soul can find no substitute for God, none to fill His place, none to induce the sweet contentment and calm repose which it seeks. "Whom have I in the heavens but Thee; and there is none upon the earth whom I desire besides Thee;" this is the deepest language of the soul. The good of man is to be found in the deepened sense of God's love, in the clear revelation of His grace and the fuller enjoyment of His peace. If He lifts upon us the light of His countenance, we are saved in the truest and highest sense. No assertion, then, of our dependence upon God for the creation and maintenance of the life of our souls can be too absolute. We need all of God for our saving health, for the very life of our souls. All His qualities, all His powers, are indispensable for our spiritual existence. In Christ Jesus, God in all His fulness has come very near to us; is our brother-born; lies in our bosoms; dwells in our hearts, and transfigures us into His own likeness, as the sunflower becomes an image of the sun. And thus having God as his light and his salvation, the Psalmist might well say, "Whom shall I fear?" Having his heart at rest in God, and having his times in God's hands, what cause for fear remained? With peace within and light without, he was raised above all earthly fears. His eyes were opened; and while he was compassed about with foes innumerable and most formidable, he saw himself at the same time surrounded with horses and chariots of fire, and realized that greater was He that was with him than all that could be against him; that the hostile things and persons of life could have no power at all against him, were it not given them for wise and gracious purposes by his heavenly Father. And so, if we fear God, we need know no other fear. He has taken away all that causes us to fear; all that can affright us is in the firm control of a wise and loving almighty hand. All providence becomes to us special providence; all things are eager and tender ministers to us. More important interests are involved in our salvation than in the fate of the whole natural creation; and sooner than a hair of our head shall be injured, God would bury the whole physical world in ruin. God is our refuge and strength: a very present help in trouble; therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed. Perfect trust in God is perfect peace. H. Macmillan. To know that "God is light" is one thing, and to be able to say, "The Lord is my light," is quite another thing. The Lord must be the light by which the way of life is made plain to us—the light by which we may see to walk in that way—the light that exposes the darkness of sin—the light by which we can discover the hidden sins of our own hearts. When He is thus our light, then He is our salvation also. He is pledged to guide us right; not only to show us sin, but to save us from it. Not only to make us see God's hatred of sin, and His curse upon it, but also to draw us unto God's love, and to take away the curse. With the Lord lighting us along the road of salvation, who, or what need we fear? Our life is hid with Christ in God. We are weak, very weak, but His "strength is made perfect in weakness." With the Lord Himself pledged to be the strength of our life, of whom need we be afraid? Anon. When we can truly say, "Christ is all," then God enables us to add, "And Christ is mine." When we have no righteousness of our own, when we can find nothing within ourselves wherein to trust and rejoice, when we feel our exceeding sinfulness and helplessness—then God comforts us with His abundant mercy. We behold the amazing, infinite, and immutable love of God; we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Jesus Himself is our righteousness, our beauty. We sing the new song. God is our light and our salvation. Saphir. The true test question by which every man is to try his religion is this, Have I found God in it? Has it more than pleased me? has it pierced me, brought me to the light, given me to know God? If it has not done this for you, too little cannot be made of it. And the sooner it is cast behind you, with all its fine sentiments, in a total turning of your heart to God Himself, the better. The life of God in the soul of man—that is religious character, and beside that there is none. And that is salvation, without which there is no salvation. For this it is that makes salvation; that the soul, before without God, alienated from the life of God, is won back to a real God-welcome, and has Him revealed inwardly in holy Fatherhood, as the life of its life. Hungry as the prodigal, it has come back from its wanderings in shameful penitence, to be greeted with a kiss, and clothed again, and feasted, and hear its Father say, "O dead, thou art alive again!" Bushnell. 3. Here is great courage for the time to come. "Experience breeds hope and confidence." David was not so courageous a man of himself; but upon experience of God's former comfort and assistance, his faith brake as fire out of the smoke, or as the sun out of a cloud. He that seeth God by a spirit of faith in His greatness and power, he sees all other things below as nothing. Therefore, he saith here, he cares not for the time to come for any opposition; no, not of an army. "If God be with us, who can be against us?" Sibbes.—Those who are willing to be combatants for God, shall also be more than conquerors through God. None are so truly courageous as those who are truly religious. If a Christian live, he knows by whose might he stands; and if he die, he knows for whose sake he falls. Where there is no confidence in God, there will be no continuance with God. W. Secker. 4. One thing.** Changes, great changes, and many bereavements there have been in my life. But one thing has never failed—one thing makes me feel that my life has been one; it has calmed my joys, it has soothed my sorrows, it has guided me in difficulty, it has strengthened me in weakness. It is the presence of God—a faithful and loving God. The presence of God is not only light, it is unity. It gives unity to the heart that believes it—unity to the life that is conformed to it. It was the presence of God in David's soul that enabled him to say, "One thing have I desired of the Lord;" and in Paul's that enabled him to say, "This one thing I do." George Wagner.—This "one thing," that David desires, is in effect that one thing needful that Christ speaks of in the Gospel; which Mary makes choice of there, as David doth here. R. Baker. A lifelong residence in Jehovah's house, and therefore an intimate inward intercourse with the God who has His dwelling, His residence in the holy tent, is the one heart's desire of David, so that he may delight himself by gazing upon the gracious revelation of Him that can be seen there by the spiritual eye. D.—His one desire is not to be freed from foes and dangers, but to have more intimate fellowship and communion with God. This was his one cherished wish, which he carried in prayer to Him who alone could grant it. One thing have I desired, literally, asked, of Jehovah. And this he would continue to seek after, seek by prayer and by all the appointed means. That I may dwell in the house of Jehovah: be received as a member of His family, not an occasional or temporary guest, but a permanent resident. The reference is not to attendance upon public worship at the sanctuary so much as to the symbolic meaning of that sacred edifice. It was the dwelling-place of God, where His presence was continually manifested. The Psalmist wished to live with God, to be ever near Him, to have the constant sense of His presence and favor. And this he would do, not merely on Sabbath days or special occasions, not merely for a brief period, but all the days of my life. W. H. G. Such happiness had he experienced in the service of God in His tabernacle, such peace and joy had he found there, that there, if it might have been, he would have chosen always to remain. For there God vouchsafed to dwell; there He manifested His immediate presence; there David seemed, as it were, to abide under the very shadow of the Almighty. The supreme blessedness of a life entirely devoted, like that of the priests, to the service of God, seems often to have forced itself upon the minds of the holy Psalmists, and upon none more than upon that of David, who was compelled so often to wander at a distance from the sanctuary. There is the same feeling here of the perfect security and abounding happiness of such a dwelling-place as in Psalm 23: 6. Indeed, the two Psalms have much in common. P. Prayer, praise, thanksgiving, contemplation, are the peculiar privilege and duty of a Christian, and that for their own sakes; from the exceeding comfort and satisfaction they afford him, and without reference to any definite results to which prayer tends, and without reference to the answers promised to it, from a general sense of the blessedness of being under the shadow of God's throne. Newman.—His deepest desire was that he might "dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life," an impossible wish, if he meant nothing more thereby than bodily participation and presence in the ritual worship of an external sanctuary. He meant that, but he meant it for the sake of what it meant, and that was union with God in faith and love, in aspiration and desire. Communion with God is true blessedness. Without it there is none. To live near Him, to have His dear name sealed upon our hearts so to keep all their springs pure; to bear constant regard to Him in all acts, and to have thoughts of Him flowing in unbroken current through our lives, like the clear streams that run through the dusty streets of some cities—this is the secret of all life being blessed. A. M. Communion and fellowship with God is that one thing, which if a Christian has, he needs desire no more; that we should all desire and desire again, and that is enough even to satisfy us, the fruition of God, and the beholding of Him in His ordinances, in His temple, to have correspondence and fellowship and communion with Him. Now this is so infinitely sweet, that it was the Psalmist's only desire, and the sum of all his desires here, and therefore much more in the tabernacle of heaven, which doth make up the consummation and completeness of all our happiness. J. Stoughton. Beauty of the Lord. The several perfections which co-exist and unite in the nature of God produce a glorious beauty. Holiness is beautiful; mercy is beautiful; truth is beautiful. But, over and above, there is a beauty which belongs to such combinations and harmonies as the Psalmist describes, when he tells us, "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." "Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; and Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the clouds. Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep." A. Gray. To inquire in His temple. The more grace the more business ye will find ye have to do with God in His ordinances; little grace hath little to do, and much grace hath much to do; he hath always business with God, special, earnest business. R. Steele.—Not seeking sinners alone, but assured saints should be inquirers. We must inquire as to the will of God and how we may do it; as to our interest in the heavenly city, and how we may be more assured of it. We shall not need to make inquiries in heaven, for there we shall know even as we are known; but meanwhile we should sit at Jesus' feet, and awaken all our faculties to learn of Him. S. We shall never see the glory of that light which dwells between the cherubim, if our visits to the shrine are brief and interrupted, and the bulk of our time is spent outside the tabernacle amid the glaring sand and the blazing sunshine. The Psalmist desired to "dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of his life, that he might behold the beauty of the Lord"—for he knew that only such continuousness of abode would fit his eyes to see the light, and attune his ears to hear the voice of answer to him inquiring in the temple. Let us fix our eyes on Him—our Lord. Surely there is enough there to draw and satisfy the most prolonged eager gaze. He is our Example, our Redeemer, our Prophet. In Him we see all of God that man can apprehend, and all of man. In Him we behold our wisdom, our strength, our righteousness. We may gaze on Him with the confident look of faith, with the submission of obedience, with the rapture of love. A. M. 5. By his tent, as appears from the preceding verse, we are to understand the tabernacle, not considered merely as a place of public worship, but as Jehovah's earthly residence, His mansion. In the last clause the idea of protection is conveyed by an entirely different figure, that of a person placed upon a high rock beyond the reach of danger. A.—God's sanctuary is a sheltering asylum on a hill, where Jehovah safely guards him who flees thither, from the storms of trouble without; there he is inaccessible to any dangers; he has them far beneath him, and his feet rest on a rock. D.—The gracious presence of God, His power, His promise, His readiness to hear prayer, the witness of His Spirit in the hearts of His people; these are the secret of His tabernacle, and in these the saints find cause for that holy security and seserenity of mind in which they dwell at ease. This sets them up upon a rock which will not sink under them, but on which they find firm footing for their hopes; nay, it sets them upon a rock on high, where the raging, threatening billows of a stormy sea cannot touch them; it is a rock that is higher than we (61: 2). H. The time of trouble. Though God does not always deliver His people out of trouble, yet He delivers them from the evil of trouble, the despair of trouble, by supporting the spirit; nay, He delivers by trouble, for He sanctifies the trouble to cure the souls, and by less troubles delivers from greater. D. M.—How blessed it is to have a friend in God! How supremely wretched to have no place where to hide till the storm be overblown—no secret pavilion into which we may run from the strife of tongues! To depend, in the last extremity, on selfish human nature, is like the dependence of an army marching on the undermined soil, which rings hollow to every tread. God is a Friend for adversity, unwearied, of the utmost tenderness, patient in bearing with the wildest caprices and the manifold infirmities of those whom He admits into the sacred relation of friendship. He places Himself before His creatures in this endearing character. He invites them to enter into an eternal covenant of friendship. He pledges His own existence that He will fulfil its conditions. A faithful God has been His characteristic from the beginning. An all-sufficient voucher of His sincerity He has given in the blood of His Son. B. B. Edwards. 7-12. As in so many Psalms of David, there follows a rapid and complete change of tone. So long as the Psalmist fixes his thoughts wholly on God's grace and promise, he has no feeling but joy and exultation; but when he reverts to his own state he is brought at once to his knees in earnest, almost plaintive prayers. 8. The original runs thus, word for word: "To Thee said my heart, in answer to Thy command, 'Seek ye My face;' Thy face, O Lord, will I seek." The Psalmist hears the voice of invitation, his heart accepts and answers it; and, in order to express the completeness and promptitude of his acceptance, he puts the command and answer in direct juxtaposition. In plain unimpassioned prose the thought would be thus expressed: "Seek ye My face," that is the invitation which my heart heard, and answered at once, "Thy face, Lord, will I seek." The heart pleads the command and invitation; it addresses itself at once to God; this, it says, is what I heard; when I heard, I answered and obeyed. Cook.—The true nature of religious worship is seeking the face of God; this it is in God's precept, Seek ye My face. He would have us seek Him for Himself, and make His favor our chief good; and this it is in the saint's purpose and desire, "Thy face, Lord, will I seek; and nothing less will I take up with." The opening of His hand will satisfy the desire of other living things, but it is only the shining of His face that will satisfy the desire of a living soul. H. We have here, summed up in a kind of dialogue of two phrases, the whole speech of God to us men, and the inmost meaning of all that devout souls say to God. "Seek ye My face"—such is the essential meaning of all God's words and works. "Thy face, Lord, will I seek"—such is the essential meaning of all prayer, worship, and obedience. A. M.—What is prayer but speaking to God—and what are answers from heaven but God's reply to us? And wherever, therefore—in the study, the street, or in any toil or pursuit of the world, or amid the array of this world's difficulties—wherever you may be, you can pour out the heart in expressions of desire or gratitude, of need or weakness, of praise and longing. Wherever such expressions rise from the heart, they are more precious than when they are stately expressed at morning dawn and at evening close because they are the spontaneous, the unprovoked expressions of a heart that in its silent depths is in communion with God, and lets forth only the incidental evidences of its deep and solemn, but silent, intercourse maintained within. Cumming. Seek my face. The heart of all His self-revelation by speech and by deed is the gracious call to come to His brightness and be at rest. By the very make of our spirits, which bear on them alike in their weakness and their strength the sign that they are His, and can only be at rest in Him, He says, "Seek ye My face." By all His providences of joy or sorrow, by disappointments and fulfilments, by hopes and fruitions, by losses and gains, by all the alternations which "toss us to His breast," He says, "Seek ye My face." And most of all in Jesus Christ, the true "angel of His face," in whom all the lustre of His radiance is gathered, does He beckon us to Himself. The highest, most loving, most beseeching form of that wonderful invitation, "Seek ye My face," is the call of Him in whose face we see the glory of God as we see it nowhere besides: "Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden." So He speaks to the whole world. So He speaks to each of us. So He speaks to me by Christ, who is the dearest utterance of His love and the express image of His person. A. M. The knowledge of God begins by looking unto Jesus. It grows by abiding in His presence and keeping up communion with Him. As soon as we come to Him we receive something of His Spirit, and are able to understand a little. As we stay with Him and walk with Him we receive more and more of His Spirit, and are able to understand more and more; for the two processes go on hand in hand. The more we see of the Divine in Him, the more we receive of the Divine in ourselves; and, conversely, the more we receive of the Divine in ourselves, the more we see of the Divine in Him. By equal steps, step by step, no one can tell which is the first. J. M. Gibson. When does God say, "Seek ye My face"? He says it especially in the way and at the time that our heart is most disposed to hear it. In your first real trouble His heart begins to touch your heart in a secret way, and His living presence is pleading, "Seek ye My face." The world cannot help you and comfort you. The deeper instincts of your heart spring up in the day of trouble toward God, and God sees it, for you are palpitating within yourself to meet His face. J. Pulsford.—Such is the experience of those who seek and find God. Their aching heart seizes upon some precious words of Divine invitation and promise; they think of them as the words of God; and then their heart goes out in trustful, grateful response—"Thy face, Lord, will I seek." C.—Note the firm and decisive resolution shining through the very brevity of the words. The original gives that brevity even more strongly. Three words suffice to hold the law which the man has made for the pole-star of his life. Fixed resolves need short professions. What a contrast that clear, self-conscious, firm resolution is to the hesitations and indecisions so common among us! How few of us could honestly crystallize the aims that guide our life into any single sentence! A. M. If you would make a call effectual, you must receive it into the innermost recesses of your soul and recognize and feel the nature of the claim which He who speaks has upon you to whom He calls. Remember that it is the right of an absolute Sovereign. But it is not in sovereignty only, it is in love He has called you. All you have to do is to let yourselves be placed within those majestic influences of His powerful affection, that you may be drawn in and toward the centre. Another most important part of the right reception of the call lies in the quickness, the instantaneousness of the obedience: "When Thou saidst." The appeal and the reply are coeval. There is a "Now or never" in God's calls. God's calls and invitations are not always such things as we should have expected. They often fall strangely. Upon our faithfulness to each one in succession depend the vividness and the power with which the other will fall. There is one thing which appears to characterize every call; i.e., a call to action. There is always something to be done, and to do the act is to accept the call. J. V. God pours upon a man a spirit of grace and supplication, a praying disposition; He puts in motives, suggests arguments and pleas to God; all which you shall find come in readily and of themselves, and that likewise with a quickening heat and enlargement of affection, and with a longing and restlessness of spirit to be alone, to pour out the soul to God, and to vent and form those motions and suggestions into a prayer, till you have laid them together and made a prayer of them. And this is a speaking to the heart. Observe such times when God doth thus and neglect them not, then to strike while the iron is hot; thou hast then His ear. T. Goodwin.—God is never better pleased than when His people importune Him in His own words, and urge Him with arguments taken from His own promises. T. Brooks. 9. We have in v. 8 God's voice to the heart and the heart's echo to that voice, and here the heart's cry to God, founded on both the Divine voice and the human echo. What God has been saying to him in days that are no more, and what he has been saying to God, are planted like the two piers of an arch, that from them may rise heavenward the prayer and the hope, "Hide not Thy face far from me;" "Leave me not, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation." A. M.—"Thy face, Lord, will I seek, in obedience to Thy command; therefore hide not Thy face from me; let me never want the reviving sense of Thy favor; love me and let me know that Thou lovest me; put not Thy servant away in anger." He owns he had deserved God's displeasure, but begs that however God might correct him He would not cast him away from His presence. H. Love works in believing hearts toward its beloved object. It cannot bear distance from Christ. The dread of it makes the soul plead and fills the mouth with arguments, lest the heart should lose the sweet sense and comfort of His love. "Thou hast been my help." Past experiences of love and power are remembered, and pleaded for present help and future hope. God's precious promises of faithfulness and truth cannot be forgotten. Past mercies are recalled. "Forsake me not." Why? Because "Thou art the God of my salvation." To whom should we go, but to Thee, O Jesus? Forsake not the work of Thine own hands; the soul for whom Thou didst toil, suffer, and die. Recall my wandering steps. Revive my drooping spirit. Bring near Thy salvation in present peace and love. Such are the pleadings of loving hearts, springing from the faith which worketh by love. It ever hath God in Christ for its object, His faithfulness and truth its support, His promises its pleas, His glory its aim, and the comforting sense of His love its portion and heaven. W. Mason. 10. For my father and my mother have left me, and Jehovah will take me in. Parents are here put for the nearest friends, whose loss or desertion is frequently complained of in the Psalms as one of the most painful signs of desolation. The first clause may also be translated, when my father and my mother have left me, then the Lord will take me in. The last expression is applied to the compassionate reception of strangers or wanderers into one's house. The case described is an ideal one, and may be thus expressed in paraphrase. "The kindness of the nearest earthly friends may cease by death or desertion (for the verb to leave may comprehend both); but the Lord's compassions cannot fail." A.—This verse simply expresses, in a well-known proverbial form, the thought that even were he forsaken by all who loved him most tenderly God would never give him up. The force and beauty of such an appeal depend upon the feeling that a parent's love is the strongest bond that can bind man to man, yet incomparably weaker than that which binds him to God. Cook. Why both named—father and mother, too? Partly because it can hardly be imagined that both of them should forsake their child, though one should hap to be unkind. Partly, because the father's love being commonly with more providence, the mother's with more tenderness; both together do better express than alone either would do, the abundant love of God toward us, who is infinitely dear over us, beyond the care of the most provident father, beyond the affection of the tenderest mother. R. Sanderson. The excellence of the Hebrew devotional hymns has never been surpassed. Heathenism, Christianity, with all their science, arts, literature, bright and many-colored, have little that approaches these. They are the despair of imitators; still the uttered prayer of the Christian world. Tell us of Greece, whose air was redolent of song; its language such as Jove might speak; its sages, heroes, poets, honored in every clime—they have no Psalm of prayer and praise like these Hebrews, the devoutest of men, who saw God always before them, ready to take them up when father and mother let them fall.” Theodore Parker. 11,12. He wanders about presently like a hunted deer; but God can so guide him that he may escape all dangers. That is what he asks. Cunning spies follow all his steps, and would rejoice if they saw what they planned and wished come to pass. Should he slide into the way of sin leading to destruction, that would be to God’s dishonor, just as on the other hand it is a point of honor with God not to allow His servant to fall. Hence he prays that he may be led in God’s way; for oneness of one’s own will with the Divine renders one invulnerable. D.—Righteous David saw many who were waiting to triumph in his mistakes; hence the more they watched, the more he prayed: “Teach me Thy way, O Lord, and lead me in a plain path, because of mine enemies.” It may be rendered, because of mine observers. Men are merciless in their censures of Christians; they have no sympathy for their infirmity: while God weighs them in more equal scales, and says, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” While a saint is a dove in the eyes of God, he is only a raven in the estimation of sinners. W. Secker. The expression is not “Show me Thy way,” but “Teach me Thy way.” Showing may be an instantaneous act, but teaching is a process. We learn gradually; we learn by study; we learn by effort; we learn by discipline. It is no little thing you ask, and it is no little submission and work and faith that you commit yourself to, when you say to God, “Teach me Thy way.” J. V.—While in the general we set God’s will before us as our rule, we may lawfully pray that he will by hints of providence direct us in the way of our duty, and give us indications what His mind is. Thus He guides His people and leads them in a plain path. H. The leading of God when we are in the way, is to be looked for by us in and through His ordinary providence. If you are in the way of duty, of faith and of prayer, be sure that somehow through the common incidents of your life He will guide your feet into the right path. W. M. Taylor.—God’s rule is the same in providence that it is in grace. By any and by all means He will draw us; force us, never. Surely we may see this in the word “lead.” No one is compelled to follow a guide. The plain fact is, that Divine Providence is to us just what we suffer it to be. Bishop Thorold. 13. The words “I had fainted” are not in the original. The sentence is a broken one, such as one utters under strong emotion, suggesting possibilities, but leaving the hearer or reader to supply them for himself. “O had I not believed to see the goodness of Jehovah in the land of the living”—and then he breaks off, and we are left to imagine what dreadful thing would have happened. “Unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord.” God’s goodness is often a matter of faith rather than of sight. We are prone to take it for granted that God’s goodness must always come into our lives like ripened fruit; whereas, as a fact, it often comes into them like a seed which takes time to grow. “Light is sown for the righteous.” And we shall find that the richest developments of God’s goodness are of this character. V. It is not hard to believe in the Divine goodness when all things are joyous. The hard thing is to believe in it just as firmly and quietly when all things seem against us. The goodness of God is just as surely and as richly revealed in the dark things of providence as in the bright things. We write some things as “prosperous” and some as “adverse.” God writes “goodness” over all. J. R. M. Unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. A cordial made up of three sovereign ingredients—a hope to see; and to see the goodness of God; and the goodness of God in the land of the living. R. Baker.—His goodness sets His mighty power a-work for His suffering saints. His goodness sets His all-sufficiency, His fulness, abroach for them, so that it runs freely upon them; and never more freely than when they are under the cross. D. Clarkson.—They have an invisible Friend always near them. He supports them by His power under all their trials and conflicts, revives their spirits with the consolations of His Word; and when He brings them out of their troubles, then how sweetly do they sing of Him! How many a joyful Psalm, what a rich treasury of experience, did the pen of David indite to the glory of his God and the comfort of his Father’s children in after ages! He believed, therefore he spake. Unless he had believed he had fainted. Faith will support when all things else fail. It looks to the Word, and trusts in an almighty, faithful, covenant-keeping God. Faith consults not flesh and blood, but the Word of grace and truth. As faith is the support of the soul, God's Word is the warrant of faith, and Jesus the object, author, strength, and finisher of faith. W. Mason. In the land of the living. That means the land which is the sphere of sight and touch; the land where the goodness of God or its withdrawal concerns us more immediately. It is the land where not only you live, trying to serve God in your living, and receiving the goodness of God with a thankful and humble heart, but where the wicked live in rebellion against God; where sin, and its family of falsehoods, murders, cruelties, extortions, and oppressions live and thrive; where the purpose of God is working itself out through this complexity of factors known as life, slowly seeking an adjustment and a triumphant result out of the clashing of human wills, the conflict of selfish interests, the struggle between ignorance and knowledge, and between good and evil. It is this problem which troubles us. A good man is not usually disturbed about God's goodness beyond this world. He takes it for granted, indeed, that there every cloud will be dispelled and every hard question settled. It is God's goodness in the land of the living which sometimes puzzles him. The land of the living meant to the Psalmist, as we see by reading the rest of this Psalm, hosts that encamped against him; enemies and foes that pressed on to eat up his flesh; the being forsaken by his nearest of kin, and at the mercy of false witnesses and of such as breathe out cruelty. In such a land as this, if a man attempts to live by sight only, he will inevitably be discouraged and beaten. Life is a problem which sense cannot resolve. On its face it seems constantly to contradict the goodness of God. The goodness of God in the land of the living is the hard question which has persisted in coming to the surface from the time that men began to think about God. And yet the fact of such goodness visible in the world and in human life is assumed by the Psalmist. He has faith in it. He believed to see it in the land of the living. Just in this steady hold lies the secret of escape from faintness and despair; just in this believing to see where we cannot see. Faith hears a voice of love through the thunder. To faith the word which sounds "disaster" means "goodness." V. The land of the living. Alas! what a land of the living is this, in which there are more dead than living, where the earth is fuller of graves than houses; where life lies trembling under the hand of death; and where death hath power to tyrannize over life! No, my soul, there only is the land of the living where there are none but the living; where life is not passive, nor death active; where life sits crowned, and where death is swallowed up in victory. R. Baker.—There is living grace for the living day? A living Saviour, and a living, quickening Spirit, to meet the living soul? A living Providence, "full of eyes before and behind," to watch working and growing souls? A living love of God filling all the world like the light of the longest summer day? Trust to the living things, above all to the living Lord, for because He lives you shall live also. Raleigh. 14. In view of the truth that the goodness of God is an immutable, eternal, universal fact in this land of the living with all its confusion and contradiction, only one counsel is possible; and that the Psalmist gives us along with a promise: "Wait on the Lord! Be brave! He shall strengthen thine heart." To wait on the Lord is to serve Him. In all the confusion and sorrow we are to be constant to duty. We are called to serve God under all circumstances whatsoever. We are to trust Him to adjust the circumstances to the service. Do you hold it as a mark of God's goodness that He calls and permits you to serve Him? Then believe that the service is good all through. You are serving God, and God will take care that service shall be a good and a wholesome thing, both in itself and in its fruits, whether it be service in the dark or in the light, in calm or in storm. V. Take courage. True courage in its finer elements includes strength of heart; strength to endure, as well as attack; to pursue and achieve, as well as to attempt; to sacrifice self altogether, if need be, on behalf of any controlling conviction. A thorough consent of judgment, conscience, imagination, affection, all vitalized and active; with a certain invincible firmness of will, as the effect of such a consent—this is implied in a really abounding and masterful courage. It is not impatient. It is not imperious. It is not the creature of fractious and vehement will-power in man. It is never allied with a passionate selfishness. It is associated with great convictions; has its roots in profound moral experiences; is nourished by thoughts of God and the hereafter. It is as sensitive and gentle in spirit as it is persistent and highly resolved. It forms the base of sympathies, generosities, rather than of defiance. Such courage as this is everywhere at home. and is naturally master of all situations. And wherever it is shown it has in it something of the morally superlative. Men recognize a force which emergencies cannot startle, nor catastrophes overbear; which possesses immeasurable calmness and strength; with which no intellectual faculties or acquired accomplishments can be compared, but from which all such take a value and splendor not their own. R. S. S. Yea, wait thou on the Lord. Here is the true highest type of a troubled soul's fellowship with God, when the black fear and consciousness of weakness is enclosed in a golden ring of happy trust. Let the name of our God be first upon our lips, and the call to our wayward hearts to wait on Him be last, and then we may between think of our loneliness, and feebleness, and foes, and fears, without losing our hold of our Father's hand. A. M. Waiting is about the hardest duty of the child of God, and it is about his commonest duty. The Lord tells us to wait, and we ought to tell ourselves to wait; to wait patiently, to wait courageously, to wait trustfully, to wait submissively. H. C. T.—To wait on the Lord is to hold the heart open for what God gives; and so it implies subjection. It is to expect His love; and so it implies the penitence that goes before pardon. It is to believe He will give and guide; and so it implies faith. It is to hold all insubordinate and hasty impulses in restraint; and so it implies self-renunciation. It is to ask for His coming; and so it implies prayer. It is to rejoice in His presence; and so it implies thanksgiving. Subjection, penitence, faith, self-renouncement, prayer, thanksgiving—these are not elements of man's infirmity. F. D. H. Not frames and feelings, but God's love and promises in Christ to sinners, are the foundation of hope. These are abundantly sufficient to inspire the soul with courage, yea, with good courage, to go on in the ways of the Lord. God has promised; expect fulfilment. Here is the exercise of faith, trust in the Lord Christ for what we stand in need of; of hope, expecting to receive all from Him; of patience, waiting continually upon Him. Most precious promise! "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles, they shall run and not be weary, walk and not faint" (Isa. 40: 31). W. Mason. Faith sets hope a-work. The heir must believe his title to an estate in reversion, before he can hope for it; faith believes its title to glory, and then hope waits for it. Did not faith feed the lamp of hope with oil, it would soon die. Faith sets love a-work, "Faith which worketh by love;" believing the mercy and merit of Christ causeth a flame of love to ascend. Faith sets patience a-work, "Be followers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the promise." Faith believes the glorious rewards given to suffering. This makes the soul patient in suffering. Thus faith is the master-wheel, it sets all the other graces a-running. Watson. 1. 1 Unto thee, O LORD, will I call; My rock, be not thou deaf unto me: Lest, if thou be silent unto me, I become like them that go down into the pit. 2. 2 Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, When I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle. 3. 3 Draw me not away with the wicked, And with the workers of iniquity; Which speak peace with their neighbours, But mischief is in their hearts. 1. 4 Give them according to their work, and according to the wickedness of their doings: Give them after the operation of their hands; Render to them their desert. 2. 5 Because they regard not the works of the LORD, Nor the operation of his hands, He shall break them down and not build them up. 3. 6 Blessed be the LORD, Because he hath heard the voice of my supplications. 7. The LORD is my strength and my shield ; My heart hath trusted in him, and I am helped : Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth ; And with my song will I praise him. THIS Psalm suits the period of David's life before he became king in Jerusalem. There is nothing in it to determine the precise occasion on which it was composed. It consists of two parts. The first five verses contain a prayer for deliverance from the portion of sinners, and for retribution on the wicked. The remaining four, after thanksgiving, end with a prayer for the people of God. M. 1. When God seems to close His ear, we must not therefore close our mouths, but rather cry with more earnestness; for He will not long deny us a hearing. We must have answers to prayer; ours is an urgent case of dire neces- sity; surely the Lord will speak peace to our agitated minds. S.—To the request of the Syrophœnician woman, it is said, Christ "an- swered not a word," but it is not said, He heard not a word. These two differ much. Christ often heareth when He doth not answer—His not answering is an answer, and speaks thus— "Pray on, go on and cry, for the Lord holdeth His door fast bolted," not to keep you out, but that you may knock, and knock, and it shall be opened. Rutherford. 2. The word translated oracle is derived from the verb to speak, and seems to mean a place of speaking or conversation, like the English parlor from the French parler. Now we learn from Ex. 25 : 22, Num. 7 : 89, that the place whence God talked with Moses was the inner apartment of the tabernacle; and from 1 Kings 6 : 19, that the corresponding part of the temple bore the name here used. To this, as the de- pository of the ark and the earthly residence of God, the ancient saints looked as we look now to Christ, in whom the idea of the Mosaic sanc- tuary has been realized. A.—"Oracle" is one of the names for the most holy place where the visible glory (the Shechinah) reposed on the cover of the ark beneath the cherubim. The Hebrew word comes from a verb which is used abundantly in the sense to speak, and hence might most naturally mean the place from which God spake to His people. This corre- sponds so perfectly with the historic facts re- specting the inner sanctuary—the place where God spake with Moses—as to leave little room to question the origin and significance of this name. C. Lift up my hands. Uplifted hands have 8. The LORD is a strength unto his people ; And he is a strong hold of salvation to his anointed. 9 Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance : Feed them also, and bear them up for ever. ever been a form of devout posture, and are in- tended to signify a reaching upward toward God, a readiness, an eagerness to receive the blessing sought after. We stretch out empty hands, for we are beggars; we lift them up, for we seek heavenly supplies; we lift them toward the mercy seat of Jesus, for there our expectation dwells. S. 4. Having prayed that he may not share the destruction of the wicked, he now prays that they may not escape it. But as this is merely asking God to act as a just and holy being must act, the charge of vindictive cruelty is not merely groundless but absurd. A.—In this instance certainly there is no trace of the ex- pression of personal animosity and the mere de- sire of revenge. It is rather an appeal to God's justice to deal with the righteous and the wicked according to their deserts. P.—David pleads here not so much his own cause as the cause of God. And by this prayer he further reminds both himself and the faithful, that although the wicked may give themselves loose reins in the commission of every species of vice with im- punity, for a time, they must at length stand before the judgment-seat of God. Calvin. 5. Mark carefully the reasons why they so richly deserve this doom—viz., because when they might see God they will not; when they might study the works of His hand and the re- tributions of His providence and might by such means learn His wisdom, justice, power, and love, they will not regard these works of His— will give no thought to their moral lessons—will neither know, love, nor obey the Great God! Therefore God will tear them down and not build them up—a figure which conceives of them as a house or a castle—not to be made more firm, but to be overthrown. Paul gives the same reason for the condemnation of the godless heathen: "Because when they knew God they did not glorify Him as God" (Rom. 1 : 21); i.e., in so far as they did know Him, they withheld from Him due honor and obedi- ence; and because they might, but would not, know Him more, and would not give Him the honor they knew to be His due. Isaiah has the same words (5 : 12) of the wicked who give themselves up to thoughtless and thought kill- ing revelry, utterly reckless of God and of all His manifestations of Himself in His works. It should be carefully noted that this doom is not pronounced on beings who have in their created constitution no capacity for knowing God; nor are they condemned for not knowing an unrevealed God—one who has neither said nor done anything by which they might know Him. On the contrary, the wicked men of our world have both the capacity and the means of knowing God their Maker and Father. Therefore “this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, and yet they have loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil” (John 3: 19). Hence the obvious and perfect justice of their doom. C. Why do men forget God, and live without Him; nay, affront God, and live in rebellion against Him, but because they consider not the instances of that wrath of His which is revealed from heaven against all unglitiness and unrighteousness of men? Why do the enemies of God’s people hate and persecute them, and devise mischief against them, but because they regard not the works God has wrought for His Church, by which He has made it appear how dear it is to Him? H. 6. In his own heart he has already received the answer to his prayer. He knows that God will fulfil his petitions, and therefore breaks out, in the glad certainty of faith, “Blessed be Jehovah,” etc. The certainty that prayer is heard anticipates its visible fulfilment. P.—God had heard the voice of his supplications. They that pray in faith may rejoice in hope. “He hath heard me (graciously accepted me), and I am as sure of a real answer as if I had it already.” What we win by prayer, we must wear with praise. Has God heard our supplications? Let us then bless His name. H. 7. The strength of Christ is made over to us by faith, for so the Scripture saith frequently, The Lord is our strength; and therefore is Christ’s strength ours, made over unto us, that we may be able to bear whatsoever lies upon us. Isaac Ambrose.—“The Lord is my strength” inwardly, “and my shield” outwardly. Faith finds both these in Jehovah, and the one not without the other, for what is a shield without strength, or strength without a shield? “My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped;” the idea of the former sentence is here carried out, that outward help was granted to inward confidence. W. Wilson.—Faith substantiated things not yet seen; it altereth the tenses, saith one, and putteth the future into the present tense as here. Trapp. My heart trusted in Him, and I am helped. Heart work is sure work; heart trust is never disappointed. Faith must come before help, but help will never be long behind hand. Every day the believer may say, “I am helped,” for the Divine assistance is vouchsafed us every moment; when more manifest help is needed, we have but to put faith into exercise, and it will be given us. “Therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise Him.” The heart is mentioned twice to show the truth of his faith and his joy. Observe the adverb “greatly,” we need not be afraid of being too full of rejoicing at the remembrance of grace received. We serve a great God, let us greatly rejoice in Him. S.—The joy of a believer is seated in the heart, while in the laughter of the fool, the heart is sorrowful. It is great joy, joy unspeakable, and full of glory. The heart that truly believes shall in due time greatly rejoice; it is joy and peace in believing that we are to expect. God shall have the praise of it; when my heart greatly rejoices, with my song will I praise Him. Thus must we express our gratitude; it is the least we can do; and others will hereby be invited and encouraged to trust in Him, too. H. There is a sense of holy relationship to God—a sense by which He who builded and guides the universe becomes the guardian of our interests; His power, wisdom, universal presence and universal government become the guarantee of our security. Sometimes there is a sweet and triumphant sense of this in the midst of the utmost peril and sorrow. There is a consciousness that He who governs all things from the infinite throne will make our very sorrow work for our glory—work for the welfare of others through us; work for our own more triumphant peace and more happy and holy vision in the world beyond. This sense of security springs from the assurance that nothing can harm him who, through the Son of God, has been affiliated with God Himself, and who has omnipotence for his defence and his shield. . . . And there is no human experience that can rival or approximate that which the soul feels when it comes to God in this consciousness of fellowship with Him—fellowship in thought, in character, in plan and in experience. Then it comes with filial confidence, uttering its requests before the Almighty as freely as if His omnipotence was no grander than our weakness, and His omniscience no vaster than our ignorance. That sense of fellowship with God is found in the experience of those who have wrought most and suffered most and conquered most in His service and for His sake. In that is joy, surpassing all joy of music, all delights of friendship; surpassing all other joys known on the earth; a gleam of the celestial breaking into the darkness of the world! R. S. S. 8. David thinks first of all of the people, then of himself; for his personality retreats behind his office, in virtue of which he is Israel's head. For that very reason his deliverance is the deliverance of Israel, to whom so far as they have become unfaithful to His anointed, Jehovah has requited this unfaithfulness, and to whom so far as they have remained faithful to him, He has rewarded this fidelity. D. The saints rejoice in their friends' comforts as well as their own; for as we have not the less benefit by the light of the sun, so neither by the light of God's countenance, for others sharing therein; for we are sure there is enough for all, and enough for each. This is our communion with all saints, that God is their strength and ours; Christ their Lord and ours. H.— The heavenly experience of one believer is a pattern of the life of all. To all the militant Church, without exception, Jehovah is the same as He was to His servant David, "The least of them shall be as David." They need the same aid and they shall have it, for they are loved with the same love, written in the same book of life, and one with the same anointed Head. S. 9. Israel's salvation and blessing were at stake, but Israel is God's people and God's inheritance—may He then work salvation for them, and bless them throughout all the future. D.—Thy people, Thine inheritance. In those words are his plea with God. It is impossible not to see, in these tender, loving words, "Feed them and bear them," the heart of the shepherd-king. Feed them, O Thou true Shepherd of Israel; bear them, carry them in Thine arms (Isa. 63: 9; 40: 11). P. 1. 1 GIVE unto the LORD, O ye sons of the mighty, Give unto the LORD glory and strength. 2. 2 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; Worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness. 3. 3 The voice of the LORD is upon the waters: The God of glory thundereth, Even the LORD upon many waters. 4. 4 The voice of the LORD is powerful; The voice of the LORD is full of majesty. 5. 5 The voice of the LORD breaketh the cedars; Yea, the LORD breaketh in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. 6. 6 He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild-ox. 7. 7 The voice of the LORD cleaveth the flames of fire. 8. 8 The voice of the LORD shaketh the wilderness; The LORD shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. 9. 9 The voice of the LORD maketh the hinds to calve, And strippeth the forests bare: And in his temple every thing saith, Glory. 1. 1 GIVE unto Jehovah, ye sons of God, Give unto Jehovah glory and might! 2. 2 Give unto Jehovah the glory of his name, Pay homage to Jehovah in holy pomp! 3. 3 The voice of Jehovah is upon the waters, The God of glory thundereth, Jehovah is upon the great waters. 4. 4 The voice of Jehovah goeth forth in power, The voice of Jehovah goeth forth in majesty. 5. 5 The voice of Jehovah breaketh the cedars, Yea, Jehovah breaketh the cedars of Lebanon. 6. 6 And maketh them skip like a calf, Lebanon and Sirion like a young antelope. 7. 7 The voice of Jehovah flameth forth quivering fire. 8. 8 The voice of Jehovah shaketh the wilderness, Jehovah shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh. 9. 9 The voice of Jehovah maketh the hinds to calve, He strippeth the forest— And in his temple everything saith: "Glory!" 10. The LORD sat as king at the Flood ; Yea, the LORD sitteth as king for ever. 11. The LORD will give strength unto his people ; The LORD will bless his people with peace. THE essential idea in this Psalm is the same as in the twenty-eighth, that God is the strength of His people, but clothed in a different costume, the Divine power being proved or exemplified by its exertion in the elements, and then applied, in the close, to the believer's consolation. The Psalmist first invokes the heavenly host to celebrate their sovereign's honor. He then describes Jehovah's voice as producing the most striking physical effects, and represents it as belonging to the same God who presided at the deluge and who now protects and will continue to protect and bless His people. The notion that this Psalm is merely a description of a thunder-storm or of Jehovah as the God of thunder, may be corrected by observing that the last verse gives the key-note of the whole composition. A. This Psalm is a magnificent description of a thunder-storm. Its mighty march from north to south, the desolation and terror which it causes, the peal of the thunder, the flash of the lightning, even the gathering fury and lull of the elements, are vividly depicted. The Psalm consists of five parts : a prelude, the body of the poem in three divisions, and a conclusion. The structure of the whole is highly artificial, and elaborated with a symmetry of which no more perfect specimen exists in Hebrew. But this evidently artificial mode of composition is no check to the force and fire of the poet's genius, which kindles and glows and sweeps along with all the freedom and majesty of the storm ; the whole Psalm being one continued strain of triumphant exultation. In the prelude the singer lifts our thoughts at once from earth to heaven, by calling on the angels who stand around the throne of God to praise Him who manifests His glory in the thunder and lightning which He sends upon the earth (vs. 1, 2). Then follows the description of the storm in the three strophes which constitute the main body of the poem. These are so constructed that the first (vs. 3, 4) gives us the beginning of the storm, the low, faint, muttering thunder in the distant heavens ; the next (vs. 5-7) describes the storm at its height, when it crashes the cedars and shakes the mountains ; the last (vs. 8, 9) tells how it passes on over the plain country to the forest of Kadesh in the south, where it dies away. 10. Jehovah hath sat on the flood, And Jehovah sitteth a king for ever. 11. Jehovah will give power to his people, Delitzsch. But not only the arrangement of the three strophes, but the structure of each separate strophe, contributes in a very striking degree to the whole effect of the poem. Each consists of five members, and each begins with a fresh burst, and closes with a lull in the tempest. Thus, in the first strophe we hear the first, yet distant, sound of the thunder in the words : "The voice of Jehovah is upon the waters." In the next two clauses : "The God of glory thundereth ; Jehovah is upon many waters," the long, loud peal grows more distinct, while v. 4 again is pitched in a lower key, as if telling us of a pause in the storm. In the next strophe we have again, first, the renewed fury of the tempest, as, coming nearer yet, it falls on the glory of Lebanon, and breaks her cedars in its might : "The voice of Jehovah breaketh the cedars," etc. Next, gathering with a wilder intensity of wrath, it bursts upon the mountain peaks, roaring amid their rocks and shattering them, and making the everlasting hills themselves to tremble as with the throes of an earthquake, so that "Lebanon and Sirion skip like young buffaloes." Lastly, we hear it sinking down in the line which describes the flashing of the forked lightning : "The voice of Jehovah cleaveth the flames of fire" (vs. 5-7). In the third strophe the same structure is observable. One long peal after another has rolled and reverberated along the sky, and now the storm, in its jubilant strength, sweeps the whole land from north to south. Again it is up in its majesty : "The voice of Jehovah maketh the wilderness to tremble." Again its last fury is poured out upon the wilderness of Kadesh. The very hinds bow themselves in travail-pangs, and the forest is torn open and laid bare, as the hurricane drives through it in its path. And again the tempest is stilled ; but this time its voice is hushed and lost forever in the music and songs of the heavenly host : "In His temple all that are therein cry, Glory" (vs. 8, 9). The conclusion consists, like the prelude, of two verses, each of two members. And here we are beautifully reminded that Jehovah, whom the angels praise, and who both rules and stills the elements in their wildest uproar, is the same Jehovah who gives strength and peace to His people (vs. 10, 11). P. There are in this Psalm, properly speaking, two scenes, each of which is the pendant of the other. One passes upon earth, where we see the raging hurricane. The colossal cedars of Lebanon are split in pieces; their gigantic trunks are torn from the ground, and leap as lightly as the ox in the meadow. The mountain itself groans and trembles, scourged by the tempest. The lightnings furrow a sky darker than the deepest night. Vast deserts, such as that of Kadesh, in the south of Canaan, where nothing stops the element, are swept by the hurricane. Their sand becomes a moving sea, the atmosphere an ocean chasing over its tossed bed and sweeping with it all which it meets in its passage. The trees which can resist are peeled and stripped bare. Beasts are seized with terror, and their convulsive shudderings make them anticipate the hour of nature. Man is nowhere in this description. He is mute, and retires before the terrible majesty of the spectacle. Above the horrible turmoil the Lord is seated majestically upon His throne. The flood which is about to sweep over the earth is the footstool of that throne. He contemplates it with a serene eye, and with His royal hand He will stay the elements when He pleases. Round Him the powers, which are His messengers, almost the priests of His heavenly sanctuary, clad in their sacred robes, press on to glorify Him. What a magnificent antithesis in a few lines! Reuss. In their most literal and superficial expression, in words which no one can mistake, the Psalms set to music the first article of the Creed, "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth," and supply it with an exuberant and attractive commentary. This many-voiced republication of natural religion, this vivid, impassioned, picturesque assertion of the existence and attributes of God is of priceless value. Bishop Alexander.—In the mind of the writers the sense of outward nature was entirely subordinated to that of the presence of the God of nature. The sense of the invisible was an overmastering passion with them. Nature was but the robe with which the King of kings arrayed Himself, and the thought of His glory overpowered and swallowed up all other considerations that did not centre in Him. From first to last it is the personal God, the everlasting, ever-present, but invisible He, before whom the writer bows with reverential awe, but yet with the most unswerving and unbounded confidence. Leathes. 1,2. There are three gives in these two verses: "Give unto the Lord, give unto the Lord, give unto the Lord the glory that is due unto His name." Glory is God's right and He stands upon His right; this the Christian knows and therefore gives Him His right; he gives Him the honor and the glory that is due unto His name. T. Brooks. The sons of God are the beings intermediate between God and man, sometimes called angels in reference to their office. The same application of the same phrase occurs in Psalm 89: 6. A.—This Psalm has to do with a revelation of the power of the God who is enthroned in the heavens and who from there rules the world. And so the Psalm at its commencement addresses the heavenly spirits that surround the Ruler of the world. The begotten of God, i.e., created in the image of God, who, with God their Father, form as it were one family ("the family above"), are here called upon willingly and joyfully to render back to Him in praises the acknowledgment of His glory and might, as these have been revealed and are yet to be revealed in the world He has created, and to give Him the glory of His name, i.e., to praise His glorious name. D. 2. Give to Jehovah the honor of His name; how to Jehovah in beauty of holiness. The honor of His name is that belonging to it, due to it. His name is His manifested nature. The verb in the last clause strictly means, bow down or prostrate yourselves in worship. A.—Religious worship is giving to the Lord the glory due to His name. God's name is that whereby He has made Himself known. It is impossible that we should give Him all the glory due to His name; but when we answer that revelation which He has made of Himself with suitable affections and adorations, then we give Him some of that glory which is due to His name. If we would, in hearing and praying and other acts of devotion, receive grace from God, we must make it our business to give glory to God. H. 3-7. Now follows the description of the revelation of God's power, which is the ground of the foregoing summons and is to be the subject of praise. The All-glorious One makes Himself heard in the voice of the thunder and reveals Himself in the storm. D.—Then the tempest breaks. It crashes and leaps through the short sentences, each like the clap of the near thunder. Seven times the roar shakes the world. The voice of the seven thunders is the voice of Jehovah. In the short clauses, with their uniform structure, the pause between, and the recurrence of the same initial words, we hear the successive peals, the silence that parts them, and the monotony of their unvaried sound. Thrice we have the reverberation rolling through the sky or among the hills, imitated by clauses which repeat previous ones, as indicated by the italics, and one forked flame blazes out in the brief, lightning-like sentence, "The voice of Jehovah (is) hewing flashes of fire," which wonderfully gives the impression of their streaming fiercely forth, as if cloven from some solid block of fire. A. M. 3. The "waters" and the "many waters" of this verse must be that mass of waters supposed to be recumbent upon the firmament, gathered there (and ever after remaining) when in the process of creation God divided between the waters above and those beneath this firmament (Gen. 1 : 6, 7). The Lord is conceived to sit upon these superincumbent waters, and the thunder which roars in the lofty clouds of heaven is thought of as His voice above this ocean of the heavens! C. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The thunder is not only poetically but instructively called "the voice of God," since it peals from on high. There is peculiar terror in a tempest at sea, when deep calleth unto deep, and the raging sea echoes to the angry sky. No sound is more calculated to inspire a reverent awe than the roar of the storm. S. 5. The voice of the Lord—His mighty thunder—rends the cedars, yea, the Lord shivers to atoms the cedars of Lebanon. The cedar represents the strongest kind of trees then known; those of Lebanon, the finest of their kind, yet none of these can withstand the might of Jehovah. 6. The parallel clause gives us Lebanon and Sirion (Hermon) and therefore favors the sense—the thunder shakes the very mountains. C. 7. With every thunder-peal comes the terrible forked lightning, so striking in tropical and Eastern lands. Its vivid, zigzag, serpent-like flash is given in a few words. Cleaveth the flames of fire; i.e., parts the blaze of the lightning, so as to give it the forked appearance. 8. Kadesh, in the south of Palestine, thus indicating the course taken by the storm. It sweeps the land from north to south. P.—Having spoken of God's power as exerted on the mountains, he now says the same thing of the desert; and as the mountains which he specified were on the northern frontier, so the wilderness which he selects is that which bounded Palestine upon the south, the northern portion of the great Arabian desert, with which the Israelites had many strong associations, founded partly in their personal experience, but still more in their national history. It is in this point of view that the wilderness of Kadesh is here added to Mount Lebanon. 9. As if to show that the Divine control extends to things both small and great, the Psalmist passes suddenly from lofty mountains and vast deserts to the weakest animals, in whom the terror of His presence hastens the throes of parturition. He then returns to more imposing natural phenomena, such as the stripping of the leaves and branches from whole forests by a mighty wind, which, no less than the thunder, is to be regarded as the voice of God. The temple or palace mentioned in the last clause is not the temple at Jerusalem, nor any earthly structure, but heaven, or the whole frame of nature, considered as God's royal residence. Throughout this palace, all of it, i.e., all its parts, its contents, or its inhabitants—with special reference perhaps to the angelic hosts invoked in v. 1, who are then described as doing what he there invites them to do—not merely speaks of His glory, as the English version has it, but says "Glory!" as their constant and involuntary exclamation. A.—All the while, like a mighty diapason sounding on through the tumult, the voice of the sons of God in the heavenly temple is heard proclaiming "Glory!" 10,11. The Psalm closes with lofty words of confidence, built on the story of the past, as well as on the contemplation of the present. "Jehovah sat throned for (i.e., to send on earth) the flood" which once drowned the world of old. "Jehovah will sit throned a King forever." That ancient judgment spoke of His power over all the forces of nature in their most terrible form. So now and forever, all are His servants and effect His purposes. Then, as the tempest rolls away, spent and transient, the sunshine streams out anew from the softened blue over a freshened world, and every raindrop on the leaves twinkles into diamond light, and the end of the Psalm is like the after brightness; and the tranquil low voice of its last words is like the songs of the birds again as the departing storm growls low and faint on the horizon. "The Lord will bless His people with peace." Thus, then, nature spoke to this devout heart. The silence was vocal; the darkness, bright; the tumult, order—and all was the revelation of a present God. A. M. 10. Jehovah at the flood sat (enthroned), and Jehovah sits (as) King to eternity. This verse must either be explained as introducing a new trait in the description of a tempest, that of a flood or inundation—or referred to the universal deluge, as the grandest instance of the natural changes which had been described. In favor of the latter explanation may be urged the intrinsic grandeur of the image which it calls up, its better agreement with the solemn declaration in the last clause, the peculiar fitness of a great historical example just in this place, and the invariable usage of the word to mean Noah's flood. The sense of the whole verse may be thus expressed in paraphrase. The God whose voice now produces these effects is the God who sat enthroned upon the deluge, and this same God is still reigning over nature and the elements, and will control them forever. A. The ebbings and flowings of this lower world and the tosses and revolutions of the affairs in it, give not the least shake to the repose or to the counsels of the Eternal Mind. He sits as Judge in all the affairs of the children of men, perfectly secure of the full accomplishment of all His own purposes and designs, in spite of all opposition. The perfect repose of the Eternal Mind may be our comfort under all the disquietments of our mind. We are tossed on earth and in the sea, but He sits in the heavens, where He has prepared His throne for judgment. He sits King forever; no period can or shall be put to His government. The administration of His kingdom is consonant to His counsels from eternity, and pursuant to His designs for eternity. H.—Jesus has the government upon His shoulders eternally; our interests in the most stormy times are safe in His hands; therefore let us worship Him, and rejoice evermore. S. 11. This Great God whose majesty and glory stand forth revealed in such appalling forms throughout this Psalm is the Jehovah—the faithful God of His trustful people, in covenant relation with them as their God and Friend, Almighty to save and to bless them. What have they to fear with such a God their Friend and Saviour? Jonathan Edwards gives us this experience: "When my heart was far from God, every thunder-storm was a terror; but when I came near to Him in loving trust through Jesus Christ, I used to look out with inexpressible delight upon the black thunder-clouds, saying to myself, That is my God!". C. Power was displayed in the hurricane whose course this Psalm so grandly pictures; and now, in the cool calm after the storm, that power is promised to be the strength of the chosen. He who wings the unerring bolt, who shakes the earth with His voice, will terrify the enemies of His saints, and give His children peace. Why are we weak when we have Di- Divine strength to flee to? Why are we troubled when the Lord's own peace is ours? Jesus the mighty God is our peace. S.—Our English word peace comes from the Latin pas. Pax itself is derived from a root pag, which means to fix. Thus peace is fixedness of mind, equilibrium of heart, the secret tranquillity of the soul at rest from disquieting cares, anxieties, and wants. P. Norton. Happiness is the result of harmony between our wants as creatures and the world without; peace is the harmony between us as spiritual beings and the Father of our spirits. The one is as changeable as the objects or circumstances on which it relies; the other is as unchangeable as the God on whom it eternally rests. We may thus possess real happiness and real peace; yet either may exist without the other. Nay, more; happiness may be destroyed by God in order that the blessing of peace may be possessed; but never will He take away peace to give happiness. Happiness without peace is temporal, but peace along with happiness, that indeed is eternal. N. McLeod. It is not so much in the enjoyment of outward prosperity, nor in the possession of earthly blessings, nor in the praise of men, whether of the Church or the world, that our true wealth, or strength, or honor can chiefly lie. Rather these are in a heart purified from sin, lifted above the world, calm and humble in fellowship with God in Christ, recognizing love in all the Divine dealings, and welcoming His will as ever wise, kind, and true. Happiness is often the result of mere characteristic buoyancy, of vigorous bodily health, of material prosperity, in company with the enthusiasm of youth or the ardent activities of manhood; and while the utter absence of any deeper and more elevated feelings tends to make this happiness brighter and heartier, it is nevertheless the happiness of only the surface of our nature, perfectly compatible with irreligion or viciousness, of selfishness or vanity, subject at any moment to be hopelessly and terribly interrupted, and with nothing to fall back upon but the misery of its recollections. Whereas peace is independent of the changes and chances of life, and can no more be disturbed by what men call misfortune in its lofty dominion over the inmost spirit, than the depths of the ocean can be stirred by the winter gales that beat its surface into foam. Not only is it the gift of God, but it is His very presence. Sickness cannot destroy it; poverty cannot rob it of its incorruptible riches; bereavement only makes it more real, and the approach of death more deep. The world which cannot give it, cannot take it away; its root is in the immovable assurance of the Divine acceptance and favor through the blood and righteousness of the Saviour. It gradually spreads its roots over the entire spiritual being through the sanctifying power of the eternal Spirit; and while the only thing that can ruffle it is the silent reproach of a wounded conscience, the only thing in all the world to destroy it is sin. Thus, though we may not always be able to say we are happy, we may still have peace. Bishop Thorold. He blesses His people with the full realization of His peace. How expressive in such a Psalm is this concluding word! It overarches it like a rainbow. The beginning of the Psalm shows us the heavens open, and the throne of God in the midst of the angelic songs of praise, and the conclusion of it shows us, upon the earth and in the midst of Jehovah's voice of wrath as it shakes all things, His people victorious and blessed with peace. Gloria in excelsis is the beginning, and pax in terrus the close. After the flood, the heavens were spanned with a rainbow, and the promise of "peace" was made to mankind once more. After the storm, which this Psalm describes; after the seven thunders, the blackened clouds, the flames of fire, the torn cedars of Lebanon, the devastated country, and the snapping of trees in the forests; after the peril that man and beast alike had been in, and during the raging of the storm; after all this, we see the "bow in the cloud." For these two closing verses span the whole Psalm like a rainbow. They tell God's people that His eye is on them; that He holds them, as well as the storm and the waters, in His hand, and they are safe. "The Lord will give strength unto His people; the Lord will bless His people with peace." He will give them strength in the hour of weakness and peril. "In the time of dearth, they shall have enough." He will be their arm every morning, and their salvation in every time of need. "Strength" most of all, when they need it most of all. They shall be in the "Ark" when His enemies are exposed to the storm outside. "Strength" according to their day. "As their day is their strength shall be"—"a very present help in time of trouble." It is not then without the deepest meaning that the Psalmist assures us that "The Lord will give strength unto His people." But He will do more than this, because we want more. God promises more, and He will give more, "The Lord will bless His people with peace." That is the rainbow in the cloud spanning this stormy Psalm. It touches earth and heaven. "Peace" after a stormy voyage, after a stormy life, in the midst of peril, when conscience accuses of sin. "Peace" such as passes man's understanding, such as this world cannot give nor take away. "Peace" such as keeps the mind in an even and a heavenly frame, as a sentinel that guards a door, lest foes should get in and make havoc where God hath commanded peace. All this is in this promise, "The Lord will bless His people with peace." The Lord "will" do this. D. #### THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS (v. 2). Holiness is beautiful in its own nature. Not more certainly do we look upon the rainbow, as its arch spans the heavens, or listen to the song which fills the grove with melody, with an intuitive perception of their beauty, than we intuitively discover an intrinsic beauty in holiness. It is in itself beautiful and lovely. It consists in conformity to the law of God. It is the love of God and man manifested and acted out in Christian graces and moral virtues. Toward God it is the love that is supreme, and that is expressed in delightful complacency in his whole character; in gratitude for His goodness and mercy, and in adoring views of His greatness; in ingenuous sorrow for having offended Him, in implicit submission to His will and authority; in confidence in His truth, and a cheerful devotion to His service and glory. Toward man, it is the impartiality of a benevolent mind; kind and unenjoying; bearing and forbearing; gentle and unostentatious; meek and forgiving; unselfish and of seemly demeanor; unsuspicious, and at war only with wickedness; rejoicing in the truth and full of hope; confiding, unwearied, and it "never faileth." No right-minded man can look upon such an assemblage of excellence, without pleasing and gratified emotions. The beauty of holiness is apparent also in its benevolent tendencies. We are no advocates for the theory that utility constitutes either the essence, the foundation, or the measure of moral virtue. Because a course of conduct actually secures the well-being of others, or our own, it does not follow, that, on this account, it is virtuous; nor does it necessarily follow that it is virtuous, because this is its tendency. If there be no other criterion of moral rectitude than its benevolent effects, we see not how the inference can be repelled that there is no such thing as moral rectitude in the universe. If this be true, happiness is the supreme good, and moral rectitude is but the means of securing it. That it is not true, is perfectly obvious from the single fact, that all men naturally love happiness, and as naturally hate moral rectitude. Moral rectitude is the supreme good; it is the duty of men to pursue it as such; while there is no such excellence in mere happiness, nor are men ever justified in making it the supreme object of their pursuit. Holiness produces happiness; but it is as distinct from happiness as the cause is distinct from the effect. It is the tendency of holiness to produce happiness; but this tendency does not constitute it holiness. So far from its essential excellence consisting in its conduciveness to good, this conduciveness arises from its essential excellence. "It must be obvious to every mind, that a principle may in its nature, when put into practical exercise, be fitted to produce happiness, while yet the production of happiness is not that which constitutes the rectitude of the principle." It is not holiness on account of its benevolent tendencies; it has these benevolent tendencies because it is holiness. Though it is holiness, irrespective of the good it produces, the good it produces is but a manifestation of its excellence. And in this we see one of the beauties of holiness. Like its Divine Author, it not only "is good, but does good;" good is the native and appropriate result of it. The more accurately and extensively we mark the practical operation of it, the more do we perceive its wise and wholesome tendencies. Inspect its principles, analyze its emotions, trace out its influences; and you will see that the uniform and invariable tendency of them is to produce a happy state of mind. While "the wicked travaileth with pain all his days," the "ways of wisdom are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace;" and while the former is "like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest," a "good man is satisfied from himself." Holiness, in all its forms, commends itself to man's spiritual nature; it delights his intellect, interests his imagination, and satisfies his conscience; while in all the active pursuit of it, he is employed in occupations that consult his true honor and dignity. If it ever produces grief, and throws a shade of pensiveness over the soul, it is only for its own imperfection and the abounding iniquity of a world that lieth in wickedness; and even then it is a cherished sadness, and one by which the heart is made better. There is nothing in the most ardent and strongest holy emotions that produces satiety or weariness; nor is the mind ever so exhausted or used up by them as not to look forward to higher gratifications. The sources of enjoyment which it furnishes are never drained and never become impoverished. Its views are not unfrequently unutterably delightful views. Its powerful impressions of God's truth, its sense of the Divine presence, its habits of devotion and obedience, are joys such as a stranger meddleth not with. It has the advantage over every other source of enjoyment in the habits it forms, the sins it subdues, the exalted end it aims at, and the immortality it seeks after. There is nothing except holiness, of which it may be said that it is uniformly conducive to good. No pleasures of sin have this tendency, because they are followed, and often immingled with remorse; because they are not lasting; because they lose their relish by repetition, and destroy the relish for purer and higher joys. No exemption from care and toil has this tendency; because man is formed for action, his nature requires thought and effort; lassitude and inertness are the bane even of his hopes. Nor have wealth, and splendor, and earthly honors, and princely power this tendency; rather do they create more desires than they gratify, jeopard more tranquillity than they secure, and not unfrequently leave their envied possessors themselves to envy the less agitated and more secure enjoyments of the more humble and unapiring. The greatest and most permanent of all sinful pleasures are never attended with the light of His countenance, whose favor is life, and whose loving-kindness is better than life. These benevolent tendencies of holiness form one of its high commendations. Wherever it goes it is on errands of love. It drops like the rain and distils like the dew. There is no mind it influences that does not gratefully acknowledge its influence. Whatever bosom it dwells in, and whatever portion of the world it visits, but for its conflict with evil, it makes that portion of the world and that bosom happy. Nay, its very conflict with wickedness is proof of its loveliness; for it wars only with wickedness, wickedness which it would fain neutralize and eradicate; and though the process may produce agitation and effervescence, they are from causes which only indicate its intrinsic excellence. Its object is to reform and renovate; to illuminate and make happy; to "pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground." It is the great healer of the maladies that affect our race, gradually alleviating the curse upon man, and the curse upon the ground for man's sake. It is the fountain which sends forth streams of gladness, immingled with no bitter ingredients; like waters which issued from the sanctuary, "everything shall live whither the river cometh." And is there nothing beautiful in such benevolent tendencies? Is not the light beautiful which chases the darkness from so many minds curtained with the shadow of death? Is not the love beautiful which hears the sighing of the prisoner, and binds jarring humanity in one sweet brotherhood, so that they shall not hurt nor destroy in all God's holy mountain? Is not the joy beautiful at which the mountains and the hills break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field clap their hands? The charms of nature, and the mere imitative creations of art, are limited and inferior departments of beauty's empire. Purer loveliness and beauty far more attractive crown this work of God, compared with which the sweetest and most fragrant flower his hands have planted becomes shapeless and fades away. Bashan languish, and Carmel, and the flower of Lebanon languish; while the beauty of holiness never withers, nor is its leaf less green in the year of drought, nor does it ever cease from yielding fruit. The beauty of holiness is still more conspicuous in contrast with the deformity of sin. Truth never appears so true and pure as when seen in contrast with error; nor is it ever so highly valued by its friends, as when, like the moon, walking in her brightness, it makes its path luminous amid a night of storms. So holiness never appears so beautiful and lovely as when contrasted with sin, and its varied colors are vividly painted upon the dark and retiring cloud of human wickedness. Look over the face of human society, and mark the career of the man, whose sin, shame, and misery multiply and augment the sin, shame, and misery of the world in which he dwells; who is worse than useless because he is the enemy of God and man, and the instrument of perdition to others. And then mark the career of the man whose character is an ornament to his race, who lives to be useful, whose wisdom, virtue, and honor make the world in which he lives brighter, and better, and happier. In such a view, who has not new and more vivid impressions of the beauty of holiness? We may also inspect these opposites more closely and in some of their more distinctive attributes and characteristics. There is the malignity of sin; and the benevolence of holiness. There is the irritation, the resentment, the fury of sin; and the meekness, the forbearance, and the forgiving spirit of holiness. There is the fraud, the falsehood, the treachery of sin; and the honesty, the truth, the fidelity of holiness. There is the licentiousness, the debauch, the squalid wretchedness of sin; and the circumspection, the honor, and the purity of holiness. There is the ignoble meanness and egotism of sin; and the noble generosity and self-denial of holiness. There is the profanity of sin, setting its tongue against the heavens, and its mouth feeding on foolishness; and, on the other hand, there is the respect for God, the reverence for God, the worship and honor of God, where holiness presents its incense and a pure offering. On the one hand, there is the folly of sin, turning the Sabbath into a day of care, toil, and dissipation, and making the lives of men bitter with hard bondage; and, on the other, there is the weekly jubilee of holiness, enjoying its loved repose amid the quietness and devotions of God's day of rest. Here there is the unhallowed avarice of sin, with all its host of evils to individuals, to families, to the world; there, there is the contentment of holiness, with all its innumerable train of blessings, chasing away from the hearts and habitations of men the thousand passions which agitate and torment. There is Nero singing on his lyre while Rome is wrapt in flames; and there is Paul exclaiming: "I am ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand." There are angelic smiles and demoniac frowns. There is a miniature hell and a miniature heaven. And in this contrast has not holiness a beauty; and do we not contemplate it somewhat as angels contemplate it and with some measure of their joy? There is a last thought we may not suppress in these illustrations; it relates to the beauty of holiness in the perfection which it is destined to attain in its own native world. If the beauty and glory of man's nature consists, not only in what it is, but in what it is capable of being, and will be, his capacity for holiness must be regarded as the crown of that beauty and glory. No created mind can gauge that capacity, nor measure its attainments in rectitude. In the strange and barbarous mixture of sin with holiness, as it exists in this fallen world, beautiful as it is, its perfect beauty is never seen. There are rare examples in which its lustre shines forth; but as exemplified in the great mass of good men, it has no such glory. Even in the best, its beauty is defaced, is marred with blemishes, and has alloy and wickedness. Abraham must equivocate; Moses become impatient and angry; David, impure and cruel; and Peter must lie and swear. It is not to earth that we must look for holiness in its transparent loveliness. It has never seen but one bright and untarnished exemplification of what holiness is; and so pure was it, and so reproachful to human wickedness, that men cried out, "Away with Him! away with Him! Crucify Him! crucify Him!" No; the spoiler has entered here. With all the power of the Mighty Healer, the poison rankles in every human bosom. The freest mind bears the marks of its native servitude; and though the chains are broken, they have left the deep furrows of their bondage. Yet is there this precious truth in regard to the holiness of men on the earth. Not only is it, in so far forth as it is holiness, beautiful, and like the holiness of angels, and like its Divine Author; but its character is progressive, and its course is onward and upward to perfected excellence. From its first act of prostration before the mercy-seat, where it lifts its hands and heart to God; where it pours into His ear its voice of alternate penitence and praise, and where, in full view of the blood of the covenant, its faith takes hold of His righteousness and His promise; it rises, though it may be in unequal progress, higher and still more high, till at last its anticipations are realized in views that are to be never obscured, in affections of unmingled purity, and in the fulness of joy. Wondrous words are those uttered by the apostle when he says: "Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." But how can man illustrate or impress this beautiful thought? If it requires holiness to discover the beauty of holiness, it is no marvel that it is not for lips of clay to speak of its perfected beauty. Reason and judgment have here no labored work to perform; for God hath revealed it all by His Spirit. Imagination here wings its way in silence, and its pinions droop. The impoverished heart, and even its sweetest, richest experiences, scarcely tread the hither verge of those fields of light. It is arrested, and moved to tears, and it may be to precious hopes; and when it grasps the mighty reality, it is by a vigorous faith. Oh! how sin and the world separate the heart from God and heaven. Yet is the assurance a delightful one, that it will not always be thus; and that the little holiness that exists in the present world is an earnest of the holiness that will be. Beautiful for contemplation is it, even imbedded as it is with the gross materials of earth; nay, the lowest and most imperfect degree of it possesses excellency with which no other created thing can be compared. And how beautiful when detached from the mire and rubbish of earth, and severed from all this sublunary alloy, it shines and sparkles in its own native firmament! "Behold," says Bildad to Job, "behold even to the moon and it shineth not; and the stars are not pure in His sight; how much less is man that is a worm, and the son of man that is a worm!" Yet glorious, beyond thought, is the destiny of this abject worm. We look upon it, and then look up to the moon and stars. Resplendent as they are, man that is a worm will be more resplendent. Those lights of heaven are not pure in His sight; but man will be more pure. Brilliant as is yonder firmament, and decked with beauty as it is, scenes of brilliancy there are far surpassing these. Matter is a perishing thing. It is the mind that lives. Stars, and suns, and systems shall be rolled together as a scroll, and pass away. It is holiness that lives, gilding heaven with its beauty. Denude that pure world of its purity, and it is no longer heaven. There is nothing for which it is to be so much desired, nothing for which its glorious Architect so much values it, as its holiness. Its wall is holiness, its gates of pearl and its streets of gold are holiness. Its city is holiness, "as it were transparent glass." There "shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth." It has adornments from earth; but they consist of "the nations of the saved" which walk in the light of it, and of "the glory and honor of the nations" which they bring into it. "It has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it; for the Lord doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." H. B. Smith. 1. I WILL extol thee, O LORD; for thou hast raised me up, And hast not made my foes to rejoice over me. 2 O LORD my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast healed me. 3 O LORD, thou hast brought up my soul from Sheol: Thou hast kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. 4 Sing praise unto the LORD, O ye saints of his, And give thanks to his holy name. 5 For his anger is but for a moment; In his favour is life: Weeping may tarry for the night [or, come in to lodge at even], But joy cometh in the morning. 6 As for me, I said in my prosperity, I shall never be moved. THIS Psalm was composed after recovery from a sickness which had very nearly proved fatal. The singer begins with an ascription of praise to God for His great goodness, and calls upon all who, like himself, had known the lovingkindness of Jehovah, to join him in his thanksgiving. Thence he passes (v. 6) to a recital of his own experience, his pleading with God in his affliction, and God's answer to his prayer. P. The historical occasion of the Psalm is furnished by the narrative in 2 Sam. 24 and 1 Chr. 21. David's presumption in numbering the people had been punished by a pestilence, which raged until the destroying angel had, in answer to the king's prayer, been required to sheathe his sword. The spot where this indication of God's mercy had been given was immediately purchased by David, and consecrated by the erection of an altar, upon which he offered sacrifices, and received the Divine approbation in the gift of fire from heaven. This place the king expressly calls the house of God (1 Chr. 22: 1), as the designated site of the temple, for which he immediately commenced his preparations, and in reference to which this Psalm might well be called a song of dedication, although naturally more full of the pestilence and the sin which caused it, than of the sanctuary yet to be erected. A.—That spot of hallowed 7. Thou, LORD, of thy favour hadst made my mountain to stand strong: Thou didst hide thy face; I was troubled. 8 I cried to thee, O LORD; And unto the LORD I made supplication: 9 What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise thee? shall it declare thy truth? 10 Hear, O LORD, and have mercy upon me: LORD, be thou my helper. 11 Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; Thou hast loosed my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness: 12 To the end that my glory may sing praise to thee, and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever. associations David bought, and then built there an altar, offered sacrifices which the Lord signally answered by fire from heaven; whereupon David accepted these facts as God's own consecration of this spot to be the site of the future temple—in a sort, a dedication of its corner stone—and forthwith proceeded to make preparation for the temple on this very ground. "Then David said, This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of the burnt-offering for Israel" (1 Chr. 22: 1). 2,3. It is at least supposable that the pestilence before which seventy thousand fell touched David's person, though not fatally. Upon his humble cry to God, healing mercy came and brought him up from the jaws of death. His words mean precisely, Thou hast spared me alive from those (or out of those) who were going down by thousands to the grave. These words become specially pertinent under the supposition that he was attacked by the great plague, but restored in answer to his prayer. C. 3. Sheol, going down into the pit, i.e., dying. Made me alive from them, i.e., separated me from them by restoring or preserving my life, so that I no longer can be numbered with them. A. 4. Singing God's praise is a work of the most meditation of any we perform in public. It keeps the heart longest upon the thing spoken. Prayer and hearing pass quick from one sentence to another; this sticks long upon it. Meditation must follow after hearing the Word, and praying with the minister—for new sentences, still succeeding, give not liberty in the instant well to muse and consider upon what is spoken; but in this you pray and meditate. How fairly may the heart spread itself in meditation on the thing while singing it over! Our singing is measured in deliberate time not more for music than meditation. He that seeks not finds not this advantage in singing Psalms, hath not yet learned what it means. John Lightfoot. His holy name; lit. “His holy memorial,” with reference, no doubt, to the passage (Ex. 3 : 15), “This is My name forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.” God’s name is His revelation of Himself, in all His various attributes of love, wisdom, power, holiness, truth, righteousness. God’s memorial is that great history of redemption which was, so to speak, the setting up of a monument to His glory, on which all these attributes were inscribed. P.—The American Committee have brought out the idea precisely in translating: “Give thanks to His holy memorial name.” E. C. B. 5. The things of this Psalm are of continual interest. They do not belong to any one time or any one type of experience. Some of the notes in it are suitable to home and family and individuals through all the years of their history. Eminently so is this fifth verse, which tells us of the bitter and the sweet, the dark and the light, which run, in various distribution, along human lives. The underlying doctrine is the great doctrine or fact that “God is love,” that love runs through all, rules over all, explains all. Raleigh. A reason why God’s saints should praise Him—because He manifests Himself to them in love, not in wrath; or if in wrath, but for a moment. Love rules over all. The literal rendering of the verse is: “For in His anger is (but) a moment, in His favor a life; in the evening, weeping may come in to pass the night; but with the morning (there is) a shout of joy.” The parallelism is carefully preserved in each member—“anger . . . favor;” “a moment . . . a life;” “evening . . . morning;” “weeping . . . joy.” Weeping is described under the image of a wayfarer who comes in at evening to lodge for the night. The suddenness and surprise of gladness, on the other hand, in the morning, are beautifully represented by the simple “at dawn, a shout of joy,” without a verb. Just as the sun in Eastern lands, without any long prelude of twilight to announce his coming, leaps, as it were, in a moment above the horizon, so does the light of God’s love dispel in a moment the long night and darkness of sorrow. See the beautiful parallel, Isa. 54 : 7, 8. P. So brief and transient are the moments of God’s displeasure; so soon His anger passes away and His favor brings life out of threatened death. One night of tears; but with the morning, songs of joyful deliverance! Such for the most part is human life. Health the rule; sickness the exception; comfort fills out the years; pain and anguish are shut into the moments: weeping sometimes all the night, and then relief and joy for the days and years that follow. C. To man pain is the exception and pleasure is the rule. His memories of pain, it is true, are ever more vivid than those of pleasure, and far more disposed is he to talk of his trials than his blessings; but is not the very rarity of his sufferings as compared with his enjoyments the cause of this? The uncommon ever makes a deeper impression than the general—the incidental exception than the general rule. The whole suffering of humanity here is but as one stormy night in the voyage of its earthly history; it is but a cloudy moment in a bright day of life. Evil is but a passing note or two at most in creation’s long and joyous anthem. Hornily.—In the deepest night of sorrow God gives us so much to be thankful for that we need never cease our singing. With all our wisdom and foresight, we can take a lesson in gladness and gratitude from the happy bird that sings all night as if the day were not long enough to tell its joy. Coleridge. The believer’s mourning shall last but till morning. God will turn his winter’s night into a summer’s day, his sighing into singing, his grief into gladness, his mourning into music. The life of a Christian is filled up with interchanges of sickness and health, weakness and strength, crosses and comforts, miseries and mercies, joys and sorrows, mirth and mourning; all honey would harm us, all wormwood would undo us; a composition of both is the best way in the world to keep our souls in a healthy constitution. It is best and most for the health of the soul that the south wind of mercy and the north wind of adversity do both blow upon it; and though every wind that blows shall blow good to the saints, yet certainly their sins die most and their graces thrive best when they are under the drying, nipping north wind of calamity, as well as under the warm, cherishing south wind of mercy and prosperity. T. Brooks. In spite of all that life can bring to shake our calmness of enduring faith, we have something within us (if we be Christians indeed) which the world cannot reach. Joys—secret but pervading joys—are treasured in the believer's heart, though oftentimes he cannot himself measure the degree, or trace the source, of his own emotions! And in this gloomy night of life—waiting for the everlasting day, we must have patience, even though we cannot yet catch the dawnings of the morn—though we must live by sober faith, and be, for a while, the calm expectants of glory. W. A. B. It is true of every individual Christian that to him the morning cometh. Long he may watch; and "hope deferred may make the heart sick;" and his faith may be ready to faint, but still it is true that to him brighter times will come, and on him the day-star of hope and salvation will arise. Or even should his trials continue till life shall close, and should night follow night full of gloom, still he sees a light above in heaven. Beyond the confines of all this darkness his eye beholds the beams of eternal day; a world where the sun never sets, and where light dwells forever around the throne of God. Barnes.—It is but a very short time between grace and glory, between our title to the crown and our wearing the crown, between our right to the heavenly inheritance and our possession of it. The short storm will end in an everlasting calm. "Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning." T. Brooks. 6. In my prosperity.** Prosperity is more pleasant than profitable to us. Though in show it look like a fair summer, yet it is indeed a wasting winter, and spendeth all the fruit we have reaped in the harvest of sanctified affliction. We are never in greater danger than in the sunshine of prosperity. To be always indulged of God and never to taste of trouble, is rather a token of God's neglect than of His tender love, Struther.—It is more common to pray for strength to endure through times of adversity and suffering than for strength to endure through times of prosperity and gladness. Yet it is these latter times of buoyant self-reliance that are most full of peril. It is not in those perilous ways when every step gives fresh evidence that without our Leader we are lost, that we are most likely to turn away from Him. That supreme peril comes rather when we walk in the open plain, and have forgotten the serpents that lurk among the flowers. For every soul that is harmed by adversity, ten are harmed by prosperity. Yet you will find a hundred persons who pray against that adversity which so often brings men closer to God, where you will find one who prays against that pleasant prosperity which too often allures men away from God and from their own best future. H. C. T. I shall never be moved. We are very apt to dream, when things are well with us, that they will always be so, and never otherwise. To-morrow shall be as this day. As if we should think, when the weather is once fair, that it will be ever fair; whereas nothing is more certain than that it will change. H.—It is rare to receive much of this world, and not as the prodigal to go afar off; 'tis hard to keep close to God in prosperity, when we have much of this world to live upon and content ourselves with; to live upon God and make Him our content and stay, as if we had no other life nor livelihood but in Him; we are very apt in such a case to let go our hold of God, discustom ourselves to the exercise of faith, abate and estrange our affections from God. E. Pledger. 6,7. In their times of trial God's people in all ages have been brought to feel their entire dependence on Him. In days of flowing prosperity we have little sense of that dependence. As the Psalmist puts it here: "In my prosperity I said, I shall never be moved." When all goes well with us, we expect the same prosperity to continue; it seems stereotyped, the fixed and permanent condition of things. When the days run smoothly, "involving happy months, and these as happy years," all seems certain to continue. But a change comes over our life. Ill-health fastens on us; death invades our circle; relatives bring us into deep waters; our means of living fail; we are plunged into a very wilderness of woe. How falsely we judged when we thought that it was by its own inherent stability our mountain stood strong! No; it was solely the result of God's favor, for all our springs are in Him; the moment He hides His face we are most grievously troubled. Sad but salutary experience! W. G. B. All the world does no good without the favor of God. As all the stars though they shine together, do not dispel the darkness of night; so no creatures can comfort us sufficiently when God hides His face. "Thou didst hide Thy face and I was troubled." Manton.—What soul can be deserted and not be afflicted? Certainly His absence cannot but be lamented with greatest grief, whose presence the soul prizeth above all earthly joy; when the light of God's countenance is obscured and the comforts of the Spirit detained, then the heavens appear not so clear, the promises taste not so sweet, doubts arise, fears overflow, troubles enlarge, and the soul becomes afflicted with all variety of disquietments. Mossom. 8,9. His plea with God is, What would my life-blood avail if Thou shouldst send me to the grave? Does the decomposed dust of the dead in their graves render praise to God? Does it bear witness before living men to Thy truth? i.e., If I may live I shall praise God and witness to His truth before the living, and this will avail to the glory and honor of God. But, cut down in death, my lips are dumb thenceforth as to any testimony for God in the land of the living. Essentially the same reasoning appears in Psalm 6:5 and 88:10-12 and Isa. 38:18, 19. C.—His prayer for prolonged life was not offered therefore with the view of any earthly possession or enjoyment, but only with a view to the honor of God. He dreaded death as being an end of praise to God. For no Psalms are sung beyond the grave. D.—God would be no gainer by his death. What profit is there in my blood, implied that he would willingly die if he could thereby do any real service to God or his country. Nay, in his honor God would seem to be a loser by his death. Shall the dust praise? The services of God's house cannot be performed by the dust; it cannot praise Him; there is none of that device or working in the grave, for it is the land of silence. The promises of God's covenant cannot be performed to the dust. The best pleas in prayer are those that are taken from God's honor; and then we ask aright for life when we have in view that we may live and praise Him. H. Every better spirit, just in proportion to its thoughtfulness and nobility, is saddened as it compares performance with aspiration and work with aim. There are times when the words of God's most believing children about this fleeting life, and the shortness of our time for doing God's appointed work, run in the mould of the Psalmists. There was a point of view from which life presented itself to our Lord Himself as a golden day, and death as a cheerless night. "I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day; the night cometh when no man can work." Bishop Alexander. 10. Lord, be Thou my helper.** In every duty; in every conflict; in every trial; in every effort to promote the Lord's cause; in every season of prosperity; in every hour we live, this short prayer is suitable. If the Lord help us, there is no duty which we cannot perform; there is no foe which we cannot overcome; there is no difficulty which we cannot surmount. James Smith. 11,12. The words describe certain changes in the lives and experience of godly men. Sackcloth was the attire of the leper, the ascetic, the penitent, and the mourner, sometimes, too, of the prophets of God. Sackcloth represents a condition of affliction. Beautiful raiment was worn on festive and joyous occasions. Here the joy which the wearing of such attire would be taken is used to represent the raiment itself, and the raiment is employed to represent prosperity. There is in human life and experience the turning of mourning into dancing, the putting off of sackcloth and girding with gladness. They whose life has been redeemed from destruction will understand this. The words point to God as the Author of these changes, and affirm that praise is the end and object of these changes. Praise is higher than prayer. It is divine. There is nothing in the Divine consciousness which corresponds to our prayers; but in God's self-appreciation there is that which is in harmony with our praises. While God's creatures praise Him, they are unfallen; and in the degree that the spirit of praise is restored in them their redemption is being wrought out. S. Martin.—To bless God for mercies is the way to increase them; to bless Him for miseries is the way to remove them. No good lives so long as that which is thankfully improved; and no evil dies so soon as that which is patiently endured. Dyer. Penitence must rise up into joy. In its very nature penitence is a passing, transitory stage, and not an abiding state. If it were the latter, it would prove that it was not true penitence, but some strange counterfeit. Penitence is like the dawn that passes into the full daylight. But what is to turn penitence into joy, confession into praise? Surely, belief in pardon. Ah! we want more faith to lift us up. We want more simple acceptance of God's promises. We want more child-like restfulness in His fatherly love. Yes; it is true, belief in pardon is the secret charm which can turn penitence into joy. Blessed are they who, having confessed their sins, and believed in God's pardoning grace, can say, "Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing; Thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness." W. W. How. 12. To the end that my glory may sing praise unto Thee, says David. Whether his tongue or his soul, or both. What he calls his glory he shows us; and what use he hath for it—namely, to give the Lord glory, to sing His praises; then it was truly David's glory when it was so employed, in giving glory to Him whose peculiar due glory is. What have we to do in the world as once and again His creatures, anew created unto good works, but to exercise ourselves in those, and by those to advance His glory? that all may return to Him from whom all is, as the rivers run back to the sea from whence they came. Of Him and through Him, and therefore for Him are all things. Leighton. The designed result of so speedy and thorough a change in his affliction, after it had wholesomely humbled him, was Jehovah's praise. And the praise of Jehovah forever is also his determination, as this Psalm vows, and at the same time carries it out. D. 1. In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: Deliver me in thy righteousness. 2. Bow down thine ear unto me; deliver me speedily: Be thou to me a strong rock, an house of defence to save me. 3. For thou art my rock and my fortress; Therefore for thy name's sake lead me and guide me. 4. Pluck me out of the net that they have laid privily for me; For thou art my strong hold. 5. Into thine hand I commend my spirit: Thou hast redeemed me, O LORD, thou God of truth. 6. I hate them that regard lying vanities: But I trust in the LORD. 7. I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy: For thou hast seen my affliction; Thou hast known my soul in adversities. 8. And thou hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy; Thou hast set my feet in a large place. 9. Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in distress: Mine eye wasteth away with grief, yea, my soul and my body. 10. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing: My strength falleth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are wasted away. 11. Because of all mine adversaries I am become a reproach, Yea, unto my neighbours exceedingly, and a fear to mine acquaintance: They that did see me without fled from me. 12. I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel. 13. For I have heard the defaming of many, Terror on every side: While they took counsel together against me, They devised to take away my life. 14. But I trusted in thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my God. 15. My times are in thy hand: Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me. 16. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: Save me in thy lovingkindness. 17. Let me not be ashamed, O LORD; for I have called upon thee: Let the wicked be ashamed, let them be silent in Sheol. 18. Let the lying lips be dumb; Which speak against the righteous insolently, With pride and contempt. 19. Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee, Which thou hast wrought for them that put their trust in thee, before the sons of men! 20. In the covert of thy presence shalt thou hide them from the plottings of man: Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. 21. Blessed be the LORD: For he hath shewed me his marvellous lovingkindness in a strong city. 22. As for me, I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: Nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee. 23. O love the LORD, all ye his saints : The LORD preserveth the faithful, And plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. A PSALM in which earnest prayer for deliverance from trouble is kindled and animated throughout by a lively trust and hope in God. It consists of three principal divisions: The singer prays God to be gracious to him in his trouble, expressing at the same time his trust in Him, who in times past had been his deliverer (vs. 1-8). He pours out before God the story of his sufferings and his sorrows, beseeching Him again to lift upon him the light of His countenance, and to put his enemies to shame (vs. 9-18). He concludes with praise and thanksgiving to God for His goodness to all who trust in Him, and particularly to himself; and calls upon all the righteous to love the Lord (vs. 19-24). P. 1-8. He begins with a prayer for deliverance which is grounded on the confidence which Jehovah, to whom he commits himself, never can disappoint; and rejoices beforehand in the security he anticipates without a doubt. From the fact of his being hidden in God springs the confident certainty, that neither now nor ever can it come to pass with him that he will be ashamed or that his hope will disappoint him. D.—Faith and prayer must go together. He that believes, let him pray; I believe, therefore have I spoken; and he that prays, let him believe, for the prayer of faith is the prevailing prayer. We have both here. H. 1. David, the record says (1 Sam. 30), "encouraged himself in the Lord his God." "The Lord his God" gives us the key-note of his life. It was forever settled in his soul that Jehovah was his own God. He held this conviction in the spirit of a consciously full consecration to His honor and service, and of a strong, unshaken trust in His care and protection. With such a mutual understanding between God and himself, he might fitly say: "Let me never be put to shame." "Deliver me in Thy righteousness" rests its plea not on the ground of David's absolute sinlessness (see v. 10), but of God's fidelity to His promise and to His covenant obligations. C.—For the support of faith, mark well whereon it may safely rest; even upon God's righteousness, as well as upon His mercy. On this ground did the apostle in faith expect the crown of righteousness (2 Tim. 4: 7, 8), because the Lord from whom he expected it is a righteous judge; and the Psalmist is bold to appeal to the righteousness of God. We may be well assured that what God's goodness, 24. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. All ye that hope in the LORD. grace, and mercy moved Him to promise, His truth, His faithfulness, and righteousness will move Him to perform. W. Gouge. 2. A rock. The general idea of this symbol is firmness, solidity. God is a rock for a foundation, for a fortress, for shade and refreshment. Note that ever built on that Rock have been confounded. A. M. 3. What he asks in the preceding verse he here asserts, that God is his protector, and must therefore of necessity protect him, not only for the sufferer's sake, but for the honor of His own name or manifested nature. A.—God's name was committed to his protection by the fact that David had accepted His promises, had given himself to His service on the guaranty of the requisite protection, and therefore was entitled to feel that Jehovah's name was pledged for his deliverance. C. For Thy name's sake. If merely a creature's honor or the glory of angels were involved, man's salvation would indeed be uncertain. But every step involves the honor of God. We plead for His name's sake. If God should begin and not continue, or if He should carry on but not complete the work, all would admit that it was for some reason that must bring reproach on the Almighty. This can never be. God was self-moved to undertake man's salvation. His glorious name makes it certain the top-stone shall be laid in glory. Plumer. 5. Into the hand of this God, who is and who will be all this to him, he commits his spirit; he hands it over into His hand as a trust, or deposit, for what is deposited there is safely laid up and removed from all danger and all need. D.—These words are appropriate to any dying saint, and were used by Jesus dying, and by the martyred Stephen; yet we need not assume that in using them David thought of himself as dying, but rather as fully committing the whole question of life and death into the hands of his God, in the assurance that God both had redeemed him from death in other perils and would again. In offering his prayer thus, "Lord God of truth," he indicated the hold he consciously had upon God's promise and veracity for his deliverance. C. Upon the expression of confidence in the power and faithfulness of God, follows the expression of the singer's resolve. My spirit (ruach), more than my soul or life (nephes'). It is not only from sickness and death, but from sin and all enemies that the man of God would be kept, and therefore he commends to God, not his body or his bodily life alone, but the life of his spirit, which is more precious. "Thou hast been, and Thou art, my Redeemer;" and further, there is implied, "because Thou changest not, I confidently anticipate redemption from this present calamity." The past continuing up to the present moment (strict perfect) is in the singer's mind a pledge of the future, especially because God is the God of truth, as opposed to the lying vanities (in the next verse), i.e., all false objects of trust, here perhaps especially false gods. P.—That which encourages us to commit our spirits into the hand of God is, that He has not only created but redeemed them; the particular redemptions of the Old Testament Church and the Old Testament saints were typical of our redemption by Jesus Christ. H. In the hour of death the palpitating heart must appropriate the personal affection of the Redeemer to His people. This appropriation is the secret of dying. Christianity meets us where we most of all need its aid; and meets us too with the very aid we need. It does not tell us of the splendors of the invisible world; but it does far better when, in three words, it informs us that to loosen from the shore of mortality is to be with Christ. This is precisely the assurance which the occasion demands; for it not only quickens the devout affections, but it fixes them on their object. All security and all joy are comprised in the idea of beholding and of approaching the Son of God—the Son of man—now exercising universal dominion; and especially ruling the world of spirits. "If I go, I will come again to receive you to Myself." I. T. As we think of Psalms in connection with the blessed hope of eternal life, we associate with them calm sweet faces, from which, when our eyes see them next, the lines of pain and sorrow shall be smoothed out, and they shall look fairer and nobler than they ever did. From the cross, the stake, the fagot, the sick-room, fragments of Psalms break upon our ears, set to the music of Easter. This verse rises from saint after saint; it came from Stephen, Polycarp, Basil, Epiphanius of Pavia, Bernard, Huss, Luther, Melanchthon. Bishop Alexander. 7. Sure of being heard, he resolves to give expression to his grateful joy for Jehovah's grace, because He has looked upon his sorrow, because He has known and exerted Himself for his soul's needs. D.—In the midst of trouble faith will furnish matter of joy and promise to itself gladness, especially from the memory of by-past experiences of God's mercy. The ground of our gladness, when we have found a proof of God's kindness to us, should not be in the benefit so much as in the fountain of the benefit; for this giveth us hope to drink again of the like experience from the fountain which did send forth that benefit. Therefore David says, "I will be glad and rejoice in Thy mercy." Diekson.—For mercy past he is grateful, and for mercy future, which he believingly anticipates, he is joyful. In our most importunate intercessions we must find breathing time to bless the Lord; praise is never a hindrance to prayer, but a refreshment therein. Those two words, glad and rejoice, are an instructive reduplication, we need not stint ourselves in our holy triumph. "For Thou hast considered my trouble." Thou hast seen it, weighed it, directed it, fixed a bound to it, and in all ways made it a matter of tender consideration. A man's consideration means the full exercise of his mind; what must God's consideration be! S.—All pain, sickness, weariness, distress, languor, agony of mind or body, whether in ourselves or others, is to be treated reverently, seeing in it our Maker's hand passing over us; fashioning, by suffering, the imperfect or decayed substance of our souls. Every sorrow is a billow on this world's troublesome sea, which we must pass over on the cross, to bear us nearer to our home. Each trouble is meant to relax the world's hold over us, and our hold upon the world, each loss to make us seek our gain in heaven. Pasey.—Nothing is intolerable that is necessary. God hath bound thy trouble upon thee by His Providence, with a design to try thee and with purposes to reward and to crown thee. These cords thou canst not break, and therefore lie thou down gently, and suffer the hand of God to do what He please. Jeremy Taylor. 8. Set my feet in a large place. It is not every sort of comforting a mourner will call "blessed." If you cannot let me in through this gateway of distress to a peace, a largeness of delight unfelt before; if you do not turn my very tears to showers of sunshine, and lift me from my valley up to heights of glorious bliss on which I could not otherwise have stood; where, I pray you, is the "blessedness" of my "mourning"? Dykes.—Many a man's experience will bear out the seeming paradox that the joys of the spirit which clings with an unwavering confidence to the promises of God are greatest in the hours of the greatest trial, because faith then is strongest in its exercise. It is in moral as in natural things; music sounds softer and sweeter by night than by day, because then all is still, and the notes are brought out more fully. It is in the hour of calamity that the ruptured heart-strings yield the sweetest melody, when touched by God, and the notes of praise are loudest and richest, because the promises of truth which alone can raise them then seem most precious. E. Mason. Oh, holy path of God! when it leads us through many sorrows, apparently downward, but in reality upward. The narrower and more thorny the path, the more splendid the goal to which it leads. The more that this world owes us in friends and the fulfilling of our wishes, so much richer and more comforting is the adjustment in the other world. Well for us that we, as Christians, have a so much clearer insight into eternity and the mystery of its retribution, that we, in faith in the Sufferer of all sufferers, can utter the words, "Through cross to crown," and find comfort in them, even here, for all the sufferings of this life. Christlieb. 9-13. After the paan sung in the fulness of faith before the victory, prayer begins again in this second portion of the Psalm; this prayer is grounded on the greatness of his suffering, which the Psalmist, after strengthening himself in his confidence on God, now sets before Him all the more comprehensively. D. 9,10. Recurring again to his bitter trials, he represents them as a long and terrible affliction—as wasting his life-power, impairing his health, poisoning the fountains of his peace and comfort, and all the more so because blended with a sense of sin, which is but too often one of the most bitter ingredients in the cup of trial on earth. C.—Because of mine iniquity. See how the eye is turned within, as well as without, upon his enemies. Suffering does its work when it leads us to commune with our own hearts, and to discover the evils which are hidden there. P. 11-13. Not for any fault of his own David became an outcast and exile from many of his former friends and neighbors. Few had the courage or the sympathy with him to be willing to appear as his friend. Hence his circumstances made him, in these respects, a sort of type of his greater Son, who, not at all for His own fault, was "despised and rejected of men." C. 12. The expression seems to correspond exactly to the second member of the English proverb, out of sight, out of mind. The comparison with an earthen vessel, at best of little value, easily broken, and when broken worthless, only fit to be contemptuously thrown aside, is a favorite with Jeremiah, who appears to have derived it, with some other favorite ideas and expressions, from the Psalm before us. A. 14-18. But although a curse of the world and the offscouring of all people, he trusts in God, his deliverer and avenger. It seemed as though Jehovah had given him up in anger, but he trusts in Him, and in spite of this appearance he prays to Him with the words of appropriating faith. D. 14. And I on Thee did trust, Jehovah; I said, My God (art) Thou! "Amid these distresses, and in spite of them, I still confided in Jehovah, and expressed my confidence by solemnly avouching Him to be my God, and therefore bound by covenant to save me, as I am no less bound by covenant to trust Him." It is worthy of remark how constantly the ancient saints make trust in God essential to all spiritual safety. A. Thou art my God. The assurance of faith rests as on a rock upon the Person and Word of God. Christ has died for me and risen again. He invites me to come to Him, to rest on Him, to believe His love, to accept His salvation, to receive His grace, to bear His yoke. I will believe His love, on the authority of His Word, far above what I can either ask or think. I accept the salvation which the voice of His quickening Spirit has made a supreme necessity to my conscience, and, by methods chosen by Himself, has brought home to my heart. Bishop Thorold. 15. In Thy hand (are) my times; set me free from the hand of my foes and from my persecutors. By times we are to understand the current of events or the vicissitudes of life, as when we speak familiarly of good times or hard times. There may be also an allusion to the turning points or critical junctures of his history. The first clause presents the ground or reason of the second. "Since the events of my life are at Thy disposal, set me free," etc. Freeing from the hand is the opposite of shutting up in it. Foes and persecutors are not distinct classes, but different descriptions of the same. A. My times; i.e., all my life with its "sundry and manifold changes," its joys and sorrows, its hopes and conflicts, are not the sport of chance, or the creatures of a blind fate, but are in Thy hand. O Thou living, personal Redeemer. On this confidence are grounded the petitions which follow, and the hopes expressed. P.—If God have our times in His hand He can help us; and if He be our God He will help us; and then what can discourage us? It is a great support to those who have God for their God, that their times are in His hand; and He will be sure to order and dispose of them for the best to all those who commit their spirits into His hand, to suit them to their times. The time of life is in God's hands, to lengthen or shorten, embitter or sweeten as He pleases. Our times, all events that concern us and the timing of them, these are at God's disposal; they are not in our own hands, for the way of man is not in himself, not in our friends' hands, nor in our enemies' hands, but in God's; every man's judgment proceedeth from Him. David does not in his prayers prescribe to God, but subscribe to Him: "Lord, my times are in Thy hand, and I am well pleased that they are so, they could not be in a better hand; Thy will be done." H. We are not waifs and strays upon the ocean of fate, but are steered by infinite wisdom toward our desired haven. Providence is a pillow for anxious heads, an anodyne for care, a grave for despair. S.—God has chosen for us the period of the world in which we should live. Feeling that God has placed us in this age, that we may make our impress on it, we should prepare ourselves faithfully for doing its work. Our circumstances and the direction of our lives upon earth are in God's hand. We are standing while the generations that rose up by our side are sleeping in the ground. We live because it is God's good pleasure that we should still have a work to do and responsibilities to meet. If God thus encircles us by the agencies of His providential power and grace, then we ought to feel our dependence on God, not on man, not on the best-laid plans. This sense of dependence should keep us in the attitude of prayer. Only by realizing this great truth do we prepare ourselves either for great happiness or great usefulness. The God in whose hands our times are holds the times of all other human beings, holds all agencies, directs all events according to the counsel of His will, and we shall be successful only when we place ourselves directly in harmony with His laws. What a source of comfort it is when we can believe fully that our times are in God's hand! If we feel we are resting upon the bosom of Omnipotence, what can disturb our repose? M. Simpson. Happy the man who endures patiently; who in spite of all, hoping against hope, out of the depth of his soul can say: "I trusted in Thee, O Lord; I said, Thou art my God, my times are in Thy hand!" The one is not found without the other; first, the my of faith, and then the Thy of perfect, childlike submission. Such a submissive, trusting soul may say: My lot in life is determined, my course in life is guided, the period of my life is fixed by God's hand. And above all, the goal of my life is guaranteed by God. The hand which points the way, and thus far has led the pilgrim forward, never let slip one whom He has grasped. "My times" become at last eternities; and the hand that sustained the first has in due season also the last to bestow. Thence the same lips which uttered these avowals assume immediately afterward the vaunt of hope, which involuntarily rises above time present: "Oh, how great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee!" (v. 19). Van O. 16. Let Thy face shine on Thy servant; save me in Thy mercy. The first clause contains an allusion to the sacerdotal benediction recorded in Num. 6: 25. "Crant me a sensible assurance of Thy favor." This he asks because he is His servant, a relation implying the necessity of God's interposition in his favor. While God is God, He cannot leave His faithful servants to perish. Even here, however, his appeal is to God's mercy, as the only source or means of safety. 17. He distinguishes himself, as one who calls upon God, from the wicked who do not, and appeals to the righteousness of God as requiring that defeat and disappointment should fall, not upon the class to which he belongs and of which he is the representative, but upon that represented by his enemies, of whom it has been well said that they are not reckoned sinners because they are his enemies, but enemies because they are sinners; or, in other words, enemies to him because they are the enemies of God. A. 18. Lying lips. It is not calumny, nor treachery, that does the most harm in the world; they are continually crushed, and are felt only in being conquered. But it is the glistening and softly spoken lie; the amiable fallacy; the patriotic lie of the historian; the provident lie of the politician; the jealous lie of the partisan; the merciful lie of the friend; and the careless lie of each man to himself, which darken and degrade our life. Ruskin. It would seem, in fact, that there is scarcely an assailable point or quality in us, which is not capable of being suborned into the service of lying lips. There is the lie of sheer cowardice, told to evade some threatened personal danger, or the formidable lion of public opinion, or the ridicule of unprincipled associates. There is the lie of cupidity and money-making, direct or indirect; the lie of convenience, the lie of shame, the lie of flattery, with its double wrong. Then there are all the degrees of falsehood—exaggerations, or adding to the truth, extenuations, or taking from it—of which it is enough to say that when once a living conscience takes knowledge how easily their falsifying processes go on, it must watch their beginnings as we watch the first symptoms of pestilence. There are equivocations, deceptions in which people allow themselves by first practising the self-deception that a falsehood half-hidden from men is wholly hidden from God, or that it is safe to go half-way in that which is an abomination to Him. You need not be reminded that there are acted falsehoods, of manner and gesture, of signs and ornaments, of pretended friendship and assumed cordiality and hypocritical devotion; nor need it be repeated to you that speech is no more an expression of the mind than action is, and that by “lying lips” Scripture means all the lies that the whole body can tell, and that one of them is just as hateful to the God of truth and just as sure of judgment as another. F. D. H. 19-24. His well-grounded hope now brings triumphant certainty, and this breaks forth in glad acknowledgment of God’s goodness to the righteous, and an exhortation to all to wait on Him in unshaken confidence of heart. D. 19. His prayer is heard and his soul is thereby deeply affected with a sense of the great goodness which God has ever in reserve, secretly stored away but ever in readiness for its fit occasion. C.—Mark the phrase “Laid up for them;” His mercy and goodness is intended for them, as a father that lays by such a sum of money as a portion for such a child. Gurnall. This text is the expression of a Divine law, the law of God’s wise reserve in dispensing His favors. He does not reveal Himself, nor bestow His blessings, nor develop His purposes, nor mature His plans all at once. He gives liberally, but not the whole. He keeps something always in the background; there is always something better in store for those who fear Him. There is in His Word, His promises, His providences a hidden element which comes out only through time, and experience, and search, and diligent effort. There are certain great blessings of God which no man is able to receive at once without preparation. And it ought not to be forgotten that a part of this preparation depends upon ourselves; and that therefore it is sometimes our fault that the laid-up goodness is kept back. . . . But God’s goodness is not always kept hidden. If there is reserve, there is also unfolding. If there is laying up of goodness, there is also working it out publicly before men’s faces. But if we want the goodness wrought out, we must have faith in the goodness which is laid up. If we want the performance, we must trust the promise. V.—In the former clause, God’s goodness is said to be laid up; in the latter, to be wrought. Goodness is laid up in the promise, wrought in the performance; and that goodness which is laid up is wrought for them that trust in God; and thus, as God’s faithfulness engageth us to believe, so our faith engageth God’s faithfulness to perform the promise. Hardy. Oh, how great is Thy goodness! How profound are the counsels of it; how rich the treasures of it; how free and extensive the communications of it! Those who are interested in this goodness are described to be such as fear God and trust in Him, as stand in awe of His greatness and rely on His grace. This goodness is said to be laid up for them and wrought for them. There is goodness laid up for them in the other world, an inheritance reserved in heaven, and there is a goodness wrought for them in this world, goodness wrought in them. There is enough in bank and enough in hand. This goodness is laid up in His promise for all that fear God, to whom assurance is given that they shall want no good thing. But it is wrought for those that trust in Him—that by faith take hold of the promise, put it in suit, and draw out to themselves the benefit and comfort of it. If what is laid up for us in the treasures of the everlasting covenant be not wrought for us it is our own fault; because we do not believe. H. God always takes the initiative. His grace always anticipates us. Forgiveness was waiting for us long before we ever sought it. Spiritual blessings wait to descend upon us, and have waited so long, not because God was not willing to give them, but because we had not truly sought them nor been prepared to receive them. We can never anticipate His grace and willingness. All things that we may wisely have are ready for us. J. R. Miller.—The Lord has laid up in reserve for His people supplies beyond all count. In the treasury of the covenant, in the field of redemption, in the caskets of the promises, in the granaries of providence, the Lord has provided for all the needs which can possibly occur to His chosen. Overwhelming are the proofs of the Lord’s favor to believers, history terms with amazing instances, and our own lives are full of prodigies of grace. We serve a good Master. Faith receives a large reward even now, but looks for her full inheritance in the future. S. God never gives all He has to give. The time never comes when He has nothing left to bestow. We never reach the best in Divine blessings. The unrevealed is ever better than the revealed. There is no danger that we shall ever come to the end of God's goodness, or to any experience for which He will have no blessing ready. Yet the Divine goodness is not emptied out in heaps at our feet, when we first start in faith's pathway. Rather, it is kept in reserve for us until we need it, and then disbursed. That is the thought in these words: "How great is Thy goodness which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee." The goodness is laid up, stored away, kept in reserve. This is the Divine method both in providence and in grace. God laid up goodness in the creation and preparation of the earth. So far as we know, there has been nothing new created since the beginning, but there has been a continual succession of developments of hidden treasures and powers, to meet the new needs of the multiplying and advancing race; and in grace the Divine method is the same. God's storehouses of spiritual truth never are opened to us until we really need their blessing. They are placed, so to speak, along our life-path, the right supply at the right point. The best of God's goodness is "laid up" in heaven; hence, to a Christian death is always a glorious gain. The best things can only be gotten when we pass through death's gate into the Father's house. Thus this principle of reserved goodness runs through all God's economy. Blessings are "laid up" and are gotten as we need them. Every experience brings us to its own store. Sorrow comes, and, veiled in the sorrow, the angel of comfort comes too. It grows dark, and then the lamps of promise shine out. Losses are met, and there is a Divine secret that changes loss into gain. A bitter cup is given, and it proves to be medicine for our soul. Death comes, and seems the end of all, but but it is only the beginning of all, for it leads us away from empty shadows to eternal realities. J. R. Miller. For them that put their trust in Thee. How clearly does reason command me to trust Him, absolutely and implicitly to trust Him, and to distrust myself? He is essential, infinite perfection, wisdom, power, and love. There is nothing to be trusted in any creature but God working in it, or by it. I am altogether His own, by right, by devotion, and by consent. He is the giver of all good to every creature, as freely as the sun gives its light, and shall we not trust the sun to shine? He is my Father, and has taken me into His family, and shall I not trust my heavenly Father? He has given me His Son as the greatest pledge of His love, and "shall He not with Him also freely give me all things?" His Son purposely came to reveal His Father's unspeakable love, and shall I not trust Him who has proclaimed His love by such a messenger from heaven? He has given me the Spirit of His Son, even the Spirit of adoption, the witness, pledge and earnest of heaven, the seal of God upon me, "holiness to the Lord," and shall I not believe His love and trust Him? He has made me a member of His Son, and will He not take care of me, and is not Christ to be trusted with His members? I am His interest and the interest of His Son, freely beloved and dearly bought, and may I not trust Him with His treasure? He is in covenant with me and has "given me many great and precious promises," and can He be "unfaithful"? My Saviour is the "forerunner," who has "entered into the holiest," and is there interceding for me, having first conquered death to assure us of a future life, and ascended into heaven to show us whither we must ascend, and shall I not follow Him through death and trust such a guide and captain of my salvation? He is there to "prepare a place for me, and will receive me unto Himself," and may I not confidently expect it? Baxter. 20. In this, as in so many cases, the Psalmist strikes an answering chord in the common experience of men of all times. A large share of good men's troubles come out of the talk of others. Is the picture of the old English divine overdrawn, after all? Hear a few of his stately periods. "Every gossiping is, as it were, a court of justice; every seat becometh a tribunal; at every table standeth a bar, whereto all men are cited, whereat every man as it happeneth is arraigned and sentenced; no sublimity, no integrity or innocence of life, no prudence or circumspection of demeanor can exempt any person from it; not one escapeth being taxed under some scandalous name or odious character, one or other. Not only the outward actions and visible practices of men are judged; but their retired sentiments are brought under trial, their inward dispositions have a verdict passed on them, their final states are determined—yea, God Himself is hardly spared." (South.) We grow ashamed of ourselves, if there is any true manhood left in us, because we are so often drawn into this current of talk about our neighbors. We hear the gossip, and we happen to know a fact or to have heard a piece of news, and almost ere we know it, in it goes into the common stock; and, if we are not very careful, we find ourselves falling into censorious talk, flinging out sharp arrows of sarcasm or pulling a neighbor's defects a little farther out into the light; and when we come to sit down and think over what we have said, unless we are very much hardened, we feel ashamed and sorry and indignant at ourselves, and are tempted to wish that we might never again be in society where people are talked over. But to get out of the reach of talk is to get out of society altogether; and to get out of society is not only no man's duty, but it is the sin of any man who attempts it. God provides better for men than by withdrawing them from the world where their work lies. Man is delivered from temptation not by being taken out of it, but by being helped to conquer it. Man is not hidden from the strife of tongues by being withdrawn from it. God has a better refuge than that, and that is Himself. "Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy presence from the pride of man; Thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues." In putting a man in right relations with Himself, God puts him in right relation to the world's talk. To quote the beautiful words of a living preacher, "If we are really Christ's, then back into the very bosom of His Father, where Christ is hid, there He will carry us. We, too, shall look out and be as calm and as independent as He is. The needs of men shall touch us just as keenly as they touch Him, but the sneers and strifes of men shall pass us by as they pass by Him and leave no mark on His unruffled life. It will be just as impossible when that time comes for us to work ourselves into a passion about yesterday's gossip as it was for Jesus to become a partisan in the quarrel about the divided inheritance; and yet for us, just as for Him, this will not mean a cold and selfish separation from our brethren. We shall be infinitely closer to their real life when we separate ourselves from their outside strife and superficial pride, and know and love them truly by knowing and loving them in God." This, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter. In this world we must be exposed to the strife of tongues. You who are worried by men's talk; you who are tempted to respect it as a rule of living; you who care so very much about what the world says, hear His voice. Give your minds to character and not to talk. Concentrate your effort and your thought upon being like Christ, and then the talk will wag on its own way and will not touch you as you walk the path which shineth more and more unto the perfect day. He shall hide you in the secret of His presence from the pride of man. He shall keep you secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues. V. 22. He confesseth the great distress he was in, and how weak his faith was under the temptation; this he doth, that he may give the greater glory to God. Though faith seem to yield, yet it falleth not; even when it is at the weakest, it is uttering itself in some act, as here the expression of David's infirmity in faith is directed to God and his earnest prayer joined with it. There may be in a soul at one time both grief oppressing and hope upholding; both darkness of trouble and the light of faith; both desperately doubting and strong gripping of God's truth and goodness; both a fainting and a fighting; a seeming yielding in the fight and yet a striving of faith against all opposition, and a settled stayedness of faith, as here. Dickson. 23. In this and the remaining verse he makes a further application of the truth, which he had just attested from his own experience, to the case of all God's saints or gracious ones, at once the subjects and the objects of benignant dispositions, those who are merciful because they obtain mercy. A.—On the one hand God preserves the faithful, and so approves Himself true to His promises; on the other hand, in abundant measure, He recompenses those who practise pride—before God the Lord the sin of sins. D. The glow of personal attachment to Jehovah which kindles in the trustful words is eminently characteristic. It anticipates the final teaching of the New Testament in bringing all the relations between God and the devout soul down to the one bond of love. "We love Him because He first loved us," says John. And David has the same discernment that the basis of all must be the outgoing of love from the heart of God, and that the only response which that seeking love requires is the awakening of the echo of its own Divine voice in our hearts. Love begets love; love seeks love; love rests in love. Our faith corresponds to His faithfulness, our obedience to His command, our reverence to His majesty; but our love resembles His, from which it draws its life. So the one exhortation is "love the Lord," and the ground of it lies in that name—"His beloved"—those to whom He shows His lovingkindness (v. 21). A. M. The Lord preserveth the faithful. God's providence is always good, but He needs our faithfulness, our truest and best work always to give full expression and result to the good that He plans. God never does His work unfaithfully, and we dare not charge to His providence the preventible accidents of life, those which come through men's carelessness or dishonesty or greed of gain or fault of any sort. We must remember that even the providence of God cannot work completely or perfectly without our little work, each and every one's little work, well done. It is not great deeds that God expects or requires of us, unless He has endowed us with large gifts and has given us great things to do. He gives us certain talents and puts us in certain relations, and then asks us to be faithful—nothing more. The man with the plain gifts and the small opportunities is not expected to do the great things that are required of the man with the brilliant talents and the large opportunities. "She hath done what she could" is the highest approving word that could be spoken of any one. J. R. M. 24. Take courage.** Three things characterize and distinguish the courage of a sanctified heart. The root, whence it ariseth, is love to God; all the saints of God that love the Lord be of good courage. The love of Christ constraineth me to make these bold and brave adventures, saith the apostle. The rule, whereby it is directed, is the Word of God—what the Lord hath pleased to leave on record for a Christian's guidance in holy pages. And the end, to which it refers, is God. For every sanctified man being a self-denying and a God-advancing man, his God is his centre, wherein his actings, his undertakings rest; and his soul is not, yea, it cannot be satisfied but in God. Simeon Ash. The godly and the faithful are here called "those who hope in the Lord." They are to wait patiently, for this waiting has a glorious ending. This eye of hope patiently directed to Jehovah is the peculiarity of Old Testament faith. D.—Wonderful, indeed, is the hopeful trust of the saints of old in God, when we remember that they did not know Him as God manifest in the flesh. P. To love the Lord is the path, and the only path, to hoping in the Lord. So had the Psalmist found it for himself. In his changeful, perilous years of exile he had learned that the brightness with which hope glowed on his lonely path depended not on the accident of greater or less external security, but on the energy of the clear flame of love in his heart. Not in vain had his trials been to him, which cast that rich treasure to his feet from their stormy waves. Not in vain will ours be to us, if we learn the lesson which he here would divide with all those "that hope in the Lord." A. M. 1. BLESSED is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 2 Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no guile. 3 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old Through my roaring all the day long. 4 For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me: My moisture was changed as with the drought of summer. [Selah 5 I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid: I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; And thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin. [Selah 6. For this let every one that is godly pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found: Surely when the great waters overflow they shall not reach unto him. 7 Thou art my hiding place; thou wilt preserve me from trouble; Thou wilt compass me about with songs of deliverance. [Selah 8 I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will counsel thee with mine eye upon thee. 9. Be ye not as the horse, or as the mule, which have no understanding : Whose trappings must be bit and bridle to hold them in, Else they will not come near unto thee. 10. Many sorrows shall be to the wicked : DAVID draws from his own personal experience general lessons for the good of all in the Church. David was for a whole year, after his sin of adultery, like one condemned, in the utmost misery. Psalm 51 was composed when in this misery; Psalm 32 was written only after deliverance; the former in the midst of the penitential struggle, the latter after inward peace had been again attained. The theme of this Psalm is the rich treasures of knowledge drawn from that abyss of inward need: the blessedness of forgiveness, the sincere, unreserved confession of sin as the way to it, and the protection of God amid all dangers, as well as joy in God, as its fruits. D. In this Psalm David gives to the world his experience as a sinner. He tells us of the blessedness of forgiveness. He is blessed because his sins are taken away; because his sins are covered or hidden, and that from God, not from men; because he is treated as innocent. He tells us of the result of his attempts to cover his sin. His body suffered from the terrors of remorse. The old freshness of his heart was gone, like a running stream dried up in the sickening heat of the Eastern sun. He tells us of the remedy which he found. It was confession. True confession implies your viewing the fact of your sin in the same light in which God views it. Confession implies renunciation. . . . Whatever else this Psalm may teach us, it teaches us this broad truth that the forgiven penitent, under God's economy, is not a wretched man. While it is one of the saddest, is at the same time one of the most joyful of the inspired lyrics. It is no less the record of a bitter, penitential sorrow, than the expression of a heart full of praise. It comes to us to day to tell us that the worst sinner, forgiven by God, is a happy man. V. Beginning with the recital of his own experience, David here turns it into instruction and warning for others. He had long struggled with the sense of his sin, had long been crushed to the earth with his burden, because he would not humble himself before God; but God had given him again the heart of a child. He had gone to his Father with the penitent confession, But he that trusteth in the LORD, mercy shall compass him about. 11. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, ye righteous : And shout for joy, all ye that are upright in heart. "I have sinned;" and, as in the parable, the Father's heart moved toward His prodigal son when he was yet a long way off, so David found that his Father was ready to forgive—"I said, I will confess;" and "Thou tookest away the guilt of my sin." There can be little doubt that this Psalm was composed after Nathan came to him. Psalm 51 was the confession of his great sin and the prayer for forgiveness. This Psalm is the record of the confession made and the forgiveness obtained, and the conscious blessedness of his position as a son restored to his Father's house. There was a shelter for him there now—"Thou art my hiding-place." There was joy and gladness on his return—"Thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance." P. Its value lies very much in the fact that, while it records David's personal experiences, and because it records them with the utmost simplicity and frankness, it expresses some of the cardinal and most common experiences of all godly men. It reflects his spiritual moods, reflects them so clearly that we see his inmost heart, and seeing his, recognize our own. For "as face answereth to face in the glass, so heart of man to heart of man." The stages of spiritual experience which it sets forth are not peculiar to one person, but belong to all who have entered on the life of the spirit. Nor are they peculiar to any period of spiritual development; they belong to every period. The consciousness of sin, and the penitent confession of sin, the sense of forgiveness, and a growing trust in the forgiving love of the loving Father—these are not stages of spiritual experience through which we pass, passing through them and leaving them behind. They perpetually repeat themselves. The coming in of the Gospel has not removed us beyond their limits or emancipated us from their control. In respect of these, we are much where David was, having to "acknowledge sin" and to "confess transgression;" aspiring after the blessedness of the man "whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin," though and because he would not hide it, "is covered;" rejoicing that the Divine "hiding-place" is still open, and running into it to find ourselves, like the grateful Psalmist, "compassed about with songs of deliverance." Cox. The contrast between sin and grace appeared in all its sharpness in David's inner life; and that life brings to view, as its external course advanced in a state of continual conflict, both the deep degradation of the fallen, sin-burdened man, and the elevation of a spirit richly endowed with Divine grace. To a greater degree than any other Old Testament character, he experienced the restlessness and desolation of a soul burdened with the consciousness of guilt, the longing after reconciliation with God, the struggle after purity and renovation of heart, the joy of forgiven sin, the heroic, all-conquering power of confidence in God, the ardent love of a gracious heart for God; and has given in his Psalms imperishable testimony as to what is the fruit of the law and what the fruit of faith in man. And in saying this, we have touched upon that particular in which David most powerfully affected the spiritual life of his people. Oehler. It is no wonder that Augustin is said to have incessantly pored over this Psalm, and even to have had it written on the wall in front of his death-bed. It is remarkably free from allusions to outer and legal forms, and is thoroughly evangelical. What David learned first in suffering he pours out in spiritual song. He had gone through a hard struggle not with outward calamities, but with the far deeper trials of the heart and conscience, and then had come out into the sunlight of assured restoration and peace; hence the impressiveness of his words alike in regard to the conflict and the victory. T. W. C.—Luther, one day being asked which of all the Psalms were the best, made answer, "Psalmi Paulini;" and when his friends pressed to know which these might be, he said, "The thirty-second, the fifty-first, the one hundred and thirtieth, and one hundred and forty-third. For they all teach that the forgiveness of our sins comes, without the law and without works, to the man who believes, and therefore I call them Pauline Psalms; and David sings, 'There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared.' This is just what Paul says, 'God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.' Thus no man may boast of his own righteousness. That word, 'That Thou mayest be feared,' dusts away all merit, and teaches us to uncover our heads before God, and confess it is mere forgiveness, not merit at all." Table Talk. 1,2. The first word of the Psalter, like that of the Sermon on the Mount, is a beatitude. The next beatitude of the Psalter is that of him whose sin is confessed, forgiven, subdued. Paul mentions David as describing the declaration of blessedness of those whose iniquities are dismissed, and whose sins are veiled off from sight by one great act of amnesty. Not without reason did Luther speak of this and three other Psalms as "right Pauline Psalms." Bishop Alexander. Blessedness is not in this case ascribed to the man who has been a diligent lawkeeper, for then it would never come to us, but rather to a lawbreaker, who by grace most rich and free has been forgiven. Self-righteous Pharisees have no portion in this blessedness. Over the returning prodigal the word of welcome is here pronounced. The word rendered forgiven is in the original taken off or taken away, as a burden is lifted or a barrier removed. S. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin, i.e., account it as standing against him in law, unforgiven! But this man must be profoundly sincere in his penitence, one in whose spirit there is no deceit, no insincerity; who makes no hypocritical pretensions, but whose confessions mean all they say. David had felt the sweet relief which comes of such confession and of the resulting sense of pardon from God. Well might he exclaim, O the blessedness of this sense of pardon! C. Sin is here spoken of under three appellations, so as to include the whole idea of sin in all its manifestations: First, as "transgression" or departure from God, and open defection from his covenant. Secondly, as "a coming short of the mark," a not doing of our duty. Thirdly, as including in the idea of wrong-doing the guilt and also the punishment. And there is a threefold blessedness. The man is one who has his transgression taken away (literally, who is lightened of the burden of sin); who has his sin coerced, so that he is in God's sight as one who has not done the sin; and one to whom Jehovah reckoneth not iniquity, which, according to Paul's interpretation (Rom. 4: 6-9), is equivalent to saying that he is one whose faith is reckoned for righteousness. The non-reckoning of iniquity and the reckoning of righteousness are convertible terms; and the righteousness so reckoned is faith, or a righteousness without works. But God only thus forgives and justifies one who, with all truth and sincerity of heart, confesses his sin, making no reservation, no excuses, no attempts still to hold fast and hide some darling lust. "David's principal purpose in this text is, according to the interpretation of Paul, to derive all the blessedness of man from God." P. The heaping together of synonyms for sin and forgiveness is not tautology or feebleness. The Psalmist's heart is so full of its blessedness that one utterance is not enough to empty it; and though all the clauses describe the same thing, they do so with a difference. This is true with regard both to the words for sin and for pardon. As to the former, the three designations of sin present three aspects of its hideousness. The first, rendered "transgression," seems to mean, literally, separating or breaking loose, and hence comes to signify apostasy or rebellion. Sin, then, is departure or revolt. It is thus regarded in its gravest aspect as in relation to God, being not merely a breach of some impersonal law, but having reference to a Lawgiver, from whom it is departure and revolt. That is its blackest character, and is precisely what we are least willing to recognize. Many of us are ready to acknowledge faults, weaknesses, derelictions, or even crimes, but we do not like to think that all these have relation to him. "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned." The very notion of sin implies God. It is the rising of our wills against His will, the voluntary rending apart of an existing union. We are knit to God, and, so far as we can, we break the tie by our sin, and, like the prodigal son, seek independence in the irresponsible use of the goods which we think our own, in the distance of the far country. "Departing from the living God" is the definition of sin. The word rendered "sin" is literally missing a mark. What is rebellion in regard to God is, in regard to myself, missing my aim, whether we consider the aim as that which a man is intended by his very make to be and do, or as that which he proposes to himself by his act. All sin tragically fails to hit the mark in both aspects. It is a fearful failure as to reaching the ideal of conduct and as to winning the desired satisfaction. It keeps the word of promise to the ear and breaks it to the hope, ever luring by flattering and lying promises; and if it gives the poor delights it promised, adding something else that embitters them all. The word rendered "iniquity" means something twisted or distorted, and seems to embody the same metaphor as do our words "right" and "wrong"—namely, the contrast of the crooked, wandering ways of sin with the straight line of duty. The three expressions for forgiveness are also eloquent in their variety. The first means to take away, and implies the lifting and removal of a burden. It is more than the holding back of penal consequences; it is the taking away of the evil thing itself; and that not merely in the multitudinousness of its manifestations in acts, but in the depth of its inward source. The second, "covered," paints forgiveness as putting the foul thing out of sight, and so shrouding it from the pure Divine eye that his action is no longer determined by its existence. The third describes forgiveness as God's "not reckoning" a man's sin to him. God does not deal with the forgiven man as having done sin, nor let his sin hinder the free flow of God's love. So all three words set forth one idea in various phases, and express the entire removal of sin, so that it does not interfere with the flow of God's love. He who is thus forgiven has his spirit purged from "guile;" for purifying comes with God's pardon. A. M. Impute. Not charging upon account. As sin is a defection from the law, so it is forgiven; as it is offensive to God's holiness, so it is covered; as it is a debt involving man in a debt of punishment, so it is not imputed; they all note the certainty, and extent, and perfection of pardon—the three words expressing sin here being the same that are used by God in the declaration of His name (Ex. 34: 7). Charnook.—Aben-Ezra paraphrases it, of whose sins God does not think, does not regard them so as to bring them into judgment, reckoning them as if they were not; does not count or calculate them; does not require for them the debt of punishment. To us the remission is entirely free, our Sponsor having taken upon Him the whole business of paying the ransom. His suffering is our impunity, His bond our freedom, and His chastisement our peace; and therefore the prophet says, "The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed." Leighton. No guile. The one condition is that there be no dishonesty, no attempt to disguise, gloss over, extenuate, or justify the sin. The total absence of such a spirit proves that sin, great and deadly as it may be, is a stranger; that though admitted it is not welcomed, that when it is once clearly seen it is hated. David speaks of the first, the strongest and most enduring temptation of a sinner, and in stating the one condition of pardon he goes to the very root of evil. Cook.—They do not dissimulate their guilt; they attempt no deception in regard to it, whether before God or their own consciences; they do not deny, or extenuate, or conceal it; but they make frank and full acknowledgment before God of the evil they have done. W. H. G. In whose spirit there is no guile; he does not say, "There is no guilt" (for who is there that lives, and sins not?), but no guile; that does not dissemble with God in his professions of repentance and faith, and in his prayers for peace or pardon; but in all these is sincere and means as he says; that does not repent with a purpose to sin again, and then sin with a purpose to repent again. H.—No guile; no falseness, that is, either to himself or to God. Of this guilelessness Leighton remarks: "Nothing is more pleasing to God, who seeth the heart, nothing more like to God; and therefore is it most pleasing to Him, because it is most like Him." P.—The man whose transgression is forgiven; whose sin is hidden, God having cast it as a millstone into the depths of the sea; whose iniquity and perversion is not reckoned to his account; and whose guile, the deceitful and desperately wicked heart, is annihilated, being emptied of sin, and filled with righteousness, is necessarily a happy man. A. Clarks. 3. 4. For, as he had learned from his own experience, whoever does not pour out his whole corruption in confession before God, only tortures himself till he unburdens himself of his secret curse. The more he strove against confessing, the louder did his conscience speak, and seeing it was not in his power to silence this inner voice, in which God's wrath found expression, he cried for help; but because it was with a yet unbroken heart, he got no answer. He cried all the day, for God's punishing right hand lay heavy on him night and day, the sense of the Divine anger gave him no rest. A fire burned within him, which threatened to consume him utterly. D.—So long as he kept silence, laboring to smother his convictions and conceal his great sin, the dreadful agony was in his soul; his very bones—the firmest and least impressible part of his bodily frame—waxed old under the wasting torture, and he could only groan and sigh or moan all the day. Yes, all the day and all the night as well, the hand of God, impressing a sense of guilt, was heavy upon him. "My moisture," the juice of my life—the figure being taken from vegetable life and meaning the fresh and joyous life power—turned to the drought of summer. From being a green, living tree, I became a dry stick. These figures from the vegetable world, applied to his body to set forth the agony of his soul, are intensely expressive. What a life was this! Who can measure the woes of a guilty conscience, heightened by a sense of that awful eye of God, impressing His purity and justice, and making the soul afraid of His wrath! "Selah" calls for a thoughtful pause over these startling but most instructive facts of his heart-history. C. Of all the anguish in the world, there is nothing like this—the sense of God without the sense of nearness to Him. Elizabeth Frentiss.—There is something in guilt or the state of guiltiness that amounts to a virtual shutting up or suppression of all affinities with supernatural being. It condenses all the Godward and pure aspirations and gathers them in, by the dreadful recoil it makes on the soul's own centre. It pronounces a damnation, too, upon itself, and by its own remorseful severities makes the sentence good. Falling away thus from God, and closing itself up as regards all supernatural relations and perceptions, it becomes self-centred, isolated, a worm in the ground, having its belongings there and not in the element of day. Bushnell. In any really deep Christian experience, the great feeling of need, the energy of repentance, the agony of conviction, connects itself with a conscious estrangement from the heavenly Father, through a violation of His holy and merciful law; not merely a single act of sin, or a series of such acts; but a state of the nature and a habit of the life ungratefully and wickedly separated from God. Of course, so long as there is a feeble or lax sense of God's holiness, of the sanctity of His requirements, of the exceeding height and breadth and length of His commandments, and of the widespread mischief and unutterable wrong even of a single infraction of it sending its jar of discord through the spiritual world, and directly offending such a Being as God is, so long this piercing and bitter conviction will not be realized. Some lighter and easier solution than the cross will satisfy the mind, or seem to satisfy it, till a deeper movement agitates the heart and breaks up its inmost fountains. Whenever that hour comes, there comes with it a cry for full redemption, such a redemption as only the suffering of Him who is both man and God can give. F. D. H. 5. The end of the struggle—confession, and so forgiveness and peace. God covers sin, but man must not cover his sin before God. "If we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins." The former part of this verse contains the resolve, "I would acknowledge;" the second, the expression of the resolve, "I said."—And Thou. The pronoun is emphatic—it was God's doing. To Him he made his confession; He forgave. The same words are used here of sin and its forgiveness as in v. 1. P. The transition is described as sudden and complete; conscience once awakened finds no respite, seeks no delay; confession comes at once, at once followed by forgiveness. This accords exactly with the narrative. Nathan asks no more from the king, and at once declares his pardon. Observe that in this verse David again uses the three words of v. 1 to denote his sin, together exhausting all aspects, save that of rebellious and impenitent wickedness, from which he is free. Cook.—The three words for sin are repeated, though in a different order, and the act of confession is thrice mentioned, as the act of forgiveness was. The fulness of the pardon and its swiftness are emphatically given by the brief words, by the double designation, 'the iniquity of my sin,' and by the representation of pardon following on the resolve to confess, before it was put into act. So eager was the Divine love to forgive, that it waited not for the actual confession, but anticipated it with its ready forgiveness. A. M. He sums up the result in a single sentence: 'Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.' He has a whole catalogue of joyful consequences of his confession to present to us; but he is careful to make it perfectly clear at the outset that all these consequences are linked with forgiveness. The man is not blessed who can forget his sins; who can blind himself to them; who can divert his mind from them; who can temporarily escape their consequences. Blessed is he, and only he, whose transgression is forgiven. Thus we get back to the key-note of the Psalm. V. The teaching of the Psalms on the forgiveness of sins is exactly the same as that of New Testament Scripture. Forgiveness is with God. It is bestowed of His free grace, and for His name's sake, on those who confess and desire to forsake sin. And it is a present forgiveness, assured to the conscience by God's Word—cleansing the soul and clearing the sinner from every charge of guilt. What the thirty-seventh Psalm was to the pious in perplexity, the thirty-second must have been to Hebrew penitents. It tells of transgression taken away, as an intolerable burden is removed; of sin covered, so that the sinner is before God's judgment as if he had not sinned at all; and of iniquities not reckoned to the worker thereof. This it is which Paul quotes in one of his chief arguments on justification (Rom. 4 : 6). D. F. Here is a clear note of joy over the blessed exexperience of him who pours out his heart to God—a musical Yea and Amen to the great truth of justifying grace. D.—The happiest being on earth is he who looks on all his manifold and great transgressions, and while he loathes himself on account of them, can say, 'I am pardoned.' This recollection melts him. It fills his heart with unutterable love for his dying Lord; it makes His very name precious to his soul. Whether in heaven or in earth, this is the character and this the happiness of the Christian—he is a pardoned sinner—he feels and acts as a pardoned sinner. C. Bradley.—And the only way to secure that pardon and happiness is by coming to that great Fountain that is opened for sin and for uncleanness, and resorting to that of which the Psalmist had a vision far in the future, and you and I have a clear sight conspicuous in the past—the cross on which Jesus Christ has taken away the sin of the world. Without that sure work done for us and in us, our consciences appeased, the burden lifted off our shoulders, there may be mirth and riotous gladness, there may be satisfaction in accomplished desires and fulfilled ambitions and gratified loves or lusts; but permanent and deep and central blessedness there will not be until we have lost our sin and found ourselves at the foot of the cross. A. M. The sinner who confessed obtained mercy, and that very mercy caused the sinner to confess. This is a circle, you say. So it is; and it is like God. All the worlds are globes, and all their paths are circles. His dispensations circulate. All good comes forth from Himself, all glory returns to Himself. His mercy displayed broke the stony heart, and caused the confession to flow; the confession flowing opened the way for mercy to enter. If I have not a broken, contrite heart, God's mercy will never be mine; but if God had not manifested His mercy in Christ, infinite and free, I could never, never have a broken, contrite heart. Arnot. All true love to God is preceded in the heart by these two things—a sense of sin and an assurance of pardon. There is no love possible—real, deep, genuine, worthy of being called love of God—which does not start with the belief of my own transgression, and with the thankful reception of forgiveness in Christ. You do nothing to get pardon for yourselves; but unless you have the pardon you have no true love to God. That, and that alone, is the road by which we come to possess the love of God, as a practical power, filling and sanctifying our souls. The Bible tells you, and the Gospel and the cross of Christ tell you, no love without pardon, no fellowship and sonship without the sense of sin and the acknowledgment of transgression! . . . Unmistakably our Lord teaches (Luke 7: 47) that forgiveness comes first to us who have nothing, not even love, to pay with, and that it unlocks the flood-gates of the heart as nothing else will. We are not pardoned because we love, but we love because we are pardoned. We are pardoned because He loves us, and the knowledge of His forgiving love melts our hearts. Jesus seems to teach us that there must be this experience of forgiveness before there is real and deep love. Certainly the principle involved in these words has been proved true in all the history of Christianity since they were spoken. Forms of Christianity which minimize sin, and have little to say about pardon, have always been, and always will be, cold and stagnant. The one power that sets souls aflame with a holy and self-sacrificing love is the experience of God's pardoning mercy in Jesus Christ. The measure of our consciousness of forgiven sin will be the measure of our love. A. M. 6. And now, because of the grace thus vouchsafed to every repentant sinner, David would encourage all the godly to seek Him who deals so graciously with sinners. P.—The time when God may be found is when the great waters swell about the despairing; when heart and flesh falleth; when there is help and hope in no earthly arm. "Man's extremity is God's opportunity." It is when it seems as if even God could not make this trial tolerable, or this path passable, or this hindrance a help; it is when we are weakest, and most in doubt, when we know not what to pray for as we ought; in hours of pain, of bereavement, of poverty, of betrayal, of suspense, of misunderstanding, of sore temptation—it is then that God is nearest and readiest and strongest and kindest, easiest found, and surest to supply all the need of those who put their trust in Him. "For this let every one that is godly pray unto Thee in a time when Thou mayest be found; surely when the great waters overflow they shall not reach unto him." H. C. T. 7. How noble and eloquent the brief words (echo of the historical narrative) that tell the full and swift forgiveness that followed simple confession—and how effectively the music again comes in, prolonging the thought and rejoicing in the pardon! How sure he is that his experience is of priceless value to the world for all time, when he sees in his absolution a motive that will draw all the godly nearer to their Helper in heaven! How full his heart is of praise, that he cannot but go back again to his own story, and rejoice in God his hiding-place—whose past wondrous love assures him that in the future songs of deliverance will ring him round, and all his path be encompassed with music of praise. A. M. See what God can do for a sinner. Look at this sinful, defiled soul, but now raging and smiting in his passion, blighting the fairest flowers of domestic peace in his selfishness, crushed and withered by remorse, groaning under God's hand—and say if anything but Divine grace, Divine compassion, Divine forgiveness, can change such an one into the joyful singer of praises who speaks to us to-day through this familiar Psalm. V.—A sinner so lately tortured with a sense of guilt and shrinking before the awful eye of God now speaks sweetly of finding in this same God a hiding-place for his soul, a preserving hand against all danger and trouble, a God of ready and warm heart to gird him all about with joyous songs of deliverance! Is not this for a wonder and joy forever, that God can so freely and so fully forgive? "Compass me about with songs of deliverance" is singularly strong and expressive. It is not merely that his heart is full of them, but they invest him on every side; they enrobe him, they overspread him from head to foot—his glory and his covering! Here is a fit place for one more pause to think of these wonders of God's love. Hence, "Selah." C. When a man has surrendered himself in humbleness and penitence to God, and the proud spirit of self-excuse has passed away; when the soul has opened itself to all His influences and known their power; when the saddest and bitterest part of suffering is felt no longer as the wrath of the Judge, but as the discipline of a Father; when the love of God has melted the soul and fused it into charity—then the soul is reconciled to God, and God is reconciled to the soul; for it is a marvellous thing how the change of feelings within us changes God to us, or rather those circumstances and things by which God becomes visible to us. His universe, once so dark, becomes bright; life, once a mere dull, dreary thing, "dry as summer dust," springs up once more into fresh luxuriance, and we feel it to be a Divine and blessed thing. We hear the voice of God as it was once heard in the Garden of Eden whispering among the leaves; every sound, once so discordant, becomes music, the anthem of creation raised up with everlasting hallelujahs to the eternal throne. Joy is not delayed till we deserve it. Just so soon as a sinful man trusts that the mercy of God in Christ has done away with his transgression, the ring, and the robe, and the shoes are his, the banquet and the light of a Father's countenance. F. W. R. 8,9. These verses seem to be best taken as the Divine voice answering the confidence of v. 7. The "I" and "thee" in each correspond; and the loving counsel by a glance, which God will give to those who dwell near enough to Him to see, and love Him enough to follow the lightest indication of His will, contrasts with the obstinacy of the untamed animal nature, which needs rough, outward constraint. The sense of pardon makes men docile, and binds them to God in such sweet bonds that they are eager to catch the faintest hint of His wish, and feel the glance of His eye as a mightier constraining power than all force or external restraints or impulses. Obedience extorted by force is no obedience, and a heart that is only brought near to God by "bit and bridle" is an untamed heart. They who watch for the guidance of the eye do not need the coarse restraints and constraints which lower natures require. "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go. I will guide thee with Mine eye," scarcely sounds like words meant to be understood as spoken by David. They are the promise from heaven of a gentle teaching to the pardoned soul. A. M. No man ever need be at a loss as to the path of duty. If he goes wrong, it is either because he does so wilfully or because he doesn't try to learn the right way. God stands ready to teach him his duty, to teach him by the written Word, by the lessons of Providence, by the promptings of the Holy Spirit. God makes this teaching work His own work. He wants men to look to Him for instruction. He doesn't tell them to watch church-members, and do as well as they do—or as poorly. He doesn't ask them to decide for themselves what He ought to teach, and then do what seems to them "reasonable;" for, as a rule, the less reason men have, the more ready they are to depend on it. He wants men to use their reason in finding out what He has commanded—not what they think He should have commanded—and then to do accordingly. He wants them to look to the one Example of godly living He has given among men, and to pattern after that. It is God's work to disclose the right way. It is man's work to walk in it. The showing is God's part. The going is man's. H. C. T. Guide thee. How will the guiding come? God has made three great revelations of His will: the Bible, Christ's life, the Holy Ghost's teaching. But in each there is the same underlying principle and central fact. That principle, that fact, is the mind of God. The mind of God shining through these things into a man is God's eye. It emits God to him. Faith is the inner eye of man. It is made to see, and to receive, and to follow truth. The eye of God and the eye of man must meet. Prayer clears the vision. Religious study clears the vision. Contemplation, the very looking into God's eye, clears the vision. More light streams in; and light used makes light again, till it grows so distinct and bright, that the eye of the man is an actual reflector of the mind of God. We see as God sees. We judge as God judges. And the more like-minded we grow, the greater the assimilation and the more intuitive our sense of God's will becomes about everything. In heaven we shall be holy, because we shall see Him face to face; that eye of God which lured us at the beginning, and never left us, has done it all. J. Vaughan. The life of righteous men presents many an apparent contradiction of this truth. Men said to be under the guidance of that kindly eye do often walk in obscurity. Suffering is their lot. Their motives are impugned. They make no grand figure in the world. Their way is often rough, and rocky splinters pierce the feet. For loyalty to their convictions, friends desert them and enemies harass them. But none the less is it true, the Lord has never forgotten His faithful ones. That kindly eye has been upon them, that loving Providence over them. Haydn. Life would be much calmer, freer, and stronger than most of us make it, if we really acted on the faith that God did lead us, and that He, rather than our poor foresight, had the shaping of our days. Constant watchfulness for the indications of His will is needed, if we are to realize His direction and to know the joy of swift obedience. "I will guide thee with Mine eye." We must be near Him, and looking ever toward Him, if we are to catch its meaning. The watchful servant does not need spoken orders. The choice for every man lies between that gracious guidance by the eye, and the rough way of telling "the horse or as the mule, which have no understanding," which road their master would have them go, by a tug at the rein and the pressure of the bit in their mouths. Many a hint of God's will escapes us for want of watchfulness. Before we complain of the perplexities which beset our choice, let us make sure that we have caught all the indications which have been given. Wills held in suspense and equipoise until His will is plain are needed, if we would really be led by God. There is no more frequent cause of blindness to plain signs of duty than obstinate wishes opposed to it. The secret of all peace and of all practical wisdom is in submission. Whoso lets God's manifest will determine his is king of all kings and of himself, and will seldom be at a stand as to his road. Impatient pressing on the heels of God's purposes, before they have fully developed their direction, is sure to end badly. The true attitude is to watch and to wait, with wills held ready to bend either way, as He will. If it is not plain to patient, prayerful, acquiescent inquiry what He would have us do, it is plain that, for the moment, He would have us do nothing; and they who run before they are sent are sure to be out of the road. A. M. 9. It was a great misapprehension in our English translators to suppose that the bit and bridle were used to keep horse and mule from coming too near, instead of being used to break in those timid or wayward creatures and tame them to come to you, fearless and kind. The true version gives one of the finest illustrations of God's ways in discipline, and suggests that we use the understanding God has given us to see and appreciate His love and to let it have its subduing and winning power on our otherwise stubborn and reluctant hearts. Such is the spirit of this exhortation. It is but too often needed. Conscious guilt is shrinking and does not love to face the purity against which it has sinned. C. The bridle which restrains the beast is often its ornament. The fact is familiar that animals have a kind of pride in the gaudy trappings which are the signs of their degradation, the proofs that they cannot be appealed to on the grounds of reason and conscience. So it is often true that a sinful man is proud of his rebellion against God, and boasts of it. If he but knew it, this is his humiliation. It stamps him as a creature which does not realize its relations to God and eternity. God would gladly deal with him as a free man, on generous terms; but if he refuses the guidance of the eye, he must take up with bit and bridle. If men will not come nigh unto God, and fall in with His gracious economy, they must be sternly restrained from interfering with it. V. "If you will be as beasts before Him, God will deal with you as beasts;" the cold, sharp bit will be thrust between your teeth, and, haply, the lash not spared. It is better even for a horse to be tamed with bit and bridle, and bent to useful work, than to live a useless, self-indulgent life, and at the last to rush off in wild stampede to unknown harms. And how much better is it for a man that he should have all needful corrections, and be won by them to a free and glad obedience, than that he should be left, unchastened, to travel on to the great darkness? Cox.—There is no more generous and noble-minded superior than God. When any seek to Him, He seeks no vantage of them, but He will bridle and bind to force them to acknowledge Him; and if they seek in to Him, He will pity, for it is His nature to pity poor afflicted and confused souls when they seek in to Him. Be not thou like the horse or mule, whose mouth must be holden by bridle and bit, else God shall bind and bridle foot and hand, and lay on till ye be forced to stand. Therefore in time make your prayer to Him while He may be found. Dickson. God never uses harsh measures when more quiet ones will do. But if the believer will not listen to the gentle voice of God, then, rather than let him run on to his destruction, God will put on the bit and bridle. This is done not because He hates but because He loves the sinner. If affliction comes to you, and you are heavily burdened, you may be sure that by that experience God desires to teach you something that you could learn in no other way, and that it is important that you should know. Schaufler.—A Christian, when he sees trouble coming upon him, should not fly in the face of the instrument that brings, but in the face of the cause of its coming. Now the cause is thyself, thy base self, thy sinful self, and thy unworthy carriages toward God under all the mercy, patience, and longsuffering that God has bestowed upon thee and exercised toward thee. Here thou mayest quarrel, and be revenged, and spare not, so thou take vengeance in a right way; and thou wilt do so when thou takest it by godly sorrow. Bunyan. Decision of character and firmness of purpose are very desirable qualities in the Christian. The Church of the present day needs men with independent minds and a strong, straight backbone, men who dare to say "No" clearly and earnestly. She needs men like Joshua and Daniel and Paul, who can withstand temptation, and even the false persuasion of friends. But we must beware, lest with the backbone we develop a tail and long ears. "Be not as the . . . mule." G. H. Hubbard. 10. The usual contrast between the lot of the ungodly and that of the righteous, as the sum of all that has been said, and as a great religious axiom. P.—Many pains (are) to the wicked; and (as to) the (man) trusting in Jehovah, mercy shall encompass him, or, He will encompass him (with) mercy. In this and the remaining verse the Psalmist closes with the statement of a general truth, founded in necessity and verified by all experience, that sin produces misery and trust in God salvation. It is implied though not expressed in the first clause, that the sufferings of the wicked, while he still continues such, are hopeless and incurable, while those to which the righteous is subjected are salutary in effect and temporary in duration. Here again we may observe that the antithesis is not between the wicked and the absolutely righteous, but between the wicked and the man trusting in Jehovah, and that the effect ascribed to this trust is not the recognition of the man's inherent righteousness, but his experience of God's mercy, which implies that he is guilty and unworthy in himself, and can only be delivered from the necessary consequences of his sin by simply trusting in the mercy of the very Being whom he has offended. A. He who sows sin will reap sorrow in heavy sheaves. Sorrows of conscience, of disappointment, of terror, are the sinner's sure heritage in time, and then forever sorrows of remorse and despair. Let those who boast of present sinful joys remember the shall be of the future and take warning. S. Note that the forgiven man is in this verse described as trustful, and in the next verse as "righteous" and "upright in heart." Pardon leads to thankful confidence and to growing righteousness; and they are upright not who have not fallen, but who have been raised from their fall by God's pardoning mercy. The mutual relation of these words is instructive, and carries the full Gospel in germ. Note, further, the allusion in "compass him about" to the use of the same word in v. 7, where it is the expression of the Psalmist's own confidence; and here is the declaration of the Divine dealings. An unbroken ring of blessings, like a wall of fire, shall surround the pardoned, faithful soul, and there will not be a break in the circle through which a real evil can creep. A. M. Mercy shall compass him about. He shall be surrounded with mercy—as one is surrounded by the air or the sunlight. He shall find mercy and favor everywhere—at home, abroad; by day, by night; in society, in solitude; in sickness, in health; in life, in death; in time, in eternity. He shall walk amid mermercies; he shall die amid mercies; he shall live in a better world in the midst of eternal mercies. Barnes.—"Mark that text, 'He that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about.' I read it in my youth and believed it; and now I read it in my old age, thank God, I know it to be true. R. Aukins. Mercy is antecedent to trust. Man trusts only because God is merciful. But the apprehension of the mercy succeeds trust. God is found merciful and precious as man trusts Him. So the sunlight precedes the power of vision, but as the eye is opened to behold it and appropriate it, its beauty and utility are discerned in ever-increasing measure. Trust, in the scriptural sense of the word, trust in the personal Saviour, implies faith in testimony. Trust is an advance in faith; it is its flower and fruit. Faith lays hold upon evidence; trust upon the person concerning whom the evidence is given. We believe the testimony which God hath given of His Son, and having believed, commit to Him the keeping of our souls and bodies. This committing is trust. The manifestation of mercy is according to the completeness of the trust. Trust is the soul's emptying of self for His filling with Himself. "In having nothing," says Chrysostom, "I have all things because I have Christ. Having therefore all things in Him I seek no other reward, for He is the universal reward." "None that trust in Him shall be desolate." Mercy everywhere! "Earth is full" of it; and it is "great above the heavens." Mercy every day! It "shall follow me all the days of my life." Mercy in every experience! "All the paths of the Lord are mercy." N. W. Wells. Let none despair, let none presume; let none despair that are sorry for their sins and would be saved by Jesus Christ; let none presume that abide in the liking of their sins, though they seem to know the exceeding grace of Christ; for though the doors stand wide open for the reception of the penitent, yet they are fast enough barred and bolted against the presumptuous sinner. It cannot be that God should be prevailed upon by lips of dissimulation; He knows them that trust in Him, and that sincerely come to Him by Christ for mercy. It is, then, not the abundance of sins committed, but the not coming heartily to God by Christ for mercy, that shuts men out of doors. Bunyan. 11. And then the Psalm ends with a great cry of gladness, three times reiterated, like the voice of a herald on some festal day of a nation: "Rejoice in Jehovah! and leap for joy, O righteous! and gladly shout, all ye upright in heart!" The depth of penitence measures the height of joy; the "roaring all the day long" is changed into shouts of praise and gladness. Every tear sparkles like a diamond in the sunshine of pardon; and he who begins with the lowly cry for forgiveness as a contrite sinner will end on the sunlit heights of joy "in the Lord," and be made, by His indwelling grace, "righteous" and "upright in heart." A. M. He exhorteth them three times—be glad, rejoice, and be joyful; and as he made mention of a threefold blessing, so doth he of a threefold joy. This same prophet in the next Psalm redoubleth his exhortations for the same effect. And the apostle to the Philippians saith: "Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, rejoice." Next perceive that this exhortation grows, for the word be glad properly in the original signifieth an inward and hearty joy, by the presence or hope at least of a thing desirable or good. The word rejoice, to express our joy by some outward gesture, sometimes used for dancing, as, "The hills skip for gladness." The word be joyful, to cry for gladness, as the dumb man's tongue shall sing. This gradation teacheth us that spiritual joy still increaseth in us by certain degrees until it come to the perfection of all joy, which is signified by the last word, importing a triumph and shouting after victory. Symson.—There's never a joyful man alive but a believer. Will you say that men take pleasure in their sins? Why, that is the Devil's joy; or that they rejoice in full barns and bags? That is the fool's joy; or that they rejoice in wine—that is, all dainties that gratify the palate? That is a Bedlam joy. Read and believe Eccl. 2: 3. The whole book, but especially that chapter, is the divinest philosophy that ever was or will be. Christopher Fowler. Why not make it the plan of our life to live in this exulting joy of experience which the Psalmist felt and uttered, which the apostle felt and uttered, which he recognized as possible, and as gained already in those to whom he was writing? Why not make it the purpose of our life and the constant burden of our prayer to God, that we may be brought into this state of royal experience of gladness and strength and peace and victory in God, as He has declared to us in His Son, as He has revealed to us in His promises; so that others may be swept by the contagion of our joy into the kingdom of light, in which alone that joy can be realized; so that we may feel all the time that our heavenly life is not far off, but here; that we have the germ already, and the full flower only awaits the transplantation of the spirit to the celestial garden? We have the ray of light, and the meridian of glory is before us that our joy may be full; and it never will be full except as we meditate upon the Word, and do the work which God assigns to us, and come to Him in the intimacy and freedom of filial prayer for the constant indwelling of His Spirit. R. S. S. 1. REJOICE in the LORD, O ye righteous: Praise is comely for the upright. 2 Give thanks unto the LORD with harp: Sing praises unto him with the psaltery of ten strings. 3 Sing unto him a new song; Play skilfully with a loud noise. 4 For the word of the LORD is right; And all his work is done in faithfulness. 5 He loveth righteousness and judgment [or, justice]: The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the LORD. 6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; And all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. 7 He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap He layeth up the deeps in storehouses. 8 Let all the earth fear the LORD: Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. 9 For he spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast. 10 The LORD bringeth the counsel of the nations to nought: He maketh the thoughts of the peoples to be of none effect. 11 The counsel of the LORD standeth fast forever, The thoughts of his heart to all generations. 12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD; The people whom he hath chosen for his own inheritance. 13 The LORD looketh from heaven; He beholdeth all the sons of men; 14 From the place of his habitation he looketh forth Upon all the inhabitants of the earth; 15 He that fashioneth the hearts of them all, That considereth all their works. 16 There is no king saved by the multitude of an host: A mighty man is not delivered by great strength. God is the God of creation, of providence, of grace. This is, in a few words, the Psalmist's theme. Jehovah created the world. Jehovah governs the world; and all nations and kings, whether they acknowledge Him or not, are but instruments in His hand. Jehovah especially reveals Himself in mercy and love to His own chosen people. This is one of the few Psalms in the first book which in the Hebrew is without an inscription. P. 1. Rejoice in the Lord, ye righteous, so the foregoing Psalm concluded, and so this begins; for all our religious exercises should both begin and end with a holy complacency and triumph in God as the best of beings and best of friends. H.—The Christian has his sorrows; but these are not unsweetened. The Christian life has its shadows and its showers; but these are not unmingled with bright beams of heavenly light; and the saddest aspects of a Christian's daily life are but the April showers of spring that usher in the approaching bright and beautiful summer—the everlasting and the heavenly sunshine. Christian life is not a reluctant sacrifice wrung from us, but a joyous and free-will offering gladly and gratefully rendered by us. Cumming.—Therefore Psalmist, prophet, apostle, utter and repeat the call, Rejoice in the Lord. B. Praise. The Hebrew word for praise is beautifully emphatic. It means, literally, acknowledgment or confession. In praising a fellow-creature, we may easily surpass the truth; but in praising God, we have only to go on confessing what He really is to us. Here it is impossible to exceed the truth, and here is genuine praise. Bengel.—Praise is better than prayer. Praise is comely for the upright. It suits their character and destiny. It fits them for their lifework. It makes them acceptable to God, and prepares them for heaven. H. J. V. 17. An horse is a vain thing for safety: Neither shall he deliver any by his great power. 18 Behold, the eye of the LORD is upon them that fear him, Upon them that hope in [or, wait for] his mercy; 19 To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine. 20 Our soul hath waited for the LORD: He is our help and our shield. 21 For our heart shall rejoice in him, Because we have trusted in his holy name. 22 Let thy mercy, O LORD, be upon us, According as we have hoped in thee. 2. Here musical instruments are first introduced in the Psalms. The precise construction of these various instruments is lost irrecoverably. We know that they were used as an accompaniment to the voice, and may safely presume that they were adapted for sacred music—well adapted, considering the genius and culture of the age. C. 3. Sing unto Him a new song; play well with joyful noise! A new song implies the continual recurrence of fresh reasons and occasions for the praise of God, and also the spontaneous outflow of devout and thankful feelings in the hearts of the singers. A. 4,5. The call to praise God is first based on a representation of His praiseworthiness as the God of revelation in the kingdom of grace. His word is uprightly meant, and without becoming untrue to itself in any respect, straightway fulfilling itself; His every act is an act which fulfils itself in faithfulness, which proves the truth of His word and the kindness of His will. D. 4. For right is the word of Jehovah, and all His work is (done) in faithfulness. The word here meant is the word of promise, and the work is its performance or fulfilment. The word is right or upright, i.e., uttered in sincerity and with a full determination to redeem it. In faithfulness, executed faithfully. A. 5. God has made it to appear in His works that He is a God of inflexible justice. He loveth righteousness and judgment. There is nothing but righteousness in the sentence He passes, and justice in the execution of it. He never did or can do wrong to His creatures, but is always ready to right those that are wronged, and does it with delight. He takes pleasure in those that are righteous. He is Himself the righteous Lord, and therefore loveth righteousness. And He is a God of inexhaustible bounty. The benign influences which the earth receives from above and the fruits it is thereby enabled to produce; the provision that is made for man and beast and the common blessings with which all the nations of the earth are blessed plainly speak that the earth is full of His goodness. What pity is it that this earth, which is so full of God's goodness, should be so empty of His praises; and that of the multitudes that live upon His bounty, there are so few that live to His glory! H. 6-9. From the present proofs of God's love in the earth, the thoughts of the sacred poet naturally go back to the creation of all things. And as he had before declared what the "word" and "work" of Jehovah are, in their essential characters (v. 4), so now he describes further the operation of that word, and the work which results therefrom. The heaven and the sea are mentioned as the theatre of God's almighty power, as the earth before of His lovingkindness; and thus the universe is summed up. P. —All these manifest and wonderful proofs of goodness in the heavens above and in the earth beneath are to be ascribed to God, for He is their Supreme Creator. This is the logical connection between these verses and the preceding. All you see of goodness in earth or sky; all these marvellous revelations of wisdom and beauty, of adaptation to the happiness of man and of myriads of other sentient beings, are to be ascribed directly and wholly to God their Creator; "for by the word of the Lord were the heavens made." C. 6. The Word of the Lord is the command which called the universe into existence; the Breath is the quickening spirit which brooded on the abyss, and gave life and form to all things. Cook. 7. Putting, literally, giving, storing, depositing. Depths, masses of water. The main point of the description is God's handling these vast liquid masses, as men handle solid substances of moderate dimensions, heaping the waves up and storing them away, as men might do with stones or wheat. A.—The vast masses of waters which had hitherto covered the entire surface of the globe were on the third day of creation brought within narrower compass, and large tracts of the submerged earth reclaimed and rendered habitable ground. The waters were for the most part congregated together in one vast body, instead of being universally diffused over the face of the earth. This is the state of things which we now contemplate; the various great seas and oceans constituting in fact but one body of water called in different regions by different names, as the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Southern oceans. Bush. 8. Stand in awe.** Reverence is the supreme and eternal duty and grace of the created spirit. It is both the source and the issue of all godliness. As the spirit formed by religion, it is universal in its influence. It extends to all Divine things as well as to God himself: to His word, His ordinances, to His created temple of the world, and to all that is His; in His presence more particularly it is awe. W. B. Pope.—True reverence for God includes both fear and love: fear, to keep Him in our eye; love, to enthrone Him in the heart: fear, to avoid what may offend; love, to yield a prompt and willing service: fear, to regard God as a witness and judge; love, to cleave to Him as to a friend and father: fear, to render us watchful and circumspect; love, to make us active and resolute: love, to keep fear from being servile or distrustful; fear, to keep love from being forward or secure; and both springing from one root, a living faith in the infinite and ever-living God. D. Moore. 9. For (it was) He (that) said (Be), and it was; (it was) He (that) commanded, and it stood. The whole form of the sentence here is modelled upon that of the cosmogony in Genesis, where these two verbs repeatedly alternate. The common version, He spoke and it was done, is liable to three exceptions: First, the emphatic pronoun of the Hebrew is not fairly represented; second, the phrase it was done is much less striking than it was; third, the Hebrew verb does not mean to speak, but to say. What was said every reader, could supply from recollection of the narrative in Genesis. A.—The works of His hands are the material embodiment of His creative word. That word was the vocal expression of a Divine idea; and thought and word are made visible, and are presented to the eye, in the forms and the phenomena of external nature. The earth is an open and pictured page of a great volume; the starry heavens are an illuminated manuscript; above, beneath, within, around us, everywhere, we see the letters and words of a Divine writing—God's thoughts set forth by His own hand, inscribed in a manner at once luminous and significant, by His ideas and utterances becoming facts. T. Binney. 10,11. From God's works in creation the Psalmist passes to His manifestations of Himself in history. On the one hand He frustrates all undertakings which are not in accordance with His will; on the other (v. 11), He gives eternal effect to His own purposes. The world's history is but a development of the principles which have their abode and origin in God. Cook.—The whole history of the world is the uninterrupted carrying through of a Divine plan of salvation, the primary object of which is His people, in and with them also the whole of humanity. D. David puts the "counsel" and the "thoughts" of the people over against the "counsel" and the "thoughts" of God. The former God will bring to nought; the latter shall stand forever. C.—The counsel of the Lord standeth forever. It is immutable in itself, for He is in one mind, and who can turn Him? The execution of it may be opposed, but cannot in the least be obstructed by any created power. Through all the revolutions of time God never changed His measures, but in every event the eternal counsel of God is fulfilled; nor can anything prevent its being accomplished in its times. How easy may this thought make us at all times, that God governs the world, that He did it in infinite wisdom before we were born, and will do it when we are silent in the dust. H. The Scripture shows us by numberless instances that God has not only upon special occasions made use of the power of miracles for the preservation of the righteous or the destruction of the wicked, but that generally He governs the moral world by providentially directing natural causes and influences to effect what He determines should be done; that He rewards or punishes men by wholesome or pestilential air, by fruitful or barren seasons; that He promotes or disappoints their designs by the uncertain changes of winds or weather; that He employs and directs influences of nature to overthrow the most powerful armies, to defeat the wisest counsels, to determine the fates of men and kingdoms; that the unsearchable wisdom of Providence directs and steers the most casual and accidental events, to change the fortunes of men and disappoint the most proper and natural means of success; so that "the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill;" but that time and chance, directed by the providence of God, happens to them all. Nay, further, the Scripture teaches us that God not only directs natural causes and overrules the actions of men to fulfil His own good pleasure, but influences men's minds by strange concurrences of external causes, or by other more secret and unknown ways, to bring about just events; that He comforts good men and supports them in their designs; that He terrifies bad men with strange amazements, to discover their own conspiracies and to fall into the snares which they had secretly laid for others; that "He frustrateth the tokens of liars, and maketh diviners mad; turneth wise men backward, and maketh their knowledge foolish; that a man's heart deviseth his ways, but the Lord directeth his steps; that there are many devices in the heart of man, but the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand; and that the heart of the prince is in the hand of the Lord; as the rivers of waters, He turneth it whithersoever He willetth." S. Clarke. No knowledge is so important and so practical as that of God's plan. None so personally, universally and eternally affects us. That we can apprehend this knowledge in its simplicity is proof of the divinity of the human spirit. In this plan happiness is made to correspond with piety, sorrow with sin, and the plan works with certainty; inexorable, yet simple. The force that binds the moon to the earth and the earth to Sirius is simple but sure. So in the sweep of the ages, God's truth standeth forever and the thoughts of His heart to all generations. Eternity itself shall emphasize and illustrate it. R. S. S. 12. Here we have the doctrine of God's universal providence looked at in its special application to the chosen people, as often. It is, however, immediately connected with the preceding verse; for the fact that Jehovah's counsels stand fast forever is a matter of consolation for the people whose God He is (147: 19, 20), and whom He hath chosen for His own inheritance. P.—The Jehovah who built the heavens and the earth is also in covenant relation with men, adopting them as His chosen people, His special inheritance. Plainly David brings together here those two grand ideas—that the God of Israel was at once the Creator of all worlds, and their own accepted Lord and King by special covenant. C. 13,14. The children of men are all under His eye, even their hearts are so; and all the motions and operations of their souls which none know but they themselves, He knows better than they themselves. Though the residence of God's glory is in the highest heavens, yet thence He not only has a prospect of all the earth, but a particular inspection of all the inhabitants of the earth. He not only beholds them, but He looks upon them, He looks narrowly upon them, so narrowly that not the least thought can escape His observation. H. 15. The (God) forming all their hearts, the (God) attending to all their deeds. Forming implies knowing, which is more distinctly expressed, in reference to their outward conduct, in the other clause. God is also described as the Creator of the human soul in Zech. 12 : 1. His control of it is expressly affirmed in reference to kings (Prov. 21 : 1). A.—He is equally the Maker of all hearts—the sense being that He made them all by one creative act, rather than after the same fashion. “He understandeth” (much stronger than merely “considereth”) “all their works.” C.** 16,17. The weakness and insufficiency of all human power, however great, as before of all human intellect. “King and mighty man and horse” (i.e., “war-horse,” as elsewhere “chariot and horse”) are selected as types of earthly power in all its greatness. P.—The victory gained by the king, the rescue effected by the hero, are not the work of their own hands. Their great military power and bodily strength accomplish nothing without God, who can be mighty even in the weak. D.—The great number of the army, the great might of the warriors, the great strength or fleetness of the war-horse, are of no account as compared with God, much less as matched against Him. These ideas were exceedingly practical to David and his people in that militant age. They have a place therefore in such a religious song as this which we can but feebly appreciate. C. 18. Fear—hope.** These are mutually helpful; and they are not only never so beautiful, but never so influential as when they are blended. The fear promotes hope by the evidence it affords; and by keeping us from careless walking, which must always affect our peace and pleasure. And hope no less befriends this fear. For never is God seen so glorious, so worthy of all our devotedness to Him, as when we hope in His mercy. W. Jay. 21. For in Him shall our hearts rejoice, for in His holy name have we trusted.** The Psalmist’s assurance of the future is derived from the possession of a faith already tried and proved to be truly in existence. It is because he has trusted, that he knows he shall rejoice. His holy name, in the wide sense which the epithet so often has in this book, nearly corresponding to His glorious, His Divine name. To trust in this name is to build one’s hopes on the manifestation of God’s attributes in previous acts; to believe that what He has heretofore shown Himself to be, He will be still in the experience of His people. A.—His holy name is the ground of His Church’s faith, love, and hope; for from thence cometh its salvation. It can confidently pray that the grace of the Lord may be bestowed upon it, for it waits upon Him; and human waiting and Divine granting mutually condition each other. D. 22. Be Thy mercy, Jehovah, upon us, as we have waited for Thee.** The faith implied in this hope being the sole condition of God’s mercy, its possession constitutes a claim upon that mercy, which is here urged as the sum of all the previous petitions. What is thus waited for cannot but be realized. A merciful and righteous God cannot, without denial of Himself, withhold that which His people thus expect. A. A PSALM OF DAVID; WHEN HE CHANGED HIS BEHAVIOR BEFORE ABIMELECH, WHO DROVE HIM AWAY, AND HE DEPARTED. 1. I WILL bless the LORD at all times: His praise shall continually be in my mouth. 2. My soul shall make her boast in the LORD: 3. O magnify the LORD with me, And let us exalt his name together. 4. I sought the LORD, and he answered me, And delivered me from all my fears. 5. They looked unto him, and were lightened: And their faces shall never be confounded. 6. This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, And saved him out of all his troubles. 7. The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, And delivereth them. 8. O taste and see that the LORD is good: Blessed is the man that trusteth in him. 9. O fear the LORD, ye his saints: For there is no want to them that fear him. 10. The young lions do Jack, and suffer hunger : But they that seek the LORD shall not want any good thing. 11. Come, ye children, hearken unto me : I will teach you the fear of the LORD. 12. What man is he that desireth life, And loveth many days, that he may see good ? 13. Keep thy tongue from evil, And thy lips from speaking guile. 14. Depart from evil, and do good ; Seek peace, and pursue it. 15. The eyes of the LORD are toward the right- eous, And his ears are open unto their cry. 16. The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, This is, like the last, a Psalm in which God's providence and moral government of the world are the subject of grateful acknowledgment. His guardian care of the righteous is more espe- cially celebrated and applied to the individual circumstances of the Psalmist. This is one of the alphabetical Psalms. The order of the Hebrew alphabet is preserved, except that there is no verse beginning with the letter Vau. P. —This Psalm is eucharistic and didactic. It is full of thankfulness to the Almighty Deliv- erer, who defends the penitent against the un- godly. It is a lesson from experience for those who are tempted and afflicted. M. Title. By David, in (the time of) his chang- ing (disguising) his reason before Abimelech, and he drove him away, and he went. The incident referred to is recorded in 1 Sam. 21. David, having fled from Saul into the land of the Phil- istines, was brought into the presence of Achish, king of Gath, from whom he had reason to ex- pect retaliation for injuries formerly received, and therefore pretended to be mad, an expedi- ent which, in spite of its dubious morality, it pleased God to allow to be successful. In grateful recollection of this undeserved deliver- ance, not without some compunction with re- spect to the means by which he had secured it, David seems, at a later period of his life, to have composed this Psalm for popular instruc- tion, to which it is peculiarly adapted by its clearness and simplicity, as well as by its alpha- betic form, which is a valuable aid to the mem- ory. In his changing does not necessarily desig- nate the date of composition, but only that of the event which gave occasion to it. The com- mon version, behavior, is inconsistent with the usage of the Hebrew word, which means taste, To cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. 17 The righteous cried, and the LORD heard, And delivered them out of all their troubles. 18. The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, And saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. 19. Many are the afflictions of the righteous : But the LORD delivereth him out of them all. 20. He keepeth all his bones : Not one of them is broken. 21. Evil shall slay the wicked : And they that hate the righteous shall be condemned. 22. The LORD redeemeth the soul of his ser- vants : And none of them that trust in him shall be condemned. judgment, understanding, reason. Abimelech, king's father, hereditary sovereign, was the traditional title of the king. His personal name was Achish. A. 2. My soul shall boast in the Lord.** Can any boasting be greater than to say, "I can do all things?" Yet in this boasting there is humility when I add, "Through Christ that strengtheneth me." For though God likes not boasting, yet He likes this boasting which arro- gates nothing to ourselves, but ascribes all to Him. R. Baker. 2-6. There is somewhat very striking in the sudden transitions and the change of persons, observable in these few verses. "My soul shall boast" "The humble shall hear" "I sought the Lord" "They looked to Him" "This poor man cried." There is a force and elegance in the very unconnection of the expressions, which, had they been more closely tied by the proper particles, would have been in a great measure lost. Things thus separated from each other and yet accelerated, discover, as Longinus observes, the earnestness and the vehemency of the inward working of the mind ; and though it may seem to interrupt or disturb the sentence, yet quickens and enforces it. Chandler. 4-9. He hesitates not to pour out his com- plaints to his heavenly Friend, detailing them one by one, just as a child might do in its mother's ear, and as he goes on it is pleasant to see how his heart is lightened and his voice takes on the ring of gladness and deliverance. He never forgets, however, what sort of a being Jehovah is, so as to presume upon His conde- sension. But confidence and love are to Him no presumption. He cannot keep within his own bosom the exuberance of his joy. If his case be exceptional, he certainly sees no reason why it should not be the rule. Out of an evident experience he exclaims: "O taste and see that Jehovah is good, how blest the man who taketh refuge in Him!" E. C. B. 4. I sought the Lord, and He heard me.** God expects to hear from you before you can expect to hear from Him. If you restrain prayer, it is no wonder the mercy promised is retained. Meditation is like the lawyer's studying the case in order to his pleading at the bar; when, therefore, thou hast viewed the promise and affected thy heart with the riches of it, then fly thee to the throne of grace and spread it before the Lord. Gurnall. 5. Looked unto Him, and were lightened.** God lades the wings of private prayer with the sweetest, choicest, and chiefest blessings. Ah! how often hath God kissed the poor Christian at the beginning of private prayer, spoken peace to him in the midst of prayer, and filled him with light, joy, and assurance upon its close! Stanley.—This simple looking toward Jesus has been the strength and unction of believers in all ages. All the trials, perplexities, and difficulties of the Christian life of their own accord vanish away in this blessed unity of the Christian look. This look, so simple that the humblest child is capable of it, suffices for all. It is the cause of the most different effects, the cure of the most opposite evils; it is equally victorious over the difficulties of systems, and the perplexities of doubt, the assaults of pride, and the assaults of despair; the temptations of covetousness, and those of sorrow; the bitterness of hatred, and the weakness of natural affection. When we behold the cross, there proceeds from it a light which disperses all darkness, and a flame of love which consumes all hatred. What anguish, what pain, what bitterness can there be when Jesus Christ appears; when love Divine, love without measure, unconditional, unlimited, breaks forth upon us in the mystery of the cross! All reasonings, all combinations, all counsels, all methods, are not as regards the heart or even the understanding, worth a look directed to Jesus; and though all these means are useful, there is still need of the look, still need of the light to quicken all, and give strength to all. "They looked to Him," says the Psalmist, "and were lightened," at once illumined, warmed, quickened, consoled. Vinet. The instinct of the devout heart is to tell Christ all its troubles, great or small, and He does not need beseeching before He answers. He did not need to be told, either, but He would not rob us of the solace of confiding all our griefs to Him. Then let Jesus know all that troubles, welcome Him as a guest, tell Him everything, and He will cure all diseases and sorrows, or give the light of His presence to make them endurable. Consecrate to Him the strength which He gives, and let deliverances teach trust and inflame grateful love, which delights in serving Him who needs no service but delights in all. A. M. We cannot pray too importunately for anything which it is certain that it would be good for us to have—more faith, more hope, more love, more strength to resist temptation, more light to show us the evil of sin and the preciousness of Christ. If our heart's longing be for spiritual blessings to ourselves or others, it cannot be too fervent, though even here we must be content to leave entirely to our heavenly Father the time at which and the manner in which He will grant what we ask. But no desire for an earthly gratification may be brought before God, no prayer for another position in life, or for success in anything we are trying for, or for deliverance from some trouble which comes to us as part of our daily lot, may be offered, without adding to the petition for it these or the like words: "Nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done." We should go to God about it with the assurance that He who so loved us as to give His Son for us, will not, cannot, deny us anything which would really be for our advantage. With this condition, we are at liberty to ask exactly what we like. We cannot ask too much, too often, too earnestly. E. M. G. 7. Encamping (is) the angel of Jehovah round about His fearers—and (now) He has rescued them.** The angel, not only in the collective sense of angels, but in its specific sense, as denoting the angel of the Lord by way of eminence, the angel of the covenant and of the Divine presence (Isa. 63: 9), in whom the manifestation of the Godhead took place under the Old Testament. As this angel was the captain of the Lord's host (Jos. 5: 14; 1 Kings 22: 19), his presence implies that of many others, and the word encamp is therefore perfectly appropriate. A. For us the true Messenger of the Lord is His Son, whom He has sent, in whom He has put His name, and whose own parting promise, "Lo, I am with you always," is the highest fulfilment to us Christians of that ancient confidence, "The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him." The vision of the Divine ever takes the form which our circumstances most require. David's then need was safety and protection. Therefore he saw the encamping angel, even as to Joshua he appeared as the captain of the Lord's host, and as to Isaiah in the year that the throne of Judah was emptied by the death of the earthly king was given the vision of the Lord sitting on a throne, the King eternal and immortal. Note that final word of deliverance. This Psalm is continually recurring to that idea. All the writer's thoughts were engrossed and his prayers summed up in the one thing—deliverance. He is quite sure that such deliverance must follow if the angel presence be there. But he knows, too, that the encampment of the angel of the Lord will not keep away sorrows, and trial, and sharp need. So his highest hope is, not of immunity from these, but of rescue out of them. And his ground of hope is that his heavenly Ally cannot let him be overcome. A. M. 8. Taste and see.** There are some things, especially in the depths of the religious life, which can only be understood by being experienced, and which even then are incapable of being adequately embodied in words. "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good." The enjoyment must come before the illumination; or rather the enjoyment is the illumination. There are things that must be loved before we can know them to be worthy of our love; things to be believed before we can understand them to be worthy of belief. And even after this—after we are conscious of a distinct apprehension of some spiritual truth, we can only, perhaps, answer, if required to explain it, in the words of the philosopher to whom the question was put, "What is God?" "I know, if I am not asked." Binney. The religion of the Bible itself makes a personal spiritual experience of its power the only final evidence for it. "Taste and see that the Lord is good;" "if any man be minded to do the will of My Father in heaven, he shall know of the teaching, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself;" these are consenting representative declarations from the older writings and the later, which harmonize with many others in setting forth the fact that only by spiritual experiment of the Gospel can man be assured of its Divine origin, as ultimately proved by its Divine energy. All other impressions of this must be, in the nature of the case, preparatory, rudimental. Only by joyful experience of it is such a certainty produced in the mind of the inestimable beauty of sunshine, as could have been formed, as can be shaken, by no argument conceivable. Imagine the attempt to make that beauty as certain as it is to us, to one who had passed his entire life in the unlighted cavern! So it is only by trying Christianity in its fitness to our deepest personal needs, of alliance with God, of moral renovation, of tranquillity, and of hope, that men can become utterly certain that it is from above; not a fabric, any more than the earth is, of human fancy, or a construction of human logic, or even a brilliant and lofty surmise of human aspiration; but a Divine system, as is the atmosphere, as is radiant light, presented by God to the world of mankind for their permanent sovereign life and peace. R. S. S. The excellence and desirableness of God's gifts is a subject again and again set before us in Holy Scripture. All images of what is pleasant and sweet in nature are brought together to describe the pleasantness and sweetness of the gifts which God gives us in grace. And as it is natural to feel satisfaction and comfort in these gifts of the visible world, so it is but natural and necessary to be delighted and transported with the gifts of the world invisible; and as the visible gifts are objects of desire and search, so much more is it, I do not merely say a duty, but a privilege and blessedness, to "taste and see how gracious the Lord is." Newman.—The sweetness of honey, or wine, or meat is not known by looking on it, but by tasting it. Come near and try what it is to live in the love of God, and in the belief and hope of life eternal, and in universal obedience to the laws of Christ, and then tell us how these things do relish with you. You will never know the sweetness of them effectually as long as you are but lookers-on. Baxter. Why should they be silent who have tasted that the Lord is gracious? Let them tell to all who are willing to listen what the Lord hath done for their souls. Let the compressed love which glows in renewed hearts find utterance in spoken praise. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits! Arnot. Blessed the man that trusteth. The basis of the blessed life is laid in the Psalter, as in the New Testament, in simple trust in God. It is clear enough that it is the condition of true blessedness. For if we think of our needs, our exposure to danger, the storms that hurtle around us in our unsheltered nakedness, the evils that beset us on every side; if we think, on the other hand, of the absolute sufficiency and all-satisfying fulness and sweetness of that Divine heart, and the strength of that Almighty hand, surely it needs no words to make it clear that the one safe place for us is beneath the shadow of that mighty wing and close to the throbbings of that strong and tender heart, and that the one thing which it is wise for us to do is to "trust in the Lord at all times, and to cast ourselves absolutely, utterly, thankfully, confidently upon His Almighty defence." The felicity of this confidence in the Lord is here based upon what that Lord is. "Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!" and therefore, because He is, "blessed is the man that trusteth in Him." A. M. 9. Fear Jehovah, ye His saints, for there is no want to His fearers.** The fear of God is here put, as in several other places, for the whole of piety or genuine religion, which must ever rest upon the basis of profound veneration. His saints, those set apart and consecrated to His service, and as such bound to be holy in the strict sense. The last clause represents this as no less the interest than the duty of God's people. They are called upon to fear Him, not only because fear is due to Him, but because it is the surest method of securing their own safety and supplying their own wants. A. "Fear," as usual in the sense of filial reverence, not excluding the trust and love of simple piety. Whoever fears and trusts thus shall lack nothing good. The young lion, despite the care of his vigilant and powerful mother, may suffer hunger, but God's sons and daughters, never. C.—Not anything that God sees good for them shall those men want that fear the Lord. If health will do them good, if sickness will do them good, if riches will do them good, if poverty will do them good, if life will do them good, if death will do them good, then they shall not want them; neither shall any of these come nigh them if they will not do them good. Bunyan.—If anything be wanting to a good man, he may be sure it is not good for him, and then better that he doth want it, than that he did enjoy it; and what wise man will complain of the want of that, which if he had, would prove more gainful than hurtful to him? "No good thing will God withhold," and therefore not wants themselves, which to many are also good things. Want sanctified is a means to bring to repentance, to work in us amendment of life, it stirs up prayer, it weans from the love of the world, it keeps us always prepared for the spiritual combat, discovers whether we be true believers or hypocrites, prevents greater evils of sin and punishment to come; it makes us humble, conformable to Christ our Head, increaseth our faith, our joy, and thankfulness, our spiritual wisdom, and likewise our patience. Richard Young. 10. All these verses are beautiful representations of the fulness, suitableness, completeness, and all-sufficiency of God in Christ to answer all the wants of His people. And is there not a vast elegance in the comparison taken from the hunger and rapacity of the lion, even the impetuousness of the young lion, to that of the patience and silent waiting of the faithful believer? A life of faith will find food in everything, because it is all founded in Christ. R. Hawker.—They that seek the Lord shall not want any good. As to this life, they shall have what is necessary to the support of it from the hand of God; as a Father, He will feed them with food convenient; what further comforts they desire they shall have as far as infinite wisdom sees good, and what they want in one thing shall be made up in another. What God denies them He will give them grace to be content without, and then they do not want it. Paul had all and abounded because he was content. Those that live by faith in God's all-sufficiency want nothing; for in Him they have enough. H. 11-14. This recipe for a happy life is the only one that fits all ages and countries and circumstances, and has never in a single instance failed. It rests on two immutable things, character and Providence. Whoso wishes to secure his real welfare must keep a conscience void of offence toward God and toward man. All the rest is in the hands of Him who sees the end from the beginning, and never makes a mistake. His Providence sometimes seems to run counter to His promise, but it is only "seems." Afflictions come, but only when there is a needs be; they cease when the end is gained; and while they last the back is fitted to the burden. A Scottish martyr, on the eve of execution, said, "God hath not promised to keep us from trouble, but to be with us in it, and what needs more?" Happy the man who has learned this secret of happiness and governs his life accordingly. T. W. C. 11. Fear of the Lord.** This fear is a sweet composed reverence of God as our King, yea, as our Father; as very great, but no less good than great; so highly esteeming His favor as fearing most of all things to offend Him in any kind; especially if the soul have been formerly either under His apprehended displeasure, or, on the other side, have had some sensible tastes of His love. His children fear Him for His goodness; are afraid to lose sight of that or deprive themselves of any of its influences. They desire to live in His favor, and then for other things they are not very thoughtful. Leighton.—This fear of the Lord is the pulse of the soul; and as some pulses beat stronger, some weaker, so is this grace of fear in the soul. As long as the pulse beats we count not that the man is dead, though weak; and this fear, where it is, preserves to everlasting life. This fear of God also is sometimes like an intermitting pulse; there are times when it forbears to work, and then it works again. David had an intermitting pulse; Peter had an intermitting pulse, as also many other of the saints of God. Bunyan. 12. He supposes that we all aim to be happy. What man is he that desireth life?—that is (as it follows), not only to see many days, but to see good comfortable days. It is not our being, but our well-being that is entitled to the name of life. It is asked, “Who wishes to live a long and pleasant life?” And it is easily answered, Who does not? H.—Life with all its burdens and anxieties is yet such a blessed thing, this earth, with its ties and pursuits and objects and possessions, has so much in it to occupy and fascinate and gladden; friends are so kind, home is so happy, knowledge is so noble, nature is so fair, that, say as we will, think as we may that heaven is our home and this world a wilderness, were our health unbroken, and our tasks unfinished, and our energies fresh, and our homes full, we should follow with somewhat reluctant steps and moistened eyes, and a heart looking behind us, the messenger that takes us away. We are meant to love life; nay, we are made to love it. Loye of life is no sin, it is merely a lower kind of love than a desire for the fruition of life eternal in the presence of the Lamb; and the Divine way of lifting us up from the lower level to the higher, without contradicting on the one hand God’s purposes for our earthly service, or, on the other hand, crushing the beautiful human affections, which are the features of God’s own image in ruined yet not quite defaced souls, is by gradually weaning us from earthly things, rather than by violently alienating us from them, by correcting and elevating, rather than by destroying our natural instincts and capacities, through the blessed prospect of the inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away. If we wish for heaven only because we are tired of earth, we shall soon want to leave it, and be back here. Heavenly-mindedness, such as God would work in us, is a weariness of sin, not of duty; a desire to see God, not merely to leave men. Bishop Thorold. The structure of a Christ-like character is the life-long work of a true disciple. Slowly, course by course, the stones have to be laid, each by a distinct effort, and all according to the plan of the great Architect, and on the foundation other than which no man can lay. That great ideal must be clear before the true disciple. Life is not for enjoyment nor for worldly ends, but for building up Christ-like character, and all outward things are but scaffolding to further the building. A. M. 13. Keep thy tongue from evil and thy lips from speaking guile. The man who was inquired for in v. 12 is here directly addressed. Whoever thou art, if thou desire thus to live, keep, watch, guard, thy tongue from speaking evil, a comprehensive phrase, for which the last clause substitutes one more specific—namely, speaking guile, uttering deceit, or lying. A.—The tongue is an instrument of much good or much evil. Life and death are in its power; he that keepeth it keepeth his soul; and he who offendeth not therewith is a perfect man; it is an unruly member, and the first work of the fear of God must be to bridle it, that no profane, unclean, slanderous, deceitful, or idle word proceed out of the mouth. And as the heart is to the tongue what the fountain is to the stream, that must first be purified. Bishop Horne.—The tongue is a great mischief-maker, and not easily ruled. The root of this ill-governed member is in the unseen world of the soul; the force which animates and moves the tongue is generated in our spiritual nature. When the spirit which excites and controls the tongue is not love to God and love to man, the speaker by his words sows a curse in his own constitution. It is one of the laws of thy health that thou “keep thy tongue from speaking evil.” And thy lips from speaking guile. The absence of guile exceedingly endears a man or a woman to heaven. No sin is imputed where there is no guile. Except ye become as guileless as babes, your friends in the kingdom of God will behold you afar off, as persons who are unable to come nigh. J. Pulford. Where there is no guile in the heart, there will be none in the lips. The two great means which insincerity uses in order to deceive are simulation and dissimulation; simulation is the seeming to be what we are not; dissimulation, the seeming not to be what we are. But the man of sincerity shuns them both. To say nothing at all is in many cases consistent with the highest sincerity, and so it is to speak with reserve to say only a part, perhaps a small part, of what we know; but were we to pretend it to be the whole, this would be contrary to sincerity. Sincerity in speech includes fairness and honesty in controversy; shunning a sophism, however tempting, if we know it to be such; scorning to take an unfair advantage in argument, or trying to make "the worse appear the better reason." It is opposed to another dangerous practice, against which it is scarcely possible to inveigh too strongly—avowing and defending, for the sake of argument, opinions which we do not believe. S. D. Waddy.—It is the doctrine of the Scriptures and of the unsophisticated language of man's moral constitution, that truth is obligatory on its own account, and that he who undertakes to signify to another, no matter in what form, and no matter what may be the right in the case to know the truth, is bound to signify according to the convictions of his own mind! He is not always bound to speak, but whenever he does speak he is solemnly bound to speak nothing but the truth. The universal application of this principle would be the diffusion of universal confidence. It would banish deceit and suspicion from the world, and restrict the use of signs to their legitimate offices. Thornwell. In that one creature who was made in the image of God—into whom God breathed a living soul—there is speech, the open channel for its forthcoming. Reverence human speech. It is the mark of a being who has been made, and may be remade, a child of God. Reverence human speech, for it is a divinely formed capacity for a divinely prescribed use. Dread false speech, proud speech, impure speech, profane speech—for these are the bright weapons with which the King has accoutred us wielded against the King. High treason! Arnot. Depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it. If thou desire to enjoy life, depart from evil, break off the practice and abjure the love of it; and since this is neither practicable nor sufficient as a mere negation, effect it by a positive performance of its opposite, do good. Compare the exhortation in Isa. 1: 16, 17, Cease to do evil, learn to do good. A. Depart from evil. This denotes that evil is near to men; it keeps close to them, and should be declined and shunned; and it regards all sorts of evil: evil men and their company; evil things, evil words and works, and all appearance of evil; and the fear of the Lord shows itself in a hatred of it and a departure from it. John Gill.—These precepts are the duty of works, and they are four where the precepts of words were but two; because we must be more in works than in words; and they are all affirmative, for it is against the nature of a work to be in the negative; for so working should be no better than idleness: the two former are general, as general as good and evil; that if we meet with evil our part is to depart. R. Baker. Do good. Good works are the mark, the proof, the evidence of Christian life; they are the badge of a Christian community; and they are the means through which the members of that community are bound together, and the Christian life is brought to pervade them all. When they are scanty, the Christian life must be feeble; when they are totally wanting, whether in an individual or a community, the Christian life must be all but extinct. They are also the means of growing in the Christian life; for it is by exercise, by action, that every living principle is strengthened. The Christian life is not created by our good works, but it is to be fostered and nourished by them, and may be so to a wonderful extent, if we always bear in mind how it originated, and are careful to have it replenish from its only source; while, on the other hand, without them it will pine and die. Indeed in this instance we have the special assurance: "And to him who hath shall be given; and from him who hath not shall be taken away even what he hath." Hare. Our religion is neither a dogma nor a theory, a thesis nor a hypothesis, a category nor a dream. It is a spiritual power; it is a personal presence; it is a governing genius of life; it is a comforter of actual sorrows; it is a quickener to every noble work. It is the world's best builder, planter, legislator, and reformer. It is not a stranger to be scrutinized, but a friend to be loved, because it has first loved us. It is not a guest to be entertained, but a leader to be followed; not a secret to be found out, for its very face is a revelation; not a clever and promising applicant for a place, which thrift may turn to account and vanity display, for it speaks in the name of the Lord; not an institution that can expire by limitation, nor a form that grows old, nor a ceremony that can give up the ghost and still keep on its feet, but an everlasting, living law, vital in every part; not a policy that can be shaped, but a principle that by its own formation and irresistible spirit shapeth all things. It is a reality. F. D. H. To "depart from evil" is but a part of our duty; we are also to "do good." "Pure religion and undefiled" walks not in solitude; her hands are employed providing the orphans bread; her feet are found at the widow's door; her steps are even sometimes turned to haunts of vice; her visits are paid, not so much to the great and noble as to the fatherless and widows in their affliction; and, following our Lord, nor shrinking from the touch of guilt, she goes forth to seek and save the lost. Guthrie.—All the good that is done among men is proportioned only and exactly to the amount of sacrifice which is employed to produce it. To witness sacrifice is of itself to breathe a bracing atmosphere. All labor is sacrifice. All that is most noble and most lasting, and that truly enriches and elevates the life of man, is only achieved by sacrifice—the sacrifice of inclinations, the sacrifice of time, of goods, of health, and, if need be, of life. H. P. L. God blesses you that you may be a blessing to others. Then He blesses you also a second time in being a blessing to others. It is the talent that is used that multiplies. Receiving, unless one gives in turn, makes one full and proud and selfish. Give out the best of your life in the Master's name for the good of others. Lend a hand to every one who needs. Seek to be a blessing to every one who comes for but a moment under your influence. This is to be Christ-like. We are in this world to be useful. God wants to pass His gifts and blessings through us to others. Be content to pour your life into other lives, and see them blessed and made more beautiful, and then hide away and let Christ have the honor. Work for God's eye, and do not think much about reward. Seek to be a blessing, and never think of self advancement. We need to take care that no shadows of ourselves, of our pride, our ambition, our self-seeking, fall upon our work for Christ. J. R. M. If ever we are to labor truly for the highest good of our fellow-creatures, we must learn to take reverent and loving views of them. The deeper and higher our estimate of the soul of man, the more shall we be filled with the pity and awe that are the strength of persevering labor in its behalf; and the more shall we share the mind and help the work of Him who, knowing the soul's value, died for its eternal good. Ker.—Ever regard the great rule to distinguish between the error itself and the living man that holds the error; or the vice, which by its nature is altogether evil, and the human heart of the human brother or sister which with its mixed ingredients is stained with the vice; hating and condemning the vice, but loving its victim: nay, hating the vice the more because it has made him its victim. You will say that, in practice, such discriminations are extremely difficult. That is true; but they are none the less, for that, our Christian business; and no great services to Christ are very easy. Charity requires us further to remember that whatever evil our neighbors suffer themselves to do, we can never know how much they are tempted to do which they effectually restrain. There are terrible battles fought in all human breasts, out of human sight. Could we know all that is resisted and all that is overcome behind these erring lips and lives, we should often have to admire the virtue rather than to condemn the fault. F. D. H. Seek peace. Peace is specially singled out from among the good; we are not only not to disturb it, but to seek it; yea, we are to pursue it as a hunter pursues the noblest beast of prey. Let us follow, says the apostle also (Rom. 14: 19; Heb. 12: 14), after that which makes for peace. D.—Because nothing is more contrary to that love which never fails, which is the summary both of law and Gospel, both of grace and glory, than strife and contention, which bring confusion and every evil work; we must seek peace and pursue it; we must show a peaceable disposition, study the things that make for peace, do nothing to break the peace, and to make mischief. If peace seem to flee from us, we must pursue it; follow peace with all men, spare no pains, no expense, to preserve and recover peace, be willing to deny ourselves a great deal, both in honor and interest, for peace sake. These excellent directions in the way to life and good are transcribed into the New Testament, and made part of our Gospel duty (1 Pet. 3: 10, 11). H.—Augustine says, Live righteously and live peaceably. Quietness shall find out righteousness wheresoever he lodgeth. But she abhorreth the house of evil. Peace will not dine where grace hath not first broken her fast. Let us embrace godliness, and "the peace of God, that passeth all understanding, shall preserve our hearts and minds in Jesus Christ." T. Adams. 15,16. The same eye which beams in lambent love on "the righteous" burns terribly to the evil-doer. "The face of the Lord" means the side of the Divine nature which is turned to us, and is manifest by His self-revealing activity, so that the expression comes near in meaning to "the way of the Lord," and the thought in both cases is the same, that by the eternal law of His Being, God's actions must all be for the good and against the evil. A. M.—If life and peace and all good be in God's hand to bestow when it pleaseth Him, then, sure, the way to it is an obedient and regular walking in observance of His will; and the way of sin is the way to ruin. For the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and His face is against them that do evil. L. 15. His ears are open unto their cry.** The word "open" is not in the original, but the meaning is that the ear of God is in a leaning kind of posture toward the cries of the righteous. Those who are worthy and righteous indeed, the ear of God leans and hangs toward them and their prayers, according to Cant. 2 : 14, "Let me hear Thy voice, for sweet is Thy voice." There is a kind of naturalness and pleasantness between the ear of God and the prayers, and petitions, and cries of such a righteous man. John Goodwin. 18. The fact that even good men fall into sin and that the best of them have the sins of their impenitent life to repent of, make a broken heart and a contrite spirit constituent elements of a pious man's character and standing conditions of God's favor. "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at My word" (Isa. 66 : 2). No state of mind other than this or unlike this can be right in one who has ever sinned. 19. No human life escapes all suffering and trial; let it suffice that the Lord knows how to deliver every righteous one from anything whatever—that is, on the whole, a real evil, for He can make every permitted trial or pain work out the richer results of moral discipline—submission, obedience, trust. C. "Many are the afflictions of the righteous," and wherefore, but to bring his religious belief and emotions in close contact with the humiliations of animal life, and to necessitate the use of prayer as a real and efficient means of obtaining needful assistance in distress? I. T.—Be our troubles many in number, strange in nature, heavy in measure; yet God's mercies are more numerous, His wisdom more wondrous, His power more miraculous; He will deliver us out of all. T. Adams.—The trial is father to the triumph, and the song owes its paternity to the sigh. He who loves and trusts God can count his distresses and his deliverances at the same time, for the number of the one is the number of the other. Anon. 20. He stands under the most special providence: "He keepeth all his bones, not one of them is broken;" a pictorial specialization of the thought that God does not suffer matters to come to extremities with the righteous, that He does not suffer him to be torn from His almighty protecting love. Still we cannot but think of the literal fulfilment which these words found in the crucified One; for the Old Testament prophecy, which is quoted in John 19 : 33-37, may equally well be traced back to our Psalm as to Ex. 12 : 46. Not only the paschal lamb, but to a certain extent even every affliction of the righteous, is a type. In His case human suffering sounds the very lowest depths; all the promises given to the righteous are also fulfilled in Him; for He is the righteous One in the most absolute, the Holy One of God in the most unique sense (Isa. 53 : 11; Jer. 23 : 5; Zech. 9 : 9; Acts 3 : 14; 22 : 14). D. 21,22. In each of these verses the verb rendered condemned means, primarily, to be guilty; and secondarily, to be punished for this guilt. All they that hate the righteous are thus held guilty and punished; but never those who reverently and humbly trust in Him. The ministrations of good or ill through God's providence will sever broadly between the righteous and the wicked. He will surely let the world know whom He approves and loves, on the one hand, and whom He cannot but abhor for their wickedness, on the other. C. 22. Those who put their trust in God are never put to shame. No doubt it often seems as if their hopes were all baffled. Certainly many things befall them which were not expected and not desired. But the Lord always helps in due time; He always blesses, though it be in adversity and through adversity; He always brings good out of the apparent evil. Therefore the Christian can confidently cast all his cares upon the Lord and commit himself to the Lord's loving providence. "The Lord redeemeth the soul of His servants." Anon. 1. STRIVE thou, O LORD, with them that strive with me : Fight thou against them that fight against me. 2 Take hold of shield and buckler, And stand up for mine help. 3 Draw out also the spear, and stop the way against them that pursue me : Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation. 4 Let them be ashamed and brought to dishonour that seek after my soul : Let them be turned back and confounded that devise my hurt. 5 Let them be as chaff before the wind, And the angel of the LORD driving them on. 6 Let their way be dark and slippery, And the angel of the LORD pursuing them. 7 For without cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, Without cause have they digged a pit for my soul. 8 Let destruction come upon him at unawares ; And let his net that he hath hid catch himself : With destruction let him fall therein. 9 And my soul shall be joyful in the LORD : It shall rejoice in his salvation. 10 All my bones shall say, LORD, who is like unto thee, Which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him, Yea, the poor and the needy from him that spoileth him ? 11 Unrighteous witnesses rise up ; They ask me of things that I know not. 12 They reward me evil for good, To the bereaving of my soul. 13 But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth : I afflicted my soul with fasting ; And my prayer returned into mine own bosom. 14 I behaved myself as though it had been my friend or my brother : I bowed down mourning, as one that bewaileth his mother. 15 But when I halted they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together : WE have here another of those Psalms, in which two great parties, the righteous and the The abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew it not ; They did tear me, and ceased not : 16 Like the profane mockers in feasts, They gnashed upon me with their teeth. 17 LORD, how long wilt thou look on ? Rescue my soul from their destructions, My darling from the lions. 18 I will give thee thanks in the great congregation : I will praise thee among much people. 19 Let not them that are mine enemies wrongfully rejoice over me : Neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. 20 For they speak not peace : But they devise deceitful words against them that are quiet in the land. 21 Yea, they opened their mouth wide against me ; They said, Aha, aha, our eye hath seen it. 22 Thou hast seen it, O LORD ; keep not silence : O LORD, be not far from me. 23 Stir up thyself, and awake to my judgment, Even unto my cause, my God and my LORD. 24 Judge me, O LORD my God, according to thy righteousness ; And let them not rejoice over me. 25 Let them not say in their heart, Aha, so would we have it : Let them not say, We have swallowed him up. 26 Let them be ashamed and confounded together that rejoice at mine hurt : Let them be clothed with shame and dishonour that magnify themselves against me. 27 Let them shout for joy, and be glad, that favour my righteous cause : Yea, let them say continually, The LORD be magnified, Which hath pleasure in the prosperity of his servant. 28 And my tongue shall talk of thy righteousness, And of thy praise all the day long. wicked, are exhibited in contrast and in an attitude of mutual hostility. The Psalm may be divided into three parts, parallel to one another, in all of which the elements combined are complaint, prayer, and the promise of thanksgiving for anticipated deliverance. The first division is occupied with an invocation of Divine judgments on God's enemies, ending with an expression of triumph in God's favor (vs. 1-10). The second contains a more particular description of these enemies, as oppressors, false accusers, unthankful renderers of evil for good, and malignant scoffers, with a prayer for the Divine interposition, and a pledge of public thanksgiving (vs. 11-18). The third renews briefly the description of the enemy, but is chiefly filled with prayer to be delivered from them, and closes, like the others, with a promise of perpetual thanksgiving (vs. 19-28). A. This Psalm is singularly animated; the transitions of thought and feeling are abrupt; prayer, imprecations, expostulations, complaints, and hopeful ejaculations succeed in rapid alternation; the images are vigorous and graphic, but not wrought out in detail; the position is not that of a king, but of a subject, harassed, poor, beset by enemies, liable to judicial persecution; there is no special consciousness of guilt, but perfect confidence in God's righteousness, and in His own; the language also is rugged, with many archaic forms and obscure idioms, the rhythm highly lyrical and full of movement. All these characteristics point to the time when David was pursued by Saul. 1. Plead my cause.** David is wrongfully accused, and prays to God to be his advocate; but inasmuch as the cause is carried on not in a court of justice but in the battle-field, the advocate must be also a champion, and the images at once pass over into the sphere of warfare. As in all David's earlier poems, the representation of the Lord is what is called anthropomorphical; he realizes the manifestation vividly as that of "a man of war" (Ex. 15 : 3). Cook. 3. "I am." It is comfort to Israel in captivity that God says, I will redeem thee; but the assurance that quiets the conscience is this, "I am thy salvation." Deferred hope faints the heart. Whatsoever God forbears to assure us of, oh, pray we Him not to delay this, "Lord, say to my soul, I am your salvation." T. Adams. 4. Shameful disappointment shall be the portion of the enemies of the Gospel, nor would the most tender-hearted Christian have it otherwise; viewing sinners as men, we love them and seek their good, but regarding them as enemies of God, we cannot think of them with anything but detestation, and a loyal desire for the confusion of their devices. No loyal subject can wish well to rebels. In their hearts all good men wish confusion to mischief-makers. S. 5,6. The Psalmist represents his foes' discomfiture under two figures; the first taken from common experience, but with the introduction of a striking image, which raises it into the higher sphere of poetry. As they are scattered in a confused rout, utterly unresisting, like the light chaff in the windy winnowing field, the angel of the Lord, the defender of the pious, strikes (not chases) each in turn with His strong arm, and throws him down. They seek safety in flight, but the roads are dark and slippery; they stumble, are pursued, overtaken, and fall under the blows of the mighty Being whose wrath they have provoked. Cook. 5. Let them be as chaff before a wind, and the angel of Jehovah smiting. Under the influence of inspiration the Psalmist sees the natural and righteous consequences of their wickedness, and viewing the case merely in itself, apart from personal feeling, speaks of this effect as desirable. The Psalmist desires the destruction of these sinners precisely as God wills it; nor is it any harder to reconcile such wishes with the highest degree of human goodness than it is to reconcile the certain fact that God allows some men to perish with His infinite benevolence. A. 6. A terrible doom is this, driven back from their malicious assaults upon the good, along a way dark and intensely slippery (Hebrew, double slipperinesses), and God's angel of retribution crowding hard upon their steps! Ought not every good man to rejoice that God rules with retributive justice over all evil-doers, and that He will take care of the interests of morally right-doing, sustaining them by a righteous administration of reward and punishment? To this extent reaches the spirit of David in the Psalm before us; no further. C. 10. He will praise God with the whole man, with all that is within him, and with all the strength and vigor of his soul, intimated by his bones, which are within the body, and are the strength of it. He will praise Him as one of peerless and unparalleled perfection; we cannot express how great and good God is, and therefore must praise Him by acknowledging Him to be a nonsuch. Lord, who is like unto Thee? No such Patron of oppressed innocency, no such Punisher of triumphant tyranny. The formation of our bones so wonderfully, so curiously, the serviceableness of our bones, and the preservation of them, and especially the life which, at the resurrection, shall be breathed upon the dry bones, and make them flourish as an herb, oblige every bone in our bodies, if it could speak, to say Lord, who is like unto Thee? and willingly to undergo any services or sufferings for Him. H. 13. 14. David paints his own feeling and bearing toward his persecutors in the strongest contrast with theirs toward him, and so far as the history throws light on the case, with entire truth. The last clause of v. 13 is precisely, My prayer shall (or let my prayer) return into mine own bosom; let the good I have sought for them, since they requite it only with hate and wrong, come back in blessings upon mine own soul. Observe the appropriate gradation from remoter friends to dearest, "friend," "brother," "mother." C. 13. "My prayer returned into mine own bosom; I had the comfort of having done my duty, and of having approved myself a loving neighbor, though I could not thereby win upon them, nor make them my friends." We shall not lose by the good offices we have done to any, how ungrateful soever they are, for our rejoicing will be this, the testimony of our conscience. H.—Prayer is never lost; if it bless not those for whom intercession is made, it shall bless the intercessors. Clouds do not always descend in showers upon the same spot from which the vapors ascended, but they come down somewhere; and even so do supplications in some place or other yield their showers of mercy. S. If the bounties of heaven were given to man without prayer, they would be received without acknowledgment. Prayer, administering the perpetual lesson of humility, of hope, and of love, makes us feel our connection with heaven through every touch of our necessities; it binds us to Providence by a chain of daily benefits; it impresses the hearts of all with a perpetual remembrance of the God of all. Croly. 16. Mockers at feasts, or feasting mockers. Those that feasted men's ears at their meetings with speaking of the faults of others scoffingly, and therefore shared with them their feasts, as the word is; but to a renewed Christian mind that hath a new taste and all its senses new, there is nothing more unsavory than to hear the defaming of others, especially of such as profess religion. Did the law of love possess our hearts it would regulate our ear and tongue, and make them most tender of the name of our brethren; it would teach us the faculty of covcovenering their infirmities and judging favorably; taking always the best side and most charitable sense of their actions; it would teach us to blunt the sharp edge of our censures upon ourselves, our own hard hearts and rebellious wills within, that they might remain no more sharp against others than is needful for their good. L. 18. "I will praise Thee among much people." Most men publish their griefs, good men should proclaim their mercies. Praise—personal praise, public praise, perpetual praise—should be the daily revenue of the King of heaven. S. 19-23. David describes the great injustice, malice, and insolence of his persecutors, pleading this with God, as a reason why He should protect him from them, and appear against them. They were his enemies wrongfully, for he never gave them any provocation; they hated him without a cause; nay, for that for which they ought rather to have loved and honored him. This is quoted with application to Christ. H. 24. Judge me according to Thy righteousness, Jehovah, my God, and let them not rejoice respecting me. "Do me justice, clear me from aspersion, grant an attestation of my innocence, in the exercise and exhibition of thine own essential rectitude, and in accordance with that covenant relation which exists between us; and thus, in the most effectual manner, take away from my malignant enemies all pretext and occasion for exulting in my overthrow, or otherwise triumphing at my expense." With the last clause compare Psalm 30:1, where he thanks God for the very favor which he here asks. A. 28. My tongue shall speak of Thy righteousness and of Thy praise all the day long.** Who endureth to praise God all the day long? I will suggest a remedy whereby thou mayest praise God all the day long if thou wilt. Whatever thou dost, do well, and thou hast praised God. When thou singest a hymn thou praisest God, but what doth thy tongue unless thy heart also praise Him? Do no wrong, and thou hast praised God. Raise not strife, and thou hast praised God. In the innocency of thy works prepare thyself to praise God all the day long. Augustine. 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." "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 7: 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. W. Binnie. It is inconceivable that in the moments of highest religious consecration in which he composed his Psalms, the unholy fire of personal passion should have mingled with the holy fire of his love to God. All the imprecations found in these Psalms flow from the pure spring of unselfish jealousy for God's honor. That this jealousy appears here as jealousy for his own person arises from the fact that David stands over against Saul, the king alienated from God, as the divinely anointed heir of the kingdom, and that to his mind the cause of God, the continuance of the Church, and the future of Israel coincide with his own fortunes. The fire of his wrath is kindled at this focus of the view that he takes of himself in connection with the history of redemption. It is therefore holy fire. D. When we remember his chivalrous abstinence once and again from slaying the guilty Saul, we must allow that, for his age and time, he was singularly free from vindictiveness. It is not likely that he should keep malice and anger hoarded up in his soul, and relieve himself of it in the moments when he held communion with his God; cursing, just as he saw by faith the battlements of the city of Eternal Peace. It is very remarkable that each of the Psalms in which the strongest imprecatory passages are found contains also gentle undertones, breathings of beneficent love. Thus, "When they were sick I humbled my soul with fasting; I behaved myself as though it had been my friend or brother." "They have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love" (109: 4). If the Psalms in question contain "wild imprecations," if a "vindictive spirit burns fiercely in them," we are not justified in styling that the "spirit of the elder dispensation." That spirit said, "Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart; thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." The best Jewish commentators understand neighbor to include both kinsmen and strangers, both Israelites and non-Israelites. That spirit said, "Rejoice not when thy enemy falls, and let not thy heart be glad when he stumbles." Bishop Alexander. 1. 1 THE transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, There is no fear of God before his eyes. 2. 2 For he flattereth himself in his own eyes, That his iniquity shall not be found out and be hated. 3. 3 The words of his mouth are iniquity and deceit: He hath left off to be wise and to do good. 4. 4 He deviseth iniquity upon his bed; He setteth himself in a way that is not good; He abhorreth not evil. 1. 5 Thy lovingkindness, O LORD, is in the heavens; Thy faithfulness reacheth unto the skies. 2. 6 Thy righteousness is like the mountains of God; Thy judgments are a great deep. O LORD, thou preservest man and beast. 7. How precious is thy lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge under the shadow of thy wings. 8 They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; And thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. 9 For with thee is the fountain of life: In thy light shall we see light. THIS Psalm is not so distinct in its features that we can assign it to any particular occasion in the life of David, or associate it with any definite period of Jewish history. It opens with a striking picture of what a wicked man is, who abandons himself, without check or remorse, to the inspirations of his own evil heart (vs. 1-4). Next, as if oppressed and terrified with the picture which he has drawn of secure and thoughtful wickedness, the Psalmist turns with a quick revulsion of feeling to Him whose love and truth are at all times a sure defence. Here he pours out all the fulness of his heart. Words seem to fail him as there rise before him, in all their length and breadth, the lovingkindness, the faithfulness, the righteousness of Jehovah (vs. 5-9). Lastly, with his heart full of what God is, he prays that God would show His lovingkindness and His righteousness to those who, like himself, were upright in heart, and would defeat the designs of the wicked. He concludes with the confident acknowledgment that his prayer has been heard (vs. 10-12). P. Religion, for the Psalmists, is a present joy. The purest pleasure is in the exercise of the affections which have God for their object. The thirty-sixth Psalm may be taken as a specimen. Turning from the darkness of the unregenerate heart, David, the servant of the Lord, looks upon the objects which are most glorious and most beautiful in nature—the strong mountains, the great deep, the heavens—as shadows of God's beauty. He thinks of a joy as in the coolness and music of the river of God. God is at once a fountain and a light. There is neither thirst nor darkness for those who know Him. The reality of God and the soul is the conviction of the Psalmists. Psalm after Psalm is a monologue of the soul with God, or a dialogue between it and God. Bishop Ken's line, "And thought to thought with Thee converse," is the very expression of the spirit of the Psalms. Yet they are filled with a joy which is at once 10. O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee; And thy righteousness to the upright in heart. 11 Let not the foot of pride come against me, And let not the hand of the wicked drive me away. 12 There are the workers of iniquity fallen: They are thrust down, and shall not be able to rise. solemn and childlike. In spite of all their sighs and tears, for all their tender sympathy with the passion of Christ, and with the sorrows of His people, "the power of light lives inexhaustibly" in them. One only (the eighty-eighth) begins and ends with a sob. In all the rest joy sparkles, if not on the crest of every wave, yet along the line of every tide. Bishop Alexander. 1. Thus saith depravity to the wicked (one) in the midst of my heart, there is no fear of God before his eyes. This is one of the most difficult verses in the whole Book of Psalms. Amid various and doubtful explanations one thing is certain, that the wicked man is here described as one who fears not God, just as the fear of God is elsewhere put for godliness or piety. A.—All the critics feel the difficulties of this verse. The Hebrew word answering to "saith" is not a verb, but a noun, meaning properly an oracle—an utterance either from God Himself, or from one supposed to be under special inspiration. It is almost distinctively the word by which the prophetic declarations of God are indicated and is commonly translated, "Thus saith the Lord." In accordance with this usage we have here the sentiment, Depravity is the sinner's oracle. Its impulses have to him an authority potent as the voice of God, or at least, as those oracular responses which are supposed to come from superhuman sources. C.—The Psalmist hears within his own heart the echo of the suggestions which sin whispers oracularly to the wicked; this explains to him how it is that a man can sin so fearlessly: he who listens to it loses altogether the sense of God's presence and the fear of His judgments. Cook. 2. Here is one reason why he fears not God, but gives heed to the impulses of his depravity. He flatters himself—not "until," but in reference to the finding out of his iniquity and the hating of it. Now since the fear of God is the thing denied of him the thought here must be that he flatters himself God will not find out his iniquity to hate and therefore punish it. Under the right construction, the verse gives with surpassing accuracy the philosophy of sinning—viz., men flatter themselves that God will never search out, find, hate, and therefore punish their sin. C.—He flattereth himself in his own eyes; while he goes on in sin, he thinks he does wisely and well for himself, and either does not see, or will not own, the evil and danger of his wicked practices; he calls evil good, and good evil; his licentiousness he pretends to be but his just liberty; his fraud passes for his prudence and policy; and his persecuting he people of God, he suggests to himself is a piece of necessary justice. If his own conscience threaten him for what he does, he says, God will not require it, I shall have peace though I go on. Sinners are self-destroyers, by being self-flatterers; Satan could not deceive them if they did not deceive themselves. H. 5. 6. A burst of rapture; here is the voice of the true oracle; all the attributes of the Lord stand out at once before the eyes of God's servant, never more distinctly than when the workings of evil give intensity to his feelings. Cook.—Words seem to fail him when he would speak of the lovingkindness, the faithfulness, the righteousness of God. The universe itself is too little to set forth their greatness. P.—The beauty of this Psalm lies in this expressive contrast which places the glorious excellencies of Israel's God over against the ineffable wickedness and guilt of sinners, who throw a loose rein upon their depraved impulses. The sense is that God's mercy towers high, up to heaven; it is great and glorious, high as heaven, vast as the universe! So of God's "righteousness" and of His "judgments;" the strongest expressions are used to indicate their richness, depth, and unutterable glory. C. 6. Thy righteousness (is) like the hills of the Almighty; Thy judgments (are) a great deep; man and beast Thou wilt save (oh), Jehovah! Righteousness here means rectitude in its widest sense, including the veracity and faithfulness mentioned in the foregoing verse. It is here described as infinite, by a comparison with natural emblems of immensity. The first are the mountains of God, or of the mighty (God), the Divine name here used being that which properly denotes omnipotence. The constant usage of the term as a Divine name seems decisive in favor of the sense, hills produced by the almighty power of God and therefore proving it. The great deep, the ocean. The idea conveyed is not so much that of depth and mystery as that of vastness and immensity. The comprehensiveness of God's protecting care is further indicated by the combination man and beast (or brute). To save includes the acts of helping, protecting and providing. A. Great mountains. Or, "mountains of God;" God's creation, on which He has stamped the impress of His own majesty and grandeur. Such epithets as these show how deeply the Hebrew felt the beauty and majesty of natural scenery; the mountains were to him an outward representation of the righteousness, deep rooted in the very essence of the Godhead, and towering over the earth in its manifestation. Cook.—God's righteousness, celebrated by David, is justice inflexible toward sin and mercy ineffable toward sinners (Rom. 3: 24). In this verse the Psalmist presents the two truths together, the sin and the mercy. David away back there in the truth's twilight knew not how better to tell God's character than by taking earth's grandest objects—the massive peaks that keep guard from snowy Lebanon or, it may be, those grander masses of which David had heard from his Eastern vassals, the Himalayas—and making them God's emblem. A God that inflexibly visits sin, yet is merciful, may, like the great mountains, seem icy and cold. Justice is an icy and cold attribute, especially to the view of men who have reason to be afraid. Yet as the icy and cold glaciers send down perennial streams that make the earth full of gladness and rejoicing all the year, so the strict judgment of the Almighty is for the perennial blessing not of earth only, but of the universe of worlds. If there were not justice in God, and no punishment, no dreadful lasting penalty upon sinning intelligences, there would be no heaven, no pure river of water of life, no green fields beyond the flood, no resting-place from wickedness—there would be nothing in the whole wide universe save hell. H. M. McCracken. God's righteousness is declared to be like the great mountains. Like them, it is durable. The mountains have been often employed as emblems of permanence and stability. Sometimes God compares Himself with the mountains, and then we read that "as the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth even forever." Sometimes He contrasts Himself with the mountains, and then we read that "the mountains may depart, and the hills be removed, but that His kindness shall not depart from His people." The permanence of God's righteousness follows of necessity from the inherent unchangeableness of God Himself. His righteousness is exposed to none of the circumstances or accidents which bring peril to the righteousness of man. God's righteousness is like the great mountains in its mysteriousness. Indeed, it is not only His righteousness, it is Himself, in all the essentiality of His being and perfections, that is a mystery. Faith must come to the aid of reason when we contemplate the righteousness of God as it slowly but surely accomplishes its purposes in the government of the world. God's righteousness is like the great mountains because, like them, it has heights which it is dangerous to climb. We cannot comprehend the higher mysteries of the Gospel; and if we could, it is more than doubtful whether any corresponding benefit could be derived from them. Men can no more live on the high mountains of theology than they can on the high mountains of the earth. God's righteousness is like the great mountains because, like them, it is a bulwark and a defence to all who regard it with reverence and faith. While it has heights on which the presumptuous spectator is sure to be lost if he should attempt to climb them, these very heights, if he will remain in the position which God has assigned to him, will be his surest defence and guard. No truth furnishes a more solid basis for the soul than the righteousness of God as it is revealed in the Scriptures. E. Mellor. Nothing is more clear to any really thoughtful person than that, until some high point is passed, God ought to be enveloped in greater mystery, and will be, the closer He is brought to the mind. Knowing nothing of Him, He is no mystery at all; knowing a little, He is mystery begun; knowing more, He is a great and manifold deep, not to be fathomed. We are, and ought to be, overwhelmed by His magnitudes, till we are able to mount higher summits of intelligence than now. Bushnell. The conception of the Psalmist is truthful, beautiful, and impressive. God's judgments are the deep which we cannot explore, but from this deep rise mountains, and these mountains are the righteousness of God; as they gird around the waters, so does the righteousness of God embrace all His dealings. As we doubt not that their foundations are the same with their summits, so we cannot doubt that the righteousness of God is the same in what is dark as in what is clear. Nay, more than this, as the surface of the water often mirrors the tops of the surrounding mountains, so not infrequently can an attentive eye observe the image of God's righteousness upon the very front of His dispensations. Not without reason the Psalmist says, "Thy righteousness is like the great mountains," before he speaks of the great deep of God's judgments; for it is only upon the ground which His righteousness puts under us that we can look calmly upon His judgments; only the intelligent and firm conviction of that righteousness which can balance and steady the mind amid His mysteries. As by the righteousness of God we mean that perfection by which He is holy and just in Himself, and observes the strictest rules of equity in His dealings with His creatures; to be convinced of His righteousness is to be satisfied that, whatever may be appearances, God is guided in His actions by the most unimpeachable principles, and has only to make known His reasons to secure the approval of all His intelligent creatures. We cannot be satisfied of God's righteousness, without being thoroughly persuaded that even when His dealings are the darkest, they need only to be seen in the light of His wisdom to commend themselves as the best that could be devised. Thus it was that the Psalmist fortified himself against the inscrutableness of the Divine judgments, by assuring himself of the Divine righteousness; and herein he teaches us a lesson we are very apt to overlook, but which our comfort requires us perfectly to learn. We cannot always walk in the light; sometimes God will throw darkness about us; prosperity cannot be our unfailing allotment; our life is a checkered scene, the bright spots of which are intermingled with shade. If we have our hours of ease, we must have hours of difficulty; if we have comforts, we must have trials likewise. At times we may feel that we are treading upon the solid earth, and again we are launched out upon the ocean of God's judgments. And nothing will give us light in darkness, or strength in weakness, or relief in perplexity; nothing will equip us for the hour of difficulty or trial but the conviction, intelligent and thorough, of this simple truth, God's "righteousness is like the great mountains." Fixed upon this ground, we should always be firm, calm, collected, never afraid of evil tidings, never dismayed by the Divine dealings, because we would be stable, trusting in God. E. Mason. Thou preservest. One of the most touching characteristics of Hebrew poetry is the instantaneous transition from the contemplation of God's majesty and unapproachable essence to that of His providential care. Compare Psalms 104 and 145: 14-16; see also the last words in Jonah. Cook. Thou preservest man and beast. He gave them being at first, and He is the fountain of their being at every subsequent moment; and there is not in this wide creation the single living thing which is not perpetually drawing upon God; so literally dependent upon His care and bounty, that an instant's suspension of His providential arrangements would suffice to quench the vital principle. What a picture is opened before us by the simple fact that in every department God is momentarily engaged in ministering to the beings whom He has called into existence; studying in all His appointments and arrangements the good of His creatures, everywhere showing Himself attentive to the comforts and the wants of the meanest living things; and while ordering the course of nature and marshalling the ranks of cherubim and seraphim, He is yet bending down from His throne and applying as close a guardianship to the ephemera which floats in the breeze as though it were the only animated creature, the only one requiring His providential care! E. Mason. 5-7. The sublimity and superabundance of the Divine grace and faithfulness the poet sets forth figuratively after earthly analogies; they are revealed upon earth in an elevation that reaches the heavens, they transcend all human thought, desire and understanding. Of God's righteousness the poet says that it is like mountains of God, unchangeably stable, like the colossal primal mountains which prove God's greatness and glory; and of God's judgments, that they are incomprehensible and unsearchable, like the great, deep-waved ocean. Absorbed in this adorable depth, the singer exclaims, How precious is Thy grace, Elohim, i.e., how valuable beyond all treasures and how dear to him that knows how to prize it! D. We have, first, God in the boundlessness of His loving nature. The one pure light of the Divine nature is broken up in the prism of the Psalm into various rays, which theologians call, in their abstract way, Divine attributes. These are "mercy, faithfulness, righteousness." Then we have two sets of Divine acts: judgments and the preservation of man and beast; and finally we have again "lovingkindness," which means substantially this: active love communicating itself to creatures that are inferior, and that might have expected something else to befall them. This "quality of mercy" stands here at the beginning and the end. It is the final upshot of all revelation. Next to mercy comes faithfulness. God's faithfulness is, in its narrowest sense, His adherence to His promises. Not only His articulate promises, but His past actions bind Him. His words, His acts, His own nature bind God to bless and help. His faithfulness is the expression of His unchangeableness. The next beam of the Divine brightness is righteousness. The notion of righteousness here is that God has a law for His being to which He conforms, and that whatsoever things are fair, and lovely, and good, and pure down here—these things are fair, and lovely, and good, and pure up there; that He is the archetype of all excellence, the ideal of all moral completeness; that we can know enough of Him to be sure that what we call right He loves, and what we call right He practises. God's judgments are the whole of the ways, the methods, of the Divine government. They are the expressions of His thoughts, and these thoughts are thoughts of good, and not of evil. Last, we have the picture of man sheltering beneath God's wings. God's lovingkindness, or mercy, is precious, for that is the true meaning of the word translated "excellent." We are rich when we have that for ours; we are poor without it. The last verse tells us how we can make God our own: "They put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings." God spreads the covert of His wing, strong and tender, beneath which we may all gather ourselves and nestle. And how can we do that? By the simple process of fleeing unto Him, as made known to us in Christ our Saviour, to hide ourselves there. A. M. 7-9. The expressions here which denote the abundance of Divine blessings upon the righteous man seem to be taken from the temple, from whence they were to issue. Under the covert of the temple, the wings of the cherubim, they were to be sheltered. The richness of the sacrifices, the streams of oil, wine, odors, etc., and the light of the golden candlestick, are all plainly referred to. S. Burder. Thy wings. A common figure in the Psalms, taken more immediately from the wings of the cherubim overshadowing the mercy-seat which covered the ark; but more remotely from birds, which defend their young by overshadowing them with their wings. Bishop Francis Hare.—The wings of the mother-bird are the natural shelter for her young. So she draws the little ones close to her warm bosom and spreads over them her sheltering wings. Our Divine Lord reproduces this figure as to even the city of His murderers—"How often would I have gathered thy children as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings!" C. We come out of nothingness into being, and find ourselves nestled upon the bosom of a mother whose love for us yearns for a stronger expression than she can bestow, and under the protection of a father who would place his life between us and harm. It is thus that we come into the world. We shall go out of it alone. We shall try the realities of the unknown companionless. Human love can follow us to the brink, but no further. We shall part with those we love and trust—shall we meet with those we love and trust? or shall we be strangers, with none to know or recognize or care for us? Here we have shelter from the sun and from the cold and the storms—shall we have shelter there? Let us provide ourselves, under the shadow of the wings of Him who is the Almighty. Close to His warm, cherishing heart here, we shall be so forever. We can be cast upon no shore where He is not. No storm can fall and no wind can blow where that covert is not nigh. There is no realm where His friendship is not more cheering than all human friendships. In no part of the universe will we be away from the shelter of our home, nor away from the companionship and smile of our loving Father, and the cherishing love of our Elder Brother. Let us enter God's family, where we are more than welcome—where our entrance will give joy even to the angels. There we shall never be from home, never shelterless, never companionless. The clasping hands of the good by here will only be released that the hands of the joyful welcome may be given. We shall take our hands from the clinging hold, reluctant to release us, only that we may lay them in the warm palm of the King. We shall be pressed to more than a mother's bosom. We shall have the strong arm of our heavenly Father between us and harm. Our infancy in the new life will be a conscious infancy, our safety a conscious safety. This is what Christ means in calling to us: "Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Interior. 8. 9. The shadow of God's wings is the protection of His love, which hides one from trial and persecution. To be thus hidden in God is the most ineffable blessedness; they satiate themselves, drink full draughts of the "fatness of Thy house." The house of God is His sanctuary and, in general, the sphere of His grace. The fulness of the gifts and blessings and refreshings wherewith God entertains His own is called Eden, a stream of delights, wherewith He refreshes and fructifies the soul, a stream of paradisiacal delights. As the four arms of the river of Paradise had one common source, so this has its source in God; yea, God Himself is this source. All life streams forth from Him, the absolutely self-existent and blessed One; the more intimately, therefore, men are connected with Him, in so much the fuller draughts do they drink life from the primal fountain of life. And just as God is the fountain of life, so is He also the fountain of light; apart from God seeing we see only darkness; whereas, absorbed in the ocean of God's light, we are enlightened by Divine knowledge and illuminated by spiritual joy. D. 9. For with Thee is a fountain of life; in Thy light shall we see light. They shall derive all this from Thee, because in Thee alone is the exhaustless source of all these blessings. With Thee, in Thy presence, in union and communion with Thee. The well-spring, fountain-head, or source of life, a summary expression for all enjoyments and advantages. The same idea is then clothed in another figurative dress. In Thy light we shall see light. It is only by the light of God's countenance that man can see any good. It is only in God's favor that he can be happy. The only bliss attainable or desirable is that which is bestowed by God, and resides in Him. A.—These are some of the most wonderful words in the Old Testament. Their fulness of meaning no commentary can ever exhaust. They are, in fact, the kernel and the anticipation of much of the profoundest teaching of John. P. In Thy light. John found here the central truth of his doctrinal system (see 1: 4). The true light can only be discerned by those who live in it. The believing soul lives in an element of light, which at once quickens and satisfies the spiritual faculty, whereby heaven and heavenly things are realized. Cook.—Turn thou to the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. In that alone is life, and the Life is the light of men. What, then, but apparitions can remain to a philosophy which strikes death through all things visible and invisible; satisfies itself then only, when it can explain those abstractions of the outward senses (which by an unconscious irony it names indifferently facts and phenomena) mechanically—that is, by the laws of death; and brand with the name of mysticism every solution grounded in life, or the powers and intuitions of life? Coleridge. In Thy light shall we see light. A person whose life is hid with Christ in God sees all things as God sees them, praises God's Word in every part, in every shade, turn, and application of it; sees and rejoices in God's will in His Word, beholds His attributes, bright, lovely, and glorious in all His testimonies, and esteems all His precepts concerning all things to be right. All the aspects of God's Word are light and loveliness to such a soul. And all the precious influences of God's Word have their full and blessed effect upon such a soul. It grows in grace, in the symmetry and beauty of grace; every faculty of the soul, every power of the mind, as well as the feelings of the heart, grow in the presence of Christ, beneath His eye, His light, His care. G. B. C. The light and the soul which receives will act and react. The light beheld transforms. The soul transformed is capable of more light. That again flows in, and purifies and beautifies. Thus, in continuous reciprocal energy, the endless process of learning to know an infinite Saviour, and becoming like a perfect Lord, goes on with constant approximation, and yet with somewhat ever undisclosed. The gift is not once for all, but is continuous through eternity. We shall become like Christ by knowing Him. We shall know Him by getting like Him. A. M. Every part of life cannot but have a connection with that unseen world by which we are surrounded. To realize this connection is faith; to seek fellowship with its King through Christ is prayer. And just so far as we limit our purposes and desires by the visible and the temporal, we miss our true aim, we sin. Just so far as we claim no heavenly guidance and support, the clearest sight of the beauty of the eternal order is simply a vision of condemnation. And if this be so, or rather since this is so, while that heavenly light can stream over the occupations of our daily business; while that heavenly communion can be made vital by lifting the soul upward in the momentary acknowledgment of God's presence, shall we not be satisfied to do calmly and for eternity that which we find prepared for us, knowing that all so done must work its proper work, unflattered by success and undisturbed by failure? Bishop Westcott. God gives truth—revealed truth—to man. He gives also this great privilege of prayer—access to Himself—to ask the meaning of the thing revealed. The Bible abounds in promises, the most direct and specific, to give light and wisdom, and holy guidance and Holy Spirit, to them that ask Him. So that one who comes to God in prayer for intellectual and moral light, prayer that is earnest and continuous, will have the light he seeks as certainly as the man who, at midnight, turns his face eastward and travels to meet the rising of the sun. Raleigh.—This is specially true in sickness and sorrow. God loves to show what His light is by making it burn where all around is very dark. Watch; if you can only see it, there is already a line upon the cloud. The day-star is risen, and soon it will all come in its own order—a twilight, a breaking, a fleeing away of the shadows, a mounting of the sun in your heart higher and higher, a cheering warmth, a meridian splendor. J. V.—By the fact then that we have the Light, by the fact that we are the children of the Light, by the glorious fact that we who were sometime darkness are now in the light, by the fact that the light is given us not to gratify our curiosity but to live in, by the other fact that it will grow dim if we fail to walk in it, and will brighten more and more unto the perfect day if we do walk in it, let us walk in the Light. The Father of Lights from His Throne bids us so to walk. It will be a walk of peace and an end of glory. J. Drummond. Adoration is the gate of knowledge. When this gate of the soul is fully opened, in our deliverance from all impurity, what a revelation of knowledge must follow! Our adoring nature, transparent to God as a window to the sun, is filled with His eternal light. Every object of knowledge shines with inconceivable beauty. The resurrection morning is a true sun-rising, the inbursting of a cloudless day on all the righteous dead. They wake, transfigured, at their Master's call, with the fashion of their countenance altered and shining like His own. Bushnell.—Heaven is the world of light. More clearly, more comprehensively, than we now see the first principles of knowledge, we shall then perceive all those miracles and mysteries of the Divine dispensations, in nature, providence, and grace, of which we now hear or speak so much, and understand so little; in reference to which we now think as children; but then, from this infantine state, we shall rise to adult maturity of mind. Man is formed to expatiate and luxuriate in varied knowledge; what a feast of knowledge, ennobled by devotion, will be spread in heaven for the intellect, proportionately expanded to receive it! R. Hall. 12. The emphatic form of the word there is well put by Dr. Alexander: "There has very much the same sense as in common parlance when uttered as a sudden exclamation: There! they have fallen (already)!" At the moment of his prayer, a sense of assured confidence comes over his soul; he sees his prayer answered; his enemies already prostrate and his fears vanished away! C. In vs. 8 and 9 we have a wonderful picture of the blessedness of the godly, the elements of which consist in four things: satisfaction, represented under the emblem of a feast; joy, represented under the imagery of full draughts from a flowing river of delight; life, pouring from God as a fountain; light, streaming from Him as a source. First, "They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house." There is an allusion to the festal meal of priests and worshippers in the Temple on the occasion of the peace-offering; and there is also the simpler metaphor of God as the Host at His table, at which we are guests. The plain teaching of the text is that by the might of a calm trust in God the whole mass of a man's desires are filled and satisfied. God, and God alone, is the food of the heart. God, and God alone, will satisfy your need. The next element of blessedness here: "Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures." The teaching is that the simple act of trusting beneath the shadow of God's wings brings to us an ever-fresh and flowing river of gladness, of which we may drink. All real and profound possession of, and communion with, God in Christ will make us glad—glad with a gladness altogether unlike that of the world round about us, far deeper, far quieter, far nobler, the sister and ally of all great things, of all pure life, of all generous and lofty thought. The third element of the blessedness of the godly is represented under the metaphor of life, pouring from the fountain, which is God. The words are true in regard of the lowest meaning of life, "physical existence;" and they give a wonderful idea of the connection between God and all living creatures. Wherever there is life, there is God. The creature is bound to the Creator by a mystic bond and tie of kinship, by the fact of life. But the text refers to something higher than that, to that life of the spirit in communion with God which is the true and proper sense of life, the one in which the word is almost always used in the Bible. As a fourth element of blessedness, "In Thy light shall we see light." The reference is to the spiritual gift which belongs to the men who "put their trust beneath the shadow of Thy wings." In communion with Him who is the Light as well as the Life of men, we see a whole universe of glories, realities, and brightnesses. In communion with God, we see light upon all the paths of duty. In the same communion with God, we get light in all seasons of darkness and sorrow. "To the upright there ariseth light in the darkness." A. M. The moving pillar lights up the way for him who follows it. Life is a forced march through the desert, and has its hours of mingled necessity and fear, when natural light fails us at every step, when the gathering veils of uncertainty obscure the path more and more till it becomes impenetrable, yet when we know we must go on. We cannot encamp at twilight and wait till dawn. This is not our rest. Go on we must. Yet how to go, when all is dark before; when the experience is unique and the path is untrodden! It is then the pillar of light begins to shine, and slowly to move onward; it is then the opalescent glory begins to pour into the night, lighting the way. Onward moves the pillar, but only he who follows is saved from the darkness. There is a way out of every wilderness, and there is a pillar of light to show the way out. But the condition of guidance is to keep in the presence of Christ. And to keep in the light is to keep moving, for the light moves. "He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness." To cease from following is to be left in the dark. "For with Thee is the fountain of life; in Thy light shall we see light." C. C. Hall. 1. FRET not thyself because of evil-doers, Neither be thou envious against them that work unrighteousness. 2 For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, And wither as the green herb. 3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; [So shalt thou] Dwell in the land, and follow after [or, feed on his] faithfulness. 4. Delight thyself also in the LORD: And he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. 5 Commit thy way unto the LORD [Hebrew, roll thy way upon the LORD]; Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass.6 And he shall make thy righteousness to go forth as the light, And thy judgment as the noonday.7 Rest in the LORD [or, be silent to the LORD], and wait patiently for him : Fret not thyself because of him who prospereth in his way, Because of the man who bringeth wicked devices to pass.8 Cease from anger, and forsake wrath : Fret not thyself, it tendeth only to evil-doing.9 For evil-doers shall be cut off : But those that wait upon the LORD, they shall inherit the land.10 For yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be : Yea, thou shalt diligently consider his place, and he shall not be.11 But the meek shall inherit the land ; And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.12 The wicked plotteth against the just, And gnasheth upon him with his teeth.13 The LORD shall laugh at him : For he seeth that his day is coming.14 The wicked have drawn out the sword, and have bent their bow ; To cast down the poor and needy, To slay such as be upright in the way :15 Their sword shall enter into their own heart, And their bows shall be broken.16 Better is a little that the righteous hath Than the abundance of many wicked.17 For the arms of the wicked shall be broken : But the LORD upholdeth the righteous.18 The LORD knoweth the days of the perfect : And their inheritance shall be for ever.19 They shall not be ashamed in the time of evil : And in the days of famine they shall be satisfied.20 But the wicked shall perish, And the enemies of the LORD shall be as the excellency of the pastures : They shall consume ; in smoke shall they consume away.21 The wicked borroweth, and payeth not again : But the righteous dealeth graciously, and giveth.22 For such as be blessed of him shall inherit the land ; And they that be cursed of him shall be cut off.23 A man's goings are established of [or, the steps of a good man are ordered by] the LORD ; And he delighteth in his way.24 Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down : For the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.25 I have been young, and now am old ; Yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, Nor his seed begging their bread.26 All the day long he dealeth graciously, and lendeth ; And his seed is blessed.27 Depart from evil, and do good ; And dwell for evermore.28 For the LORD loveth judgment, And forsaketh not his saints ; They are preserved for ever : But the seed of the wicked shall be cut off.29 The righteous shall inherit the land, And dwell therein for ever.30 The mouth of the righteous talketh of wisdom, And his tongue speaketh judgment.31 The law of his God is in his heart ; None of his steps shall slide.32 The wicked watcheth the righteous, And seeketh to slay him.33 The LORD will not leave him in his hand, Nor condemn him when he is judged.34 Wait on the LORD, and keep his way, And he shall exalt thee to inherit the land : When the wicked are cut off, thou shalt see it.35 I have seen the wicked in great power, And spreading himself like a green tree in its native soil.36 But one passed by [or, yet he passed away], and, lo, he was not : Yea, I sought him, but he could not be found.37 Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright : For the latter end of that man is peace.38 As for transgressors, they shall be destroyed together : The latter end of the wicked shall be cut off.39 But the salvation of the righteous is of the LORD : He is their strong hold in the time of trouble.40 And the LORD helpeth them, and rescueth them : He rescueth them from the wicked, and saveth them, Because they have taken refuge in him. A PSALM wherein the righteousness of God's providence is vindicated in His administration of the world. The Psalmist's own heart had no doubt at one time been shaken by the apparent successes and triumphs of the ungodly, for it is a common temptation to distrust God when we see "the ungodly in great prosperity." The advice which the Psalmist gives is "to wait," "to trust in the Lord," to look at the end, and to observe how even in this life God manifests His righteousness, in rewarding the godly and punishing the wicked. This sentiment is repeated in various forms, and with much beauty of expression. The Psalm has something of a proverbial character about it, owing in some measure to the fact that this is one of the alphabetical Psalms, like Psalms 25 and 34. The structure of the Psalm is exceedingly regular. With few exceptions, the separate portions, as marked by the letters of the alphabet, consist of four members. P. The fundamental thought which runs through the whole Psalm is expressed in the opening verses: take no offence at the prosperity of the godless, but wait on the Lord; for the prosperity of the godless comes suddenly to an end, and the final issue separates the righteous and the unrighteous. For this reason Tertullian calls this Psalm providentiæ speculum; Isidore, potio contra murmur; Luther, vestis piorum, cui adscriptum: Hic sanctorum patientia est. The poet develops that fundamental thought in short proverbial sayings, not without repetitions, in order to impress it more and more convincingly and deeply upon the mind of his readers. D. 1. Fret not thyself.** The exhortation proves the depth and extent of this natural feeling. The expression in the original is very forcible: do not work thyself into heat; look coolly upon the facts; the heat will otherwise take the form of envy, the most perilous of all temptations. Cook.—"Fret not" is the keynote of the Psalm, for with that exhortation he begins. And no less than three times within the compass of eight verses does he repeat that clause: "Fret not thyself, fret not thyself, fret not thyself." The verb literally means to kindle a fire. You know that friction will produce a spark, which, falling upon combustible materials, will create a flame, and the flame may spread into a destructive conflagration. That is the figure; do not suffer a fire to be kindled in your spirit. How is it kindled? When we resist the pressure of our environment in such wise as that an excessive friction is the result, and as the outcome of that excessive friction against our environment, against the order under which we find ourselves living, by which we find ourselves checked, resentment takes possession of us. Irritation of spirit destroys the calm and quiet of our thought and of our hearts. Anger has just the same effect upon the soul that fire has upon a building. The tongues of flame when they have free course will melt the granite and cause the entire structure to tumble into a mass of ruins and of ashes. Now the pressure is something that you and I cannot eliminate from our lives. We feel the burden of the yoke. We cannot repress the tears; we cannot avoid the pain; we cannot condone the wrong. But we can check the rising spirit of resentment, and we are never to forget that the first grace into which we are deliberately and continuously to school ourselves is the possession and the retention of a quiet mind. "Fret not thyself." Behrends. While we fret and repine at God's will, do we not say in effect that it is better for us to have our own?—that is, in other words, that we are wiser than God, and could contrive things much more to our own advantage, if we had the disposal of them. This indeed no man utters in words; but whosoever refuses to submit himself to the hand of God speaks them aloud by his behavior. God, perhaps, is pleased to visit us with some heavy affliction, and shall we now, out of a due reverence of His all governing wisdom, patiently endure it? or out of a blind presumption of our own, endeavor by some sinister way or other to rid ourselves from it? Passengers in a ship always submit to their pilot's discretion, but especially in a storm; and shall we, whose passage lies through a greater and more dangerous deep, pay a less deference to that great pilot, who not only understands, but also commands the seas? South. Never complain of your birth, your training, your employments, your hardships; never fancy that you could be something if only you had a different lot and sphere assigned you. God understands His own plan, and He knows what you want a great deal better than you do. The very things that you most deprecate, as fatal limitations or obstructions, are probably what you most want. What you call hindrances, obstacles, discouragements, are probably God's opportunities; and it is nothing new that the patient should dislike his medicines, or any certain proof that they are poisons. No! a truce to all such impatience! Choke that devilish envy which gnaws at your heart, because you are not in the same lot with others; bring down your soul, or, rather, bring it up to receive God's will and do His work, in your lot, in your sphere, under your cloud of obscurity, against your temptations; and then you shall find that your condition is never opposed to your good, but really consistent with it. Hence it was that an apostle required his converts to abide each one in that calling wherein he was called; to fill his place till he opens a way, by filling it, to some other; the bondman to fill his house of bondage with love and duty, the laborer to labor, the woman to be a woman, the men to show themselves men—all to acknowledge God's hand in their lot, and seek to co-operate with that good design which He most assuredly cherishes for them. H. B. 2. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass.** Though they seem to be in a very prosperous condition for the present—as grass, while it is standing, is very green—yet they are soon cut down by the scythe of Providence, then presently fade, and are carried away from the place where they grew. You think Providence does not deal righteously because the unworthy are exalted and the worthy depressed. Do but tarry awhile, and you will have no cause to complain, or to grow weary of godliness, or to cry up a confederacy with evil men; they are nearer their ruin when they come to the height of their exaltation. Manton. 3. Trust.** In the Greek word which we render by faith, the leading idea is that of confidence, of reliance, of trust. Only in a secondary sense does it come to be used for intellectual belief. The same is the case with the Hebrew word answering to that which in the New Testament we render by faith, and by the corresponding verb, to believe. This explains the absence of the word faith from the Old Testament. The idea is there and of perpetual occurrence, but is expressed by the word trust. J. C. Hare. Test in the Lord. Faith cures fretting. Sight views things only as they seem, hence her envy; faith has clearer optics to behold things as they really are, hence her peace. "And do good." True faith is actively obedient. Doing good is a fine remedy for fretting. There is a joy in holy activity which drives away discontent. S. There is something very significant in the order of thought. It is, "Trust in the Lord, and do good," not, Do good, and trust in the Lord. The Psalmist had his eye on the living root out of which all living goodness springs. Good deeds will have a living greenness and a boundless fertility when the root out of which they spring is planted by the river of the grace and the love of God. Let a man live out fearlessly the Divine rule, and daily his life will grow richer in love, in honor, and in the supply of all his needs. Baldwin Brown. We must not think to trust God, and then live as we list. It is not trusting, but tempting Him, if we do not make conscience of our duty to Him. Nor must we think to do good and then trust to ourselves, and to our own righteousness and strength. We must trust in the Lord and do good. Anon. Faith is a lively, busy, active thing! It is impossible for it not to be ceaselessly working good. Whoso doeth not such works is an unbelieving man. The assurance and knowledge of Divine grace render men glad, daring, merry before God and all creatures, which is the work of the Holy Ghost in faith. It is as impossible to separate works from faith as to separate burning and shining from fire. Luther.—Faith is the source; charity—that is, the whole Christian life, is the stream from it. It is quite childish to talk of faith being imperfect without charity; as wisely might you say that a fire, however bright and strong, was imperfect without heat; or that the sun, however cloudless, is imperfect without beams. The true answer would be, it is not faith, but utter reprobate faithlessness. Coleridge. The only cure for indolence is work; the only cure for selfishness is sacrifice; the only cure for unbelief is to shake off the ague of doubt by doing Christ's bidding; the only cure for timidity is to plunge into some dreaded duty before the chill comes on. Rutherford.—Assurance and comforts are desirable, but fruitfulness is absolutely necessary. If we do not diligently and faithfully mind our duty in the latitude of it, and apply not ourselves wholly to the work the Lord has set us to do, we shall be found unfruitful. And then what place, what ground will there be for comfort or assurance? What claim can we lay to the privileges we are so much taken with? The end why the Lord offers us comfort and assurance of His love is to make us cheerful in His service, and to encourage us in His work, and engage our hearts in it thoroughly. Clarkson. There may be a clear enough intellectual faith in the Gospel—a faith liberated from all speculative doubts, and some experience of its preciousness hardly less than joyful—at least for a while, without any corresponding manifestations of these things in practical Christian work and visible life. If there be one point in human experience more dangerous than another, it is exactly the point between faith and practice, between inward love and outward work. Are there not many intelligent Christian people who do very little visibly and expressly for Christ? Is there not a great deal of hidden silent love in Christian hearts, burning like lamps in inner rooms and dark places, which, if brought out, would shed around some cherishing warmth, and some genial glow and brightness? We cannot hold life healthily thus. It is a question whether we can be sure of holding it at all for long. Raleigh. Praying and working are, to the true servant of God, different manifestations of the same spirit-life. The Christian worker prays, not so much because he deems prayer necessary, as because the prayer is an essential part of his working. And he who truly prays works toward the end for which he prays, because his working is an essential element of his praying. In short, to the Christian that which is worth praying for is worth working for, and that which is worth working for is worth praying for. H. C. T.—No aim should be put higher in our life plans than that of personal helpfulness. The motto of the true Christian cannot be other than that of the Master's helpfulness: "Not to be ministered unto, but to minister." Even in the ambition to gather and retain wealth, the spirit of the desire must be, if we are Christians at all, that thereby we may become more helpful to others; that through, or by means of, our wealth, we may be enabled to do larger and greater good. Whatever gift, power, or possession we have that we do not seek to use in this way, is not yet truly devoted to God. Fruit is the test of character; and the purpose of fruit is not to adorn the tree or vine, but to feed hunger. Whatever we are, whatever we have, is fruit, and must be held for the feeding of the hunger of others. Thus personal helpfulness is the aim of all truly consecrated life. J. R. M. The right faith of man is not intended to give him repose, but to enable him to do his work. It is not intended that he should look away from the place he lives in now, and cheer himself with thoughts of the place he is to live in next; but that he should look stoutly into this world, in faith that if he does his work thoroughly here some good to others or himself (with which, however, he is not at present concerned) will come of it hereafter. And this kind of brave, if not very hopeful faith is always rewarded by clear practical success and splendid intellectual power; while the faith which dwells on the future fades away into rosy mist, and emptiness of musical air. Ruskin. The Christian will pause from time to time to satisfy himself that he does, by God's grace, work in the spirit and by the help of his faith. It is always easy to find excuses for good undone and evil done; but each excuse accepted removes our faith farther away from the sphere of life and weakens the motives by which it prompts us to action. Some men who have been and are most active in reforming our criminals, in elevating our poor, in purifying the methods of government, in ennobling the aims of national policy, are without the all-constraining belief in the Gospel which we hold. We ought to be stronger and more active than they. If we are not our Christianity must be passing into a form. We find in every record of self-sacrifice an imperious call to us as Christians to test the reality of our belief. In every golden deed by which God reveals the possible nobility of man we hear His clear command, Go and do thou likewise. Go and do thou likewise; faith in Christ furnishes thee with a motive of irresistible force; faith in Christ furnishes thee with an instrument of inexhaustible strength. Bishop Westcott. Contemplate this Christian paradox: When most active, most dependent. When most sensible of weakness, then most abundant in labor. When stretching every power to honor Christ, then sinking most deeply into the lowliness of self-distrust, and rising most triumphantly in trust upon the Lord. Let us pray for large measures of this grace of dependence on Christ; let us seek it by laboring for Christ. J. W. A. Work for God, work for man, work that is twice blessed, which blesseth Him that gives and him that takes, is the correspondent condition of a vigorous, glowing health in the spiritual sphere. Let loose the wings of your loving ministry; stir your soul to some work which shall scatter blessings. If you would taste joy, fresh and pure from its fountain, do good, be ready to communicate. It is this which makes the soul instinct with vigor, aglow with health, and radiant with joy. Man is a crippled, half-developed being until his unselfish ministry is drawn forth. When he has tasted the joy of doing good, he is like the lame after Peter's touch, he goes out into the great temple of life, walking and leaping, and praising God. Try it. If life is sad, make it glad by service, service that strains your power, that a higher power only can make you strong enough to render. But here we touch the deep perennial fountain of gladness—the joy of the Holy Ghost. These men believed that they were imitating the Highest, that God's blessing was lying warm and cherishing on their lives. No wonder they were glad. The joy of a man who believes that God is with him is exuberant, irrepressible. The delight of doing the will of God, to those who have tasted it, masters all other joy. "My meat and my drink is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work." London Congregationalist. Come out of your secret chambers; you may go there, and shut your door, only to pray and commune with Him, for refreshment, after and before your busy work in the world. Frames of feeling are no tests of your progress. An honest, healthy, robust, out-of-door faith is what you want. Plain duties, homely piety, cheerful submission, regular worship—Christ is waiting for you in all of these. In the morning, take up the morning's cross. Walk with Christ all day. Working under Him is watching for Him. And then, whether He shall come at the first watch, or in the second, or at noon-day, or at evening, blessed is the servant whom He shall find so watching! F. D. H. 4. And delight thyself in Jehovah, and He will give thee the requests of thy heart. Here, too, the command implies a promise, which is afterward expressed. Delight thyself, seek and find thy happiness in Jehovah, literally, upon Him, the form of expression suggesting the idea of dependence and reliance, as well as that of union and communion. Requests, not mere desires, but askings, prayers. A. Delight thyself. A very forcible word, which, however, inadequately expresses the feeling of blessedness and rapture in the original. The true counterpoise to envy of the temporal prosperity of the wicked is the inward intensity of joy in communion with God. Cook.—This living sense of God's presence with us is a leading feature of the character of all His saints under every dispensation. This is the purpose of all God's dealings with every child of Adam—to reveal Himself to them and in them. He kindles desires after Himself; He helps and strengthens the wayward will; He broods with a loving energy over the soul; He will save us if we will be saved. All God's saints learn how near He is to them, and they rejoice to learn it. They learn to delight themselves in the Lord—He gives them their hearts' desire. S. Wilberforce. Here is the secret of tranquillity in freedom from eager, earthly desires—"Delight thyself in the Lord, and He shall give thee the desires of thine heart." The great reason why life is troubled and restless lies not without, but within. It is not our changing circumstances, but our unregulated desires, that rob us of peace. By our eager desires we give perishable things supreme power over us. Therefore we are ever disturbed by apprehensions and shaken by fears. And he who desires fleeting joys is sure to be restless always, and to be disappointed at the last. Disappointment is the law for all earthly desires; for appetite increases with indulgence, and as it increases, satisfaction decreases. If, then, our desires are, in their very exercise, a disturbance, and in their very fruition prophesy disappointment, what shall we do for rest? There is but one answer—"Delight thyself in the Lord." These eager desires, transfer them to Him; and the soul, freed from the distraction of various desires by one masterful attraction, will be at rest. Such a soul is still, as the great river above the falls, where all the side currents and dimpling eddies and backwaters are effaced by the attraction that draws every drop in one direction. And then again, desire and fruition go together, and so there will be peace. "He will give thee the desires of thine heart;" not perhaps at all times the identical blessings we wish, but something larger, deeper, for God Himself is the heart's desire of those who delight in Him, and to delight in Him is to possess our delight, and further desire after God will bring peace by putting all other desires in their right place. The more we have our affections set on God, the more we enjoy, because we subordinate His gifts. The less, too, shall we dread this loss, the less be at the mercy of their fluctuations. If you have God for your "enduring substance," you can face all varieties of condition, and be calm, saying, "Give what Thou canst, without Thee I am poor, A. M. 5. Roll upon Jehovah thy way, and trust upon Him, and He will do (it). This last expression shows that the way is something to be done, and accordingly we find in Prov. 16: 3 the explanatory variation, roll to (or on) the Lord thy works, i.e., what thou hast to do but canst not do it, metaphorically represented as a burden too heavy for the person bearing it, and therefore rolled upon the shoulders of another. A.—Roll the sorrowful burden of thy way in life upon Jehovah, commit the guiding of thy life entirely to Him, and He shall nobly carry out everything that concerns thee. D. The same word occurs in the same sense in Psalm 22: 8, said there of the Messiah: He rolled Himself upon the Lord to be delivered, Also, Prov. 16: 3: "Roll thy work upon the Lord"—for the help you need to do it both easily and well. A different verb with the same sense appears in Psalm 55: 22: "Cast thy burden on the Lord;" literally, cast upon the Lord what He gives thee to bear, etc. Peter (1 Pet. 5: 17) has the same precious thought: "Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you." C. When thou art either to do or suffer anything, when thou art about any purpose or business, go tell God of it; yea, burden Him with it, and thou hast done for matter of caring. No more care, but quiet, sweet diligence in thy duty, and dependence on Him for the carriage of thy matters. And in this prayer faith acts; it is a believing requesting; ask in faith, not doubting; so thou rollest over all on Him, that is the very proper working of faith. The carrying the soul and all its desires out of itself unto God is here so expressed, Roll over on God; make one bundle of all; roll thy cares and thyself with them as one burden, all on thy God. L. There is but one way to serenity of mind and happiness; let this, therefore, be always ready at hand with thee, both when thou wakest early in the morning, and all the day long, and when thou goest late to sleep, to account no external things thine own, but to commit all these to God. Epictetus.—Bless God for what you have, and trust God for what you want. Commit your souls to God's keeping, and submit yourselves to God's disposing. Obey His revealed will, and then be resigned to His providential will. J. Mason.—Cast all thy care on God, and commit all to His good pleasure; laud and praise and applaud Him in all things, small and great; forsake thy own will, and deliver up thyself freely and cheerfully to the will of God, without reserve or exception, in prosperity and adversity, to have or to want, to live or to die. The sum is: remember always the presence of God; rejoice always in the will of God; and direct all to the glory of God. L. He shall bring it to pass. Committing and trusting is our work—to bring to pass is the Lord's. Committing our way to God unburden the mind; trusting our all to Him makes the heart easy; relying on Him to bring our concerns to pass makes the spirit joyful. W. Mason.—While we are ready, perhaps, to recognize God's providence in the greater afflictions of life, we fail to include in that guiding providence the petty annoyances of our common days; the languor which unfits for duty; the cloud that passes over the spirits; the domestic cross, the chafing of temper in trade; the slight, the unkindness, the forgetfulness which we endure from thoughtless or selfish fellow-creatures. Yet the law is universal. Not merely the journey, but every step of the journey, is ordered. No part of our way is left to ourselves. Resignation and faith behold God in the smallest occurrences; and the happiest life is that of him who has bound together all the affairs of life, great and small, and intrusted them to God. Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He will bring it to pass. J. W. A. Waiting upon God continually will abate your unnecessary cares, and sweeten your necessary ones. The same spirit of faith which teaches a man to cry earnestly, teaches him to wait patiently; for, as it assures him the mercy is in the Lord's hand, so it assures him it will be given forth in the Lord's time. J. Mason.—He shall bring that to pass, whatever it is, which thou hast committed to Him, if not to thy contrivance, yet to thy content. He will find means to extricate thee out of thy straits, to prevent thy fears, and bring about thy purposes, to thy satisfaction. H. Leave to Him the guidance of thy life, and thou shalt be at peace on the road. This is a word for all life; not only for its great occasions, but for the small decisions of every hour. Our histories are made up of a series of trifles, in each of which a separate act of will and choice is involved. Looking to the mysterious way in which the greatest events in our lives have the knack of growing out of the smallest; looking to the power of habit to make any action of the mind almost instinctive, it is of far more importance that we should become accustomed to apply this precept of seeking guidance from God to the million trifles than to the two or three decisions which, at the time of making them, we know to be weighty. But committing our way unto the Lord does not mean shifting the trouble of patient thought about our duty off our own shoulders. Just because we are to commit our way to Him, we are bound to the careful exercise of the best power of our own brains, that we may discover what the will of God is. I suppose the precursor of all visions of Him, which have calmed His servants' souls with the peace of a clearly recognized duty, has been their cry. "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" God counsels men who use their own wits to find out His counsel. He speaks to us through our judgments when they take all the ordinary means of ascertaining our course. The law is: you do your best to find out your duty; you suppress inclination, and desire to do God's will, and He will certainly tell you what it is. This law prescribes the subordination—not the extinction—of our own inclinations. It prescribes the submission of our judgment to God, in the confidence that His wisdom will guide us. These two keys—joy in God and trust in His guidance—open for us the double doors of the secret place of the Most High. A. M. 6. A Christian whom circumstances have misrepresented, but whose conscience is clear, always has this assurance, that he can afford to wait for his vindication. Rarely if ever does integrity fail to be recognized at last. The words of the Psalmist, "He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light," are certain of fulfilment. Matters never have been settled finally unless they have been settled rightly. It is in accord with both the nature of things and the Divine will that goodness shall triumph over evil, and that its supremacy shall be evident to all; and any beliefs, plans, efforts, or even any apparently established institutions, which are based upon the disregard of this fact are certain to fall. Congregationalist. 7. Rest in the Lord.** Let your intellect, your judgment, your reason, rest in God; in God personal, and possessed of every perfection—almighty and all-knowing, kind, righteous, and holy; that is, in a God truly Divine. And we add, Rest in the Lord merciful and gracious. Rest in the Lord as He reveals Himself in the Gospel, propitious to the penitent, ready to receive all who accept His overtures of reconciliation, ready to pardon and to protect from the consequences of their own misdeeds all who in the name of the Saviour come to Him. Hamilton.—Spiritual quiet of soul is founded on knowledge of God, faith in Christ, a tranquilized conscience, a weakening of the sinful principle, submission to God, trust in His promises, and holy contemplation of the supreme excellence, as offered for the communion of our spirits. J. W. A. This rest, this power of being at rest belongs to the heart alone, to the seat of his affections. And why? Because love satisfies the heart, and the heart can love Him who, being Himself infinite, is at once and forever all that love can crave. By the sense of utter blankness which the heart experiences when it loves not, by the absolute incapacity of all earthly things to fill it, by its own strong cravings and yearnings, we learn that it is God's will that its real and best affections should be concentrated on Him alone. Even as the needle rests from its strange, uneasy trembling then only when it points true to the pole, so the heart can then only be at rest when it is filled with the love of God. And this is the reward of God's faithful people. This loving God, all-wise, all-tender, all-sympathetic, all-great, all-sufficing, revealing Himself as man to man, is He who gives Himself to the human heart to satisfy its longing for love. He who made the heart such that it yearns after Him and can find no peace but in Him, Himself becomes its portion. God is the reward of His people in life, in death, in eternity. W. J. Butler. "Rest in the Lord;" or, literally, "Be silent," not "in the Lord," but "to the Lord;" be silent in His presence, be silent before Him, be silent for Him. It would have been almost as well if the original word had been transferred, instead of making the attempt at translating; for the Hebrew word translated "rest" is "dum." We should have understood the meaning of the Psalmist, and his thought would have been literally expressed, if the rendering had been, "Be dumb before the Lord"—dumb in His presence and dumb for Him. That is to say, do not make even so much as an attempt to justify the ways of God with yourself and with others whose hearts are crushed. Recognize at the very outset that you are not competent to deal with the problem, and refuse to take the first step into the mazes of this labyrinth. Be dumb before your God, be dumb in His presence. If we, then, were to translate this old advice into Christian terms of speech, we should say this: "Fret not. Be silent in the presence of thy God, who gave His Son to die for you. Let the compassion and the intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ quiet all the tumult of your heart, and provoke you to a silence that is full of confidence and joy." Yes, for us the cross is the conclusion of the painful controversy. It lies like a bright rift upon the dark thunder-cloud, through which the light celestial streams upon us, so that it reveals unto us the gates of pearl and the walls of jasper and the golden domes of the City of God. Wait patiently for God. That word is very forcible, too. The verb means, to fling one's self with impetuosity upon an object, to rush with speed into an open refuge, and then, having gained it, to stand there and patiently to abide the issue. All that we mean by waiting for God is implied here, but a great deal more. It means not only waiting for God, but waiting upon Him and waiting by His side. It means an active, ardent, living identification of ourselves with God. Stand by Him, beneath the shadow of His wings, and be active in thy waiting—that is to say, obey His will, do His work, and for the rest, commit thy way unto the Lord. Behrends. One of our hardest lessons is to find out the wisdom of our hindrances; how we are to be put forward and upward by being put back and put down; encouraged by being rebuked; prospered by being baffled. Gradually, to believing eyes, the fact comes out. Standing still at the right time, in the right way, for the right purpose, is the surest advance. Waiting on God brings us to our journey's end faster than our feet. The failure of our favorite plans is often the richest success of the soul. F. D. H. What else is there for a man fronting the vague future? Is it not better, happier, nobler, every way truer, to look into that perilous, uncertain future, or rather to look past it to the loving Father who is its Lord and ours, and to wait patiently for Him? Confidence that the future will but evolve God's purposes, and that all these are enlisted on our side, will give you peace and power. We are sure that in the future are losses, and sorrows, and death. Thank God, we are sure, too, that He is in it. That certainty alone and what comes of it makes it possible for a thoughtful man to face to-morrow without fear or tumult. A. M. Patient waiting clearly recognizes the government of heaven as superintending all, directing and controlling things most intricate, and out of seeming evil deducing real good. It knows that in His hands, whom seraphim and cherubim adore, all must be righteous, pure, and good. Patience listens to the promises and gracious declarations of the oracles of truth. And can one word of promise fall? Will God forget, or lose His power or willingness to save those who have trusted in His love? Rather will heaven itself forever pass away than one engagement of His mouth shall not be to the very utmost verified. Jabez Burns. Courage is the mission of a few; patience is the duty of all. Courage is most beautiful before men; but the patience that sits quiet at Christ's feet, and bears meekly Christ's rebuke, is far more beautiful. And when we experience trials, unable to explain their meaning or to unravel their mystery, knowing nothing of their purpose, object, aim, or issue, we learn to rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him. And our faith, too, is strengthened; that faith which believes God is there, though we see Him not. And obedience is strengthened; for the command is, "Do not ask the reason, but do it." And hope is strengthened; for we learn to hope to the end. And ultimately thankfulness is invigorated; for we learn to praise Him who has wrought all things so well. Cumming. Trust, rest, wait patiently; for there will be need of trust and rest and patient waiting. God's way will often be a mystery; it is in the sea, in the deep waters, past finding out. We must learn to be content to suffer, to fail, to lose all that makes earthly life worth living, if it so be that God's way leads through these. And we must learn also that the most fatal earthly disaster may be but the outward texture of circumstance for the highest heavenly success. S. S. T.—Study to follow God's will in all, to have no will but His. This is thy duty and thy wisdom. Nothing is gained by spurning and struggling, but to hurt and vex thyself; but by complying, all is gained, sweet peace; it is the very secret, the mystery of solid peace within, to resign to His will, to be disposed at His pleasure, without the least contrary thought. It is the sum of Christianity to have thy will crucified, and the will of thy Lord thy only desire; joy or sorrow, sickness or health, life or death, in all, in all, Thy will be done. L. But loosen no nerve of resistance; slacken no effort to press on; suspend no prayer for the Spirit. Otherwise you do not rest in the Lord, but rest from Him, and instead of waiting, like the blind man, for the Saviour's coming, you wait for Him to pass by. But inasmuch as the struggle is long, and you are mortal, and life without your Father is orphanage, keep very near to your Lord; rest in Him, wait patiently for Him. "With Him is plenteous redemption." Leave all issues and results with Him, saying reverently, as Luther did of his greater work, "Let the Lord God look to that." F. D. H. The Saviour still leaves us, as He left His first disciples in the garden, with the words, "Tarry ye here and watch," and promises to come again. If hope can lay hold of this promise, and keep it fast, patience will maintain its post like a sentinel who is sure of relief at the appointed hour, and if the hour seems long, will beguile it with those words, which have passed like a "song in the night" through many a weary heart, "For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry." Then, as hope strengthens patience, patience in return will strengthen hope. Such allies are all the Christian graces, children in one family, who, if there be love among them, supplement each other by their opposites. If a man is enabled to "rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him," it is a reason to him for hoping that there is a Divine work going on in his life, which the God of patience and consolation will complete. Ker. No man is free from care till he cast his care upon the Lord. And hence it is that, throughout Scripture, we are taught to commit our way unto God, to rest in Him, and to wait patiently for Him. He that sitteth in the pure, calm heavens looks down with pity on the world of care and turmoil and excitement we have created for ourselves, and virtually says to us: "Why load yourselves with so many burdens hard to be borne? Do your duty, live your life, enjoy your life, and leave all else with Me. I care for you; I will provide." What a changed world, what a changed life it would be, could we but trust Him, could we but listen and respond when, fatherly and compassionate, He thus pleads with us! All the hurry, all the fret, all the chafe would be gone out of it—all that is wearing us out and destroying us before our time. We should be raised above the reach of change, into the life eternal, the life that does not consist in meat or drink, in gain or mirth, but in doing and enjoying the will of God. Cox. Be quiet, and you will hear Him speak—delight in Him, that you may be quiet. Let the affections feed on Him, the will wait mute before Him, till His command inclines it to decision, and quickens it into action; let the desires fix upon His all-sufficiency; and then the wilderness will be no more trackless, but the ruddy blaze of the guiding pillar will brighten on the sand a path which men's hands have never made, nor human feet trodden into a road. He will guide us if our eyes be fixed on Him, and be swift to discern and eager to obey the lightest glance that love can interpret. . . . How blessed then to leave all the possible to-morrow with very quiet heart in His hands! How easy then to bear the ignorance, how possible then to face the certainties, of that solemn future! Change and death can only thin away and finally remove the film that separates us from our delight. Whatever comes here or yonder can but bring us blessing; for we must be glad if we have God, and our wills are parallel with His, whose will all things serve. Our way is traced by Him, and runs alongside of His. It leads to Himself. Then rest in the Lord, and judge nothing before the time. We cannot criticise the Great Artist when we stand before His unfinished masterpiece, and see dim outlines here, a patch of crude color there; but wait patiently for Him. And so, in calm expectation of a blessed future and a finished work, which will explain the past, in honest submission of our way to God, in supreme delight in Him who is the gladness of our joy, the secret of tranquillity will be ours. A. M. 8. Those who indulge fretful feelings, either of anxiety or irritation, know not what an opening they thereby give to the devil in their hearts. "Fret not thyself," says the Psalmist; "it tendeth only to evil." And in entire harmony with this warning of the elder Scriptures is the precept of Paul against undue indulgence of anger: "Let not the sun go down upon your wrath, neither give place to the devil." E. M. G.—Evil will be the result of thy fretting. An angry state of the heart is a bad thing for the spiritual life; it throws it off its balance; it impairs its power of seeing and estimating truly; it indisposes the soul to communion with God; it tends to make men unjust and uncharitable and despondent and listless. A man cannot carry round with him such a raging fire in his bosom, and at the same time trust in the Lord and do good, and delight himself in the Lord. From being angry at men and things, the transition is easy to suspecting the wisdom of God. V. Worrying destroys our power to discharge well to-day's duties. It divides our power and doubles our burden. It spoils our work and spoils us. To-day's failures brought about by to-day's worry go far toward breaking us down by to-morrow's burdens when they come. The days all fit into each other. To-day's success is half-parent to to-morrow's success; and failure, too, genders after its kind. And so life becomes after all a matter of to-day, "Give us to-day our daily bread." That life is blessed that is made up of days whose moments are severally filled with the strength of God. C. H. P. There is a bound where dissatisfaction and unrest ought to end. Beyond that limit it becomes a hindrance to Christian growth, a fetter upon Christian liberty, a chill upon Christian zeal. Instead of inspiring, it debilitates. By an easy and dangerous transition it passes into a morbid self-occupation, which shuts off charity for men and service to Christ. It becomes a practical denial of the supporting strength and the pledged grace of God. There can be little freedom, or heartiness, or efficiency, in the worship or the living, under this overshadowing anxiety. Better far always than indifference or unconcern, it is not the natural, healthy state of a disciple. If it is an inevitable stage on the way to that state, yet it should always be treated as just that and no more—temporary, instrumental, immature: tending ever to peace; looking for the joy of believing; waiting for the promise of the Comforter; pressing on, with confident expectation, from the transient “spirit of bondage to fear,” which asks, “Who shall deliver me?” into the abiding “spirit of life in Christ Jesus,” where “there is no condemnation,” and into the blessed “spirit of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father;” “if God be for us, who can be against us?” If it be possible, every Christian heart will feel it to be a part of its Christian endeavor and prayer to lay off the weight which burdens the race, exchanging it for this undoubting, full assurance of faith. F. D. H. 9. “Those that wait upon the Lord”—those who in patient faith expect their portion in another life—“they shall inherit the earth.” Even in this life they have the most of real enjoyment, and in the ages to come theirs shall be the glory and the triumph. Passion, according to Bunyan’s parable, has his good things first, and they are soon over; Patience has his good things last, and they last forever. S. 10. And yet a little, i.e., erelong, soon—bear and forbear a little longer—and the wicked is not—or there is no such person as the wicked man who seemed so prosperous—and thou shalt gaze, or look attentively, upon his place, the place which he now occupies, and it is not, his very place has disappeared—or he is not, he is no more. Why, then, be discomposed, and even tempted into sin, by the sight of what is so soon to vanish? A. 11. The meek shall inherit the earth.** The violent, the unjust, the greedy, may grasp the earth for a time, but it is the meek, the gentle, never irritating, yet never withdrawing, persistent, generation after generation, in the practice and application of spiritual truth, it is they who truly inherit the earth. Young. The meek man has nought to do with the motives of others; all that concerns him is the manner in which he himself may be trained and disciplined by those disquietudes, and discomforts, and disheartenings of life, which the conduct of others may bring. The result of this is that he goes through the world hurting, vexing, irritating no one. He is taking the poison from every sting. He is receiving upon his shield of faith every fiery dart of the wicked one. He is neutralizing every bitter—he is enjoying every sweet; and thus he inherits the earth. Monsell.—The meek, and they only, possess the present earth, as they go toward the kingdom of heaven, by being humble, and cheerful, and content with what their good God has allotted them. They have no turbulent, repining, vexatious thoughts, that they deserve better; nor are vexed when they see others possessed of more honor or more riches than their wise God has allotted for their share. But they possess what they have with a meek and contentful quietness; such a quietness as makes their very dreams pleasing both to God and themselves. Walton. And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace. Peace they love and peace they shall have. If they find not abundance of gold, abundance of peace will serve their turn far better. Peace leads on to peace, and the more a man loves it the more shall it come to him. In the halcyon period of the latter days, when universal peace shall make glad the earth, the full prophetic meaning of words like these will be made plain. S. 16. A little blessed is better than a great deal cursed, better than a world enjoyed. Therefore never let a Christian murmur because he hath but little, but rather let him be still a blessing of that God that hath blessed his little, and doth bless his little, and that will bless his little to him. T. Brooks.—A godly man’s estate, though ever so little, is better than a wicked man’s estate, though ever so much, for it comes from a better hand, from a hand of special love, and not merely from a hand of common providence; it is enjoyed by a better title, God gives it to them by promise (Gal. 3: 18), it is theirs by virtue of their relation to Christ, who is the Heir of all things; and it is put to a better use, it is sanctified to them by the blessing of God. H. Strangers to Christ have the use of outward mercies, but cannot be properly said to have the enjoyment; they seem to be masters of them, but indeed they are servants to them. Nor is their use truly comfortable; they may fancy comfort, but their comfort is but a fancy. True, solid comfort is theirs only who have Christ for their portion. These may look upon every temporal enjoyment as a token of everlasting love. When we can say, “Christ loved me and gave Himself for me, that I might enjoy these blessings,” how will this raise the value of every common mercy! Upon this account is that of the Psalmist true, “A little that a righteous man hath is better than the riches of many wicked.” D. Clarkson. 18. Knoweth the days.** He watcheth over, careth for, lovingly orders all that befalls them. P.—God takes particular notice of them, of all they do, and of all that happens to them. He keeps account of the days of their service, and not one day's work shall go unrewarded; and of the days of their suffering, that for those also they may receive a recompense. He knows their fair days, and has pleasure in their prosperity; he knows their cloudy and dark days, the days of their affliction, and, as the day is, so shall the strength be. H. 20. This verse shows how the truth of the foregoing promises can be consistent with the actual prosperity of wicked men. Do not doubt the truth of these assurances because the wicked now seem happy, or because they now prevent your being so, by their oppressions and hostilities. For all this is soon to cease. The wicked shall perish, are to perish, and the enemies of Jehovah, another description of the same class, showing that these judgments awaited them, not merely as the foes of the Psalmist, or of righteous men in general, but of God Himself. A.—Their prosperity doth but hasten their ruin, not their reward. The ox that is the laboring ox is the longer lived than the ox that is put into the pasture; the very putting of him there doth but hasten his slaughter; and when God puts wicked men into fat pastures, into places of honor and power, it is but to hasten their ruin. Let no man, therefore, fret himself because of evil-doers, nor be envious at the prosperity of the wicked. Carbonensis. 21. This verse expresses a deep and true moral aspect both of poverty and prosperity; the one, as a punishment for sin, involves an incapacity of discharging obligations; the other, as a reward of virtue, enables a man to confer benefits, and to be a blessing to his fellows. This explanation of the text is given by Calvin, and well defended by Hupfeld. The antithesis between "borroweth" and "showeth mercy" stands out more distinctly in the original, where each is expressed by a single word: the former implying cleaving, a helpless dependence on the lender; the latter a free, generous, and gracious distribution of benefits. Cook. 22. For His blessed ones, those blessed by God, shall inherit the land, in the same sense as before, and so be able not only to lend but to give away; but His cursed ones, those cursed by Him, shall not only be unable to do either, and dependent on the charity of others, but shall be cut off, destroyed, exterminated, with allusion no doubt to the use of the same Hebrew verb in reference to excision from the communion and the privileges of the chosen people. A. 23. "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord." This was not only true in fact, but in David's experience. It was just what he felt and what he said in talking about his various escapes and all the incidents of his life. It was the Lord who delivered him from the lion and the bear, who gave him the victory over Goliath, who sent Samuel to anoint him king, who gave him the love of Jonathan, who saved him in the battle with the Philistines, who made his arm strong and his heart courageous in the day of battle. Yes, it was the Lord in him and around him and over him, "a sun and a shield," who made him what he was and gave him what he had, and through him carried forward that great work for which David had been chosen. T. W. Hooper. Walking is a matter of steps; and in God's training of men He directs their attention to the single steps rather than to the course of their lives as a whole, to the details of the life rather than to the life at large. "The steps of a good man" are established; not ordered each day as emergencies arise, but prearranged. The "good man" of the Psalmist's thought is the man who recognizes the excellence and the rightful claim of the Divine law, and who gives himself up to it. The Bible alternative is very sharp and plain. Either we are to be ordered by God, or we are to be self-ordered. If we undertake to order our own steps, we must take the consequences, and relinquish all claim upon God's ordering. V. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord; by His grace and holy Spirit He directs the thoughts, affections, and designs of good men; He has all hearts in His hand, but theirs by their own consent; by His providence He overrules the events that concern them so as to make their way plain before them, both what they should do, and what they may expect. Observe, God orders the steps of a good man; not only his way in general by His written Word, but his particular steps. He does not always show him his way at a distance, but leads him step by step, as children are led, and so keeps him in a continual dependence upon His guidance; and this because He delights in His way, and is well pleased with the paths of righteousness wherein he walks. H. He delighteth in his way. I have seen young parents laughing with joy when they have observed the first steps which the little ones take—they delighted in their way. And so God is represented as bending from above over us, and ordering the steps of a good man, watching his pathway, holding him by the hand, leading him in the way he should go, and delighting in his way. And never was a tender and loving parent so delighted in marking the footsteps of a child, as God in watching the ways of a good man—delighted at all his efforts in the paths of piety and peace. M. Simpson.—Christ is the God of Providence. All your steps, if you are His, are ordered by Him, ordered with all the care and tenderness with which He sought you out and brought you to the faith and love of Him. He has left words of sympathy and comfort for you in every trial. He is the good Shepherd, who calls you to walk only in the paths He has trod first. H. H. 24. Though he fall. In this life fluctuations and reverses are to be expected, and it forms no part of the Divine plan to prevent them. (But) he shall not be thrown down, prostrated wholly or forever. The contrast of a mere fall and a permanent prostration is intended to express that between occasional misfortunes and utter ruin. A.—Even in our falls the Lord gives a measure of sustaining. Where grace does not keep from going down, it shall save from keeping down. It is not that the saints are strong, or wise, or meritorious, that therefore they rise after every fall but because God is their helper, and therefore none can prevail against them. S. The steps of a good man are established in spite of his fall. Walking in the way of God's order brings with it that strong, immortal, unconquerable principle which reasserts itself after every fall, and keeps the man's face set toward God, and his feet pressing on along the heavenward road. It is a Divine principle, the very hand of God stretched forth each time in fulfilment of this promise: "He shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand." . . . From these truths we conclude: If God has ordained a way for men to walk in, it is the height of folly to walk in any other way. If God orders our ways, step by step, it becomes us to take heed to the details of our lives. If God orders each detail of our lives, ought we not to get great and solid comfort from the fact? It becomes us to fall in with God's order, and to attach to the separate steps the same importance that He does. V. 25. Literally, "I have been young; also, have been old," and therefore have had long years of observation; but I have never seen the righteous forsaken of God. He makes all things work together for good to those who love and trust Him. His posterity also are blessed and never brought to beg their bread. In those ages pre-eminently, God manifested His favor to His people by means of earthly and present good. C.—I believe this to be literally true in all cases. I am now gray-headed myself; I have travelled in different countries, and have had many opportunities of seeing and conversing with religious people in all situations in life; and I have not seen one instance to the contrary. I have seen no righteous man forsaken, nor any children of the righteous begging their bread. God puts honor upon all that fear Him; and thus careful is He of them and of their posterity. A. Clarke.—The blessed habits of piety early formed and vigorously maintained, the habits of faith, of prayer, of industry, of temperance, of knowledge and of love, are, in the very nature and order of things, a security against evil. They have the promise of the life that now is, as well as of that which is to come. I have been young and now am old, said the Psalmist, yet have I never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. Cheever. 26. The good man "is merciful, and lendeth; and his seed is blessed." What the worldling thinks shall make his posterity poor, God saith shall make the good man's rich. The precept gives a promise of mercy to obedience, not confined to the obedient man's self, but extended to his seed. Trust, then, Christ with thy children. T. Adams.—The righteous are constantly under generous impulses; they do not prosper through parsimony, but through bounty. How stingy covetous professors can hope for salvation is a marvel to those who read such verses as this in the Bible. "And his seed is blessed." God pays back with interest in the next generation. The friend of the father is the friend of the family. The God of Abraham is the God of Isaac and of Jacob. S. So far is charity from impoverishing, that what is given away, like vapors emitted by the earth, returns in showers of blessings into the bosom of the person that gave it, and his offspring is not the worse, but infinitely better for it. Horne.—"Charity is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands," says an old writer. Gifts and alms are the expression, not the essence, of this virtue. A man may bestow great sums on the poor without being charitable, and may be charitable when he is not able to bestow anything. Addison. Charity diffuses itself over the soul, and causes us to love all men. We are charitable to the poor, not by what we give, but by the spirit in which we give. Book of Symbols.—The constraint of law can never produce the highest goodness. The only constraint should be that of love. If the clouds be “full of rain” they must burst in showers of blessing upon the earth. They are the natural image of a heart that can hold out no more, that blesses by a sweet constraint, and in doing good to others relieves itself. The highest natures are not ashamed to own the gracious necessity under which they are laid by love. Hamilton. 27. No good.** Negative goodness is not sufficient to entitle us to heaven. There are some in the world whose religion runs all upon negatives; they are not drunkards, they are not swearers, and for this they do bless themselves. We are bid not only to cease from evil, but to do good. It is not enough for the servant of the vineyard that he doth no hurt there, he doth not break the trees or destroy the hedges; if he doth not work in the vineyard he loseth his pay. It is not enough for us to say at the last day, we have done no hurt, we have lived in no gross sin; but what good have we done in the vineyard? T. Adams.—It is not enough not to do hurt in the world, but we must study to be useful, and live to some purpose. We must not only depart from evil, but we must do good; good for ourselves, especially for our own souls, employing them well, furnishing them with a good treasure, and fitting them for another world; and, as we have ability and opportunity, we must do good to others also. H. Engage in some direct effort to do good. Seek to leave the world the better for your sojourn in it. Whatever you attempt, endeavor to do it so thoroughly, and follow it up so resolutely, that the result shall be ascertained and evident. And in your attempts at usefulness, be not only conscientious but enthusiastic. Love the work. Redeem the time. Remember that the Lord is at hand. Hamilton. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 1. O LORD, rebuke me not in thy wrath: Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure. 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 indignation; Neither is there any health [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 pained and bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day long. 7 For my loins are filled with burning; And there is no soundness in my flesh. 8 I am faint and sore bruised: I have groaned by reason of the disquietness of my heart. 9 LORD, all my desire is before thee And my groaning is not hid from thee. 10 My heart throbeth, 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 plague; And my kinsmen stand afar off. THIS Psalm tells the story of a bitter suffering. The suffering is both in body and in mind. The body is wasted by a cruel and loathsome disease, and the mind is full of anguish, arising partly from a deep sense of sin, and partly from the fear of relentless and now rejoicing enemies. Body and mind, in such circumstances, act and react upon one another. Mental anguish impairs the strength of the body; and bodily suffering and weakness make us less able to face with steady and resolute courage the horrors which crowd upon the mind. To add to his distress, the sufferer is deserted even of his friends. They to whose 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, hear not; And I am as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth. 14 Yea, I am as a man that heareth not, And in whose mouth are no arguments. 15 For in thee, O LORD, do I hope: Thou wilt answer, O LORD my God. 16 For I said, Lest they rejoice over me: When my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me. 17 For I am ready to fall, 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 are strong: And they that hate me wrongfully are multiplied. 20 They also that render evil for good Are adversaries unto me, because I follow the thing that is good. 21 Forsake me not, O LORD: O my God, be not far from me. 22 Make haste to help me, O LORD my salvation. kind offices he might naturally have looked at such a time; they who had been his friends in his health and prosperity, and who might now have watched by his sick-bed, and spoken words of comfort to him in his sorrow, turned coldly away, and left him alone with his grief. A burning fever consumed him (v. 7), his heart beat hotly, his eyes failed him, the bitter remembrance of his sin was with him; there was the consciousness and the fear of God's displeasure, and, as if this were not enough, there was, besides all this, the utter loneliness, never so hard to bear as in such a season of bodily and mental prostration; the weary couch, never so weary as when no hand is there to smooth it; the pain of the disease far more acutely felt, because none offered sympathy; the terrors of conscience and of the imagination aggravated, because they had to be endured in solitude. Suffering seems here to have reached its height. But out of the very midst of the furnace the sufferer can say, "Lord, before Thee is all my desire—in Thee, O Jehovah, have I hoped;" can cry with all the earnestness of a faith purified by affliction, "Leave me not, be not far from me, O Lord, my salvation." The Psalm may be said to consist of three principal parts, each of which opens with an address to God. Each of these contains an appeal to God's mercy—each rests it on different grounds. P. Among the penitential Psalms none bear deeper marks of a season of utter prostration of heart and spirit, of a combination of the most cruel trials, mental and bodily; the strain is continued without intermission to the end of the forty-first Psalm, which closes the first book of Psalms. The history of David leaves us no doubt as to the time and circumstances under which it was composed. It must have been some time after the complete awakening of his conscience to the deadly guilt contracted by Uriah's death, when the results of that act were manifested in the fearful disorders of his family, polluted by incest and murder; in the estrangement of his dearest friends and nearest kinsmen; in the triumph of malicious and slanderous enemies; in agonies of mind, accompanied and exaggerated by a terrible malady, of which the symptoms, elsewhere noted, are described most vividly in this Psalm, the flesh diseased, the bones racked, the loins filled with fierce pain, the heart panting, strength failing, the eye darkened as with the shadow of death; all attributed by the Psalmist himself to his own sin. Yet withal there is a sense of inward communion. David knows that the hand which presses on him is for chastisement, and that the Lord hears his groaning; his confession and contrition are combined with hope; he desires to be nearer God, and sums up all with calling upon the Lord as his salvation. All these things point to the period just preceding the revolt of Absalom. At that time there are indications that David was prostrate by disease, which gave full scope to the machinations of his son and his abettors; from which he recovered only to witness their success. The Psalm is frequently referred to in the New Testament. Its application to the Saviour, of whom David was a type in so many points, in none more so than in suffering, is natural; but though prophetical in the sense that the words came from David's heart under the influence which made them true exponents of feelings which reached their highest intensity in the representative of fallen man, the Psalm is not predictive, it speaks of the present and actual, not of the future and ideal; it belongs to a man not only of sorrow but of sin; of sin not merely imputed but committed; and as such is adopted without modification by conscience-smitten sinners, even while they feel that Christ's acceptance of the burden and participation of the agonies assures them of the help which David sought, and gives them a certainty of deliverance. Cook. The Psalms discover to us the inner man of David, and in the inner man of David they discover to us in some sort the inner man of all the prophets of God. He composes his Psalms, or a great part of them, in the midst of the most cruel sufferings. Imagine, then, bowed down by suffering, physical, moral, and spiritual, you were called upon to compose a Psalm, and that from the bosom of all these sufferings, and at the very moment when they were such as those which he describes in this Psalm, should issue hymns to the glory of God and for the instruction of the Church. What a triumph David gains over himself, and what a humiliation it is for us, who in our weakness are mostly obliged to wait till our sufferings are passed, in order to reap the fruit of them ourselves or to impart the benefit to others. But David, in the midst of his sufferings, writes his Psalms. He writes his thirty-eighth Psalm while he undergoes those persecutions, those inward torments, that bitterness of sin. It is in the furnace that he writes these lines, which are intended to be the encouragement of the Church in all ages. A. Monod. 2. It is not merely as a complaint but as an appeal to the mercy of God that he tells all his woe. There is a yet further appeal in the recognition of God's hand. "Thine arrows . . . Thy hand." It is this conviction that God has inflicted the chastisement, that leads him to seek the remedy from the same source. 3. No soundness. No health; or "whole-ness." Such is the proper and original meaning of the word shālom, integritas, "peace" being the derived meaning, peace only there properly existing where all is complete and entire, nothing wanting. P.—All the miseries are referred to their proper end. The sin is not bewailed merely on account of its ill effect on the guilty one, but on account of the despite done to God. It is not the "arrows" that afflict him so much as that they are God's. The reason why there is no health in his flesh is because of God's displeasure. Such is true contrition, "not the sorrow of the world which worketh death, but the sorrow that worketh repentance not to be repented of." Anon. 4. For my iniquities are gone over my head; as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. This is an amplification of the last words of the verse preceding. "The sense of my iniquities has now become intolerable." Gone over, literally, passed, i.e., surpassed, exceeded, or transcended. Too heavy for me, or heavier than I, i.e., heavier than I can bear. The reference is not merely to the effects of sin, but to the sense of sin itself, the consciousness of guilt, which he now associates with all his sufferings. A.—It is of singular use to us that the backslidings of the holy men of God are recorded in Holy Writ. Spots appear nowhere more disagreeable than when seen in a most beautiful face or on the cleanest garment. We also learn from them to think humbly of ourselves, to depend on the grace of God, to keep a stricter eye upon ourselves, lest perhaps we fall into the same or more grievous sins. H. Witsius. 8. The prayers of the saint are set forth in Scripture by calls and cries; and sometimes by "strong cries with tears;" sometimes again by "groanings not to be uttered." He who truly and sensibly knows the invaluable happiness of being delivered from temptation, and the unspeakable misery of sinking under it, will pray against it, as a man ready to starve would beg for bread, or a man sentenced to die would entreat for life. Every period, every word, every tittle of such a prayer is all spirit and life, flame and ecstasy; it shoots from one heart into another, from the heart of him who utters to the heart of Him who hears it. South. 9. Lord, before Thee (is) all my desire, and my sighing (or groaning) from Thee is not hid. This is at once an asseveration that his account of his own sufferings was not exaggerated or fictitious, and a reason why it need not be continued. "Thou knowest, O Lord, what I ask and what I need, the depth of my necessities and the intensity of my desires." A.—The spirit of prayer has been produced and has been expressed in supplication; and now that there is no restraint in prayer, give to me, work for me, respond according to Thy promise to the thirstings and to the longings of this heart. S. Martin.—The one gleam of comfort and refreshment in his misery; the one bright ray which lights up the darkness; the one thought which sustains him, that he may "unburden himself of all his griefs in the bosom of God." We have but to read the first fourteen verses without this verse, to see how much blacker the night of suffering grows. 11. Up to this point he has spoken of his suffering as arising from his own state both of body and mind. He describes now its aggravation from the conduct of others; first of friends who deserted him, and next of enemies who plotted against him. And this aggravation of his misery is again a fresh argument with God. P. 13. And I, as a deaf (man), will not hear, and as a dumb (man) will not open his mouth. This is at the same time an aggravation of his sufferings and a declaration of his patience under them. He is obliged to hear their calumnies and blasphemies as though he heard them not, being neither able to silence them nor willing to dispute them. A. 14. In the consciousness of his guilt he must be silent, and, refraining from all self-help, commit his cause to God. Consciousness of guilt and resignation close his mouth, so that he cannot and will not refute the false accusations of his enemies; he has no rejoinders whereby to justify himself. D.—No replies, not here "reproofs" or "rebukes," but answers, in self-vindication, to the calumnies of his enemies. It was not that David could not, but that he would not, answer. In this, he was the type of a greater sufferer in a more august agony. P. 15. Because for Thee I waited; Thou wilt answer, Lord, my God! His silence and forbearance, though a part of his sore trial, did not spring from weakness, but from faith in God, and submission to His precept. "I retorted not their calumnies and taunts, because I waited for Thee to vindicate my cause, and so Thou wilt, Thou wilt certainly answer." A.—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 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. S. 18. In view of these afflictions I publicly confess my iniquity; I deplore my sin—a vitally important part of true prayer in a case like this. C. 19. But mine enemies are lively, and they are strong.** Neither the world, the flesh, nor the devil are ever afflicted with debility or inertness; this trinity of evils labor with mighty, unremitting energy to overthrow us. If the devil were sick, or our lusts feeble, or Madam Bubble infirm, we might slacken prayer; but with such lively and vigorous enemies we must not cease to cry mightily unto our God. S. 22. Though pressed down with iniquities on his conscience, yet he had salvation in view, and the Lord of his salvation as his hope. O Lord, my salvation. Legal convictions only fill the soul with terror, drive it from God, and leave it in despair. Convictions from the Spirit, the Comforter, lead the soul to Christ; and the faith, hope and cry of the soul will be after the help and salvation of Jesus only; for He is "the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin of the world." W. Mason.—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. 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. S. The Christian praises God for His justice, and yet fears Him for His mercy. He is so ashamed as that he dares not open his mouth before God; and yet he comes with boldness to God and asks Him anything he needs. He is so humble as to acknowledge himself to deserve nothing but evil; and yet believes that God means him all good. He is one that fears always, yet is as bold as a lion. He is often sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; many times complaining, yet always giving of thanks. He is the most lowly minded, yet the greatest aspirer; most contented, yet ever craving. Bacon. Every new man is two men; every believer in Christ is what he was, and not what he was: the old nature and the new nature exist at the same time in each regenerate individual. The old nature the apostle calls a man, because it is a complete manhood after the image of fallen Adam; it was the desires, the judgment, the mind, the thoughts, the language, and the action of man, as he is in his rebellious estate. He calls it the "old man" because it is as old as Eden's first transgression; it is as old as we are; it is the nature born with us, the natural depravity, the fleshly mind which we inherited from our parents. Every Christian finds this old man still troubling him. He has a new nature which was implanted in him, as through the Spirit's sacred working he was led to hate sin and believe in Jesus to his soul's salvation. It is the heavenly offspring of the new birth, the pure and holy result of regeneration. That new nature cannot sin, it is as pure as the God from whom it came, and like the spark which seeks the sun, it aspires always after the holy God from whom it came; its longings and its tendencies are always toward holiness and God, and it utterly hates and loathes that which is evil; so that finding itself brought into contact with the old nature, it sighs and cries, as the apostle tells us, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" Hence a warfare is set up within the believer's bosom; the new life struggles against the old death. The enmity is irreconcilable and lifelong. S. 1. I SAID, I will take heed to my ways, That I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, While the wicked is before me. 2 I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; And my sorrow was stirred. 3 My heart was hot within me; While I was musing the fire kindled: Then spake I with my tongue: 4. LORD, make me to know mine end, And the measure of my days, what it is; Let me know how frail I am. 5 Behold, thou hast made my days as hand-breadths; And mine age is as nothing before thee: Surely every man at his best estate is altogether vanity [Hebrew, a breath]. [Selah 6. Surely every man walketh in a vain shew : Surely they are disquieted in vain : He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. 7. And now, LORD, what wait I for ? My hope is in thee. 8 Deliver me from all my transgressions : Make me not the reproach of the foolish. 9 I was dumb, I opened not my mouth ; Because thou didst it. 10 Remove thy stroke away from me : I am consumed by the blow of thine hand. THE Psalm consists of two parts : David's silence to men and his speech to God ; and both of them are set with such sweet notes of music, though they be sad, that they deserve well to be committed to the chief musician. Leighton. —“The most beautiful,” says Ewald, “of all elegies in the Psalter.” It is the sorrowful complaint of a heart not yet subdued to a perfect resignation, but jealous with a godly jealousy lest it should bring dishonor upon its God, and longing for light from heaven to scatter its doubts. The holy singer had long pent up his feelings ; and though busy thoughts were stirring within him, he would not give them utterance. And he feared lest, while telling his perplexities, some word might drop from his lips which would give the wicked an occasion to speak evil against his God. And when at last, unable to repress his strong emotion, he speaks, it is to God and not to man. It is as one who feels how hopeless the problem of life is, except as seen in the light of God. It is with the deep conviction of personal frailty (v. 6) and sinfulness (v. 9), as well as of the frailty and sinfulness of all men. It is with the touching sadness of one who cannot be comforted. And yet the weeping eye is raised to heaven, and amid all his grief and perplexity, notwithstanding all that is so dark and cheerless in the world, pilgrim and stranger as he is, the Psalmist can still say, “My hope is in Thee” (v. 7). P. 1. That I sin not with my tongue. Man's mouth will hold a world full of sin ; for there is not any sin forbidden in the law or Gospel which is not spoken by the tongue, as well as thought in the heart or done in the life. Reyner. —How important it is that we should seek to order our speech aright, seeing that our words are the outcoming of our inmost heart, the revelation of the deepest, most hidden things which are there. How important, too, seeing that words reach so far and exercise so vast an influence. They have sometimes 11. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, Thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth : Surely every man is vanity. [Selah 12. Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry ; Hold not thy peace at my tears : For I am a stranger with thee, A sojourner, as all my fathers were. 13 O spare me, that I may recover strength, Before I go hence, and be no more. been called “winged,” and so they are, travelling far and fast by paths of their own. Consider the strict judgment and account to which God will call us for our use of this talent of speech. “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned ;” and from other sayings of Christ our Lord it is to be feared that many a light word, as it seems now, will prove heavy enough at the day of judgment ; many a word lightly spoken now will have to be heavily accounted for then. Trench. 2. I held my peace, even from good—that is, I forbore to speak what I might well and lawfully enough have spoken, lest some unseemly word might suddenly slip from me ; or lest mine enemies should misconstrue anything I spake. A. Jackson. —We do so easily exceed in our words, that it is better sometimes to be wholly silent than to speak that which is good ; for our good borders so near upon evil, and so easy is the transition from the one to the other, that though we begin to speak of God and good things with a good intention, yet how quickly run we into another channel ; passion and self having stolen in turn us quite from the first design of our speech. L. —It is a great art in the Christian life to learn to be silent. Under oppositions, rebukes, injuries, still to be silent. It is better to say nothing than to say it in an excited or angry manner, even if the occasion should seem to justify a degree of anger. By remaining silent, the mind is enabled to collect itself, and to call upon God in secret aspirations of prayer. And thus you will speak to the honor of your holy profession, as well as to the good of those who have injured you, when you speak from God. Upham. 3. The Psalmist here expresses a simple fact in the actual working of the human soul. It is that the fire of feeling is fed and maintained by reflection upon the objects or truths by which it has been kindled. “While I was musing the fire kindled." Emotion, desire, or passion is awakened by objects in the world around us, by events in providence, by the course of circumstances amid which we are placed, and by truths of nature or revelation read and apprehended by the mind; and as feeling is thus excited, it is fed and made to burn simply by giving the mind fixedly to the contemplation of the things that have kindled it. B. The fire of God's truth and love lay like embers in his heart. By meditation he drew those embers together and fanned them into a flame. So should we do when our hearts are dark and cold. We know enough to make us wise and happy. Our failure is in not pondering what we know. Interior.—It is impossible that the affections should be kept constant to an object which gives no employment to the understanding. The energies of the intellect, increase of insight, and enlarging views are necessary to keep alive the substantial faith in the heart. They are the appointed fuel to the sacred fire. Coleridge.—It is the musing after which the fire begins to burn—the burning of our hearts within us as the words of wisdom enter the listening ear. Attention to sacred things is the method of the soul's feeding on them. Through this it makes its approaches, its acquaintance with them, and through this dwells with them in a sort of heavenly conversation. H. H. As meditation opens the understanding and presents truth to the mind, so it raised the affections. Knowledge without meditation to warm the affections is like the glancing of a beam upon a wave—it fills it with a little clarity, but it doth not heal it; so, when there are many motions of truth in the brain, if meditation doth not apply them to the heart, and fix them upon the soul, the affections have no warmth by them. Slight visions make shallow impressions. He that with a careless eye looks upon a piece of embroidery does not see the curiousness of the work, and therefore doth not admire it. So when we with a running eye look upon the truths of the Gospel, no wonder our affections are not raised toward them. David, speaking concerning his meditation, says, "While I was musing, the fire burned, my heart was hot within me." 'Tis musing makes this fire to burn. Salter.—Our hearts and affections should answer our thoughts, as the echo the voice and the wax the character in the seal. If our meditations do not better our hearts, they do nothing. While they swim in the mind, as light things floating on the waters, they are unprofitable; but when they sink down into the affections, as heavy and weighty things, making suitable and real impressions there, then they attain their end. Our design in meditation must be rather to cleanse our hearts than to clear our heads. "While I was musing the fire burned." We strike fire by meditation to kindle our affections. This application of the thoughts to the heart is like the natural heat, which digests the food and turns it into good nourishment. Swinnock. Meditation hath a double benefit in it, it pours in and pours out; first it pours good thoughts into the mind, and then it pours out those thoughts again into prayer; meditation first furnisheth with matter to pray and then it furnisheth with a heart to pray. "I was musing," said David, and the very next words are a prayer, "Lord, make me to know mine end." Prayer is the child of meditation. It was an excellent saying of Bernard: "Lord, I will never come away from Thee without Thee." Let this be a Christian's resolution, not to leave off his meditations of God till he find something of God in him; some moving of the soul after God. T. Watson.—In prayer, better that our heart be without words than our words without heart. H. 4. "Make me rightly to know and estimate the shortness and uncertainty of human life, that so, instead of suffering myself to be perplexed with all that I see around me, I may cast myself the more entirely upon Thee," as indeed follows: "And now, Lord, what wait I for?" P. 5. My days. Man's life is styled days because it is not conferred upon us by wholesale, by months and years, but by retail of days, hours, minutes, moments; so acquainting us with the brevity thereof, we may learn to depend upon God's bounty for the loan of our life, employ it for His glory, and every day prepare for the Bridegroom, Christ. Lagfelde.—My days an handbreadth. That is one of the shortest measures. We need not long lines to measure our lives by; each one carries a measure about with him, his own hand; that is the longest and fullest measure. It is not so much as a span; that might possibly have been the measure of old age in the infancy of the world, but now it is contracted to a handbreadth, and that is the longest. But how many fall short of that! Many attain not to a fingerbreadth; multitudes pass from the womb to the grave; and how many end their course within the compass of childhood! Leighton. Whether we drop in infancy from the cradle to the grave, or are cut off in youth; whether we attain to manhood, or even to old age; still we soon arrive at the boundary, we soon reach the end of our course, and often without passing through its intermediate stages. "Behold, Thou hast made my days as an handbreadth, and mine age is as nothing before Thee!" The stream of human existence is rapid and impetuous; its waves follow each other in quick succession, and many are ungulfed almost as soon as they appear. Early in infancy the stream glides away like a summer brook, and leaves the fond parent mournfully to recall the pleasure he received in contemplating its unsullied purity and its playful meanders. Of those who set out with us in this journey of life, how many have disappeared from our side! what changes have taken place in the circle of our connections since we began our course! how few can we now number of those with whom, in the earlier period of our lives, "we took sweet counsel!" Every year makes great changes. Many friends in whom we delighted have finished their course; they have passed through the gate that opens into the invisible world; they have completed their probation, and appeared at the tribunal of Infinite Majesty; they have done with the converse of mortals, and have seen and heard things which it is impossible to utter; they have forever finished their course. R. Hall. Remember that our days do not come to us in a multitude, but in regulated succession, and with a largely educating variety. Though they come in succession, they make a unity, and they will make a beautiful and well-ordered unity if we live them all with God and for men. God is our home, and from that home in God what can our outlook be, even in the saddest days, but one of restful hope, quiet expectation, calm dependence on the exhaustless love of our Father in heaven, who has promised that "as our days, so shall our strength be"? J. Clifford.—Life is so short, we must seek for wisdom to make the most of it. No more is required than that every man should do his best with the hours entrusted to his care. The thought of life's shortness should lead us to value time more highly. Our short life on earth should be a life of work, for we shall have all eternity to rest in. Learn to value time, first, because you have the work your "hand finds" to accomplish; and, secondly, because you have to "work out your own salvation." The great lesson which the frailty and shortness of life should teach us is the importance of preparing for the eternity beyond. W. S. Randall. His best estate is altogether van- ity. You have man here lifted up and cast down again: lifted up man at his best estate, and from that thrown down to nothing, even in that estate he is altogether vanity. What is that? It is, as the word signifies, an earthly vapor, and it is generally used to signify things of the least and meanest use, the most empty, airy things. So idols are oft called by that name; they are nothing in respect of what is attributed to them by the children of men; and such a thing is man, he seems to be something, and is indeed nothing. Leighton. Selah is mentioned seventy-four times in the Scripture, whereof seventy-one in the Book of Psalms, and thrice in the prophet Habakkuk, which is written psalm-wise; and it is placed in the end of a Psalm or verse. It indicates a little pause, stop, or stay. It did instruct them to meditate seriously upon those themes where "Selah" was engraven, as containing matter worthy of singular observation, meditation, and remembrance. Lvyfelde. 6. Only in an image does a man walk; only (for) a breath do they make a noise; he hoards up and he knows not who will gather them. So short and transient is man's life, that what he does and what befalls him seems to be not so much a reality as a show, a picture, an ideal scene, in which he walks about, as one of the imaginary actors. For a breath, i.e., the time spent in a single respiration, an instant, a moment. Or as a breath, i.e., something intangible and momentary. Or as vanity, vainly, in vain, without use or effect. A. The apostle says (1 Cor. 7: 31), "The fashion of this world passeth away," the outward form and show of things, that which appears as the substance of this life, its possessions, enjoyments, interests, are changing, fleeting, and disappearing with every moment. The form, the fashion of the world, like a splendid pageant is unreal, illusive, continues but a little time. It passes off like the shifting scenes of the stage, with its gay masked actors of the hour. Briefly but exactly is the apostle's thought here expressed by the Psalmist, "Surely man walketh in a vain show." B.—Life is but a passing pageant. This alone is sure, that nothing is sure. All around us shadows mock us; we walk among them, and too many live for them as if the mocking images were substantial; acting their borrowed parts with zeal fit only to be spent on realities, and lost upon the phantoms of this passing scene. S. It is a dreaming and distracted world, that spend their days and cares for nothing; and are as serious in following a feather, and in the pursuit of that which they confess is vanity, and dying in their hands, as if, indeed, they knew it to be true felicity. Like a stage-play, where all things seem to be what they are not, and all parties seem to do what they do not, and depart, and are all disrobed and unmasked; such is the life of the most of this world, who spend their days in a serious jesting and in a busy doing of nothing. Baxter.—Will a man find fittest preparation for calmness, and nobleness, and purity in the everlasting kingdom by giving all his actual energies and all his time in this world to these earthly, transient things? Can he be in the highest sense really succeeding by comporting himself like a settled and permanent proprietor, or like one who has hope that in time he will come into secure possession, in a place and scene where nothing is fixed, where nothing is sure, and where all the wisest and all the noblest have said, “We are strangers”? Raleigh. #### Surely they are disquieted in vain. Men fret, and fume, and worry, and all for mere nothing. They are shadows pursuing shadows, while death pursues them. He who toils and contrives and wearies himself for gold, for fame, for rank, even if he wins his desire, finds at the end his labor lost; for like the treasure of the miser’s dream, it all vanishes when the man awakes in the world of reality. Read well this text, and then listen to the clamor of the market and the exchange, the din of the city streets, and remember that all this noise (for so the word means), this breach of quiet, is made about unsubstantial, fleeting vanities. Broken rest, anxious fear, overworked brain, failing mind—these are steps in the process of disquieting with many, and all for riches, which a man must leave so soon. He heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. Many work for others all unknown to them. Especially does this verse refer to those all-gathering muckrakes, who in due time are succeeded by all-scattering forks, which scatter riches as profusely as their sires gathered them parsimoniously. S.—Heaping up riches is the great foolishness and disease, especially of old age, that the less way a man has to go he makes the greater provision for it. But for what end dost thou take all this pains? If for thyself a little sober care will do thy turn, if thy desires be sober; and if not so, thy diligence were better bestowed in impairing and diminishing of these desires, and that is the easier way a great deal. And if it be for others, why dost thou take a certain unease to thyself for the uncertain ease of others? And who these are thou dost not know; maybe such as thou never intended them for. L. It is one of the paradoxes of human nature that while men are young and have no money to spend, they are fond of spending; but as they get older, richer, and have little further use of money, then they are prone to hoard it. Thus when expediency would suggest the need of money for the many rainy days of the probable long future before him man is careless so to make it; but when, as common-sense must tell him, he is soon to die and leave his wealth, then he is anxious to hoard it. S. R.—Many covetous men take a great deal of pleasure in ruminating upon their wealth, and in recounting what they have; but they have a great deal of tormenting care and fear about it, and if they had not, it is very hard to understand where the reasonable pleasure and happiness lies of having things to no end. It is, at the best, as if it were worth the while for men to take pains to dig silver out of the earth, for no other purpose but to melt it down and stamp it, and bury it there again. Tillotson.—What can be more miserable than for a man to toil and labor his whole life, and to have no power to enjoy any fruit of his labors? to bear like an ass a golden burden all the day, and, without any further use of it, at night to have it taken away, reserving nothing to himself but a galled conscience? Downname. Christ’s teaching about wealth (Luke 16: 19) is not communist or socialist. He recognizes fully the right of individual possession; but He emphatically asserts that possession is stewardship, and that we hold money, as we do everything, in trust for those who lack and need it. The belief and practice of that would revolutionize society, and we should have no more rich men dying in the odor of sanctity, and renowned for their liberality to the cause of God and men, while leaving behind them millions. Our modern Christianity is far too chary in giving full weight and prominence to our Lord’s plain and reiterated teachings to that effect. It needs to be preached more emphatically, and to be burned into men’s consciences. A. M. 7. And now.** He turns away with a sense of relief from the sad contemplation of man’s fleeting, transitory life, to fix the eye of his heart on Him who abideth ever. We seem almost to hear the deep sigh with which the words are uttered. It is remarkable that even here it is on God Himself, not on a life to come, that his hope sustains itself. “Although not expressly assured of a future life of blessedness, his faith, even in the midst of death, lays hold on Jehovah as the living one, and as the God of the living. It is just this which, as Hengstenberg also here observes, is so heroic in the Old Testament faith, that in the midst of the riddles of the present, and in view of a future, losing itself in a night of gloom, it casts itself absolutely and without hesitation into the arms of God” (Delitzsch). P. My hope is in Thee. Does this imply hope in a state after death? If not, the state of mind is one very hard to understand. The one thing David is sure of is that his life here is a mere nothing, a shadow, an empty sound; the hope must therefore have another object. The Psalmist does not openly declare what it was. He was not moved to reveal it; but here, as in numberless other passages, he leaves no alternative but utter disappointment, unless the hope in death is realized hereafter. Cook. In Thee. Sweet is it that our hope should rest in Him who is never shaken; should abide in Him who never changeth; should bind us to Him who can hold us fast to Himself, who alone is the full contentment of the soul; should, as it were, enter into Him; since “in Him is our being,” who is love. Pusey.—Verily, the heavenly instructed soul knows that all is of God by Jesus Christ; and therefore God alone is his hope. His hope is not in his graces, his feelings, his frames, his comforts, but in the God of all grace; not in the streams, but in the fountain; not in what he has received, but in the infinite fulness which is treasured up in Christ. W. Mason. 8. Deliver me.** The first thing David prays for is deliverance from the sin to which he attributes all his misery. He includes inward assurance of forgiveness, cleansing from the guilt, and deliverance from the power and penalty of sin. Cook. 9. I was dumb.** This clearly refers to the resolve and conduct described in vs. 1, 2. He thus reiterates before God how careful he had been to avoid giving offence by any hasty word; alleges the reason for this, because he felt that his suffering was God’s doing; and urges it as a motive with God in the entreaty which follows. P. Because Thou didst it. A great deal is gained when the sorrow or the mystery has been traced up to God. God did it; then I know that infinite wisdom did it. God did it; then I know that infinite power did it. God did it, and therefore I know that infinite love did it. The fact, indeed, reduces us to silence; but let us be sure that we understand the meaning ing of the hand that is laid for the time over our mouth. It need not mean that God is rebuking our inquiry, or forbidding us to pursue it. It cannot mean that God is tantalizing us. It need not even mean that He intends to deny us a solution. It may mean that He is putting us in the way of a solution. Often, in the presence of our sorrows or our hard questions, we are like this Psalmist—our heart hot within us, our mind in a ferment of wild questionings. The bestselling for God to do with us then is to silence us, and to set us pondering this naked truth: God did it! We may think, perhaps, His reducing us to silence is an arbitrary refusal to enlighten us; but we may possibly discover, after we have been silent awhile, that a better and ampler explanation lies in the words: “Thou didst it!” . . . No man ever reasoned himself into submission under God’s stroke or into restfulness amid His mysteries. The child’s way is the only way, going direct to Him who did it, and resting in silence on His Divine heart. And how this truth gathers power when we go to this text, taking Christ with us! How it kindles under His touch! God did it; and I look up into that face of unspeakable love, with its thorn-marked brow, and say, “Thou didst it.” I am in sorrow; the sorrow is driven home by a pierced hand: Thou didst it; but the pierced hand tells me of the loving heart behind the hand; and if love hath done it let me be silent and content. Vincent. God is training up His children here. This is the true character of His dealings with them. It is training for the kingdom; it is education for eternity. It is the discipline of love. Every step of it is kindness. There is no wrath nor vengeance in any part of the process. The discipline of the school may be stern; but that of the family is love. We are sure of this; and the consolation which it affords is unutterable. There will be no needless suffering. Were this but kept in mind, there would be fewer hard thoughts of God among men, even when His strokes are most severe. H. Bonar.—So let us be dumb, dumb not from despair, but from faith; dumb not like a wretch weary with calling for help that does not come, but dumb like a child sitting at its mother’s feet, looking up into her face and watching her doings, understanding none of them as yet, but certain that they all are done in love. C. Kingsley. There is too much noise around us, and we cannot hear the voice of God as long as all is well with us and we have the enjoyment of life. Every affliction is a wilderness in which a man is in solitude and stillness so that he understands better the Word of God. When human voices are silent, the voice of God begins to speak. Tholuck. — Patience will not have had its perfect work in any case until the afflicted soul is prepared to make no reservation, to claim no direction, but to give up all into the hands of the most wise, most righteous and merciful God. Murmuring may for a time prevail, yet the Great Physician, who applies the painful remedy, cannot be baffled, and triumphs to His own glory and the unspeakable benefit of the believer's soul. Happy is he who, like David, can look back upon chastisements and say, "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because Thou didst it." J. W. A. Resignation, with a kind of spiritual alchemy, transmuteth every sorrow and grief into a blessing. She makes the bitter waters of Marah delicious; she sings with heavenly music and melodious voice her songs in the night; she overcomes all by subjection to all; and though noiselessly treading the path of meekness, she moves on with calm, majestic order, in company with all creatures, and all worlds, that obey Jehovah's bidding. Abasing herself, she riseth to high exaltation; submissive, she conquers; sorrowing, she rejoiceth; dying, she liveth; consumed by fiery trials, she ascendeth from the ashes of her affliction to a nobler and better life. Jabez Burns. 10. Remove Thy stroke from me.** It is quite consistent with resignation to pray or the removal of a trial. David was fully acquiescent in the Divine will, and yet found it in his heart to pray for deliverance; indeed, it was while he was rebellious that he was prayerless about his trial, and only when he became unmissive did he plead for mercy. S. 11. Like a moth.** The moths of the East are very large and beautiful, but short-lived. After a few showers these splendid insects may be seen fluttering in every breeze, but the dry weather and their numerous enemies soon consign them to the common lot. Thus the beauty of man consumes away like that of this gay rover, dressed in his robes of purple, and scarlet, and green. Kitto. — Surely every man is vanity. He is as Trapp wittily says "a curious picture of nothing." He is unsubstantial as his own breath, a vapor which appeareth for a little while, and then vanisheth away. Selah. Well may this truth bring us to a pause. S. 12. Lord, hold not Thy peace at my tears. He that does not willingly afflict and grieve the children of men, much less His own children, will not hold His peace at their tears, but will either speak deliverance for them (and if He speak, it is done), or in the meantime speak comfort to them, and make them to hear joy and gladness. H. — A stranger**, or passing guest; a sojourner and not a native. As all my fathers. As the patriarchs had been in the land which was theirs only by promise, he himself, he felt, and all men were on the earth what Abraham was in the land of promise; he could not call one foot of it his own. P. — The stranger is one who is merely a guest for a season, the sojourner one who lives as a client, under the protection and patronage of a prince or noble; neither has any right nor settled footing in the land. The earth is not the home of man. An image which is at once humbling and suggestive of a sure hope. Cook. The mere conviction of the brevity and hollowness of life is not in itself a religious or a helpful thought. The connection in which it is held determines whether it shall be a blight or a blessing to a man. And the one addition which is needed to incline the whole weight of that conviction to the better side, and to light up all its blackness, is that little phrase in this text, "I am a stranger with Thee, and a sojourner." If these poor brief hours are spent in the great "Taskmaster's eye"—if the shadow cast on earth proclaims a light in the heavens—if from this point there hangs an unending chain of conscious being—oh, then, with what awful solemnity is the brevity, with what tremendous magnitude is the minuteness of our earthly days invested! "With Thee"—then I am constantly in the presence of a sovereign law and its Giver; "with Thee"—then all my actions are registered and weighed yonder; "with Thee"—then "Thou, God, seest me." It is the prismatic halo and ring of eternity round this poor glass of time that gives it all its dignity, all its meaning. The lives that are lived before God cannot be trifles. And if this relation to time be recognized and accepted and held fast by our hearts and minds, then what calm blessedness will flow into our souls! "A stranger with Thee"—then we are the guests of the King. The Lord of the land charges Himself with our protection and provision; we journey under His safe conduct. It is for His honor and faithfulness that no harm shall come to us travelling in His territory, and relying on His Word. "A stranger with Thee"—then we have a constant companion and an abiding presence. Companionships may dissolve and warm hands grow cold and their close clasp relax—what then? He is with us still. He will join us as we journey, even when our hearts are sore with loss. He will walk with us by the way, and make our chili hearts glow. He will sit with us at the table—however humble the meal, and He will not leave us when we discern Him. Strangers we are indeed here—but not solitary, for we are “strangers with Thee.” And this blessed relationship with God is in itself a prophecy of a more perfect communion and a heavenly house. They who are strangers with Him will one day be at “home with the Lord.” And in the light of that blessed hope the transiency of this life changes its whole aspect, loses the last trace of sadness, and becomes a solemn joy. Lives rooted in God through faith in Jesus Christ are not vanity. Let us lay hold of Him with a loving grasp—and “we shall live also” because He lives, as He lives, so long as He lives. The brief days of earth will be blessed while they last, and fruitful of what shall never pass. We shall have Him with us while we journey—and all our journeyings will lead to rest in Him. A. M. 13. The subject of his petition, not that he may escape death and live always in this life, because he knows that he must go hence; but that he may be recovered from his afflictions, and that he may continue longer in this life. Such a prayer is lawful when offered in submission to the will of God. The reasons for this petition. That he may remove by his future life the calumnies that had been heaped upon him. That he may have brighter evidences of his interest in the Divine favor. That he may become a blessing to others, his family and nation. G. Rogers.—The Christian prays to be spared above all that he may do more for God, for his fellow-men. He knows that lengthened days, unless they serve these ends, can be no boon at all. R. Duckworth. A wanderer indeed he is, and a transient guest on earth; but what of that, if he be God’s guest? All that is sorrowful is drawn off from the thought when we realize our connection with God. We are in God’s house; the host, not the guest, is responsible for the housekeeping. We need not feel life lonely if He be with us, nor its shortness sad. It is not a shadow, a dream, a breath, if it be rooted in Him. And thus the sick man has conquered his gloomy thoughts, even though he sees little before him but the end; and he is not cast down even though his desires are all summed up in one for a little respite and healing, ere the brief trouble of earth be done with: “O spare me, that I may recover strength before I go hence, and be no more.” A. M. 1. I WAITED patiently for the LORD; And he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay; And he set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings. 3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: Many shall see it, and fear, And shall trust in the LORD. 4 Blessed is the man that maketh the LORD his trust, And respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. 5 Many, O LORD my God, are the wonderful works which thou hast done, And thy thoughts which are to us-ward: They cannot be set in order unto thee; If I would declare and speak of them, They are more than can be numbered. 6. Sacrifice and offering thou hast no delight in; Mine ears hast thou opened: Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. 7 Then said I, Lo, I am come; In the roll of the book it is written of me: 8 I delight to do thy will, O my God; Yea, thy law is within my heart. 9 I have published righteousness in the great congregation; Lo, I will not refrain my lips, O LORD, thou knowest. 10 I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy sal- vation : I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congrega- tion. 11 Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O LORD : Let thy lovingkindness and thy truth con- tinually preserve me. 12 For innumerable evils have compassed me about, Mine iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up ; They are more than the hairs of mine head, and my heart hath failed me. 13 Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me : Make haste to help me, O LORD. THIS Psalm consists of two parts. The first (vs. 1-10) tells the story of God's mercies in a former time of trouble ; the second (vs. 11-18) is a cry for the like help and deliverance, now that fresh calamities are come. The writer, looking back to the past, tells how he had been brought into the deepest abyss of misery ; he had been like one falling into a pit, or sinking in a deep morass, where there was no resting- place for his feet ; but God of His great mercy had heard him when he cried, had delivered him from his trouble, had set his feet on a rock, and established his goings ; and not only had He done this, but He had also given him a heart and a tongue to praise Him (v. 3). Then follows the expression of his feelings at the time. Here, after speaking of the blessedness of trusting in Jehovah, and of the wonders of His goodness, not only to the singer himself, but to all Israel, he further declares what had been the great lesson of his affliction—how he had learned that there was a better sacrifice than that of bulls and goats, even the sacrifice of an obedient will ; and how, moreover, he had found that this truth which God had opened his ears to receive (v. 6) was in most perfect har- mony with the truth taught in the written law (v. 7) ; and lastly, how, constrained by a sense of gratitude, he had published to "the great congregation" the lovingkindness and truth of the Lord. In the second division of the Psalm he pleads the past, and his own conduct in the past, as a ground for renewed mercies being vouchsafed to him, now that he is in fresh trouble, bowed down by the burden of his sins (v. 9), and cruelly pursued by his enemies (v. 14). Thrice 14. Let them be ashamed and confounded to- gether That seek after my soul to destroy it : Let them be turned backward and brought to dishonour That delight in my hurt. 15 Let them be desolate by reason of their shame That say unto me, Aha, Aha. 16 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee : Let such as love thy salvation say contin- ually, The LORD be magnified. 17 But I am poor and needy ; Yet the LORD thinketh upon me : Thou art my help and my deliverer ; Make no tarrying, O my God. he prays earnestly for himself (vs. 11, 13, 17) ; the last time, faith having vanquished in the struggle, there mingles with the cry for help the touching expression of confidence in God : "But as for me, miserable and helpless though I be, the Lord thinketh upon me." With these personal petitions are joined others against the malice of his enemies (vs. 14, 15), and interces- sion on behalf of all those who, like himself, love and seek Jehovah. This second part, or rather the portion of it from v. 13 to v. 17, ap- pears again, in an independent form, as Psalm 70. But it is, I think, almost certain that the Psalm in its present form is the original, and the latter verses were subsequently detached and slightly altered, in order to form a distinct poem. P. 1. The words "patient," "patiently," have chiefly lost their original meaning in English, and a secondary one has become the primary. "Patient," from the Latin "patiens," orig- inally meant a sufferer. The doctor's "pa- tient" holds this idea still ; and we also speak of Christ's "passion," not as we speak of a passionate man, but purely in the old sense of His suffering. But in almost all connections we drop the old idea of suffering, and think only of quiet endurance, longsuffering, making prominent the idea of quietness and self-con- trol. In our passage we must go back to the original sense suffer. "I waited sufferingly, intensely, with earnest longings, an intensity of feeling which amounted to real suffering." This was what our translators meant to express, and according to the usage of their times did express. The Hebrew idiom also gives the idea of intense waiting, a longing, which involved very strong emotion. C.—Patience is the spirit and demeanor of the living martyr trusting in the Word and faithfulness of God. It is the serenity of the soul amid the fiercest storms of trial and calamity, as well as the brightest days of sunshine and happiness. It is an unruffled sea in all winds; a thread even spun with every wheel of providence; a sufferer neither without tears nor without hope; neither murmuring nor presuming; neither despising chastisement nor fainting when corrected; affected with all, cast down with nothing; quiet when tossed, very quiet when extremely tossed; expecting his salvation from God when none can be had from man. “Here is the patience of the saints.” R. Bond. How reasonable it is that we wait! He is a King well worth waiting on; and there is in the very waiting on Him an honor and happiness far above us. And the things we seek are great: forgiveness of sins, evidence of sonship and heirship; heirship of a kingdom; and we condemned rebels. Further, the attendance that this reason enforces is sweetened by the consideration of His wisdom and love, that He hath foreseen and chosen the very hour for each mercy fit for us, and will not slip it a moment. Never any yet repented their waiting, but found it fully recompensed with the opportune answer in such a time as then they are forced to confess was the only best. I waited patiently, says the Psalmist, but it was all well bestowed, He inclined to me and heard my cry; and then he afterward falls into admiration of the Lord’s method, His wonderful workings and thoughts to usward. L. Some prayers are not answered at the time, because those who offer them have to be taught the grace of waiting patiently for the Lord; they have to learn more fully to walk by faith, not by sight; they have to learn to take the promise of God against all appearances, and to remember that heaven and earth shall pass away, but God’s word shall not pass away. But whatever be the reasons for the apparent silence of God, we may rest assured that hearing prayer is the law of His kingdom. Old Testament and New alike bear witness to this. Every verse of the Psalms proclaims it. Alike by precept and example our Lord constantly enforced it. Every apostle takes up the theme and urges the duty and the privilege. W. G. B. The same spirit of faith which teaches a man to cry earnestly teaches him to wait patiently; for, as it assures him the mercy is in the Lord’s hand, so it assures him it will be given forth in the Lord’s time. Whatever you want, go to God by faith and prayer in the name of Christ, and never think His delays are denials. And be assured that all who spend their days in faith and prayer shall end their days in peace and comfort. J. Mason. 2. Jehovah placed his feet upon a rock and made his steps firm, i.e., delivered him from the danger that surrounded him and gave him firm ground under his feet. The high rock and the firm steps are the opposite of the deep pit and the yielding, miry bottom. This deliverance became to him new matter for thanksgiving. D.—Do but call back your thoughts, you that have indeed escaped it, and look but into that misery whence the hand of the Lord hath drawn you out, and you cannot miss to love Him highly, and still kiss that gracious hand even while it is scourging you with any affliction whatsoever; because it hath once done this for you—namely, plucked you out of destruction. The thoughts of this change will teach us to praise. L. 3. A new song.** Put off oldness; ye know the new song. A new man, a New Testament, a new song. A new song belongeth not to men that are old; none learn that but new men, renewed through grace from oldness, and belonging now to the New Testament, which is the kingdom of heaven. Augustine.—The soul is now entered into rest; rest in love, rest in God. It is flooded also with a wondrously luminous joy; its whole horizon is filled with light; the light of a new love, the light of God revealed within. It has the beginning of true blessedness; because God Himself and the principle of God’s own blessedness are in it. It settles into peace; for now it is at one with God and all the creatures of God. It is filled with the confidence of hope; because God, who is wholly given Himself to a right love, will never forsake it, in life or death. It is free to good, inclined to good; for the good love reigns in it, and it would even have to deny itself not to do the works of love. It consciously knows God within; for God is there now in a new relation, love present to love, love answering to love. There is no alienation, or separation, but oneness. If a man love Me, says the Saviour, he will keep My words, and My Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him. That abode in the soul is a new condition of Divine movement; for it is in the movement of God. All things, of course, are new. Life proceeds from a new centre, of which God is the rest and prop. The Bible is a new book, because there is a light in the soul by which to read it. Duties are new, because the Divine love the soul is in has changed all the relations of time and the aims of life. The saints of God on earth are no longer shunned, but greeted in new terms of celestial brotherhood. The very world itself is revealed in new beauty and joy to the mind, because it is looked upon with another and different love, and beheld as the symbol of God. Bushnell. Coming to Christ and conversion to God are materials for a "new song." A good hope when first given is a new song; and this good hope when renewed, when made more alive and effectual, is a new song. Grand and glorious new songs are in our future. There is the song of victory over death. The first moment after death will put a new song in our mouth, and as certainly—more certainly—our entrance to heaven will do the same. Let us go through life with songs. Let us sing that which God gives us to sing. In plain words, let us acknowledge our obligations to "the Father of all mercies" and the God of all consolation; and let us so acknowledge them as to awaken praise to our God. We are all called to be singers, and we are called to sing new songs. S. Martin. After deliverance should come a song that will communicate its melody to the life. We can set our daily deeds to the music of a grateful heart, and seek to round our lives into a hymn—the melody of which will be recognized by all who come into contact with us, and the power of which shall not be evanescent, like the voice of the singer, but perennial, like the music of the spheres. Only they who carry this music in their hearts shall sing at last, on the shore of the heavenly land, that song of "pure concert" for which John could find no better description than that it was "the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb." W. M. Taylor. Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord. The terms fear, and hope, or trust David has not improperly joined together, for no man will ever entertain the hope of the favor of God but he whose mind is first imbued with the fear of God. I understand fear to mean the feeling of piety which is produced in us by the knowledge of the power, equity, and mercy of God. Calvin. 4. Happy the man who has made Jehovah his trust.** From his own experience he draws a general conclusion as to the safety and prosperity of those who trust in God. The phrase is properly an exclamation, oh, the happiness of the man, as Ps. 1 : 1 ; 2 : 12 ; 32 : 1 ; 33 : 12. A. [What trust (the Old Testament word) or faith (the word of the New Testament) is and does, as summarized by old writers : B.] Faith is the eye, the mouth, the hand, and one of these is of use all day long. Faith is to see, to receive, to work, or to eat; and a Christian should be seeing, or receiving, or working, or feeding, all day long. Bunyan.—Faith is an assimilating grace; it changeth the soul into the image of the object. A deformed person may look on a beautiful object, but not be made beautiful; but faith looking on Christ transforms a man, and turns him into His similitude. Faith looking on a bleeding Christ, causeth a soft, bleeding heart; looking on an holy Christ, causeth sanctity of heart; looking on an humble Christ, makes the soul humble. T. Watson.—Faith reasons not with God, asketh no whats, no hows, no wherefores; it moveth no questions. It yields assent and humbly says Amen to every word of God. Clarke.—Faith is that nail which fastens the soul to Christ; and love is that grace that drives the nail to the head. Faith takes hold of Him and love helps to keep the grip. Christ dwells in the heart by faith, and He burns in the heart by love, like a fire melting the breast. Faith casts the knot, and love draws it fast. Erskine. 5. Much hast Thou accomplished, Jehovah my God, of Thy marvels and thoughts for us ;** There is nothing to be compared unto Thee, Else would I declare and discourse of them—They are too numerous to be recounted. D. My God, as well as our God, i.e., in personal covenant with me, as well as in national covenant with Israel. The word translated wonders is properly a passive participle, meaning (things) made wonderful or wonderfully done, and therefore constantly used absolutely as a noun in the sense of wondrous deeds or wonderful works. Thoughts, purposes, and in this connection, purposes of mercy. To us, toward us, respecting us, and for our benefit. A. There are works of God in His people and for His people. There are His works of creation, of providence, and of redemption, and also His works of grace, wrought in them by His Spirit, and around them by His providence, as well as for them by His Son. These are wonderful works; wonderful in their variety, their tenderness, their adaptation to their need, their co-operation with outward means and their power. They are the result of the Divine thoughts respecting us. They come not by chance, not by men, but by the hand of God, and that hand is moved by His will, and that will by His thought respecting us. Every mercy, even the least, represents some kind thought in the mind of God respecting us. God thinks of each one of His people, and every moment. They are innumerable. "They cannot be reckoned up." Could we see all the mercies of God to us and His wonderful works wrought for us individually, they would be countless as the sands, and all these countless mercies represent countless thoughts in the mind and heart of God to each one of His people. G. Rogers. 6. He proceeds now to declare the great truth which God had taught him, and which it would seem he had learned in his affliction, that God desires the sacrifice of the will rather than the sacrifice of slain beasts. We may, perhaps, paraphrase vs 5-8 as follows: My heart is full to overflowing with the thought of Thy goodness. How can I express, how can I acknowledge it? Once I should have thought sacrifices and offerings a proper and sufficient acknowledgment. Now I feel how inadequate these are; for Thou hast taught me the truth; my deaf, unwilling ears didst Thou open, that I might understand that a willing heart was the best offering I could render. Then, being thus taught of Thee, I said, Lo, I come, presenting myself before Thee, not with a dead and formal service, but with myself as a living sacrifice. The truth here inculcated is stated fully in Psalm 50, and is often insisted on by the prophets. P. The connection of the thoughts is quite clear: great and many are the tokens of Thy grace; how am I to thank Thee for them? To this question he first of all gives a negative answer; God has no pleasure in external sacrifices. God, says David, desires not outward sacrifices, but obedience; He hath formed the sense of hearing, hath bestowed upon me the faculty of hearing, and hath therewith given me instruction to be obedient. What is meant is that God has granted him ears in order to hear God's Word in general and to obey what was heard. It is not sacrifice that God desires, but hearing ears and, therefore, the surrender of the personality itself in willing obedience. D.—Sacrifice is outward and formal, so far as the worshipper is concerned. Obedience is inward and real. The affection of the heart alone gives life to the observance of the form. Without the former, the latter is worthless to the worshipper. This is the uniform tenor of Scripture. M. In this famous passage David expresses with singular beauty the great truth that all outward observances are valueless without obedience and a full concurrence of the will of man with the will of God. This had ever been recognized by the teachers of Israel, and had but a few years previously been declared by Samuel (see 1 Sam. 15: 22). It is repeated by David (Psalm 51: 16), by Asaph (50: 8-15), and by the prophets (cf., Isa. 1: 11-17; Hos. 6: 6; Micah 6: 6-8). Four kinds of offerings are here named: two represent the conditions of entering into covenant with God—viz., sacrifice, the slaughter of a victim, and oblation, mincha, the fine flour with oil and frankincense presented at the same time on the altar. To these David contrasts the "opening of the ears." A natural and obvious interpretation is, that God has opened the Psalmist's ears, or, more accurately, made new ears for him, given him the faculty of receiving and understanding His law. The hearing ear, the legal equivalent to evangelical faith, is the first condition of inner communion with God, and as such presents a perfect antithesis to the outward form which merely represents the condition. 7,8. The typical application to our Lord is obvious and very striking. As David presented himself before God in spirit with the book of the law describing his duties and rights, so the Saviour came with the Word of God bearing witness to Him and expressing that will which He fulfilled. Cook.—The Epistle to the Hebrews (10: 5-10), following the LXX., takes these verses as the language of the Christ upon His coming into the world. When we look at the second half of the Psalm, there cannot be the slightest doubt that it was typological reasons that gave rise to such an interpretation. The language of David, the anointed one—but only such as was used by him after he found himself on the way to the throne—is so moulded by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of prophecy, that it sounds at the same time like the language of the second David, whose self-sacrifice is the end of the animal sacrifices and whose person and work are the kernel and star of the roll of the law, as He passed on through suffering to glory. D. The purpose of the writer to the Hebrews is not so much to insist on the fact that our Lord's sacrifice was the sacrifice of a human body—that was already implied in His "coming into the world," His incarnation—but that it was the offering of an obedient will. It should also further be observed, that the words are not quoted as a prophecy which was fulfilled in Christ, but the writer finds words which once expressed the devotion of a true Israelite to be far more strikingly expressive, indeed, in their highest sense, only truly expressive, of the perfect obedience of the Son of God. All true words of God's saints of old, all high and holy aspirations, however true and excellent in their mouths, went far beyond themselves, and found their perfect consummation only in Him who was the Perfect Man. P. The clause before us may be paraphrased as follows: "Since the ceremonies of the Law are worthless, when divorced from habitual obedience, instead of offering mere sacrifice I offer myself, to do whatever is prescribed to me in the written revelation of Thy will." This is the spirit of every true believer, and is therefore perfectly appropriate to the whole class to whom this Psalm relates, and for whom it was intended. It is peculiarly significant, however, when applied to Christ; first, because He alone possessed this spirit in perfection; secondly, because He sustained a peculiar relation to the rites, and more especially the sacrifices of the Law. David, or any other individual believer under the old economy, was bound to bring himself as an oblation, in completion or in lieu of his external gifts; but such self-devotion was peculiarly important upon Christ's part, as the real sacrifice, of which those rites were only figures. The failure of any individual to render this essential offering ensured his own destruction. But if Christ had failed to do the same, all His followers must have perished. It is not, therefore, an accommodation of the passage to a subject altogether different, but an exposition of it in its highest application, that is given in Heb. 10: 5-10. The limitation of the words to Christ, as an exclusive Messianic prophecy, has the twofold inconvenience of forbidding its use by the large class of godly sufferers, for whom it seems so admirably suited, and of requiring us to understand even the confession of sins as uttered in His person. A. That the Psalm was not intended purely as a prophecy of Christ is plain from v. 12, which cannot be attributed to Him. It was written to express David's grateful and devout feelings, but not his individual feelings alone, those which he had in common with all the truly pious. As such, it could properly be adopted by God's incarnate Son. David says, it is not the sacrifice of animals that God demands, but the voluntary consecration of the person and hearty surrender to the will of God. Such surrender found its first perfect embodiment in Christ; His, therefore, according to the doctrine of David, is the true and only perfect sacrifice. David, indeed, is here speaking of but one aspect of sacrifice, as symbolizing a grateful return to God for His benefits. But sacrifice, as the Scriptures abundantly teach, has also another aspect, that of expiation for sin. Now if Christ's sacrifice, tested by the principle which David here lays down, is the only perfect sacrifice, then the further conclusion follows that it is the one only complete expiation, beside which animal offerings are worthless, and by which they are necessarily superseded. The use made of this passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews is, therefore, entirely legitimate; while the conclusion drawn is not one which was in the Psalmist's mind in penning the passage, it nevertheless is involved in the declaration which he makes. W. H. G. 7. Emphatic and important are the words: "Lo, I come; in the volume of the book it is written of Me." The Messiah was long known under the name "the coming One," "He that should come"—phrases which have their germ in this and kindred prophecies. "In the volume of the book," i.e., in the Pentateuch (no other book then extant bore this title) it was written: "The sceptre shall not pass from Judah until Shiloh come" (Gen. 49: 10). So here it is written concerning Me, i.e., that I am to come, and devote myself to doing the perfect will of God, even though at the cost of untold sufferings. C. Lo, I come. As His name is above every name, so this coming of His is above every coming. We sometimes call our own births a coming into the world; but properly, none ever came into the world but He. He only truly can be said to come, who is before He comes; so were not we, only He so. He only properly comes who comes from some place or other. Alas! we had none to come from but the womb of nothing. He only had a place to be in before He came. Mark Frank. This looks back to the primitive transaction and purpose, Lo, I come to do Thy will, says the Son; and, Behold My Servant whom I have chosen (Isa. 43: 10), says the Father; in this masterpiece of My work none in heaven or earth is fit to serve Me but Mine own Son. And as He came into the world according to that decree and will, so He goes out of it again in that way; the Son of man goeth as is determined, it was wickedly and maliciously done by men against Him, but determined (which is that He there speaks of) wisely and graciously by His Father with His own consent. L.—Christ was never so joyful in all His life, that we read of, as when His sufferings grew near; then He takes the sacrament of His body and blood into His own hands, and with thanksgiving bestows it among His disciples; then He sings a hymn, then He rejoices, then He comes with a "Lo, I come." Oh, the heart, the great heart that Jesus had for us to do us good! He did it with all the desire of His soul. Bunyan. Christ said, "The cross is in My path, and on it and from it I exercise the influence, to exercise which I have come into the world, and there I do the thing which I came forth from the Father to do." He thought of His death not as the end of His work, but as the centre-point of it; not as the termination of His activity, but as its climax, to which all the rest was subordinated, and without which all the rest was nought. He does not die, and so seal a faithful life by an heroic death—but dies, so bearing and bearing away man's sin. He regarded from the beginning "the glory that should follow," and the suffering through which He had to wade to reach it, in one and the same act of prescience, and said, "Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of Me." If we carried with us more distinctly than we do that one simple thought, that in all the human joys, in all the apparently self-forgetting tenderness of that Lord who had a heart for every sorrow and an ear for every complaint, and a hand open as day and full of melting charity for every need—that in every moment of that life, in the boyhood, in the dawning manhood, in the maturity of His growing human power—there was always present one black shadow, toward which He ever went straight with the consent of His will and the clearest eye, we should understand something more of how the life as well as the death was a sacrifice for us sinful men! A. M. The words carry with them another truth: Wherever there is difficulty, wherever there is sin, or sorrow, or need, in proportion as the difficulty, sin, sorrow, need, become extreme, there Jesus comes. It is not one, but a long series of advents, Jesus coming nearer to us and we, as we are drawn, coming a little nearer to Him, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. It is so the work is done, and it is so that the union becomes established between a sinner and Christ, that union which can never be broken forever and forever. J. V.—A man is not saved because he is better than other men, but because he is in Christ and Christ is in him. He who is lost is not lost because he is worse than other men, but because he is not in Christ and Christ is not in him. Christ's obedience unto death imputed to us by God and received by faith—this is the way, and the only way, to holiness and heaven. David Winters. All the work of our redemption was in a manner achieved when our Saviour did appear; His incarnation was the great step toward it; as being an act of the humblest obedience and of the highest merit that could anywise be performed, for satisfying the justice of God, and winning His favor toward us; His taking up life may well seem more meritorious than His laying it down, and the chief passion which He could ever undergo. His death was a passion, great as death could be; His life also was a continual passion, or exercise of huge patience; but His birth seemeth to be the greatest and strangest passion of all, involving the lowest submission and the deepest suffering. What nobler sacrifice could there be than God's offering Himself up to mortality, to infirmity, to slavery? What obedience can be thought of comparable to that which He did express when He said, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. I came down, not that I might do Mine own will, but the will of Him that sent Me?" Barrow. The volume of the book, or the roll of Scripture. The second noun is the one used in Hebrew to denote the written revelation of God's will, and the first to describe the form of an ancient Oriental book, not unlike that of a modern map, and still retained in the manuscripts used in the synagogue worship. The reference here is to the Law of Moses. A. 8. I delight to do Thy will, O my God. The will of God to redeem sinners by the incarnation and death of Jesus Christ was most grateful and pleasing to the very heart of Christ. It is said (Prov. 8:31) when He was solacing Himself in the sweetest enjoyment of His Father, while He lay in that blessed bosom of delights, yet the very prospect of this work gave Him pleasure, then His "delights were with the sons of men." And when He was come into the world, and had endured many abuses and injuries, and was even now come to the most difficult part of the work; yet, "how am I straitened, or pained (saith He), till it be accomplished!" Flavel. The Divine will was very dear to Jesus from its connection with the work and the reward of redemption. Mark here the bearing of an unselfish end on an unselfish rule of life. The purpose for which Christ lived and died was unselfish—to bless others with eternal life; and the fondness with which He cherished this unselfish end exalted the unselfish rule. Living in the joy of the coming blessedness of His people, He could serenely and contentedly bow to that will by which their glory was secured. W. G. B.—The one undeviating object of the Son all through was the glory of the Father; He came to do His will, and He fulfilled it with all the unvarying intensity of the most heavenly affection. What, then, will not be the exuberant joy of His heart, when in His glorious kingdom He shall see the Father beyond all measure glorified? Goodhart. This, then, is the secret of the choice of life, to learn what, among the manifold duties of His great household, God, in the eternal purpose of His love, willed each one of us to discharge. To have discovered this and to have placed ourselves in that path, conforming ourselves therein to the will of God, is to have taken, by God's grace a decisive step in the way of salvation. For it is to have chosen the will of God and united our own to His; it is to answer the purpose of God for us; it is to be under the guidance of the All-wise, the protection of the Almighty. Pasey. 9,10. But not obedience only, but thanksgiving also shall form a part of his grateful acknowledgment of God's goodness; he will both do the will and speak the praises of Jehovah. This last, too, is better than sacrifice. Words are here heaped upon words to express the eager forwardness of a heart burning to show its gratitude. No elaborate description could so well have given us the likeness of one whose "life was a thanksgiving." P. The Gospel of Jehovah's justifying and gracious rule he has published to the whole of Israel; and he can appeal to the omniscient One, that neither from fear of man nor from shame and indolence has he restrained his lips from confessing Him. This rich material for evangelical preaching in the history of redemption he has not allowed to slumber like a dead, unfruitful knowledge deep down and hidden in his heart. The new song, which Jehovah put into his mouth, he has also really sung. He is, therefore, without fear for the future. D. 9. "Preached righteousness," the Hebrew word being the most perfect equivalent which the language affords for evangelizing, i.e., preaching the glad tidings of Gospel salvation. It is used repeatedly in this sense by Isaiah (40: 9 and 52: 7). The expressions, "In the great congregation;" "not concealed from the great congregation," take their form from the times of David, when the great congregation of all Israel convened at the one place for worship; but in sense it purports that Christ proclaimed this Gospel to the Israel of His time and through them to the wide world. Having made propitiation for sin by His death, He proproclaimed for all the race free pardon and God's righteousness in forgiving sin. These verses make this idea very emphatic. C. 10. He emphatically repeats that he had not hidden his gratitude to God and his sense of the Divine goodness in his own breast, but had freely published it to others, not from ostentation, but from an impulse of love and obligation which could not be repressed. He who believes in his heart should make confession with his lips (Rom. 10: 10). W. H. G. A true inward experience or discovery of God in the heart is itself an impulse also of self-manifestation, as all love and gratitude are—wants to speak and declare itself, and will as naturally do it when it is born as a child will utter its first cry. David speaks as one who could not find how to suppress the joy that filled his heart, but must needs break loose in a testimony for God. And so it is in all cases the instinct of a new heart, in its experience of God, to acknowledge Him. The change implied in a true Christian experience or the revelation of God in the heart is in its very nature the soul and root of an outward change that is correspondent. The faith implanted is a faith that works in appropriate demonstrations, and must as certainly work as a living heart must beat or pulsate. It is the righteousness of God revealed within to be henceforth the actuating spring and power of a righteous and devoted life. It will inform the whole man. It will glow in the countenance. It will irradiate the eye. It will speak from the tongue. It will enter into all the transactions of business, the domestic tempers, the social manifestations and offices. It will make the man a benefactor and call him into self-sacrifice for God and the truth. It will send him forth to be God's advocate with men, and require him to make full testimony, either formally or by implication, of what God has done for him. Of this a true Christian experience is the root and beginning, else it is nothing. The inward change is no reality, but a pure fiction, if it does not issue in this. In this it will issue when it is allowed to act unrestrainedly, even though it be at first the smallest seed of grace possible. There will be times, more or less private, when the humblest and weakest disciples can speak of what God has done for them, with the very best effect. Nor is there anything so unpractical and destitute of Christian respect as the shyness of some fastidious people in this matter. It never exists in a truly manly character or in connection with a full-toned, living godliness. That will be no such dainty affair. It will speak out. It will declare what God has done, and show the method by which He works. The new joy felt will be a new song in the mouth, and every new deliverance will be fitly, gratefully confessed. There will be no shallow affectation of delicacy shutting the lips and sealing them in a forced dumbness, as if the righteousness of God had been taken by a deed of larceny. How often will two disciples help and strengthen each other by showing, each the other, in what way God has led him, what his struggles have been, and where his victories. They spake often, one to another, says the prophet, and God hearkened and heard it. God listens for nothing so tenderly as when His children help each other by their testimonies to His goodness and the way in which He has brought them deliverance. Besides there is a higher view of these personal testimonies and confessions. All these experiences or life-histories of the faithful will be among the grandest studies and most glorious revelations of the future—a spiritual epic of wars, and defeats, and falls, and victories, and wondrous turns of deliverance, and unseen ministries of God and angels, that, when they are opened to the saints, will furnish the sublimest of all their discoveries of Christ and of God. Bushnell. The open, active profession of Christ, the manifestation of faith and love in temper, word, and deed is not an optional duty. Nature, as certainly as it ordains that light shall shine, ordains that gratitude shall give thanks and praise, that love and faith and hope shall show themselves by labor and sacrifice, by patience in well-doing. Truthfulness, fidelity, manliness, all demand that if a man loves Christ he will take part with Christ, as one that loves his country or his friends will espouse the cause of country or friends. Sincerity, loyalty, benevolence, demand that if a man desires the participation of others in the salvation to whose hope he has attained, he shall put forth every exertion and use every influence by which this object may be achieved. And the Christian's own spiritual life, his growth in grace and sanctification, his happiness here and hereafter, all strongly enforce the duty of open, active profession by word and deed as absolutely indispensable and imperative. B. 11. With this verse begins the second part of the Psalm, which runs altogether in a different strain; reflecting on his deep sinfulness, the Psalmist is full of grief, and expresses his feelings in earnest prayers, sad confessions, imprecations against his enemies, and longings for deliverance. Cook. 12. My iniquities.** This verse is quite decisive as to the question which has been raised respecting the Messianic interpretation of the Psalm. It is quite impossible to refer such words as these to Christ; and when expositors choose to say that "my iniquities" mean "the iniquities laid upon me," they are doing violence, most unjustifiably, to the plain words of the text. P. They are more than the hairs of mine head. We lose ourselves when we speak of the sins of our lives. It may astonish any considering man to take notice how many sins he is guilty of any one day; how many sins accompany any one single act; nay, how many bewry themselves in any one religious duty. Whensoever ye do anything forbidden, you omit the duty at that time commanded; and whenever you neglect that which is enjoined, the omission is joined with the acting of something forbidden; so that the sin, whether omission or commission, is always double; nay, the apostle makes every sin tenfold (Jas. 2 : 10). D. Clarkson. If any one, trying to make higher attainments and achieve some higher standing in religion, is overwhelmed with the infirmity and bitter evil of his own heart, and cries, My iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; what is there in such a discovery to break down his confidence? Just there is the place for him to believe and begin to sing with Paul, I thank God, through Jesus Christ my Lord. The very first thing to be held by a true Christian is that he has no inherent sufficiency for anything; and then upon that he should place as the universal antidote to discouragement, the great principle of accruing grace, sealed by the promise, My grace is sufficient for thee. Bushnell. 16. Let all those that seek Thee rejoice and be glad in Thee. As every mercy to every believer giveth a proof of God's readiness to show the like mercy to all believers when they stand in need, so should every mercy shown to any of the number, being known to the rest, be made the matter and occasion of magnifying the Lord. Dickson.—Love thy salvation.** If we love with all our hearts His great salvation, let us proclaim the glory of God which is resplendent therein. Never let His praises cease. As the heart is warm with gladness, let it incite the tongue to perpetual praise. If we cannot do what we would for the spread of the kingdom, at least let us desire and pray for it. S.—The more that we limit the essentials of life, and find the springs of our pleasure in the nearest and simplest things, the more shall we open again that fountain of gladness which seems to have dried up in the midst of our desert of life. Being cumbered about many things is fatal to gladness. It distracts us, it draws us two ways. Gladness lies very much in oneness. "One thing I do," must be the word of the men who would reopen the spring of the ancient hilaritas in our modern world. It was the word of the man who was "always rejoicing;" who wrote to his converts, "Rejoice in the Lord always; and again I say, rejoice." The springs of gladness are within every healthy nature, and will flow, if the stone of care is not laid on them too heavily. The resolution to live simply, to cut off superfluities, to unmask falsities, to establish honesties, and to maintain them resolutely at all costs, is like rolling away the stone that seals the fountain; it will bubble forth pure draughts of joy. Another spring of gladness is wholesome, noble work. No man is glad when living to himself. Man is made for the life of communion; the perfect form of human life was the life which found its blessedness in giving itself to mankind. Anon. 17. The transition in the original is very animated: "And as for me poor and needy, the Lord will care for me: my help and deliverer art Thou; O my God, tarry not." The last word is a deep sigh. Cook. What comfort there is in the thought that the Lord does not pivot His remembrance of us on our remembrance of Him! We may at times be so absorbed in thought or work that we forget to ask God's blessing, or to thank Him for it when it has been given, but He goes right on blessing us at all times without waiting for our prayers or our praises. Yet shall it be that we are less mindful of God because of our confidence that God will never be unmindful of us? Ought not God's never-failing remembrance of us to quicken and intensify our loving remembrance of God? S. S. T. Not forsaken and alone, when this is pondered and believed: "The Lord thinketh on me." Where is the past which this faith will not make clear? where the present which it will not brighten? where the future, which with this certainty cannot be awaited in calm hope? Here, then, is all my hope and comfort, that, despite my backslidings, Thou wilt not yet draw back Thine hand. Oh, teach me, then, despite myself, a firmer faith; yea, such a faith that this "My God" of inmost fellowship must ever deeply and more fully vibrate within my heart! Van O. 1. BLESSED is he that considereth the poor: The LORD will deliver him in the day of evil. 2 The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive, and he shall be blessed upon the earth; And deliver not thou him unto the will of his enemies. 3 The LORD will support him upon the couch of languishing: Thou makest all his bed in his sickness. 4 I said, O LORD, have mercy upon me: Heal my soul; for I have sinned against thee. 5 Mine enemies speak evil against me, saying, When shall he die, and his name perish? 6 And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity; His heart gathereth iniquity to itself: When he goeth abroad, he telleth it. 7 All that hate me whisper together against me: Against me do they devise my hurt. 8 An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him: And now that he lieth he shall rise up no more. 9 Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, Hath lifted up his heel against me. 10. But thou, O LORD, have mercy upon me, and raise me up, That I may requite them.11 By this I know that thou delightest in me, Because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.12 And as for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity, And settest me before thy face for ever. THIS Psalm seems to have been written in a season of recovery from sickness, and under a deep sense of the hypocrisy and ingratitude of false friends, who came to the Psalmist pretending to condole with him in his sickness, while in reality they hated him in their hearts and wished for his death. The Psalm opens with a eulogy pronounced on those who know how to feel for and show compassion to the miserable and the suffering. This is evidently designed in order to condemn more forcibly, by way of contrast, the opposite line of conduct which is the subject of complaint. The Psalmist's own experience of the baseness and hollowness of the men who surrounded him made him only appreciate more sensibly the great value of faithful, sympathizing friends in a season of affliction. P. 1,2. The Psalm begins by celebrating the blessedness of the lot, rich in promise, of the compassionate man. Poor. A general designation of the poor, the sick, the weak, the suffering, and of any one who is wavering outwardly or inwardly, and is therefore liable to fall. To show such an one sympathetic attention, to turn to him with considerate regard, has attached to it a great promise. D. There is only one beatitude in the Psalter which has reference to a special kind of conduct, and that is a significant one. "Blessed is he that considereth the poor"—he who carries the remembrances of him in his mind and in his heart, who, in the midst of his own abundance, can look beyond it, and by an effort of sympathetic imagination can bring into his presence the needy and sad. This, the charity that comes of God, this open heart, and careful remembrance of all the afflicted and the miserable, is the one virtue which the Psalter thinks worthy of being ennobled by a special benediction. For all the rest the general idea is all that is given to us—the felicity of the man that keeps the commandments of God. "Conduct is three fourths of life," and, according to the Old Testament, keeping God's commandments is the whole of conduct. A. M. 1. Happy (the man) acting wisely toward the poor (man); in the day of evil Jehovah will deliver him. As the first verb sometimes has the sense of attending or attentively considering, some understand it to mean here considering (or attending to) the poor. But its proper import of acting prudently (or wisely) is entirely appropriate, and therefore entitled to the preference. What is meant by acting wisely toward the poor may be gathered from the parallel passage (Psalm 34: 13, 14). The principle assumed is that expressed by our Saviour in Matt. 5: 7. The poor here includes all forms of want and suffering, and might be translated wretched. A. Considereth. This word includes the ideas of thoughtful attention and judicious kindness, the kindness of a man who does not misinterpret the affliction. Cook.—"Considereth" is somewhat more than thinketh upon. The primary sense is to look attentively toward, but here with the farther idea of looking kindly, with due sympathy and with prompt relief. Such an one the Lord delivers in the day of his trouble. Loving the spirit that sympathizes with the suffering, He will miss no fit opportunity to express His love by rewarding it openly. C.—Probably no one ever thought of compassion as being anything less than a joy, a holy bliss of feeling. And yet it is compassion. It suffers with its objects, takes their burdens, struggles with their sorrows—all which is pain, a loss of happiness. Still it is no loss, because there is another element in the conscious greatness of the loss, and the man is even raised in order by the inward exaltation he feels. So in respect to pity, longsuffering, patience with evil, and meekness under wrong. They have all a side of loss, and yet they are the noblest augmentations of blessedness. There is a law of moral compensation in them all, by which their suffering is married to inevitable joy. Anon. The Divine conception of the matter is plainly this: That power is not a gift to man, but a trust; that the human family is one vast brotherhood, all men deriving their life, their personal constitution and force from the endowment of God, and all being, therefore, interlinked with each other by the primitive constitution of their being, as well as by every command imposed, by their common immortality, and their common need of Divine grace and help; and that he who has power, specially intrusted to him of God, has it for the use of others and of all whom by it he may affect for good—in affecting whom he may be even the instrument of advancing the Divine glory in the world. They who are weak have, therefore, a right to claim his help; and he who has the special power is under obligation by reason of it, is under a solemn and incessant responsibility for the right use of it. It is not a gratuity when he draws from it for the benefit of others; it is the discharge of a debt; it is the partial fulfilment of a peremptory and an eternal obligation; and when he withholds from others that use of his power by which he might have benefited them, he is not exercising a right, but is resisting his Maker, and bringing himself under certain condemnation. He is to be the spring on the hillside, whose office it is to fertilize the meadow. He is to be the sun in the heavens, by reason of his superior eminence in knowledge and in genius, whose office it is to enlighten the less gifted; and the talent unused, either hidden in the napkin or buried in the ground, becomes a condition of recompensing judgment. There is something fearful as well as beautiful in every increase of power, under this conception of the duty which that power constantly owes to weakness. The sure and swift judgment of the Lord awaits each man who has had such power; and it will decide as to the use which he has made of it, and the extent to which he has fulfilled the obligation that comes interwoven inseparably with it. The weak, according to this Divine conception, have a constant claim on the protection of the strong; the poor have a right to the aid of the rich; the ignorant properly demand the assistance and the illuminating guidance of genius and of wisdom. These are claims which invest all more fortunate men, from those who are obscure, from those who are in darkness, from those who are in peril; and it becomes simply imperative, under the Christian conception of things, upon those who are strong, wise, enriched, to give the help which others need. No other duty is more instant or more binding. R. S. S. How foolish are they that fear to lose their wealth by giving it, and fear not to lose themselves by keeping it! Thou hast riches here, and here be objects that need thy riches—the poor; in heaven there are riches enough but no poor, therefore, by faith in Christ make over to them thy moneys in this world, that by bill of exchange thou mayest receive it in the world to come; that only you carry with you which you send before you. Do good while it is in your power; relieve the oppressed, succor the fatherless, while your estates are your own; when you are dead your riches belong to others. Francis Raworth. How often it is difficult to be wisely charitable; to do good without multiplying the sources of evil. To give alms is nothing unless you give thought also. It is written, not "blessed is he that feedeth the poor," but "blessed is he that considereth the poor." A little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great deal of money. Ruskin—The Bible calls you to consider the poor. It makes the virtue of relieving them a matter of computation as well as of sentiment, and in so doing puts you beyond the reach of the various delusions, by which you are at one time led to prefer the indulgence of pity to the substantial interest of its object; at another are led to retire chagrined and disappointed from the scene of duty, because you have not met with the gratitude or the honesty that you laid your account with; at another are led to expend all your anxieties upon the accommodation of time, and to overlook eternity. It is the office of consideration to save you from all these fallacies. Under its tutorage attention to the wants of the poor ripens into principle. It is not enough that you give money and add your name to the contributions of charity; you must give it with judgment. You must give your time and your attention and make yourself acquainted with the object of your benevolent exercises. To give money is not to do all the work and labor of benevolence. You must lend your hand to the work of assistance. This is true and unsophisticated goodness. Chalmers. 3. "Make all his bed in his sickness" means in the original much more than making a sick man's bed comfortable. It means to change his sick-bed to a bed of healthful repose, implying the change of his state from sickness to health. The Hebrew word, having the sense to turn or change, looks for its object beyond his bed to his bodily state. C.—God has promised His people that He will strengthen them and make them easy under their bodily pains and sicknesses. He has not promised that they shall never be sick, nor that they shall not lie long languishing, nor that their sickness shall not be unto death; but He has promised to enable them to bear their affliction with patience, and cheerfully to wait the issue; the soul shall by His grace be made to dwell at ease when the body lies in pain. H. If it be a soul, made merciful from evangelical motives—a man who having received mercy loves to show it, and whose soul, overflowing with the peace of God, is bountiful and benignant, then we can hardly conceive a more blessed state of mind than the mercifulness so produced. There is a mechanical performance of good offices in which there is little zest or satisfaction; but that full-hearted kindness, that effluent and effusive goodness which the love of Christ constrains, and the Spirit of God supplies—there is an increase in its expenditure, and in its efforts and exertions a continual feast. Such mercifulness is blessedness. Repeated into habit and infused into the very temper of the soul, it comes out again in the face of the philanthropist, a cheerful serenity, and an obvious charity with all that God has made. And when sickness comes, and weakness and decay, there comes a secret strength. The pillow grows unaccountably soft and the silent chamber surprisingly bright and happy. The reason is—the Lord is there. The prayers have been heard of many debtors to His kindness and friendly offices, and, better than angels, the Lord of angels comes and makes all his bed in his sickness. Hamilton. 4. For I have sinned**, i.e., it is my sin which has brought this suffering on me; but observe the prayer is, “Pardon my sin,” not “take away my suffering.” P.—God is the strength of a Christian’s heart, by healing and restoring him when the infused habits of grace fail and sin grows strong and vigorous. A Christian never fails in the exercise of grace, but sin gives him a wound; and therefore David prayed, “Lord, heal my soul, for I have sinned.” And what David prayed for God promiseth to His people: “I will heal their backsliding.” S. Blackerby.—Saul and Judas each said, “I have sinned;” but David says, “I have sinned against Thee.” Plumer.—Plead we the greatness of our sins not to keep us from mercy, but to prevail for it. “Heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee.” “Do Thou it for Thy name’s sake; for our backslidings are many; we have sinned against Thee” (Jer. 14: 7). This is a strong plea, when sincerely urged by an humble and contrite spirit. It glorifieth God as one that is abundant in goodness, rich in mercy, and one with whom are forgivenesses and plenteous redemption; and it honoreth Christ as infinite in mercy. T. Cobbet. Here is a confession, a plea, and a prayer. A confession, “I have sinned against Thee.” Thus we must come and confess to the Lord today, to-morrow, and every day, till the sun of life sets. Sense of sin, whether now contracted or long since committed, abides with us; it wounds and pains a gracious soul. Here grace discovers itself; that soul waits not for time to efface the memory of sin, nor strives to stifle convictions for it, but goes humbly to the Lord and confesses, it with all its aggravations, and with this above all others, Lord, “against Thee have I sinned.” Oh, may my soul never, never lose this conviction, that every sin is against Thee, my Lord and loving Father; Thee, my Lord and precious Redeemer; Thee, my Lord and gracious Comforter; this makes sin exceeding sinful, while it magnifies the superabounding riches of grace in receiving sinners and in pardoning sin. Consider the plea; it is not the Pharisee’s parade, but it is the publican’s plea: “Lord, be merciful to me,” to me a sinner, who have done nothing to deserve Thy favor, yet plead Thy mercy promised to sinners in Christ Jesus; Thou canst be just and yet justify the ungodly who believe in Jesus. Therefore his prayer is, “heal my soul.” No prayers, no tears, no duties of mine can heal my soul; no, my best works are stained with pollution, my holiest duties are mixed with sin; nothing but the blood of the Lamb can bring pardon to my heart, peace to my conscience, and healing to my soul. “The Lord will speak peace unto His people and His saints” (Psalm 85: 8). W. Mason. 9. Our Lord applies this verse expressly to Himself and Judas, which shows that He was really included in the class to which the Psalm relates. It is remarkable, however, that He only quotes the second of the three descriptive phrases, eating My bread, enjoying My society, and subsisting on My bounty, while He omits the other two, because these would have represented Judas as His friend, and one in whom He trusted. But He knew from the beginning who it was that should betray Him. This accurate distinction seems to confirm the assumption that the Psalm has a generic meaning, and is only applicable to our Saviour as the most illustrious representative of the class which it describes. A. Part of this verse is quoted by our Lord in John 13: 18 as applicable to the treacherous conduct of Judas, but with the significant omission of the words “Mine own familiar friend, whom I trusted;” for our Lord knew what was in Judas from the beginning, and therefore did not trust him. Nothing can be more decisive, both as to the way in which quotations were made, and also as to the proper interpretation of the apparently strong phrase, "that the Scripture might be fulfilled," with which the quotation is introduced. First, it is plain that particular expressions in a Psalm may be applicable to events which befell our Lord, while the whole Psalm is not in like manner applicable. And next it is evident that "the Scripture is fulfilled" not merely when a prediction receives its accomplishment, but when words descriptive of certain circumstances in the life of the Old Testament saints find a still fuller and truer realization—one not foreseen by the Psalmist, yet one no less designed of God—in the circumstances of our Lord's earthly life. This will be peculiarly the case here if Ahithophel be meant; for as David was in much of his life a type of Christ, so the treachery of his trusted counsellor would be a foreshadowing of the treachery of Judas. P. Men talk of the resentments of those who are wronged—of the deep and bitter animosities which lie in the hearts of those who are oppressed; but if human history reveals a solitary truth, it is, that the hatred of all hatreds, the most indomitable and the most cruel, broods in the heart of him who inflicts the wrong. And if you want to become transformed, in your inmost soul, into an absolute devil, I merely tell you, wrong your neighbor; cheat him, defraud him, oppress him, use your influence and power to inflict upon him injury, day after day, and year after year; and by the fixed laws which God has given to the human soul, you pass from a man into a devil at the last. It is bound to be so; and hence there sprung up in the heart of this traitor a desperate enmity against his Lord from the moment in which the thought of His betrayal was conceived. Palmer. 10. "Requite them." This does not demand the sense of retaliation, much less of selfish, revengeful retaliation, for it may mean, that I may repay them good for their evil. Indeed, the Hebrew word strongly favors this sense—to make good again, to make all whole, sound. David has repeatedly expressed this sentiment in his Psalms (35: 12-14 and 7: 4); and yet better, has lived it forth in his actual deeds (1 Sam. 24: 9-15 and 26: 18-25). There is no occasion, therefore, to give these words the bad sense of a malign, wicked retaliation. C. 12. Thou upholdest me.** The assurance of a righteous cause and a righteous judge will preserve an inward and joyful tranquillity of soul in the midst of all the storms of reproach and scandalous imputations, like the calmness of a haven when the sea is tempestuous without. And this will fortify believers to bear with an invincible courage all the violence that is offered to them for their fidelity to God: all the wrongs and injuries they endure shall be redressed with infinite advantage. Bates. Settest me before Thy face forever. If this phrase stood alone it might possibly be explained of confidence in perfect restoration to God's favor and life-long peace; but comparing it with other passages (Psalms 16: 11; 17: 15; 23: 6; 30: 12) we find here the distinct intimation of a hope of immortality. Cook. 13. This is no part of the original Psalm, but is merely a later doxology, appended here when the Psalms were collected, in order to mark the conclusion of the first book. Similar doxologies occur at the end of the three following books. P.—Blessed is applied to God as the expression of good-will, gratitude, and reverence on the part of the worshipper. The Lord God of Israel; Jehovah, who is the God of Israel. Israel is the church of the elect, and stands for the Catholic Church of all ages. From everlasting to everlasting. This in its strict sense applies to Jehovah, the Eternal Self-existent One, and to the ascription of praise as always due, whether there was or was not an intelligent being to render it. Amen, and Amen. This has become a household word in our mother tongue. It means true, and therefore expresses assent, and when repeated, emphatic assent to the foregoing petition. Be it so, yea, be it so. M.—In this word concentre all the requests, and are put up together; so be it. And there is in it withal a profession of confidence that it shall be so. It is from one root with those words which signify believing and truth. Leighton. As the Psalms were not written by one man, so neither do they form one book. The Psalter is, in fact, a Pentateuch, and the lines of demarcation, which divide the five books one from another, are clear and distinct enough. At the end of the forty-first Psalm, of the seventy-second, of the eighty-ninth, and of the one hundred and sixth we meet with the solemn Amen, single or redoubled, following on a doxology, which indicates that one book ends and that another is about to begin. A closer study of the Psalms shows that each book possesses characteristics of its own. Plumptre.—How ancient this division is cannot now be clearly ascertained. Jerome, in his epistle to Marcella, and Epiphanius speak of the Psalms as having been divided by the Hebrews into five books, but when this division was made they do not inform us. The forms of ascriptions of praise, added at the end of each of the five books, are in the Septuagint version, from which we may conclude that this distribution had been made before that version was executed. It was probably made by Ezra, after the return of the Jews from Babylon to their own country, and the establishment of the worship of God in the new temple, and it was perhaps made in imitation of a similar distribution of the books of Moses. In making this division of the Hebrew Psalter, regard appears to have been paid to the subject-matter of the Psalms. Calvin. When the breath of God so visits the human mind as to free it from its ordinary fallibility, without fettering the play of its usual tendencies or altering its natural constitution, that is called inspiration. Accordingly we find among the sacred writers great variety of style, which originates no doubt in great variety of mind. Each man strikes his own note in the gamut of Divine truth; but no one strikes the same note as another. The Psalms of David are altogether different from the Epistles of Paul, and these again from the Epistles of Peter, and all from the Gospel of John. The mind of each writer was under the same afflatus, but develops itself freely according to its own bias, being only so far restrained as to confine it strictly within the limits of truth. By this arrangement we gain the sympathy of the inspired writers—no small thing surely. Every word comes to us from the Divine afflatus, indeed; but at the same time steeped and bathed in the experience of David, of Paul, of Peter, and of John. It is a man who speaks; a man who has realized in his own inmost soul what he is speaking about. What life it lends to the Holy Scriptures, to read them in connection with the history of their writers! Thus sings the sweet Psalmist of Israel, once a young shepherd boy—the loyal, the generous, the brave—and yet than whom never saint of God fell lower or more foully. Goulburn. The ancients held the authority of Scripture to the full as earnestly and tenaciously as we can. But these were their ways of citing: "Hear what says the beloved apostle, he who lay gathering truth on the breast of Jesus;" "Listen to Paul, to him whose words I seem to hear, not as words, but as claps of thunder;" "Will you not hear Peter, him to whom the Great Shepherd said, 'Pasture My sheep?'" And so the Divine words came in each case, wedded as it were to the winning music of a human character; carried into men's hearts by a throbbing life whose pulses coincided with their own. Oh, that we, too, read Scripture thus! that we spent less energy on making the Bible into a fetish, and more on a fearless and childlike search after its living voice! Alford. 1. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, So panteth my soul after thee, O God. 2 My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: When shall I come and appear before God? 3 My tears have been my meat day and night, While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? 4 These things I remember, and pour out my soul within me, How I went with the throng, and led them to the house of God, With the voice of joy and praise, a multi- tude keeping holyday. 5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him For the health [or, help] of his countenance. 6 O my God, my soul is cast down within me: Therefore do I remember thee from the land of Jordan, And the Hermans, from the hill Mizar. 7 Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts. All thy waves and thy billows are gone over me. 8 Yet the LORD will command his lovingkind- ness in the day-time, And in the night his song shall be with me, Even a prayer unto the God of my life. 9 I will say unto God my rock, Why hast thou forgotten me? Why go I mourning because of the oppres- sion of the enemy? 10 As with a sword in my bones, mine adver- saries reproach me; While they continually say unto me, Where is thy God? 11 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him, Who is the health of my countenance, and my God. THIS forty-second Psalm has been for cen- turies one of the most powerful cordials for the heartsick and despondent, and its virtue has grown rather than diminished with the lapse of years, and yet we do not know its author, nor its date, nor the peculiar circumstances under which it was written. All we know is that it is the utterance of some one in deep trouble, and that it tells us how he found comfort, and how we may find it under similar circumstances. V. There are good grounds for concluding that this Psalm and the next constituted originally but one poem. The internal evidence favors this hypothesis. Nor is external evidence want- ing which points the same way. Thirty-seven of Kennicott's manuscripts and nine of De Rossi's have but one Psalm instead of two. The LXX., it is true, make a distinct Psalm of the forty-third. But, according to Delitzsch, an old Midrash which reckons one hundred and forty-seven Psalms in all, takes these two as one, as well as Psalms 9, 10, and 32, 33. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that each Psalm is complete in itself; and it is conceiv- able that, though originally existing as one poem, the present arrangement might have been adopted the better to suit the purposes either of personal or liturgical use. P.—The sameness of the situation, of the character, of the structure and of the refrain decides in favor of our regarding them, though commonly counted two, as being but one. The one Psalm consists of three divisions; the Psalmist's sorrow breaks out thrice into complaint, and is each time overcome by the encouraging voice of his higher consciousness. In the portrayal of the present and the future there is an unmistakable advance. And it is not until the third division (Psalm 43) that complaint, resignation, and hope are rendered complete by the addition of confident prayer. D. God in Scripture frequently uses nature to illustrate grace. What is still more remarkable, He uses often the sterner aspects of nature, those with which power and terror are associated, to illustrate or to emphasize His tenderness and love toward His children. The forty-second Psalm is a Psalm of distress and longing. It is set in the key of a stormy ocean. In it is heard the sound of the floods. "Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts. All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me." But out of the noise of the waves comes a voice of hope and cheerful trust. "Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me." The Psalm is the utterance of a man looking back out of present sorrow over a happy past. The scene is laid among the mountains on the east of the Jordan. From these the spectator had unfolded to him a magnificent view of the Land of Promise. Lebanon, the Sea of Galilee, the plain of Esdraelon, Carmel and the Mediterranean, the whole range of the mountains of Judah and Ephraim, Bethlehem and Jerusalem could be seen from different standpoints. The prospect from the Hermans and from Mizar, the little hill, was full of points consecrated by their histories of God's special manifestation and help. V. TITLE. To the chief musician. Maschil. To the sons of Korah. The obvious reference to personal experience and feelings in this Psalm made it the more necessary to designate it as a maschil or didactic Psalm, intended for permanent and public use. A. 1,2. Thousands of years have gone by since these words first found expression. They never fail to find a deep response within the inmost sanctuary of a longing soul, since they represent the deepest need of every human heart. No one can understand this Psalm of the panting hart as can the Christian who has been conducted by the Lord unto living fountains of waters. He is not satisfied when he has but begun to know the Lord; he seeks to make advance from light to light, from one stage to another in true blessedness. The more he has enjoyed of fellowship with God, the more he longs to taste of it; the more God condescends to him, the higher does he seek to rise to God. Van O. The soul of man bears the image of God; so nothing can satisfy it but He whose image it bears. Our soul, says Augustine, was created as by God, so for God, and is therefore never quiet till it rest in God. As man fell at first into this restlessness by falling away from God, so he cannot be recovered of it but by returning to Him again. As the dove after she left the ark found no rest for the sole of her foot in the wide world till she betook her again thither from whence she came forth, so neither can man, fallen from God, find any sure rest for the foot of his soul in the whole world beside, till he come back to Him again from whom he came at the first. Gataker. It is not only fear or terror, bearing us along as on the wings of wind, or in the rattling of the thunder-storm, which has shown man that there is a God; nor has he first read God's great name inscribed among the stars. Deep, strong as the instinctive influence through which the new-born babe longs for the mother's breast, which it has not yet known; loud as the cry raised by young ravens for the food, whose taste they never yet have felt; strong, and yet silent, as the attraction for the light, not yet perceived, felt by the scarce developed plant, and the as yet unopened eye—the inward thirsting for the everlasting Source of all that breathes and lives makes itself deeply felt within us all. Schubert.—The most inward desires, the purest affections, the loftiest aspirings, that stir our blood—all that is tender in us and all that is strong, all that is sacred and all that is enduring—pain and loss, love and death, repentance and fear—as each in turn through all this solemn discipline of life has its hour of trial or of triumph—cry out for the living God, and bid us worship the Father in spirit. F. D. H. He who begins to realize God's majestic beauty and eternity, and feels in contrast how little and how transitory man is, how dependent and feeble, longs to lean upon God for support. For where rather should the weak rest than on the strong, the creature of a day than on the Eternal, the imperfect than on the centre of perfection? And where else should God dwell than in the human heart? for if God is in the universe, among things inanimate and without conscience, how much more ought He to dwell with our souls; and our souls, too, seem to be infinite in their cravings; who but He can satisfy them? Thus a restless instinct agitates the soul, guiding it dimly to feel that it was made for some definite but unknown relation toward God. Then the soul understands and knows that God is her God, dwelling with her more closely than any creature can; yea, neither stars, nor sea, nor smiling nature hold God so intimately as the bosom of the soul. He becomes the soul of the soul. All nature is ransacked by the Psalmists for metaphors to express this single thought, "God is for my soul, and my soul is for God." Father, Brother, Friend, King, Master, Shepherd, Guide, are common titles. God is their tower, their glory, their rock, their shield, their sun, their star, their joy, their portion, their trust, their life. The Psalmist describes his soul as God's only and favorite child (22:20), His darling one. So it is that joy bursts out into praise, and all things look brilliant, and hardship seems easy, and duty becomes delight, and contempt is not felt, and every morsel of bread is sweet. The whole world seems fresh to him with sweetness before untested. F. Newman. The devout heart yearns after a Personal God. Its instinctive desire is after a Father and a Friend—a loving ear into which its sorrows may be poured—a loving heart on which its weariness may rest. This deep-felt want of our natures is most fully and adequately met in the Person of Jesus Christ. For here is One whom, while we may reverence and adore as God, we can think of as clearly and love as simply, trustingly, tenderly as the best known and loved of our earthly friends. Here we have set before us the Eternal dwelling in time, the Invisible and Spiritual God revealed in that Word of Life which human eyes have seen and human hands have handled. No longer when we read or muse or pray need our minds be at a loss, our thoughts wander forth through eternity in search of a Living God. Caird. To have this God as our God—reconciled to us in Christ, to enjoy His favor, to walk with Him as a friend—speaking to Him in prayer and praise, and hearing His voice in His Word and ordinances—to have a meanness for His presence, and the eternal vision and fruition of Him in the world of spirits—these are now the things after which the renewed soul pants. "My soul is athirst for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God?" Goode.—The "hunger and thirst" of the Christian soul is a something which is never satisfied, which, the more it receives, desires the more; which, having tasted that the Lord is gracious, rests not until it tastes again; which, having found strength for duty in spiritual communion, finds, in the discharge of that duty, the return of a healthful appetite for spiritual communion again. Monsell.—The hunger of a Christian soul is now a hunger simply to be like Jesus, a hunger whetted evermore by the vision of Him in His beauty. The conformity of righteousness is desired now, not as conformity to a hard or cold imperative from heaven, but as assimilation through sympathy to the very heart which forever beats and glows in holy love within the Beloved of our hearts. Dykes. Longings and aspirations, weaknesses and woes, the limit of creature helps and loves, the disproportion between us and the objects around us—all these facts of familiar experience do witness, alike by blank misgivings and by bright hopes, by many disappointments and by indestructible expectations surviving them all, that nothing which has a date, a beginning, or an end can fill our souls or give us rest. No matter how you may get on in the world—though you may fulfil every dream with which you began in your youth—you will certainly find that without Christ for your brother and Saviour, God for your friend, and heaven for your hope, life, with all its fulness, is empty. It lasts long, too long as it sometimes seems for work, too long for hope, too long for endurance; long enough to make love die, and joys wither and fade, and companions drop away; but without God and Christ you will find it but as a watch in the night. At no moment through the long weary years will it satisfy your whole being; and when the weary years are all past it will seem to have been but as one troubled moment breaking the eternal silence. At every point so profitless, and all the points making so thin and short a line! A. M. What, then, does this eagerness in coveting and this impotence in acquiring teach us, but that man originally possessed real happiness, of which nothing is now left to him but the footsteps and empty traces, which he vainly endeavors to replenish with all the abundance that surrounds him; seeking from absent enjoyments the relief which he finds not in such as are present, and which neither the present nor the absent can bestow on him, because this immense void can only be filled by an infinite and unchangeable object. Pascal. Communion with God is the highest prerogative of spiritual beings. It is the instinctive craving of human souls; it is the supreme privilege and joy of the religious life; it is the inspiration and strength of all great service. God redeems us and saves us by drawing us to Himself. By mysterious voices He solicits us; by irrepressible instincts He impels us; by subtle affinities He holds us; by ineffable satisfactions He makes us feel His nearness and fills us with rest and joy. H. Allon. 3. Our faith and love are subject to manifold interruptions. The evidence of God's presence is much like the light which shines, now and then, through the crevices of the rifted clouds. The best intercourse of the most favored men with their Maker, in the transfigurations of devotion, is imperfect. It is unsatisfactory, and provokes hungerings and thirstings after some manifestation of God more direct and sensible. Meanwhile this process of spiritual reconciliation and recovery is going on, and the promise of redemption is, that man again shall see the face of his God. Now, partially restored, man sees through a glass darkly, but ultimately his intercourse with his Maker shall be immediate, uninterrupted, direct, and joyful. Through the mighty power of Him who assumed our nature, we shall be as truly reconciled to God, harmonized with Him, and associated with Him, as if the shadow of sin, and fear, and repulsion had never passed upon the soul. W. Adams. 4. The act of reflection or self-introversion is expressed by the strong figure of pouring out his soul upon himself, which at the same time suggests the idea of lively emotion; not necessarily of grief, but of mingled joy and sadness in the recollection of past sufferings and deliverances, just as we might speak of a man's heart being melted, either with sorrow or gratitude, or both. A. I pour out my soul. The expression "pour out" is specially used of the outpouring of the soul in prayer (cf. Psalm 62: 8; 102 title; 1 Sam. 1: 15; Lam. 2: 19). Cook.—The very soul of prayer lies in the pouring out of the soul before God. T. Brooks.—Longing desire prayeth always, though the tongue be silent. If thou art ever longing, thou art ever praying. When sleepeth prayer? When desire grows cold. Augustine.—The Master's benediction is upon those that hunger and thirst after righteousness. It is the longing soul that grows. There are better things before you than you have yet attained. Strive to reach them. It is not easy to rise Christward, heavenward, to advance in the Christian life, to grow better. Many people are discouraged because they do not appear to themselves to be making advance. But even true longing is growth. It is the soul's reaching godward. J. R. M. Though David was shut out from the sanctuary, yet David's soul was a sanctuary for God; for God is not tied to a sanctuary made with hands. God hath two sanctuaries, He hath two heavens—the heaven of heavens and a broken spirit. God dwelt in David as in His temple. God was with David and in him; and He was never more with him nor never more in him than in his greatest afflictions. Sibbes. 5. It is the struggle between the spirit of faith and the spirit of dejection, between the higher nature and the lower, between the spirit and the flesh. The true I speaks; the faith which is born of God rebukes the depression and gloom of his natural infirmity. P.—The exceeding beauty of this address to the soul rests upon a deep truth of inward experience. The higher spiritual principle controls and guides the emotions. Cook. Cast down. The form of the verb favors the reflexive sense—a self-produced effect: Why art thou breaking down thine own hopes and courage? Why indulge such self-depressing thoughts? The next words carry forward this view: Why such unrest? such inward anxiety? such lack of trust? Hope thou in God! Poetically the hopeful spirit accosts the desponding one, as if there were two conflicting hearts in his inner being: one lying prone in the dust, borne down in discouragement; the other lifting its eye upward; catching a glimpse of the faithful God; calling upon his fellow to take courage and still hope in God. "For the help of His countenance;" literally, for the salvation of His face, i.e., for the salvation which His manifested presence will bring. Truly there is salvation in His presence! When His face shines upon us we are already saved! C. Hope thou in God. The word which is here rendered "hope" denotes that expectation which is founded on faith in God, and which leads the soul to wait upon Him. The idea is beautifully expressed in Psalm 39: 7, "And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in Thee." Henry March.—Or, wait thou for God. There is a shade of difference between the two words: "to wait" implies patient, submissive expectation, bound up with hope, and indeed a form of hope, but with less of brightness than of resignation. Cook. "This hope was in God. The mistake we make," says Robertson, "is to look for a source of comfort in ourselves; self-contemplation, instead of gazing upon God;" and, then, after showing that it is impossible to derive consolation from our own feelings, because they are so variable, or from our own acts, because in a low state no man can judge of these aright, and warning us that besides, while engaged in this self-inspection, we lose time in remorse, he continues, "When we gaze on God, then first the chance of consolation dawns. He is not affected by our mutability; our changes do not alter Him. When we are restless, He remains serene and calm; when we are low, selfish, mean, or dispirited, He is still the unalterable I am, the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, in whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. What God is in Himself, not what we may chance to feel Him in this or that moment to be, that is our hope. 'My soul, hope thou in God.'" P. To think of what we have to do and to bear in this life is quite likely to be disheartening. To think of God's sure help in our doing and in our enduring can hardly fail of giving us courage and hope and joy. Many of us know what it is to meet the cares and trials and griefs which we anticipate for the day, even before we are fairly awake in the morning. Through the slowly opening gate of consciousness they flood in upon us like a turbid stream that has been surging without while we slept, impatient for an entrance. By allowing these apprehensions to have the mastery, the new day, God's special gift to us, is marred at its very beginning; the wonder of the dawning light passes unnoticed, and the strength of the early hours, which was given us for efficient service, is weakened and half wasted. As an antidote to this joy-poisoning habit our first thoughts of the day should float upward, and our morning greeting to our troubled soul should be, "Hope thou in God." Experience shows us that our fears are often only a delusion, prompted by minor difficulties magnified in the morning mist, or by shadows that have no answering substance. On the other hand, we have been shown concerning the cares and trials and griefs which God does appoint for us, that as we look to and trust in Him He furnishes strength and grace to meet them in the hour of their appearing. Our fears may mislead us. Our faith never will. Our troubles may be less than we think for. God's love is always more. H. C. T. It is not trouble that troubles but discontent. It is not the water without the ship, but the water that gets within the leak, which drowns it. It is not outward affliction that can make the life of a Christian sad; a contented mind would sail above these waters; but when there is a leak of discontent open, and trouble gets into the heart, then it is disquieted and sinks. Do therefore as the mariners, pump the water out and stop this spiritual leak in thy soul, and no trouble can hurt thee. Watson. 6. Still depressed, the Psalmist addresses God directly, laying open his whole case: "O my God, my soul is fearfully borne down with grief, depression; Oh, let me remember thee from this far-off land of the Jordan—from these mountains of Hermon. It avails me nothing to brood over my affliction, still turning my eye away from Thee; let me rather turn toward Thee, my God, and remember Thee from this land of my exile." The mountains of Hermon were the northeast boundary of Palestine entire. The hill Mizar (the little) seems to have been a special locality in the Hermon range, marking perhaps more definitely the place of his rest at this time. C. Those Eastern hills were to the Western Israelites the land of exile—the refuge of exiles. From their heights Abner in his flight from the Philistines, and David in his flight from Absalom, and the Israelites on their way to Babylon, and the Christian Jews of Pella caught the last glimpse of their familiar mountains. There is one plaintive strain which sums up all these feelings—the forty-second Psalm. The place is, beyond doubt, the trans-Jordanic hills, which always behold, as they are always beheld from Western Palestine. As before the eyes of the exile the "gazelle" of the forests of Gilead panted after the fresh streams of water which there descend to the Jordan, so his soul panted after God, from whose outward presence he was shut out. The river with its winding rapids, "deep calling to deep," lay between him and his home. All that he could now do was to remember the past, as he stood "in the land of Jordan," as he saw the peaks of "Hermon," as he found himself on the eastern heights of Mizar, which reminded him of his banishment and solitude. Stanley. The words are indeed those of a man whose soul is bowed down, but their lesson does not encourage despondency, but, on the contrary, hopefulness and peace. The lesson lies in one sentence: "I will remember Thee." V.— Therefore will I remember Thee. "Because I am very low in spirit, am deeply sorrowful, therefore will I remember Thee. I will remember how condescending Thou art to Thy 'poor and afflicted people;' how kind and patient to hear their complaint when they pour out the soul before Thee. I will remember Thy lovingkindness to me in seasons past; how Thou hast looked on my distress, hast heard the voice of my supplications, hast delivered me from my trials, or helped me to bear their burden, strengthening me with strength in my soul. I will remember all that I have enjoyed of Thy presence when waiting on Thee in Thy house, or when celebrating Thy praises there in company with Thy 'saints, the excellent of the earth.' I will remember that Thou art my God, that Thou hast manifested Thyself to my soul, that Thou hast enabled me to choose Thee for my portion, that I have trusted in Thee, and have never been confounded. I will remember that word of promise on which Thou hast caused me to hope, to which Thou hast ever been faithful throughout all the past, and will be even unto the end." How happy, even in the midst of their unhappiness, are they who in their trials can thus take shelter in God! 7. Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of Thy waterspouts.** Here he has conjoined two awful and terrific phenomena of nature. It is a fact well ascertained by the evidence of travellers, that the falling of waterspouts is not uncommon on the coast of Judea. It should seem that they are occasioned by the congregating of great masses of cloud, whose waters concentrating to a point, pour themselves down in a tremendous column, accompanied with a roaring noise. Now the image conceived in the mind of the Psalmist seems to be that of the rushing of this vast waterspout down into the sea, already agitated, and increasing the turbulence and disorder of its waves. What would be the situation of a vessel in the midst of such a tempest, the deluge pouring down from above, and all around her the furious ocean heaving its tremendous surges—how ungovernable, how helpless, how next to impossible that she should escape foundering except by some almost miraculous interference! Yet to such a situation does David here compare the state of his soul when submersed, as it were, under a sea of afflictions; "All Thy waves and Thy billows are gone over me!" H. March. Were it not for conflicts, what super-excellent use were there in faith? In daily and ordinary gusts every man of a patient temper or cheerful disposition can hold up his head; but when a black tempest comes, a tenth wave flows and one deep calls unto another, nature yields, spirit faints, heart fails; then to stand erect, then to live and reign, that only faith can do which hath the Word for its compass and Christ at the helm. Ward.—It is the night and the tempest which try our faith, which tell us whether or not we have a real faith. And hence it is that those who have passed through deep spiritual experiences, who have known many losses and griefs, if they have improved them, are distinguished by a settled calm which no shock of change disturbs, and at which we of little faith or unready faith can only wonder and admire. The ties which bind them to this visible and temporal world have been detached one by one; the ties which bind them to the world unseen and eternal have been multiplied and strengthened. Future changes can only detach the few weak links which still bind them to earth; the treasures they may yet lose will be laid up for them in heaven; their heart is where their treasure is; they walk by faith; their affections are above; their life is hid with Christ in God. Cor. 8. Yet the Lord will command His lovingkindness.** He does not say simply that the Lord will bestow, but "command His lovingkindness." As the gift bestowed is grace—free favor to the unworthy; so the manner of bestowing it is sovereign. It is a royal donative. And if He commands the blessing, who shall hinder its reception? H. March.—'Tis all one to a godly man, night or day. For what night can there be to him who hath God always with him, who is a sun to comfort him, as well as a shield to protect him; and the light of whose countenance, if it be but very little, is more comfortable than all things else whatsoever that the day can bring with it. He can say, "When I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me." Z. Bogan. For the day God commands "His lovingkindness," for the night He gives "His song." There must be something suitable in each of these provisions to the circumstances, the more so, that similar expressions are found in other passages of Scripture. The "songs of the night" is as favorite a word of the Old Testament as "glory in tribulation" is of the New, and it is one of those which prove that both Testaments have the self-same root and spirit. The lovingkindness of God is a movement—not so much from us to God as from God to us—of which a believing man is not insensible, but toward which his position is more that of a passive recipient. It is God's goodness, like the daylight's gladness, thrown on and around him to lighten up his life. It is a promise which, to a thoughtful man, is very precious. Prosperity without God's favor in it is less than nothing; but if God's lovingkindness be there, it is better than life. It brings with it the assurance that all things shall work together for good to the man. It secures this, in the beginning, that he shall have strength for every day's duty. There will be light to guide him in all his walk, and grace to help him in all his work. It secures next that prosperity shall not injure him—"the sun shall not smite him by day." If it be God's gentleness which has made him great, that gentleness shall dwell also within, and make him able to say, "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty." This lovingkindness secures, still further, that prosperity shall have its true enjoyment. God's love gives to a man the very life of life, and bestows on the day that light of which the poet speaks—"a brighter light than ever shone on sea or shore." Every blessing, every happy affection, every tender touch of kindred souls, is a drop from the river of life, and a foretaste of the fountain-head. Ker. The Bible tells us of the streams that it may allure us to the fountain; it tells of the past acts of God's faithful love that we may be led to set our hope on God, and to feel assured that He who hath helped will help, and that He who hath loved will love unto the end. Thomas Erskine.—Not only is God supremely worthy of our love, He alone is worthy of it. All that is lovely comes from God; or, rather, all that is lovely is God. Holiness, truth, morality, conscience, happiness—names, honored by the respect of all nations and the reflecting men of the greatest genius—words which make the soul of man vibrate with a holy thrill, have no authority which they do not borrow but from Him. Holiness is God's will, truth His thought, happiness His state, morality His law, conscience His representative; and if you go back to the beginning of things, you see all these different routes which religion and sound philosophy have revealed to man, converging more and more toward their Source, and all things finally meeting together in God, the common Centre of all radiance in the whole universe. Since, then, God is your beginning, your centre, your end, your all, give Him your love, your heart, yourselves entirely. A. Monod. My prayer unto the God of my life. Here may be seen that David's religion was a religion of prayer after deliverance, as well as before. The selfish who cry out in trouble will have done with their prayers when the trouble is over. With David it was the very reverse. Deliverance from trouble would strengthen his confidence in God, embolden his addresses to Him, and furnish him with new arguments. There is great need of prayer after deliverance; for the time of deliverance is often a time of temptation; the soul being elated and thrown off its guard. H. March.—Every spirit which yearns after God may hold communion with God. And inasmuch as "every man's life is a plan of God," God may make that fellowship serve any purposes He has for the man to fulfil. By such communion there may be an inner life of devotion and an outer life of godliness to be nurtured and sustained; or there may be a spur and a pressure applied to high and holy service; or there may be some clearer light which God wills to impart to and through the soul so communing with Him. C. C. How can the whole soul be so nobly or profitably employed as in holding communion with its Maker? There is no affection of the mind which is not engaged in prayer, except it be the baser and the more depraved ones of our nature. Here is reverential awe stripped of all the baseness of mere fear; here is hope, not the mere hope of earthly bliss, but of the favor of God, which, when enjoyed, is the fullest bliss. Here is faith feeling itself firm and immovable in that being on whom it rests; and here is love kindled at the sight of everlasting love. True prayer quickens the soul without agitating it. It contains within itself its own answer, in the heavenly calm and repose which it communicates to the soul. McCowh.—True prayer is earnest, not tiring nor fainting. It takes every burden to God—the small and the large alike. It is submissive, referring all to the Father's will. Its answer may not come in the direct granting of the request we make, but may come instead in more grace and strength, enabling us to keep the burden and yet rejoice. Lying at our Father's feet in the time of our strong cryings and tears, we learn obedience, and our sobings end in praises, our struggles in acquiescence, our tears are dried, and we rise victorious—not getting our own way, but glad and happy and peaceful in God's way. J. R. M. 9. His comfort is that God is his Rock. A Rock to build upon, a Rock to take shelter in; the Rock of ages in whom is everlasting strength would be his Rock, his Strength in the inner man both for doing and suffering. To Him he had access with confidence, to God his Rock he might say what he had to say, and be sure of a gracious audience. H.—Why hast Thou forgotten me? Not that he supposed he was literally forgotten of God, so as to be given up and abandoned by Him; because he had still sufficient trust in His faithfulness to seek Him for a refuge, and to hope in His mercy. His expression is to be regarded as the language of feeling, not of judgment. He felt, he seemed, as one forgotten by God. March.—It is a sign of true grace when a man seriously complains of the want of grace. Hence a graceless person cannot truly complain that he hath no grace. There is grace in that complaint. J. Mason.—This feeling of forsakeness is no proof of being forsaken. Mourning after an absent God is an evidence of love as strong as rejoicing in a present one. Nay, a man may be more decisively the servant of God and goodness while in the anguish of his soul crying for light, than while resting in a common creed, and coldly serving Him. F. W. R. 10. Where is thy God?** It is the deriding question which persecutors put to the saints in the time of their trials and troubles. But they may return a bold and confident answer, “Our God is here,” our God is nigh unto us, our God is round about us, our God is in the midst of us, our God has given us His promise “that He will never leave us nor forsake us.” In every trouble, in every danger, in every death, the Lord will be sure to keep us company. T. Brooks. Why disquieted? Every day will have its own evil, and the day’s portion which you cannot get rid of will be enough for all the strength which you have to cope with it. And anxiety about the future is vain. After all our careful watching of the heaven, the clouds will rise in an unwatched quarter. Nothing is certain but the unexpected. To-morrow will have its cares in spite of all that anxious care and foreboding can do. And what does our anxiety do? It does not empty to-morrow of its sorrows, but it empties to-day of its strength. It does not give escape from evil, but it makes us unfit to cope with it when it bursts on us. It does not bless to-morrow, and it robs to-day. For every day has its own burden, which is quite heavy enough for the day’s strength. Sufficient for each day is the evil which properly belongs to it. A. M.—It is distrust of God which lies at the root of unlawful anxiety. A feeble apprehension of God as the agent who overrules everything and determines those causes which lie outside of our reach, and those events which escape our foresight—this it is which shakes the soul with vague uncertainty and fills with causeless alarms the darkness of to-morrow. Because we are “of little faith,” therefore are we not content to plan and work, and having planned and wrought, to sit and wait. Like a soothing, cooling breath from a serener world, there comes down upon the feverish, self-tormenting spirits of men this word of one who was the messenger of Him whom we distrust: “Be not anxious about your life; be not anxious about to-morrow.” Dykes. The great and blessed faith in our Father, God, scatters all anxious care. How should we be anxious if we know that we have a Father in heaven, and that He knows our needs? He recognizes our claims on Him. He made the needs, and will send the supply. That is a wide truth, stretching far beyond the mere earthly wants of food and raiment. My wants, so far as God has made me to feel them, are prophecies of God’s gifts. He has made them as doors by which He will come in and bless me. How, then, can anxious care fret the heart which feels the Father’s presence, and knows that its emptiness is the occasion for the gift of a Divine fulness? Trust is the only reasonable temper for a child of such a Father. Anxious care is a denial of His love or knowledge or power. A. M.—Art thou discomposed with impatience, haunted with anxiety? Think it not enough to silence thy heart from quarrelling with God, but leave not till thou canst bring it sweetly to rely on God. Holy David drove it thus far, he did not only chide his soul for being disquieted, but he charges it to trust in God. Gurnall. Hope thou in God. Hope is the great stock of believers, it is that which upholds them under all the faintings and sorrows of their mind in this life, and in their going through the valley and shadow of death. It is the helmet of their salvation, which, while they are looking over to eternity beyond this present time, covers and keeps their head safe amid all the darts that fly round about them. In present discomfort and darkness of mind and the saddest hours hope is that which keeps up the soul, and is that with which David cheered his soul. Leighton. Health of my countenance. Every finite spirit is inherently related to the infinite, in Him to live, and move, and have its being. It wants the knowledge of God, the society of God, the approbation of God, the internal manifestation of God, a consciousness lighted up by His presence, to receive of His fulness, to be strong in His might, to rest in His love, and be centred everlastingly in His glory. Bushnell. And my God. The same hopeful expression as before, but the addition of “and my God” shows that the writer was growing in confidence, and was able defiantly to reply to the question, "Where is thy God?" Here, even here, He is, ready to deliver me. Thus faith closes the struggle, a victor in fact by anticipation, and in heart by firm reliance. The saddest countenance shall yet be made to shine, if there be a taking of God at His word and an expectation of His salvation. S. Whether David's songs were composed early or late, the majority of this sweet singer's effusions are the songs of a sufferer, who sings for the convincing reason that he must, if only to soothe his perplexities and calm the agitations of his soul. No singer reaches his best till he sings, in language that thrills and inspires the soul, the eternal Gospel, "Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God: believe also in Christ"—believe also in duty, in progress, in heaven. But for such a mission the singer must, like David, be a sufferer. It is the school of sorrow that makes poets. It is a unique sign of a Davidic Psalm that it is always a real and bold communion with the living and loving personal God. Every poem is a sacrifice. Every line throbs with love. Every verse is a word to God. The aid of biblical song in communion with God is the highest claim the Psalter has upon the gratitude and love of man. J. Clifford. There are feelings of which we do not speak to each other; they are too sacred and too delicate. Such are most of our feelings to God. If we do speak of them, they lose their fragrance; nay, there is even a sense of indelicacy and exposure. Now the Psalms afford precisely the right relief for this feeling; wrapped up in the forms of poetry and metaphor, that which might seem exaggerated is excused by those who do not feel it; while they who do can apply them without the suspicion of uttering their own feelings. Hence their soothing power, and hence, while other portions of Scripture may become obsolete, they remain the most precious parts of the Old Testament. For the heart of man is the same in all ages. This forty-second Psalm contains the utterance of a sorrow of which men rarely speak. There is a grief worse than lack of bread or loss of friends. Men in former times called it spiritual desertion. But at times the utterances of this solitary grief are, as it were, overheard, as in this Psalm. And in a more august agony, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" F. W. R. The Psalms stand up like a pillar of fire and light in the history of the early world. They lift us up into an atmosphere of religious thought, which is the highest that man has ever reached; they come with all the characteristic affections and emotions of humanity, everything that is deepest, tenderest, most pathetic, most aspiring, along with all the plain realities of man's condition and destiny, into the presence of the living God. Church. The forty-second Psalm contains a prescription for a downcast soul, consisting of three ingredients. The first is Inquiry. Why art thou cast down? Religious despondency must have a cause; and if we can discover it in any case, the old proverb holds good, that a knowledge of the disease is half the cure. Many a man is in great spiritual darkness without knowing or being able to discover the reason. In such cases the question which most vexes a sincere soul is, "Is this state of mind a mark of God's displeasure, or not?" As we shall presently see, it may be, but again it may not be. For instance, Christians sometimes forget that they have bodies; and that the condition of their bodies has a good deal to do with the brightness or darkness of their spiritual moods; and now and then a man, through sheer ignorance, persists in some course of life, some habit of eating or drinking, which, by keeping his body in an unhealthful state, correspondingly lowers the tone of his spiritual life. Often the devil which torments him is one that goeth not out but by fasting. It is a good deal gained when the man has discovered this; when he has found that, by a little attention to his lower life, he can get out from among the waves and billows which go over him, and can climb up to the high grounds of spiritual peace and clear-seeing. But the distress may arise from estrangement between man and God. One may be among the billows because he has voluntarily tempted them. And no Christian can expect bright outlooks, a clear sense of acceptance with God, a peaceful conscience, who is living in the habitual neglect of known duty, or in the habitual indulgence in known evil. Anything which, under such circumstances, seems like peace and joy in the Holy Ghost is a delusion. Such depressed spiritual states will be very likely to follow the neglect of prayer, for instance. The road which leads to the closet is the road to hope and to praise. The road which leads past the closet leads down to the billows. Or, depression may come from the neglect of the public means of grace. If you cannot, on inquiry, discover that sin is at the bottom of your disquietude, it may occur to you that God has sent it. It is not unlike Him to disquiet those whom He loves sometimes, in the way of His discipline. If, then, He intended it for thee, O soul, why art thou disquieted? Is it because thou canst not see the end thy God has in view in thy trial, or wilt thou forget that this "light affliction which is but for a moment, worketh out for thee a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory"? The second ingredient is remembrance; and in the Psalm we see this under two aspects: the Psalmist's remembrance of his own experience and his remembrance of God's gracious dealing with others. In the sorrowful passages of Christian life, God often makes use of the memories of His goodness to strengthen and to encourage us. Sometimes a man is so engrossed with the pleasure and business of the present, that memory has no chance to do her work, and he is in danger of forgetting God's benefits altogether; and so God leads him away alone, whither he does not like to go, but where, cut off from the occupations of the present, he has opportunity to survey the rich and fruitful past and to grow grateful amid his sorrow. Yea, often the very land of exile is the land of precious memories. More than one has found the very path where God has caused him to walk in tears most fruitful in memories of blessing. The third ingredient in the prescription is hope. "Hope thou in God." There is nothing like trouble to open a man's eyes to the need of a personal God. In the midst of calamity man's heart cries out for a Father in heaven. "What we want," says one who knew as much as any other man of the deep desolation of sorrow, "is not infinituate, but a boundless One; not to feel that love is the law of the universe, but to feel One whose name is love; for else, if, in this world of order, there be no one in whose bosom that order is centred, and of whose being it is the expression, then order, affection, contrivance, wisdom, are only horrible abstractions, and we are in the dreary universe alone." (F. W. Robertson.) Here, then, is God's own prescription for a downcast and disquieted soul. It bids you not to forget gratitude in your sorrow. It bids you remember the wonderful mercies of God, and to strengthen your faith with the thought that He who has wrought so graciously for you and for His people in the past, will be your God forever; your guide even unto death. It bids you hope, never losing out of your mind the disciplinary purpose of God in all sorrow, and waiting in the confident expectation that "these light afflictions, which are but for a moment," shall work for you "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." If not here, why then by and by. If the clouds do not disperse until the dark river be past, yet you may walk by God's voice though you see not His face; and in the land of eternal light you shall forever praise Him, who through all the changes of this mortal life is still your God, and who shall be yours forever. V. 1. JUDGE me, O God, and plead my cause against an ungodly nation : O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man. 2 For thou art the God of my strength ; why hast thou cast me off ? Why go I mourning because of the oppression of the enemy ? 3 O send out thy light and thy truth ; let them lead me : Let them bring me unto thy holy hill, And to thy tabernacles. 4 Then will I go unto the altar of God, Unto God my exceeding joy : And upon the harp will I praise thee, O God, my God. 5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul ? And why art thou disquieted within me ? Hope thou in God : for I shall yet praise him, Who is the health of my countenance, and my God. PSALMS 42 and 43 are introduced by Delitzsch under the caption, "Homesickness for Zion in an Enemy's Country." B.—The forty-third Psalm has no title. It is continuous in thought and in its tone of feeling with the Psalm that precedes it. The refrain of Psalm 42 : 6, 12 is repeated in Psalm 43 : 5. These indications show conclusively that the two Psalms are a unit—a single piece of poetic composition, divided by the refrain into three sections. Doubtless there is some reason why they are numbered separately in the Psalter ; for example, the third section may have been written later than the first two sections. But in any case, the third section is homogeneous with the other two, and the unity is unbroken. W. J. Beecher. 3. This petition seems to imply a previous exclusion from the sanctuary, and thereby shows that the historical occasion of the Psalm, if not the same, was similar to that of the forty-second. The mention of the tabernacle and the holy hill, i.e., Mount Zion, shows that the Psalm is neither earlier nor later than the times of David and Solomon, before whom there was no holy hill, and after whom there was no tabernacle. This strengthens the presumption that David was himself the author of both Psalms. A. O send out Thy light and Thy truth ; let them lead me. "Thy light"—to chase away this darkness and to guide me in Thy perfect way. "Thy truth," in the sense here of manifesting Thy faithfulness in the fulfilment of promise. So guided all will be well. C.—He does not say "Thy light" simply ; that would be to lose sight of the Word of truth ; nor does he say "Thy truth" simply ; that would be to lose sight of the Light of the Spirit ; but he exclaims, "O send out Thy Light and Thy Truth, that they may lead me, and bring me to Thy holy hill, and to Thy dwelling." Both are equally matters of necessity. Here is a body of divinity in a few short lines. The necessity of the light of the Spirit. The necessity of the light of the Word. The necessity of conducting ourselves according to these lights. And finally, the light at the close of such a career, which is the light of glory. E. M. G. Man is a traveller, his life is a journey, heaven is his end, his road lieth through a wilderness, and he is in the dark. Thus circumstanced, how earnestly and devoutly ought he to pray, "O send out Thy light and Thy truth ; let them lead me, let them bring me to Thy holy hill, and to Thy tabernacles !" For surely, "the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light" (Prov. 6 : 23). If we take this lamp in our hand it will not only point out our course in general, but also direct us in every step, and guide our feet aright in the path of holiness and peace. Bishop Horne.—When God sends His light and truth into our hearts, those will guide us to the upper world in all our devotions, as well as in all our aims and expectations ; and if we conscientiously follow that light and that truth, they will certainly bring us to the holy hill above. H. 4. Then will I go unto the altar of God. The approach to God in the holy place was by means of the altar, whence continually ascended the fragrance of the one whole, perfect burnt-offering. That altar now means all the value and everlasting efficacy of the one offering of Christ unto God for us ; and it is in the full power and blessedness thereof that we draw nigh to God. To this unspeakably blessed position, the light and the truth of God will attract the child of God. Toward this altar all the rays of the light of Divine favor and grace, and of Divine truth and holiness, have from eternity converged; and from this point they shine forth toward and upon the soul and heart of the penitent, attracting him to that altar where he may meet his God. J. Offord. God my exceeding joy, literally, "the God of the joy of my exultation," source and sustainer of all gladness and bliss; a singularly emphatic combination, such as Paul delights in. Cook.—Those that come unto God must come to Him as their exceeding joy, not only as their future bliss but as their present joy; and that not a common but an exceeding joy, far exceeding all the joys of sense and time. The phrase in the original is very emphatical—unto God the gladness of my joy, or of my triumph. Whatever we rejoice or triumph in, God must be the joy of it; all our joy in it must terminate in Him, and must pass through the gift to the Giver. When we come to God as our exceeding joy, our comforts in Him must be the matter of our praises to Him as God, and our God. H.—The joy of worship is common to all believers. It is in worship that exalted views of God are obtained. Meditation may lay the wood and the offering; but devotion kindles the fire of the altar. To pray to such a God, so beheld, is to rise in joyfulness toward heaven. To praise Him, under any true apprehension of His excellency, is joy unspeakable and full of glory. J. W. A. Will praise Thee. Let the soul that has long lain face downward, self-centred in its sorrows, look up and away from its own darkness to God's light, from its own wants to God's fulness, from its own sin to the grace that abounds more exceedingly; let it lay down its burden and take up a song; and in the very effort to praise God it will mount up on wings as an eagle to a serene atmosphere and an ineffable light. It will praise God for His mercies to others, for His unspeakable gift, for His exceeding great and precious promises, for the revelation of His grace and glory, and above all, for what He is in Himself, in the plenitude, the perfection, and the blessedness of His own being. H. J. V.—Since I may, I will wear the angel look of cheerfulness and live in the light of God. When I know that I have a Father in heaven who watches over me, who forgives my sin, who strengthens every holy purpose in me, provides for all my needs, cares for me in all my cares, supports and guides me, and by acts of tenderest love and promises of everlasting blessedness allures and draws me toward His heart and home, why should I not be cheerful as my life is long? A. Raleigh. Man will not be satisfied with family, or friendship, or acquaintance. Fresh vistas of humanity are ever opening before him, and each new friend becomes a new point of departure for the extension of his influence to a wider circle still. His motive may vary, but the instinct remains the same, and is simply the instinct to wider, deeper, more intense communion with his fellow-men. And yet, as before, its very unrest is but the measure of its failure. We are more severed from humanity than ever we were from external nature, and if the world is our prison, our fellow men are our jailers. And so in our loneliness we look within and try to find refuge in an ideal world, but only to find schism and severance in the recesses of our inmost being. We are farther off from our ideals than even from nature and mankind. All this is a fact, and a fact as universal as human experience; and Christianity, beyond other creeds, has faced and interpreted the fact. Nature, and society, and the thoughts of our hearts were created by a Person, and created for Himself; and our feelings of separation from the world and its inhabitants, and even from the inner vision of our own ideal self, are but symptoms of alienation from the Person in whom they exist. J. R. Illingworth.—No things can satisfy a living soul. No accumulation of dead matter can become the life of an immortal being. The two classes are separated by the whole diameter of the universe—matter and spirit, thing and person; and you cannot feed yourself upon the dead husks that lie there round about you—wealth, position, honor. Books, thoughts, though they are nobler than these other, are still inefficient. Principles, "causes," emotions springing from truth, these are not enough. I want more than that, I want something to love, something to lay a hand upon, that shall return the grasp of the hand. A living man must have a living God, or his soul will perish in the midst of earthly plenty, and will thirst and die while the water of earthly delights is running all around him. We are made to need persons, not things! And we need one Being who shall be all-sufficient. We want a being, and we want one Being in whom shall be sphered all perfection, in whom shall abide all power and blessedness; beyond whom thought cannot pass, out of whose infinite circumference love does not need to wander; besides whose boundless treasures no other riches can be required; who is light for the understanding, power for the will, authority for the practical life, purpose for the efforts, motive for the doings, end and object for the feelings, home of the affections, light of our seeing, life of our love, the love of our heart, the one living God, infinite in wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth; who is all in all, and without whom everything else is misery. A. M. 5. The two voices (of despondency and trust), which at the beginning stand out in entire discord and almost harsh antagonism (vs. 2-4), are at last brought into loving harmony, so that emotion and insight, excitement and thoughtfulness are wholly reconciled, and are intimately blended. All this without artifice or constraint; the true expression of the struggles between two contending forces in a spirit at once susceptible to tenderest feeling, yet upon reflection full of strength. The art consists wholly in the highest naturalness, and the purest inspiration. The imagery also in all its details is in the highest degree tender and poetical. Ewald. Hope thou in God. There are hours in which physical derangement darkens the windows of the soul; days in which shattered nerves make life simply endurance; months and years in which intellectual difficulties, pressing for solution, shut out God. Then faith must be replaced by hope. "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter." "Clouds and darkness are round about Him: but righteousness and truth are the habitation of His throne." "My soul, hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise Him." F. W. R. Who is the health of my countenance, and my God. Till you can say that, you must always be the slave of circumstances and the prey of every kind of temptation and distress; but when your faith is high enough to enable you to feel that all the sunshine that plays in your face is a reflection of the light of God's countenance, and that not only the gifts, but the Giver is yours, then that "my God" will carry you on, and bear you up, superior to all the vexations of life; and the possession of God will be the dispossession of care. J. Vaughan. — He considers our need, and His help comes as constantly as the light of the sun by day. He is never removed from us nor we from Him. We cannot pass out of God—beyond the sphere of His omniscience and omnipotence, and therefore can never pass the limits where His help may not swifter than thought reach us. When stricken with pain, when overwhelmed with grief, when our life is going out in agony, when we have passed clear beyond the region where human help avails, God may be helping us. Help from God is not intermittent, it is not dependent on outward circumstances, nor upon personal health—it is not a varying quantity, but an unvarying one. We may go forth to duty, to toil, and struggle, we may go up into our chambers and lie down upon our sick and dying-beds, we may go out upon the untried scenes of eternity, relying upon it as surely as we may rely on the sun or the tides. That help, when we have sought it in the proper way, and with the proper spirit, will no more be wanting to us than the earth will fail us to tread upon—nay, it will be operative when all material things shall have passed away. J. Drummond. The proper and natural effect, and in the absence of all disturbing or intercepting forces, the certain and sensible accompaniment of peace (or reconcilement) with God, is our own inward peace, a calm and quiet temper of mind. This peace which we have with God in Christ is inviolable; but because the sense and persuasion of it may be interrupted, the soul that is truly at peace with God may for a time be disquieted in itself, through weakness of faith, or the strength of temptation, or the darkness of desertion, losing sight of that grace, that love and light of God's countenance, on which its tranquillity and joy depend. Leighton. — Why should we trouble ourselves about altering these varying events, since each in its turn is a manifestation of His mind and will; each in its turn is a means of discipline for us; and through all their variety a single purpose works, which tends to a single end—"that we should be partakers of His holiness." And that is the one point of view from which we can bear to look upon the world and not be utterly bewildered and overmastered by it. Calmness and central peace are ours; a true appreciation of all outward good and a charm against the bitterest sting of outward evils are ours; a patient continuance in the place where He has set us is ours—when by fellowship with Him we have learned to look upon our work as primarily doing His will, and upon all our possessions and conditions primarily as means for making us like Himself. A. M. The state of the most advanced Christians is often very unsatisfactory. The affections that, true as the needle to the pole, should point steadily to heaven, go wheeling about like a weather vane that shifts with shifting winds. Sinful thoughts and bad desires spring up, and every attempt to keep the heart pure, holy, heavenly, ends in miserable failure, extorting the question, "Who is sufficient for these things?" There is no appreciable progress; and we begin to ask, Are we never to grow fit for heaven? Is our hope of it but a pious dream, a beautiful delusion? Daily called to contend with temptation, the battle often goes against us; in these passions, and tempers, and old habits are too strong for us. Not that we do not fight, but too often resisting only to be conquered, we are ready to give up the struggle, saying, It is useless. We would; but that, cheered by a voice from above and sustained by hope in God's grace and mercy, we can turn to our souls to say, Why art thou cast down, my soul; why is my spirit disquieted within me?—rise; resume thy arms; renew the combat; never surrender! "Hope thou in God, for I shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God." Guthrie. Let this pair of beautiful Psalms suggest the blessedness of having such a God, the Refuge of our soul in trouble, the exceeding joy of our heart in the day of our deliverance! It is no mean occasion of thanksgiving that God gave His servant David such experiences and then caused them to be sent down to us in this sacred record for our example and edification. Let none of us fail to have like trust in God in the days of our affliction and equal joy and gratitude for the salvations of His presence! C. 1. We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, What work thou didst in their days, in the days of old. 2 Thou didst drive out the nations with thy hand, and plantedst them in; Thou didst afflict the peoples, and didst spread them abroad. 3 For they gat not the land in possession by their own sword, Neither did their own arm save them: But thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, Because thou hadst a favour unto them. 4 Thou art my King, O God: Command deliverance for Jacob. 5 Through thee will we push down our adversaries: Through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us. 6 For I will not trust in my bow, Neither shall my sword save me. 7 But thou hast saved us from our adversaries, And hast put them to shame that hate us. 8 In God have we made our boast all the day long, And we will give thanks unto thy name for ever. [Selah] 9 But now thou hast cast us off, and brought us to dishonour; And goest not forth with our hosts. 10 Thou makest us to turn back from the adversary: And they which hate us spoil for themselves. 11 Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat; And hast scattered us among the nations. 12 Thou sellest thy people for nought, And hast not increased thy wealth by their price. 13 Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, A scorn and a derision to them that are round about us. 14 Thou makest us a byword among the nations, A shaking of the head among the peoples. 15 All the day long is my dishonour before me, And the shame of my face hath covered me, 16 For the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth; By reason of the enemy and the avenger. 17 All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, Neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant. 18 Our heart is not turned back, Neither have our steps declined from thy way, 19. That thou hast sore broken us in the place of jackals, And covered us with the shadow of death. 20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, Or spread forth our hands to a strange god; 21 Shall not God search this out? For he knoweth the secrets of the heart. 22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; We are counted as sheep for the slaughter. 23. Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, cast us not off for ever. 24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, And forgettest our affliction and our oppression? 25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust. Our belly cleaveth unto the earth. 26 Rise up for our help, And redeem us for thy lovingkindness' sake. THERE is scarcely any Psalm which seems at first sight to furnish a more decided clew to the probable date of its composition than this, and yet leaves us, after all, in so much uncertainty. The notes of time are apparently three: The conquest of Palestine was looked back upon as distant—"the times of old." The period was a period of great national distress; the people were hard pressed by enemies. All this had come on them not as a judgment for national sin; hence the age must have been one when the nation was holding fast to the worship of Jehovah and eschewing idolatry. This last circumstance is so peculiar that we might expect it to decide the question. Now we know of no period of Jewish history previous to the exile, when the assertion would be true that the people had not forgotten God, nor "stretched out their hands to any strange god." Hence many interpreters refer the Psalm to the time of the Maccabees, and the persecution of Antiochus Epiphanes (2 Macc. 5: 11-23). The nation was then free from the taint of idolatry, and it suffered cruelly. So far as the internal evidence goes, it is unquestionably in favor of this period. The Psalm consist of four principal divisions: 1. The sacred poet calls to mind the great deeds which God had wrought for His people in the days of old. God alone, he confesses, had given them possession of the land of Canaan, and had driven out their enemies before them. Remembering this, they had ever made their boast in His name, and would still continue to praise Him (vs. 1-8). 2. Most painful is the contrast of the present with the past. God has forgotten His people. He has given them over into the hand of enemies, who hate and insult and slay them. God goes not forth now with their armies, as He had done when He brought them into Canaan; they are scattered among the heathen and sold for nought (vs. 9-16). 3. And yet this cannot be a chastisement for their transgressions; for they have not forgotten God, but, on the contrary, die the death of martyrs for His truth (vs. 17-22). 4. Therefore he prays that God the Saviour of His people, and the giver of victory, would again be favorable unto them, as of old, and redeem them from their enemies (vs. 23-26). 1. The Psalm opens with a glance at the past history of the nation, and the acknowledgment that from the first every victory which they had won had been won not by their own strength, but by the immediate hand of God. This was, it might be said, the perpetual lesson of their history. P. What work Thou didst. While the songs of other nations sing of the heroism of their ancestors, the songs of Israel celebrate the works of God. Tholuck.—Those who are taught to see God in history have learned a good lesson from their fathers, and no son of believing parents should be left in ignorance of so holy an art. A nation tutored as Israel was in a history so marvellous as their own, always had an available argument in pleading with God for aid in trouble, since He who never changes gives in every deed of grace a pledge of mercy yet to come. The traditions of our past experience are powerful pleas for present help. S. 2. God's love to Israel was free, unmerited, and amazing, and He gave them a land for which they did not labor, and cities which they built not, and vineyards and oliveyards which they planted not. Since the fall of Adam all good things in the lot of any mere man are undeserved kindnesses. Plumer. 6. The less confidence we have in ourselves or in anything beside God, the more evidence have we of the sincerity of our faith in God. Dickson. 8. Let him that glories, glory in the Lord, and let that forever exclude all other boasting. Let those that trust in God make their boast in Him, for they know whom they have trusted; let them boast in Him all the day long, for it is a subject that can never be exhausted. But let them withal praise His name forever; if they have the comfort of His name, let them give unto Him the glory due to it. H. 9-14. Calvin's remark is of importance, as bearing on all this attributing of their calamities to God: "We must observe, however, that God is represented as the author of these calamities, not by way of reproaching him, but that the faithful may with the more confidence seek the remedy from the hand which hath smitten and wounded." P. 17,18. It is not supposable that the Psalmist meant to say that his people had been faultless before God, for this would imply that God had forsaken and chastened them without cause. He might, however, say that they had not apostatized in such a degree as to forfeit their relation to God as His people. Their heart still turned toward their God, and recognized His covenant with them. C.—What is here professed is not entire exemption from all acts of infidelity, but freedom from the deadly sin of total oblivion and apostasy. In spite of His unfaithfulness, Israel still claimed to be and was the chosen people of Jehovah. A.—We may the better bear our troubles, how pressing soever, if in them we still hold fast our integrity. While our troubles do not drive us from our duty to God, we should not suffer them to drive us from our comfort in God; for He will not leave us, if we do not leave Him. H. 20,21. If we slacken our service to God, or fall off to any degree of apostasy, the Judge of hearts knoweth all; God knoweth whether we would have depraved and corrupt doctrine, worship, or ordinances; or whether we will faithfully adhere to Him, to His Word, and worship, and ordinances, whatever it cost us. Manton.—Three points suggested here: 1. The sin—forgetting God and holding up the hands to some strange god. These are not two sins, but one and the same sin, contemplated first upon one side and then upon the other. 2. The certainty of the discovery and punishment of the sin. "Shall not God search it out?" God will search out these idols, these strange gods to which we lift up our hands, rendering to them the service, the love, the fealty, the affection, which we justly owe to Him, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 3. The ground of this certainty, because He with whom we have to do is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of man. The one great lesson is to beware of idols. Trench. 22. For Thysake.** This passage is cited by Paul (Rom. 8:36), apparently from the LXX, in illustration of the fact that the Church of God has in all ages been a persecuted Church. But there is this remarkable difference between the tone of the Psalmist and the tone of the apostle. The former cannot understand the chastening, complains that God's heavy hand has been laid without cause upon His people; the latter can rejoice in persecutions also, and exclaim, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that loved us." P.—The whole verse is a strong poetical description of severe persecution or distress arising from the spite of enemies, and as such is applied by Paul to the sufferings of the Church of Christ, in which the ancient Israel continues to exist. 23. Arous Thee!** Why wilt Thou sleep, oh Lord? Awake, do not cast off forever. This bold apostrophe implies strong faith as well as warm affection. Such an address would not be made to an inanimate object or an imaginary being. The idea is, that the withholding of God's help or of His sensible presence may be figuratively described as a state of inaction or of sleep, from which He awakes and arises when He once more manifests His presence and affords His aid. The verse is therefore really nothing more than an importunate petition for Divine assistance. A. FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN; SET TO SHOSHANNIM; A PSALM OF THE SONS OF KORAH. MASCHIL. A SONG OF LOVES. 1. My heart overfloweth with a goodly matter: I speak the things which I have made touching the king: My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. 2 Thou art fairer than the children of men; Grace is poured into thy lips: Therefore God hath blessed thee for ever. 3 Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty one, Thy glory and thy majesty. 4 And in thy majesty ride on prosperously, Because of truth and meekness and righteousness: And thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. 5 Thine arrows are sharp; The peoples fall under thee; They are in the heart of the king's enemies. 6 Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: A sceptre of equity is the sceptre of thy kingdom. 7 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness: Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee With the oil of gladness above thy fellows. 8 All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia; Out of ivory palaces stringed instruments have made thee glad. 9 Kings' daughters are among thy honourable women: At thy right hand doth stand the queen in gold of Ophir. 10. Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; Forget also thine own people, and thy father's house; 11 So shall the king desire thy beauty: For he is thy Lord; and worship thou him. 12 And the daughter of Tyre shall be there with a gift; Even the rich among the people shall intreat thy favour. 13 The king's daughter within the palace is all glorious: Her clothing is inwrought with gold. 14 She shall be led unto the king in broidered work: The virgins her companions that follow her Shall be brought unto thee. 15 With gladness and rejoicing shall they be led: They shall enter into the king's palace. 16 Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children, Whom thou shalt make princes in all the earth. 17 I will make thy name to be remembered in all generations: Therefore shall the peoples give thee thanks for ever and ever. THIS Psalm is evidently a marriage-song, composed for some day of royal espousals. It celebrates the nuptials of a Jewish king with a princess, apparently of foreign extraction; but in honor of what particular king it was written is matter of conjecture. The older, and perhaps the more common interpretation, refers it to Solomon's nuptials with the daughter of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. But "a greater than Solomon is here." Evident as it is that much of the language of the poem is only properly applicable to the circumstances of the royal nuptials which occasioned it, it is no less evident that much of it greatly transcends them. The outward glory of Solomon was but a type and a foreshadowing of a better glory to be revealed. Israel's true king was not David or Solomon, but One of whom they, at the best, were only faint and transient images. A righteous One was yet to come who should indeed rule in truth and equity, who should fulfil all the hopes which one human monarch after another, however fair the promise of his reign, had disappointed, and whose kingdom, because it was a righteous kingdom, should endure forever. Such a ruler would indeed be the vice-gerent of God. In such an one, and by such an one, God would reign. He would be of the seed of David, and yet more glorious than all his fellows; human, and yet above men. It was because of this wonderfully close and real relation between God and man—a relation which the true king would visibly symbolize—that the Psalmist could address him as God. In him God and man would, in some mysterious manner, meet. This perhaps he did see; more than this he could not see. P. This Psalm celebrates the nuptials of an anointed king. It describes him as beautiful and gracious, blessed forevermore; as a conqueror, whose objects are truth, humility, and righteousness; as a Divine person, bearing the name of God, seated on an everlasting throne, ruling in righteousness, anointed with the oil of gladness, received with the strains of harps in ivory palaces; his bride is a king's daughter, one of a foreign race, beautiful and glorious; her attendants are pure virgins; her children are to be princes in all the earth. Cook. That this Psalm is Messianic has been the doctrine of those who have held the Word of God in hand and in honor throughout all the ages. The Chaldee Targum on v. 2 has this: "Thy beauty, O King Messiah, is greater than of the sons of men." With this the Jewish Rabbis accord. The voice of the early Christian Church may be given in the words of Theodoret: "This is a Psalm for the beloved, i.e., for the beloved Son of God." The writer to the Hebrews gives his emphatic indorsement by quoting vs. 6, 7 entire as the words of God to His Son (1 : 8, 9)—"But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever," etc. The superlative beauty of this King is in the grace of His lips; He is the oracle of God to man—"never man spake like this man." He came from heaven to earth to bring us words from God, and therefore is significantly called, The Word. He rides forth in majesty, not because of personal beauty, or martial prowess, or muscular strength, or majestic mien, but "because of truth, meekness, and righteousness." It is because He loves righteousness and hates wickedness that his God anoints Him, i.e., makes Him His Anointed One, the true Messiah, far above all other anointed kings of the Theocracy. And finally, His children are to be princes in all the earth, and His name shall be remembered through all generations, Himself an object of praise from all the people forever and ever. Verily no personage less than Jesus the Messiah is here, King of kings and Lord of lords. "His kingdom an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion that which knows no end. C. The nuptial song of Christ and the Church, which has for its peculiar theme the homehomering of Christ's elect, that they may be joined to Him in a union that shall survive the everlasting hills. W. Binnie.—Under this delicate symbol is pictured the love of Christ for His Church. He admits her to the most near, loving, confidential communion; He elevates her to His own dignity and honor; and He will hereafter bestow upon her the full blessedness of His presence, the full glory of His kingdom. J. P. T.—The distinguishing peculiarity of the Psalm is vividly presented in the New Testament account of Christ and His Church. He is the bridegroom and His people are the bride (John 3 : 29). The marriage relation is used again and again to denote the mystical union between the Saviour and His chosen; and in the new heavens and new earth the body of the redeemed is said to be "made ready as a bride adorned for her husband" (Rev. 21 : 2). The Praise-book of Israel abounds with the praises of God, but never of man. Not a solitary lyric records the exploits of any ancient worthy. David's beautiful elegy on Saul and Jonathan is kept on historical record, but not among the Psalms. In this respect the Psalter stands alone in the literature of the world. It has frequent references to the nation and to its great leaders, but never in express laudation. That is reserved for God alone. T. W. C. TITLE. To the chief musician. Upon lilies. To the sons of Korah. Maschil. A song of loved (ones). The unusual accumulation of descriptive titles in this verse suggests at once that the Psalm is one of deep and solemn import, and thus raises a presumption against its being a mere epithalamium, or a secular poem of any kind. This presumption is confirmed by the inscription to the chief musician, implying that the Psalm was designed for permanent and public use. The same thing is true, in substance, of the next term, maschil, instruction. The Psalm before us is among the last which would have been selected by a modern critic as didactic in its character. The same thing is rendered still more certain by the ascription to the sons of Korah, whether as authors or performers, since in either character their function was a sacred one, as precentors in the temple worship. A song of loves, the usage of the Hebrew word requires to be taken in the concrete sense of loved or beloved, the plural feminine form serving to identify the persons thus described with the lilies of the other clause. These two phrases taken together represent the subject of the Psalm to be lovely and beloved women, while the other three terms of the description show that the love and marriage here referred to are not natural but spiritual—to wit, the union of Messiah with His people, or of Christ with His Church, an idea running through both Testaments. On the whole, then, this Psalm appears to be a description of Messiah in His conjugal relation both to Israel and other nations, composed either by or for the sons of Korah in the reign of Solomon, from which the imagery seems to be borrowed, and designed for the permanent instruction of the Church by being used as a vehicle of pious feeling in her public worship. A. 1. This verse is a kind of preface of a very unusual kind in Hebrew poetry, in which the singer tells how great is his subject, and how full his heart is of it. P.—My heart has overflowed—a good word (am) I saying—my works for the king—my tongue the pen of a rapid writer. The whole verse is a strong metaphorical description of the way in which his thoughts were engrossed, and his words suggested by one great theme. A.—A good word, i.e., a beautiful utterance, a hymn full of goodness and joy, gushing out from the full heart. Cook. “My heart boils up (and overflows) with a good thing.” My emotions are stirred to their depths with ravishing thoughts of the glorious king and his beautiful bride. “I am to utter the song I have prepared concerning the king; my tongue is the pen of a swift writer,” for my heart is so full of thoughts, rich and beautiful, I have only to open my lips and they pour forth fast as the most rapid pen can write them. A wonderful exordium truly, indicating the profound interest which filled and stirred the soul of this poet-prophet. C.—Touching the king. It does not all concern the king immediately, for much of it concerns the queen, and about one half of it is directly addressed to her. But it relates to him inasmuch as it relates to his family. Christ ever identifies Himself with His people; so that whatever is done to them is done to Himself. Their interests are His. G. Harper. 2. Beautiful, beautiful, art Thou above the sons of man; grace is poured into Thy lips; therefore God hath blessed Thee to eternity. The first word in Hebrew is a reduplicated form, expressing the idea with intensity and emphasis. He is not praised as the fairest or most beautiful of men, but as fair or beautiful beyond all human standard or comparison. This general ascription of all loveliness is followed by the specification of a single charm, that of delightful, captivating speech. Grace, in Hebrew as in English, denotes both a cause and an effect; in this case, grace or beauty of expression, produced by the Divine grace or favor, and reciprocally tending to increase it. On any hypothesis, except the Messianic one, this verse is unintelligible. If the first clause were intended to describe a mere corporeal beauty, how could this be followed up by commending the grace of the lips, or either be recognized as the ground of an eternal blessing? It is only by supposing that the person here meant is the chief among ten thousand and altogether lovely, that the beauty predicated of him includes every moral and spiritual attraction, and that the grace of his lips has reference to his prophetic character and office, that the sentence can be made to seem coherent, and the promise at its close appropriate. A. The beauty of the king is placed first with peculiar fitness in a bridal hymn; but the beauty here spoken of is a Divine attribute; the word is the same in derivation as that applied to Jehovah (Psalm 50: 2), but even stronger in its form, which occurs in no other passage. Beauty was regarded by the Hebrew as the outward manifestation of inherent nobleness, or of a nature akin to the Divine. In this case the beauty is expressly said to be above that of man, an expression which marks the object of the hymn, as One standing apart from and above those whose nature He shares. The representation is unquestionably ideal; it refers to the Messiah. (Compare Isa. 33: 17.) Thus the Chaldee paraphrast, “Thy beauty, O King Messiah, is greater than that of the sons of men.” Grace. The grace of sweetness, loveliness, all that is attractive and gracious in expression, has its seat upon the lips of the King; from such lips none but gracious words can flow; the anointing Spirit dwells upon them (cf. Luke 4: 18, 22), where the word is used with special reference to Isa. 61: 1-3. Therefore. The blessing is inseparable from the spiritual gifts and graces visibly represented in the person of the glorified Messiah; such a declaration would hardly have been made of a mere earthly king. Cook. The beauty of the monarch first calls forth the poet’s praise, and then his persuasive eloquence. Calvin observes, it were more kingly for kings to win their subjects’ hearts by gracious words than to rule them by brute force. So, too, of the Great Antitype, the true King, we read that men wondered at the gracious words that proceeded out of His lips; for the Lord had given Him the tongue of the learned, that He might know how to speak a word in season to them that were weary (Isa. 50 : 4). P.—Kingly courtesy and kingly graciousness of word must be the characteristic of the Sovereign of men. The abundance of that bestowment is expressed by that word “poured.” We need only remember, “All wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth,” or how even the rough instruments of authority were touched and diverted from their appointed purpose, and came back and said, “Never man spake like this man.” A. M. He has grace, and He has it for us. By His Word, His promise, His Gospel, the good will of God is made known to us, and the good work of God is begun and carried on in us. He received all grace from God, all the endowments that were requisite to qualify Him for His work and office as Mediator, that from His fulness we might receive. H.—In one Christ we may contemplate and must confess all the beauty and loveliness both of heaven and earth; the beauty of heaven is God, the beauty of earth is man; the beauty of heaven and earth together is this God-man. E. Hyde.—Never were there such words of love and sweetness spoken by any man as by Him; never was there such a loving and tender heart as the heart of Jesus Christ: “Grace was poured into His lips.” Certainly never were there such words of love, sweetness, and tenderness spoken here upon this earth as those last words of His which were uttered a little before His sufferings, and are recorded in the thirteenth to the seventeenth chapters of John. J. Row. 3,4. The martial genius of the age of David appears in this figure, the sword girded on the thigh; and yet the glory of this King marching forth in triumph lies not in routed armies and heaps of the slain; not in cities laid desolate, wives made widows, and children fatherless; but in “truth, meekness, and righteousness.” He comes to bring to men most blessed truth concerning their Great Father; to turn them from darkness, delusion, and crime, to light, truth, and love. C. 4. The King goes forth, “conquering and to conquer” (Rev. 6 : 2). Because of, i.e., for the sake of truth, and the meekness which is one with righteousness. The combination of the two words meekness and righteousness is marked by a singular construction in the Hebrew; the two attributes are, so to speak, identified. The one object of the wars of God’s Anointed is to make the attributes incarnate in Him triumphant (cf. Zech. 9 : 9). Cook.—His truth, meekness, and righteousness are His glory and majesty, and because of these He shall prosper. Men are brought to believe on Him because He is true, to learn of Him because He is meek, the gentleness of Christ is of mighty force. Men are brought to submit to Him because He is righteous, and rules with equity. The Gospel, as far as it prevails with men, sets up in their hearts truth, meekness, and righteousness, rectifies their mistakes by the light of truth, controls their passions by the power of meekness, and governs their hearts and lives by the laws of righteousness. H. 4,5. The poet desires that the king whom he celebrates may reign and triumph in a Messianic manner, that he may help forward truth and what is truly good and overcome the enmity of the world, or, as it is expressed in Psalm 2, that the divinely anointed King of Zion may with the sceptre of iron dash to pieces everything that resists. D. 6. Thy throne, (oh) God, (is) forever and ever; a sceptre of rectitude (is) the sceptre of Thy kingdom. To avoid the obvious ascription of divinity contained in the first clause, two very forced constructions have been proposed. 1. Thy throne (is the throne of) God forever and ever. 2. Thy God-throne (or Divine throne) is forever. The explanation of God as a vocative is not only the most obvious, and sustained by many analogies, but is found in all the ancient versions and adopted in the New Testament (Heb. 1 : 8), and was admitted even by the anti-Messianic interpreters, until they were obliged to abandon the position that Elohim might be taken in a lower sense. A.—The person before the Psalmist’s mind was a visible manifestation of the Godhead; the ideal King of whom his earthly sovereign was an imperfect type. The objection that the Messiah is never called God or addressed as God in the Old Testament begs the entire question, and is untrue (see Isa. 8 : 8, “O Immanuel”). Other explanations of this passage are contrary to its plain and literal meaning. Cook. The Messiah is addressed as God. This is really the case in v. 7 as well as in v. 6. “Therefore, O God, hath Thy God anointed Thee,” etc. This is repeated by Isaiah (9 : 6): “His name shall be called the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father.” His throne is eternal; forever and ever. Other kingdoms, the mightiest and proudest ever reared by mortals, are transient; the face of the world is strewn with their ruins; but this kingdom shall never collapse; no chronicler in the ages never so distant shall have to speak of its fall; no explorer shall traverse and survey its ruins. Beautifully it shall be thus enduring and imperishable because it is righteous; “the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre.” C. 7. God, Thy God.** The old Versions and most interpreters take “God” and “Thy God” to be in apposition. The construction, however, is unusual, and the more natural interpretation would be, “Therefore, O God, Thy God hath anointed Thee.” This agrees with the preceding verse, “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.” Cook.—“Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness; therefore, O God, hath Thy God anointed Thee with joy” more than any of Thy associate kings on the throne of Israel from whom the Messiah is thought of as coming forth. Precisely this is the strain of argument in Isa. 11: 1-9; “the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him;” “He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes;” “with righteousness shall He judge the poor;” “with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked;” therefore men “shall not hurt nor destroy in all this holy mountain,” etc. C. Thy God. Christ, as Mediator, called God His God (John 20: 17), as commissioned by Him, and the Head of those that are taken into covenant with Him. He has anointed Thee with the oil of gladness. “In order to this righteous government of thine, God has given Thee His Spirit, that Divine unction, to qualify Thee for thine undertaking.” Isaiah 61: 1—The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me. He was anointed with the Spirit above all his fellows, above all those that were anointed, whether priests or kings. H. Thy fellows. In these words you have two parts—namely, first, the saints’ dignity; and, secondly, Christ’s pre-eminency. The saints’ dignity consists in this, that they are Christ’s “fellows.” Doth the Spirit of holiness dwell in Him? So He doth in them, too. Is Christ King and Priest? So are they, too, by the grace of union with Him. He hath made us kings and priests to God and His Father. This is the saints’ dignity, to be Christ’s fellows, consorts, or co-partners. But whatever dignity is ascribed herein to the saints, there is and still must be a pre-eminency acknowledged and ascribed to Christ; if they are anointed with the spirit of grace, much more abundantly is Christ: “God, Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows” Flavel. 8. The song here reaches its culminating point in the description of the king. It has portrayed the king as man, as warrior, as god-like ruler; now it pictures him as bridegroom on the day of his espousals. P.—The sequence of the thoughts and figures corresponds with the history of the future. When Babylon has fallen and the hero on a white horse with the name written on His garment and on His thigh: “King of kings and Lord of lords,” shall have slain the hostile peoples with the sword of His mouth, then follows the marriage of the Lamb, which paves a way for itself by means of these penal victories (Rev. 19: 7). It is this final marriage, which the Psalm as a song of the Church sees beforehand in the dawning light of the Old Testament, and which it hails with shouts of exultation. D. Myrrh and aloes (and) cassia (are) all thy garments, from palaces of ivory, from (thence) have they gladdened thee. The figure of unction in the close of the preceding verse suggests the idea of perfumes and aromatic substances. His dress is described as so impregnated with these odors that it may be poetically said to be composed of them. By another natural association, these perfumed garments, which were not usually worn, suggest the idea of some rare festivity, and especially of that which is most joyous in all countries. A. 9. The queen.** The Hebrew word is not that which is generally used to designate the queens of Israelitish princes. It is a poetical word, and denotes a peculiarity in the choice and position of the bride. Mystically it must refer to the Church, but in her perfect purity and unity, as she is described in the Book of Revelation (19: 7, 8; 21: 2). Cook. 10. Hear, daughter, and see, and bend thine ear, and forget thy people and the house of thy father.** The Psalmist, in view of the ideal scene which he has brought before us, utters a kind of nuptial exhortation to the queen or chief bride of Messiah. Hear what I have to say; see, with the mind’s eye, what I set before thee, look at it, consider it. Incline thine ear, lean forward as a sign of attention, so that nothing shall escape thee. This preliminary summons to attend implies that something of serious moment is to follow. A.—The earnestness of this threefold address is peculiarly suitable to the occasion; how difficult to gain the attention of the bride, how needful to make her fully conscious of the complete change of sphere, involving the disruption of old ties, and the entire surrender of heart to new duties. Equally true and forcible is the application to the Church; she has one work, to give herself up to Christ; one sacrifice to make—that of all associations and bonds alien to Him. Cook. 10,11. Forget thy people and thy father’s house.** So the bride of Christ should expel from her heart all her old and earthly loves, to give a pure and a whole heart to her affianced Lord, entering upon this new relation with a radically changed heart and life, old things passing away, and all things, all affections, all the heart's love, and all the soul's real life, made new. So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty; so thou mayest become sure of His love. Such beauty of soul is forever precious in His eyes. He is thy Lord, thy husband—to be accepted with the sincerest love and obedience of thy heart. C. Thy forty-fifth Psalm is the coronation oath of Christ to His Church. And here are three thoughts strung together to do honor to the occasion—Christ's delight in His Church's beauty, Christ's claim to His Church's service, and Christ the centre of His Church's worship, J. Vaughan.—Our beauty does not consist in our own virtues, nor even in the gifts which we have received from God, by which we put forth virtues, and do all those things which pertain unto the life of the law; but in this—our apprehending Christ and believing in Him. Then it is that we are truly beautiful; and it is this beauty alone that Christ looks upon, and upon no other. Luther. 12. In the time of Solomon, the Tyrians were the most commercial nation in the world, and the one with which the Israelites had most commercial intercourse. It was natural therefore to use Tyre as a type for the wealth and commerce of the world, as employed by later writers. Thus understood, the promise that the daughter of Tyre should seek, by means of gifts, to conciliate the favor of the queen, is a prediction that the richest of the nations should seek union and communion with the chosen people. A.—“The daughter of Tyre,” the richest of the nations, with gifts shall conciliate thy favor. Here, as in Isa. 60: 5-17 and 49: 18-23 and Psalm 72: 10, the sentiment is that in the fulness of the Messianic times the wealth of the nations shall be cheerfully laid at His feet. C.—The power of missions abroad lies at home: a holy church will be a powerful church. Nor shall there be lack of treasure in her coffers when grace is in her heart; the free gifts of a willing people shall enable the workers for God to carry on their sacred enterprises without stint. Commerce shall send in its revenue to endow, not with forced levies and imperial taxes, but with willing gifts the Church of the Great King. S. 13. A description of the magnificent appearance presented by the queen, as she stands, or perhaps sits, beside the king on the throne, arrayed in her royal and bridal apparel in the inner apartments of the palace—the presence-chamber where the throne was placed. Her arrival there is anticipated in this verse, as the bridal procession is subsequently described; unless, as Maurer suggests, this was not the king's palace, but some other, where the bride was first lodged, and whence she was conducted to the king. 14,15. The bridal procession described. The bride walks, in Oriental fashion, on the richly woven carpets spread for her feet, accompanied by her maidens, and a festive band with music, dancing, etc. P. 14. With (or on) variegated cloths shall she be conducted to the king; virgins behind her, her companions, brought unto thee. The lively picture of an Oriental wedding is now completed by a view of the procession to the bridegroom's house. The customary train of female friends is not forgotten, but with this peculiar feature added, that the bridesmaids are themselves described as brides being brought (or made to come) to the king, precisely as the queen was. This departure from the usages of real life is peculiarly appropriate, as it enables the writer to include in his description a striking figurative representation of the eventual accession of the Gentiles to the spiritual privileges and prerogatives which for ages were confined to Israel. A.—She comes with a train of maidens, attached to her in heart and ready to serve her, who along with her also become the possession of her husband. This also fits in with the allegorical interpretation of the Psalm as a hymn of the Church. The Lamb's bride, whom the seer in the Apocalypse beholds clothed in resplendent white linen, which denotes her righteousness, as the variegated golden garments here denote her glory, is neither one person nor one Church, but the Church of Israel along with the Church of the Gentiles, which have had a glorious and active share in the bringing in again of the daughter of Zion. D. 16. After having thus dwelt on the personal graces of the royal pair, the magnificence of their attire, and the splendor of their retinue, the poet again addresses the king, and concludes with congratulations and hopes expressed as to the issue of the marriage. The monarch cannot trace his descent from a long line of kings, but his children shall be better to him than royal ancestry. The sacred poet sees the earthly king and the human marriage before his eyes; but, while he strikes his harp to celebrate these, a vision of a higher glory streams in upon him. Thus the earthly and the heav- enly mingle. The Divine penetrates, hallows, goes beyond the human; but the human is there. P. Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children. Instead of the Old Testament Church, the fathers that are going off, there shall be a New Testament Church, a Gentile Church, that shall be grafted into the same olive and partake of its root and fatness (Rom. 11:17); more and more eminent shall be the children of the desolate, than the children of the married wife (Isa. 54:1). This promise to Christ is of the same import with that (Isa. 53:10), He shall see his seed; and these shall be made princes in all the earth, there shall be some of all nations brought into subjection to Christ, and so made princes, made to our God kings and priests (Rev. 1:6). H. 17. I will make Thy name to be remembered. The final address of the Psalmist is to the King. The work of all Christ's messengers, whether prophets or evangelists, is simply to make His name known. Forever and ever. The last words leave no doubt as to the Messianic character of the Psalm. The people, literally, the peoples, i.e., the Gentiles, accepting Christ as their King, praise Him "as God over all, blessed forevermore" (Rom. 9:5). Cock. Israel, which the Psalmist represents, is called upon first of all to proclaim in praises the name of the Messiah from generation to generation. But in doing so it does not remain alone. The peoples are thereby stirred up to do the same. The end of the history of redemption is this, that Israel and the peoples together praise this lovely, heroic, Divine King. D.—Christ's espousing unto Himself a church, and gathering more and more from age to age by His Word and Spirit unto it, His converting souls and bringing them into the fellowship of His family, and giving unto them princely minds and affections wherever they live, is a large matter of growing and everlasting glory unto His majesty. Dickson. "Thy name remembered in all generations;" the name of Jesus known in all the earth, held in honor and love by all the nations; one Lord and His name one; the idols utterly perished; Jesus, the pure, the lovely and glorious One, the sole object of worship and praise thenceforth and onward forever—such is the consummation of this wonderful prophecy! Will there not be joy above and joy below, joy among the holy in heaven and joy among the living of earth, when this "consummation so devoutly to be wished" shall become too real to be any longer doubted—shall be truly the glory of earth as well as the glory of heaven! C. 1. God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. 2 Therefore will we not fear, though the earth do change, And though the mountains be moved in the heart of the seas; 3 Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, Though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof [Selah 4 There is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, The holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. 5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. 6. The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved: He uttered his voice, the earth melted. 7 The LORD of hosts is with us; The God of Jacob is our refuge. [Selah 8 Come, behold the works of the LORD, What desolations he hath made in the earth. 9 He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariots in the fire. 10 Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. 11 The LORD of hosts is with us: The God of Jacob is our refuge [Selah THIS and the two following Psalms are hymns of triumph, composed on the occasion of some great deliverance. I am inclined to think that they all celebrated the same event, the sudden and miraculous destruction of the army of Sennacherib under the walls of Jerusalem. That proud host had swept the land. City after city had fallen into the power of the conqueror. The career of Sennacherib and his captains had been one uninterrupted success. The capital itself alone held out, and even there the enfeebled garrison seemed little likely to make a successful resistance. The swollen river had, in the language of the prophet, overflowed all its channels, and risen even to the neck. It was at this crisis that deliverance came. When there were no succors to be expected, when neither king nor army could help the city, God helped her. He, the Lord of hosts, was in the midst of her, keeping watch over her walls and defending her towers. His angel went forth at dead of night and smote the host of the Assyrians, and when men awoke in the morning, there reigned in that vast camp the silence and the stillness of death. Such a deliverance must have filled the whole nation with wonder and joy. The old days of Moses and David would seem to have returned. The hopes of prophets, so great and so glowing, yet so often apparently defeated, seemed now nearer to their accomplishment. The times were at hand when Jerusalem should be indeed the joy of the whole earth, when all nations should acknowledge Jehovah as their king. Her towers, her palaces, the temple of her God, stood in all their beauty, saved by a miracle from the spoiler's hand. God had made Himself known there as a sure refuge, and henceforth His name would be acknowledged in the earth. We should expect to find such a deliverance celebrated by songs of thanksgiving and triumph. We should expect to find in these songs some indications of the particular events which they were intended to commemorate. Accordingly we do find, especially in this Psalm, and in the forty-eighth, certain expressions which are most natural and most intelligible, on the supposition that they were written at this time. In this Psalm there occur, moreover, very remarkable coincidences, both in thought and expression, with those prophecies of Isaiah which were uttered in prospect of the Assyrian invasion. P. The Church is safe under Divine protection. This theme is amplified in three strophes, the close of which is indicated by the Selahs. If the Psalm owed its origin to any particular hishistorical occasion, of which there seem to be some traces in the last part, there is none to which it would be more appropriate than the miraculous destruction of the Assyrian host in the reign of Hezekiah (2 Kings 19 : 35 ; Isa. 37 : 36), as this was a signal instance of Divine interposition for the deliverance of the chosen people, and peculiarly adapted to exalt the God of Israel among the nations. A. All the points in this Psalm accord admirably with the times of Hezekiah, when God interposed for His people as their refuge and strength in times of deepest trouble, and when the proud Assyrian whose tramp shook the nations was suddenly smitten, and the daughters of Zion rejoiced in the God of their salvation. Nothing forbids that date and occasion ; every point is finely adapted to the circumstances of that time ; and we get a more vivid and life-like sense of the Psalm if we connect it with those historic events. We may think of it as the national song of victory, or rather of triumph in God, celebrating not so much the prowess of arms, the courage of heroes, the terrible execution of the enquiry of war, as the might of Israel's God. C. The first strophe (vs. 1-3) brings out the general truth of the safety of those in whose behalf Divine power is enlisted, even in the midst of the wildest commotions, when the earth is shaken to its centre, and all things seem falling into ruin. The second strophe (vs. 4-7) exhibits more particularly the safety of Zion, the place chosen by God for His abode among men, from which all gracious influences descend in living streams, and which He will maintain in beauty and strength, while under His judgments opposing kingdoms shall tumble into ruin, and in the heat of His wrath the solid earth shall be dissolved. In the third strophe (vs. 8-11) the completed result of the recent Divine interposition is celebrated in joyful song. The uproar has ceased. The enemy before the pride of whose power the chosen people had so lately trembled in deadly fear is put to silence, the instruments of war are destroyed, and peace is restored to the wearied and exhausted earth. It would seem as if the poet had idealized recent historic events, as connected with the great Divine forces that are ever working in defence of truth and right against the evil and wrong that have so long been defiant and dominant in the world. This wonderful deliverance is before his mind as suggestive of the final deliverance of the Church from oppression and suffering, of a time under the reign of the Messiah when evil shall be forever vanquished, righteousness covering the earth like a river, and peace like the waves of the sea. In this aspect this song of praise is of permanent value. It will be recognized as the inspired basis of Luther's magnificent choral, "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott." De Witt. We sing this Psalm to the praise of God because God is with us, and powerfully and miraculously preserves and defends His Church and His Word against all fanatical spirits, against the gates of hell, against the implacable hatred of the devil, and against all the assaults of the world, the flesh and sin. Luther. 1-3. First strophe. The safety and security of the people of God, even when the earth itself and the strong foundations of the earth are shaken. The revolutions and commotions of the political world are here described by images borrowed from the convulsions of the natural world, the earthquake which makes the mountains to tremble, the roaring of the seas, etc. See v. 6, where the figure is dropped. P.—The first words strike the key-note of this thrilling song—God, the refuge and the strength of His prayerful, trusting people. It was in times of deepest trouble that He was found their help, exceedingly—this being the precise expression in the song. C. He who walks humbly with his God, communes with Him and enjoys Him, as the daily tenor of his life, sees the night of adversity darkening around him without consternation. When skies grow dark, when friends are few, when health fails, when losses and bereavements and old age come on, and misfortunes thicken every hour, he can feel that all is safe—that the real portion has not been touched—that God is still the same. His apprehensions of God's nature and providence, his relation to Christ as his covenant head and ever present advocate, and his certainty that no jot or tittle of promise shall remain unfulfilled, avail to lift his head when the waves run highest. In these shakings of the earth and sea he does not behold the tokens of a departing God. On the contrary, he can sing with the Psalmist, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." J. W. A. Bruised reeds, smoking flax, broken hearts, dumb sufferers, the slow of speech, timid believers, tempted spirits—weakness in all its varieties—find a refuge in that thought of God, which nothing else reveals so affectingly as the gift of prayer, that He is a very present help in every time of trouble. He whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain "has come down and placed Himself in the centre of the little circle of human ideas and affections," as if for the purpose of making our "religion always the homestead of common feelings." Phelps. 2. Therefore we will not fear in the changing of the earth, and in the moving of mountains in the heart of seas. The simple idea expressed by these strong figures is, in the midst of the most violent changes and commotions. By the changing or exchanging of the earth we may understand either its change of place, violent removal, or more probably a change of face and aspect or condition, as the effect of mighty revolutions. In its changing, i.e., when it changes and because it changes. The mountains, as appears from v. 6, are emblems of great kingdoms and powerful states. The sea may be mentioned only as the place to which the mountains are transplanted, or in which they are shaken; but it may also be a specific emblem of the world, continually moved and agitated by the strife of human passions. This description is peculiarly appropriate to the commotions necessarily produced by the extensive conquests of the great empires of the ancient world, perhaps with special reference in this case to Assyria. A. 2,3. The earth thrown into a state of wild confusion, the mountains hurled into the mighty deep, the sea tossed into a tempest, and the everlasting hills drifting on its foaming billows, are the vivid images by which the Divine judgments on wicked and persecuting nations are described in the language of the prophets. J. Morison.—"Selah;" pause and contemplate the scene! Think how safe we were in God our refuge, and how safe we shall be through all the future ages with such a refuge ever at hand in our deepest need! C. 4. A river.** This figure is expressly chosen to represent the contrast between the serene and tranquil influence of God's presence among His people, and the convulsions described in the preceding verses. Cook.—What is meant is the river of grace, which is compared in 36:9 also with a river of Paradise. When the city of God is threatened and invested by enemies, it will neither hunger nor thirst, tremble nor despair, for the river of grace and of its ordinances and promises flows with its joy-bringing waves through the holy place, where the dwelling-place of the Most High has been erected. D. One of the boasts of Assyria's king was this: "With the sole of my foot have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places" (Isa. 37: 25); implying, it would seem, that he expected to subdue Jerusalem by cutting off its supply of water. But the resources of the Almighty withstood him at this point, providing a river whose streams should forever gladden the city of God. Water being one of the necessities of life, a river becomes a fit symbol of rich and unfailing supply. Eden was not complete without one; the heavenly paradise rejoices in its "river of the water of life, clear as crystal." C. Thus, says our Psalm, not with noise, not with tumult, not with conspicuous and destructive energy, but in silent, secret, underground communication, God's grace, God's love, His peace, His power, His almighty and gentle self flow into men's souls. Quietness and confidence on our sides correspond to the quietness and serenity with which He glides into the heart. Instead of all the noise of the sea you have within the quiet impartations of the voice that is still and small, wherein God dwells. The extremest power is silent. The mightiest force in all the universe is the force which has neither speech nor language. The parent of all physical force, as astronomists seem to be more and more teaching us, is the great central sun which moveth all things, which operates all physical changes, whose beams are all but omnipotent, and yet fall so quietly that they do not disturb the motes that dance in the rays. Thunder and lightning are child's play compared with the energy that goes to make the falling dews and quiet rains. The power of the sunshine is the root power of all force which works in material things. And so we turn, with the symbol in our hands, to the throne of God, and when He says, "Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit," we are aware of an energy, the signature of whose might is its quietness, which is omnipotent because it is gentle and silent. The seas may roar and be troubled, the tiny thread of the river is mightier than they all. A. M. 5. God (is) in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God will help her at the turning of the morning. This last idiomatic phrase seems to mean, at the point when the day turns to come back, after reaching its greatest distance. The idea is that of a critical transition from grief to joy. The terms of this verse become still more significant and striking, if we suppose a specific reference to the night in which Sennacherib's host was smitten, and the sight which was disclosed at break of day. A. "The history of the world is the judgment of the world." When He wills the plains are covered and mountains disappear, but one rock stands fast—"The mountain of the Lord's house is exalted above the top of the mountains;" and when everything is rocking and swaying in the tempests, here is fixity and tranquillity. She shall not be moved. Why? Because of her citizens? No! Because of her guards and gates? No! Because of her orthodoxy? No! But because God is in her, and she is safe, and where He dwells no evil can come. "Thou carriest Cæsar and his fortunes." The ship of Christ carries the Lord and His fortune; and, therefore, whatsoever becomes of the other little ships in the wild dash of the tempest, this with the Lord on board arrives at its desired haven—"God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved." A. M. When Melanchthon began sometimes to fear lest the infant Reformation should be stifled in the birth, Luther was wont to comfort him with these words: "If we perish, Christ must fall too (He is in the midst of us), and if it must be so, be it so; I had rather perish with Christ, that great Ruler of the world, than prosper with Cæsar." J. Collings. 6,7. The song recurs again to the scenes of terror—the formidable powers combined against the holy city—to bring to view once more the effect of God's glorious interposition. Just then the awful voice of God was heard; the earth melted; all hostile forces quailed before Him. This proves that the Lord of Hosts, God of the armies of heaven, Monarch of the heavenly worlds, is on our side—at once the God of heaven and the God of Jacob; He is our refuge! Why should we fear? "Selah!" Think of this wonder-working God, the unfailing strength and succor of His people! C. The condensed narrative moves to its end by a series of short crashing sentences like the ring of the destructive axe at the roots of trees. We see the whole sequence of events as by lightning flashes, which give brief glimpses and are quenched. The grand graphic words seem to pant with haste, as they record Israel's deliverance. That deliverance comes from the Conquering Voice. "The heathen raged" (the same word, we may note, as is found a verse or two back, "Though the waters thereof roar"), "the kingdoms were moved; He uttered His voice, the earth melted." With what vigor these hurried sentences describe, first, the wild wrath and formidable movements of the foe, and then the One Sovereign Word which quells them all, as well as the instantaneous weakness that dissolves the seeming solid substance when the breath of His lips smiles it! And where will you find a grander or loftier thought than this, that the simple word, the utterance of the pure will of God, conquers all opposition, and tells at once in the sphere of material things? He speaks, and it is done. "He uttered His voice, the earth melted." How grandly, too, these last words give the impression of immediate and utter dissolution of all opposition! All the Titanic brute forces are, at His voice, disintegrated, and lose their organization and solidity. "The hills melted like wax;" "The mountains flowed down at Thy presence." A. M. 7. Jehovah (God of) hosts.** The name first occurs in the mouth of Hannah (1 Sam. 1:11), and is applied to God as the Great King whom all created powers, the armies both in heaven and in earth, obey. To this name the Psalmist immediately subjoins another, "the God of Jacob," the covenant God of His people. Thus we are reminded, as Calvin remarks, of the double prop on which our faith rests; the infinite power whereby He can subdue the universe unto Himself, and the fatherly love which He has revealed in His Word. Where these two are joined together, our faith may trample on all enemies. P. 8. All the operations of providence must be considered as the works of the Lord, and His attributes and purposes must be taken notice of in them. Particularly take notice of the desolations He has made in the earth, among the enemies of His Church, who thought to have laid the land of Israel desolate. The destruction they designed to bring upon the Church has been turned upon themselves. Cities were burned, countries laid waste, armies of men cut off and laid in heaps upon heaps. Come and see the effects of desolating judgments, and stand in awe of God; say, How terrible art Thou in Thy works! (66:3.) Let all that oppose Him see this with terror, and expect the same cup of trembling to be put into their hands; let all that fear Him and trust in Him see it with pleasure, and not be afraid of the most formidable powers armed against the Church. Let them gird themselves, but they shall be broken to pieces. H. In war death reigns without a rival and without control. War is the work, the element, or rather the sport and triumph of death, who glories, not only in the extent of his conquest, but in the richness of his spoil. In the other methods of attack, in the other forms which death assumes, the feeble and the aged, who at the best can live but a short time, are usually the victims; here it is the vigorous and the strong. It is remarked by an ancient historian that in peace children bury their parents, in war parents bury their children; nor is the difference small. R. Hall. 9. When He pleases to sheathe His sword, He puts an end to the wars of the nations, and crowns them with peace. War and peace depend on His word and will as much as storms and calms at sea do (107:25, 29). He makes wars to cease unto the end of the earth. 10. Be still and know.** Men will set up themselves, will have their own way and do their own will; but let them know that God will be exalted, He will have His way, will do His own will, will glorify His own name, and wherein they deal proudly, He will be above them, and make them know that He is so. Let His own people be still; let them be calm and tremble no more, but know to their comfort that the Lord is God, He is God alone and will be exalted above the heathen; let Him alone to maintain His honor, to fulfil His own counsels, and to support His own interest in the world. Though we be depressed, yet let us not be dejected, for we are sure that God will be exalted, and that may satisfy us; He will work for His great name, and then no matter what becomes of our little names. H. "Be still, and know." We cannot know this deep and eternal truth unless we are still. But, on the other hand, this knowledge will make us still. If we have it not, or are not seeking to have it, we must be restless and impatient; just so far as it is granted to us it must bring tranquillity. Maurice.—We need this deeper and stiller element in our piety. We want not only to work, but to believe that God in Christ works, and with mightier forces than we; works through and by us, or without us, as He will; and that we are at best but inapt and incompetent instruments in His hands. F. D. H. The two clauses which compose this sentence are so interwoven that each may be the cause and each may be the effect of the other. The way to know God is to be still, and the way to be still is to know God. It is one of these beautiful reciprocities which we often find between a duty and a privilege. The way to do the duty is to accept the privilege, and the way to enjoy the privilege is to do the duty. In the stillness you will learn that God is from all eternity the same; that God elects His own; that the whole scheme of man's salvation revolves within himself; that all God's attributes harmonize in Christ. This is stillness: The Lord is; the Lord liveth; the Lord reigneth. J. V. 11. The Lord of hosts is with us.** This is the pervading idea of the Psalm. He is not coming down among us, like some heathen god, to help us in an emergency; He is with us, not visible to our eyes, but really present, the strength and refuge of our hearts. Maurice.—God's presence means God's sympathy, God's knowledge, God's actual help, and these are ours if we will. Instead of staggering at the apparent impossibility that so transcendent and mighty a Being should stoop from His throne, where He lords it over the universe, and enter into the narrow room of our hearts, let us rather try to rise to the rapture of the astonished Psalmist when, looking upon the deliverance that had been wrought, this was the leading conviction that was written in flame upon his heart, "The Lord of hosts is with us!" A. M. The joyous refrain of the song brings it fitly to its close. This glorious Lord of hosts dwells among us, the God of His own people ("Jacob") and their everlasting refuge. C.—The Lord of hosts, the God of Jacob, has been, is, and will be with us; has been, is, and will be our refuge; the original includes all; and well may Selah be added to it. Mark this and take the comfort of it, and say, If God be for us, who can be against us? H. "The Lord of hosts is with us." That majestic name includes all the deepest and most blessed thoughts of God which the earlier revelation imparted. That name of "Jehovah" proclaims at once His Eternal Being and His covenant relation—manifesting Him by its mysterious meaning as He who dwells above time; the tideless sea of absolute, unchanging existence, from whom all the stream of creatural life flows forth many colored and transient, to whom it all returns; who, Himself unchanging, changeth all things; and declaring Him, by the historical associations connected with it, as having unveiled His purposes in firm words to which men may trust, and as having entered into that solemn league with Israel which underlay their whole national life. He is the Lord the Eternal—the covenant name. He is the Lord of hosts, the "imperator," absolute master and commander, captain and king of all the combined forces of the universe, whether they be personal or impersonal, spiritual or material, who, in serried ranks, wait on Him, and move harmonious, obedient to His will. And this Eternal Master of the legions of the universe is with us, weak and poor, and troubled and sinful as we are. But we have a fuller revelation of that mighty name, and a more wondrous and closer Divine presence by our sides. The Psalm rejoices in that "the Lord of hosts is with us;" and the choral answer of the Gospel swells into loftier music, as it tells of the fulfilment of Psalmists' hopes and prophets' visions in Him who is called "Immanuel," which is, being interpreted, "God with us." The Psalm is confident in that God dwelt in Zion. And our confidence has the more wondrous fact to lay hold of, that even now the Word who dwelt among us makes His abode in every believing heart, and gathers them all together at last in that great city, round whose flashing foundations no tumult of ocean beats, whose gates of pearl need not be closed against any foes, with whose happy citizens "God will dwell, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God." A. M. Well, let the world have its course, I am content to bear it; God's will be done; let the sea be troubled; let the waves thereof roar; let the winds of affliction blow; let the waters of sorrows rush upon me; let the darkness of grief and heaviness compass me about; yet will I not be afraid; these storms will blow over; these winds will be laid; these waves will fall; this tempest cannot last long; and these clouds shall be dispelled; whatsoever I suffer here shall shortly have an end. I shall not suffer eternally; come the worst that can come, death will put an end to all my sorrows and miseries. Lord, grant me patience here and ease hereafter! I will suffer patiently whatsoever can happen, and shall endeavor to do nothing against my conscience and displeasing unto Thee; for all is safe and sure with him who is certain and sure of a blessed eternity. Bishop Taylor. 1. O CLAP your hands, all ye peoples; Shout unto God with the voice of triumph. 2 For the LORD Most High is terrible; He is a great King over all the earth. 3 He shall subdue the peoples under us, And the nations under our feet. 4 He shall choose our inheritance for us, The excellency of Jacob whom he loved. [Selah 5 God is gone up with a shout, The LORD with the sound of a trumpet. 6. Sing praises to God, sing praises: Sing praises unto our King, sing praises. 7 For God is the King of all the earth: Sing ye praises with understanding. 8 God reigneth over the nations: God sitteth upon his holy throne. 9 The princes of the peoples are gathered together To be the people of the God of Abraham: For the shields of the earth belong unto God; He is greatly exalted. All Nations Worship Jehovah as Their King. The subject of this Psalm is the joyful acknowledgment by all nations of God's absolute sovereignty in the world. It embodies, therefore, the Messianic idea of the fulfilment of the promise to Abraham that he should be the father of nations, and so points forward to the time when this idea and promise should be fully realized in the ascension and exaltation of our blessed Lord. De Witt. A hymn of triumph, in which the singer calls upon all the nations of the earth to praise Jehovah as their King, and joyfully anticipates the time when they shall all become one body with the people of the God of Abraham. In this sense the Psalm may be called Messianic, a prophecy of the final triumph of God's kingdom upon earth. P.—The Psalm has every appearance of having been composed in reference to some particular event; but as this is not indicated in the Psalm itself, it can only be conjectured. A. Most obviously this Psalm celebrates some victory in which God had signally subdued Gentile nations before His people Israel. The tone of it throughout is that of exulting triumph and high praises to the God of their salvation. It lacks the data for determining with certainty its historic occasion. C.—But it is very clear that both the present sovereignty of Jehovah and the final victories of our Lord are here filly hymned, while His ascension, as the prophecy of them, is sweetly gloried in. S. 1. O clap your hands. The immediate result of God's judgments was described in the preceding Psalm. That was terror and awe. Then the strain changes; the ultimate effects are realized, and in the establishment of peace and justice all nations are called upon to recognize His goodness. The order of the two clauses should be reversed, "All ye peoples, clap your hands." Cook. 1-4. The real and final victory gained by Jehovah does not consist in the subjection of the peoples, but in changing their hearts so that they joyfully worship Him. In order to become the God of all peoples in this sense, He has first become Israel's God; and Israel also earnestly desires that this design of its election may be attained. It is from this longing that the summons in v. 1 proceeds. The peoples are to manifest their joy in the God of revelation in acts and words; for Jehovah is exalted absolutely, and His dominion has Israel as its centre, not its limit, but extends to the whole earth. D. 2. The God with whom we have to do is a God of awful majesty. The Lord most high is terrible. He is infinitely above the noblest creatures, higher than the highest; there are those perfections in Him that are to be reverenced by all, and particularly that power, holiness, and justice that are to be dreaded by all those that contend with Him. He is a God of sovereign and universal dominion; He is a King that reigns alone, and with an absolute power; a King over all the earth; all the creatures, being made by Him, are subject to Him, and therefore He is a great King, the King of kings. H. 4. "Choose our inheritance" is to do again what He did in covenant with Abraham and in fulfilment through Joshua, i.e., give us Canaan and plant us securely therein. C.—"He shall choose our inheritance for us," means that He who knows what is better for us than ourselves hath chosen—that is, hath appointed, and that of His own good will and mercy toward us, our inheritance; not only things meet for this life, but even all other things concerning the hope of a better life, a kingdom that cannot be shaken, an everlasting habitation, an inheritance which is immortal and undefiled and fadeth not away, reserved for us in heaven. Boys. The constant interference on the part of God regards everything relative to our condition in this finite state of being. The appointment of our prosperity, adversity, sickness, temptations, infirmities of body or mind, personal or relative, the connections we form, the places we choose for residence—in fact, every circumstance relating to our present condition, however minute or apparently unimportant—these all form parts of the Divine choosing, however hard it may be to reconcile superior determination with the free and unrestrained choice which every individual makes for himself. This superintendence is as extensive as it is minute. He telleth the number of the stars, and he counteth the hairs of our head. In its operation it touches the springs of human determination, without at all infringing on individual liberty; and directs man to the choice, while man chooses for himself. In its vast and boundless efficiency, it comprehends the little circle of our own agency—bounds it, checks it, controls it, and renders it subservient to the purposes of infinite wisdom and benevolence. R. Hall. The Divine choice proves itself by Divine love. "The excellency of Jacob, whom He loved." We are the illustrations of the Father's will, we are the excellency of Jacob whom He loved, and so God is justified daily by the verification of human experience. Take, then, the Divine consolation in the text: "He shall choose our inheritance for us." The soul respires amid such serene and invigorating airs; this is the staple truth of the Book of God. God is the portion, the inheritance, of His people. Let us live in this great faith, in the great and infinite reservations of God. E. P. Hood.—"Selah," pause and dwell upon the marvellous lovingkindness of the Lord our God. C. 5. God has gone up with shouting, Jehovah with sound of trumpet. He is here described as returning to heaven after the conquest of His enemies and the rescue of His people, as in Psalm 7:7 he does the same, after sitting in judgment on the nations, and asserting the right of His own people. The shouting and sound of the trumpet represent the ascension as a public and triumphant one. The ideal scene is typical of the actual ascension of our Saviour. A.—What has taken place is a prelude of the final and manifest assumption of the kingdom, the proclamation of which the seer hears there. God has come down, and now that by the destruction of Israel's foes He has obtained recognition for Himself, He has gone up again in manifest royal glory. Accordingly this Psalm has in the course of history acquired a prophetic meaning which far transcends its most immediate occasion, a meaning which the Ascension of Christ has first fully disclosed. D.—God is said to come down when He interposes for the deliverance of His people, or the overthrow of their enemies; and "to go up," returning to His heavenly throne, when that work is accomplished. All these expressions have their special and literal fulfilment in the Son. Compare Psalm 68:18 and Eph. 4:8-10. Cook. With a shout. This mention of the "shout," and the voice of the "trumpet," serves to connect together past and future events in the history of the Church and of the world, and carry our thoughts forward to Christ's coming to judgment. C. Wordsworth.—Having been down to do battle for us and having gained this complete victory, leaving nothing more for us to desire and having nothing more for Himself to do, what should come next but His glorious ascending to His throne in the heavens? Let Him ascend therefore with shouts of triumph, amid the pains of victory! C. The resurrection of Christ is the absolutely unique fact of Christianity, the majestic demonstration of its infinite certainty. This it is which proves it to be a gospel indeed—good tidings of great joy unto all peoples. Accordingly, the resurrection of Christ stands forth in the apostolic theology as the epitome and very label of Christianity itself. And well it may; for it involves the whole story of the incarnation. He who has risen must have died, and He who has died must have lived, and He who has lived must have been born. Jerusalem's empty tomb proves Bethlehem's holy manger. And so it comes to pass that belief in the resurrection of Christ is the touchstone of the Christian faith, the key to the kingdom of heaven. If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart that God raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. The resurrection of Jesus Christ gives us a present, living, communing Saviour. For what, after all, was the death without the life? Let us take care lest in our devotion to the mighty doctrine of the cross we make too little of the mighty doctrine of the crown. We need not only the atoning work of Christ's historic death; we need also the sanctifying work of Christ's risen, present life. We want the inspirations of a risen, exalted, vitalizing, loving, communing heavenly Friend. And this the resurrection of the Lord Jesus gives us. If, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. Because He lives, we live also. G. D. B. By the cross forgiveness is assured to us, but by the resurrection Christ's energy on high for our purification is also made certain, and so the one supplements the other, rests upon it, but carries it to its transcendent completeness. If to forgiveness be added the expectation and assurance of a purifying energy, sent by the Son of God to give both life and inspiration to every mental force, to purify the whole spiritual nature within us and bring us into fellowship with angels and fellowship with God, then, indeed, forgiveness is consummated by the resurrection of Christ. By the cross He represents to us the Divine temper of self-sacrifice; by the resurrection He represents to us the Divine power and majesty. That Divine power and majesty must be apprehended that we may understand the self-sacrifice which was in the cross, there revealed in its new glory unto the majesty itself. And it is these two revelations of God, in self-sacrificing love and in the power that breaks the tyranny of death itself, which faces the last enemy of life and says, "Thou art conquered;" it is no other than these two, Divine self-sacrifice and Divine majesty, which give glory to every promise. When I see the infinite love of the cross and the infinite power of the emptied sepulchre, and know that I have in Christ my Brother and my King, I know that a spirit of love which never deceives, which gives more than it offers, is always behind the promise, and I know that a power which the world cannot weary, which death cannot break, which eternity cannot exhaust, is behind and beneath the promise, ready to fulfil it, ready to surpass it. So the cross answers to the sepulchre broken, and the tomb, with its doors swung open by the Divine power, answers back to and illustrates the darkened cross on Calvary. The one appeals to our deepest affection, and so most intimately searches and draws to itself our moral life; but the other appeals to our noblest hope. And there is no power which really aggrandizes human nature, augments its force, exalts its level, expands its reach, except the power which at once touches the heart and inspires hope. R. S. S. Christ rises not alone. A resurrection life fills His Church, touching the lives of His people in the most secret places and to the finest issues. They are raised up with Him, and made to sit in the heavenlies with Him. No base earthward desires need prevail over their spiritual life, which is quickened through Him because of "the power of His resurrection." By many phrases and forms of thought the apostles labor to emphasize the unbounded significance of the resurrection and its far-reaching effect on human life—on human lives. It is not to them an isolated fact of history; it is a very truth of spiritual experience. He is the firstfruits of them that slept, and all are to be made alive through Him unto God. Being risen with Him, we are therefore to set our affections on things above, because our life is hid with Him in God. S. S. T. 7. For King of all the earth (is) God. Perform a maschil, i.e., sing and play a didactic Psalm. The maschil here meant is the Psalm itself. The designation may have been omitted in the title for the very reason that it is contained in the body of the composition. The doctrine taught is that of Jehovah's universal sovereignty, and of the ultimate subjection of all nations to His peaceful sway. This idea is realized in the reign of the Messiah, so that the Psalm is, in a wide sense, Messianic. A. Sing ye praises with understanding. Let sense and sound go together. Let your hearts and heads go with your voices. Understand what you sing, and feel what you understand. A. Clarke.—To make melody in our hearts to God in singing of Psalms, we must sing "with understanding." We must mind the matter more than the music, and consider what we sing as well as how we sing; the tune may affect the fancy, but it is the matter affects the heart, and that God principally eyes. The Psalmist adviseth us in this particular, and so doth the apostle (I Cor. 14: 15). Otherwise this sweet duty would be more the work of a chorister than of a Christian, and we should be more delighted in an anthem of the musician's making than in a Psalm of the Spirit's making. John Wells. Worship is an act of the understanding, applying itself to the knowledge of the excellency of God and actual thoughts of His majesty; recognizing Him as the supreme Lord and Governor of the world, which is natural knowledge; beholding the glory of His attributes in the Redeemer, which is evangelical knowledge. This is the sole act of the spirit of man. The same reason is for all our worship as for our thanksgiving. This must be done with understanding: "Sing ye praise with understanding;" with a knowledge and sense of His greatness, goodness, and wisdom. It is also an act of the will, whereby the soul adores and reverences His majesty, embraceth His goodness, enters itself into an intimate communion with and pitcheth all his affections upon Him; we must worship God understandingly; it is not else a reasonable service. . . . We may be truly said to worship God, though we want perfection; but we cannot be said to worship Him if we want sincerity; a statue upon a tomb, with eyes and hands lifted up, offers as good and true a service; it wants only a voice, the gestures and postures are the same; nay, the service is better; it is not a mockery; it represents all that it can be framed to; but to worship without our spirits is a presenting God with a picture, an echo, voice, and nothing else; a compliment; a mere lie; a "compassing Him about with lies." Charnock. The great function of hymns in public worship is to bring before our hearts as well as our memories, in an attractive and moving form, the great facts of our holy faith, and also to help us to apply these great facts and doctrines to our own particular wants. Hymns teach a lesson as to the unity of believers. They belong, not to one century or another, not to one Church, or one sect, or one class, or one part alone of the kingdom; but from every section of our fellow-Christians have been found gifted servants of God pouring forth their adoration, their penitence, or their trust in language which is not of a party, but simply Christian. H. M. Butler. 8. 9. God has begun to reign over the heathen; has seated Himself upon His high throne as King of nations—of which we have the evidence in the wonderful victory we this day celebrate. Already the poet-prophet sees the glorious consummation of God's future Gospel triumphs, saying: "for the princes of the people"—the noble-hearted, those high in power over the heathen nations—gather themselves together as the people of the God of Abraham, i.e., as being such; or without the word "as," we may translate, being the people of the God of Abraham. C.—The poet reads in what has just happened the great final historical fact of the conversion of all peoples to Jehovah. The nobles of the peoples, the "shields" (i.e., the patrons, protectors) "of the earth," enter into alliance with the people of the God of Abraham; the promise of the blessing of the nations in the seed of the patriarch is fulfilled, for the nobles draw after them the peoples protected by them. D. 9. The shields of the earth belong unto God.** Here we have the rulers of the earth set forth by a double relation; and both these noting two things, their dignity and their duty. They belong to God, it is their honor that He hath sealed them; they belong to God, it is their duty to be subject to Him. They are "shields of the earth," it is their honor that they are above others; they are "the shields of the earth," it is their duty to protect others. Bishop E. Reynolds, — Magistrates are said to bear the sword, not to be swords; and they are said to be shields, not to bear shields; and all this to show that protection and preservation are more essential and intrinsical to their office than destruction and punishment are. Caryl. The insignia of pomp, the emblems of rank, the weapons of war, all must pay loyal homage to the King of all. Those who are earth's protectors, the shields of the commonwealth, derive their might from Him, and are His. All principalities and powers must be subject unto Jehovah and His Christ, for "He is greatly exalted." In nature, in power, in character, in glory, there is none to compare with Him. Oh glorious vision of a coming era! S. 1. GREAT is the LORD, and highly to be praised, In the city of our God, in his holy mountain. 2 Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, Is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, The city of the great King. 3 God hath made himself known in her palaces for a refuge. 4 For, lo, the kings assembled themselves, They passed by together. 5 They saw it, then were they amazed; They were dismayed, they hastened away 6 Trembling took hold of them there; Pain, as of a woman in travail. 7 With the east wind Thou breakest the ships of Tarshish. 8 As we have heard, so have we seen In the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it for ever. [Selah 9. We have thought on thy lovingkindness, O God, In the midst of thy temple. 10 As is thy name, O God, So is thy praise unto the ends of the earth: Thy right hand is full of righteousness. 11 Let mount Zion be glad, Let the daughters of Judah rejoice, Because of thy judgments. 12 Walk about Zion, and go round about her: Tell the towers thereof. 13 Mark ye well her bulwarks, Consider her palaces; That ye may tell it to the generation follow- ing. 14 For this God is our God for ever and ever: He will be our guide even unto death. THIS Psalm, there is every reason to suppose, was composed on the same occasion as the two preceding. It celebrates God's protecting care of Jerusalem, and especially the deliverance of the city from the army of Sennacherib (2 Kings 18: 19; Isa. 36), as may be inferred from the many verbal coincidences which present them- selves, on a comparison of the Psalm with the prophecies of Isaiah relating to the Assyrian invasion (chaps. 8, 28, 29, 33). P.—This Psalm refers to the same circumstances as the two preceding. It completes the train of grate- ful thoughts suggested by the deliverance. In the first the overthrow of the enemy is the prominent thought, and in the second the tri- umph of God's glory; in this the Psalmi—t turns his thoughts to the beauty, security, and splen- dor of the city of God. Cook. The Psalm gives these points—a formidable muster before Jerusalem of hostile people under confederate kings, with the purpose of laying siege to the city; some mysterious check which arrests them before a sword is drawn, as if some panic fear had shot from its towers and shaken their hearts; and a flight in wild con- fusion from the impregnable dwelling-place of the Lord of hosts. The occasion of the terror is vaguely hinted at, as if some solemn mystery brooded over it. All that is clear about it is that it was purely the work of the Divine hand. Now there is one event in Jewish history which corresponds, point for point, to these details— the crushing destruction of the Assyrian army under Sennacherib. There was the same mus- tering of various nations, compelled by the con- queror to march in his train, and headed by their tributary kings. There was the same ar- rest before an arrow had been shot or a mound raised against the city. There was the same purely Divine agency coming in to destroy the invading army. Whatever may be thought, however, of that allocation of it to a place in the history, the great truths that it contains de- pend upon no such identification. They are truths for all time; gladness and consolation for all generations. There is the glory of Zion, the deliverance of Zion, and the consequent grateful praise and glad trust of Zion. A. M. It consists of three parts: 1. An introduction which, after an ascription of praise to God, de- scribes the glory (v. 2) and the security (v. 3) of Zion, as the city in which God hath made Himself known (vs. 1-3). 2. The defeat of the enemy. Because God thus dwells in Zion and loves Zion, she has been saved out of the hand of the Assyrian. That mighty host led by its kingly captains did but look upon the city, and were confounded as in a moment, broken as with the east wind which breaks the ships of Tarshish, melting away "like snow in the glance of the Lord" (vs. 4-8). 3. Thanksgiving to God, whose praise is not only in Zion but in all the earth, and whose great deliverance the poet would have remembered in all time to come (vs. 9-14). 1-3. It is because Zion is the city of God that she so far surpasses all other cities in beauty and renown. It is the glory of His presence which makes her glorious; the strength of His presence which makes her safe. 2. Beautiful in elevation,** or "rising aloft in beauty." This is precisely one of the most striking features in the topography of Jerusalem. "Its elevation," says Stanley, "is remarkable; occasioned not from its being on the summit of one of the numerous hills of Judæa, like most of the towns and villages, but because it is on the edge of one of the highest tablelands in the country. Hebron, indeed, is higher still, by some hundred feet; and from the south, accordingly, the approach to Jerusalem is by a slight descent. But from every other side the ascent is perpetual; and to the traveller approaching Jerusalem from the west or east it must have always presented the appearance, beyond any other capital of the then known world—we may add, beyond any important city that has ever existed on the earth—of a mountain city; breathing, as compared with the sultry plains of the Jordan or of the coast, a mountain air, enthroned on a mountain fastness." P. At the northernmost bounds—that is, of the city, or of the elevated plateau on which it was built. There can be no longer a doubt that the ancient hill of Zion is near the northern extremity of the more westerly of the two ridges into which the city was anciently divided. The temple hill was opposite on the eastern ridge. The crest of Zion was much the higher. On account of its elevation it was the characteristic feature of the Holy City, but by immense labor it was removed by the Maccabees, so that no hill higher than the Temple and the Upper City might be occupied by an enemy, as this had been by the Macedonians. On the eastern, western, and southern sides Jerusalem was bounded by impassable ravines, the valley of Hinnom on the west, and the valley of Kedron on the east, with their steep declivities, forming a junction at the south, rendering the city almost impregnable except on the northern side, where strong fortifications were needed. Inside the wall, having the deep gorge on its easterly side, the massive citadel of Zion towered above everything around it. De Witt. Surrounded by mountains, and standing itself on considerable heights, Jerusalem seemed the very spot on which to place the chief city of the country. If it was "beautiful for situation," it was so in a military or utilitarian, rather than an aesthetic or picturesque sense. It was the very symbol of a God-encircled, God-protected city. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth even forever." To an invading army it was difficult of access; and even when an army was under the walls, its strength and security may be judged from the saying ascribed to the Roman general Titus, that if it had not been for the dissensions among the people themselves, the place could never have been taken. W. G. B.—When I stood that morning on the brow of Olivet, and looked down on the city crowning those battlemented heights, encircled by those deep and dark ravines, I involuntarily exclaimed, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King." And as I gazed, the red rays of the rising sun shed a halo round the top of the castle of David; then they tipped with gold each tapering minaret, and gilded each dome of mosque and church, and at length, bathed in one flood of ruddy light the terraced roofs of the city, and the grass and foliage, the cupolas, pavements, and colossal walls of the Haram. No human being could be disappointed who first saw Jerusalem from Olivet. J. L. Porter. 3. Did Mount Zion ever look more fair to those enraptured eyes? Only a few hours ago in danger of war, siege, capture, conflagration, utter destruction; now standing saved, untouched, in more than its former glory;—we need not wonder then that her joyful sons and daughters should sing: "Beautiful for elevation, the joy of all the land, is this our Mount Zion," especially as seen from the north; the city honored as the home and throne of the Great King! In her palaces we have known and proved our God to be our refuge. In our danger we sought Him—not in vain! C. 4. There follows, in a few lines, a striking picture of the advance of the hostile army, and of its sudden destruction. Compare with this the wonderfully graphic description of the same march in Isa. 10: 28-34. The kings. The mention of "kings" in the plural does not prove that the Psalm cannot be referred to the Assyrian invasion. They were perhaps satraps, or petty kings (cf. Judges 5 : 3, 19), dependent upon Sennacherib. In his annals, as lately deciphered, he speaks of setting up tributary kings or viceroys in Chaldea, Phoenicia, and Philistia, after conquering those countries. Calvin and others, who refer the Psalm to the time of Ahaz, suppose Pekah and Rezin to be meant. Hengstenberg and Delitzsch think that "the kings" are those of Moab, Ammon, and Edom, who united to attack Jehoshaphat, and that it is their discomfiture which is the subject of the Psalm. But the battle at Tekoa would surely not have been described as the deliverance of Jerusalem. 5. The force of the description in this verse, as in the last, is much increased by the way in which the verbs follow one another without a copula. Calvin well illustrates it by Cesar's veni, vidi, vici. A succession of scenes is thus flashed upon the eye. Each word is a picture. First, we have the mustering of the hosts; then their march; then their first sight of the city; then their astonishment, their dismay, their wild panic and flight. 6,7. This confusion and terror are now further portrayed under two images: the first, that of a travailing woman, a common one in the Old Testament, and found also in the New; and the second, in which the defeat of Sennacherib's army is compared to the wreck and dispersion of a navy in a storm. The image in this case is presented with lyric vividness, as if the sacred poet were himself looking on the scene. P.—The Psalmist is not thinking of any actual scattering of hostile fleets—from which Jerusalem was never in danger; but is using the shipwreck of "the ship of Tarshish" as a picture of the utter, swift, God-inflicted destruction which ground that invading army to pieces. A. M. 8. This marvellous deliverance is but a fresh proof, in our own experience, of that wonder-working love which in the days of old has so often manifested itself in Israel. The things which our fathers have told us, we have now witnessed with our own eyes. And therefore, also, the present is regarded as a pledge for the future: "God will establish it—make it stand firm—forever," as 87 : 5. P.—God will confirm it, or establish her, i.e., Jerusalem, the city of our God. He will secure it against all such assaults as it has just escaped. As Jerusalem is here regarded not as a mere town, but as the seat of the theocracy, the earthly residence of God, the promise is still valid, in its strongest sense, with respect to the Church, of which the ancient Zion was the constituted type and local centre. A. As we have heard in the promise and prediction, so have we seen in the performance and accomplishment. We have heard that God is the Lord of hosts, and that Jerusalem is the city of our God, is dear to Him, is His particular care; and now we have seen it, we have seen the power of our God, we have seen His goodness, we have seen His care and concern for us; that He is a wall of fire round about Jerusalem, and the glory in the midst of her. In the great things that God has done, and is doing, for His Church, it is good to take notice of the fulfilling of the Scriptures. God Himself has undertaken the establishment of it; it is the Lord that has founded Zion (Isa. 14 : 22). And what we have seen, compared with what we have heard, may encourage us to hope in that promise of God, upon which the Church is built. H. The deliverance thus described links the present with the past. So God's merciful manifestation to us has this blessed effect, that it changes hearsay and tradition into living experience;—this blessed effect, that it teaches us, or ought to teach us, the inexhaustibleness of the Divine power, the constant repetition in every age of the same works of love. Taught by it, we learn that all these old narratives of His grace and help are ever new, not past and gone, but ready to be reproduced in their essential characteristics in our lives too. We, too, if we mark the daily dealings of that loving Hand with us, have every occasion to say, Thy lovingkindness of old lives still. Still, as of old, the hosts of the Lord encamp round about them that fear Him to deliver them. Still, as of old, the voice of guidance comes from between the cherubim. Still, as of old, the pillar of cloud and fire moves before us. Still, as of old, angels walk with men. Still, as of old, His hand is stretched forth to bless, to feed, to guard. Nothing in the past of God's dealings with men has passed away. A. M. 9-14. The next portion of the Psalm consists of the grateful celebration of that which God had done for Zion. We have thought, i.e., pondered, considered in that deep, still, heartfelt gratitude, whence issue the loud praises of the tongue. In Thy temple, either as the place in which the congregation met to acknowledge God's lovingkindness, or as the place in which He had manifested His lovingkindness. P.—The deliverance, first of all, deepens the glad meditation on God's favor and defence. "We have thought," say the ransomed people, as with a sigh of rejoicing, "we have thought of Thy lovingkindness in the midst of Thy temple." The scene of the manifestation of His power is the scene of their thankfulness, and the first issue of His mercy is His servants' praise. Then, the deliverance spreads His fame throughout the world. "According to Thy name, O God, so is Thy praise unto the ends of the earth. Thy right hand is full of righteousness." The name of God is God's own making known of His character, and the thought of these words is double. They most beautifully express the profoundest trust in that blessed name that it only needs to be known in order to be loved. There is nothing wanted but His manifestation of Himself for His praise and glory to spread. Why is the Psalmist so sure that according to the revelation of His character will be the revenue of His praise? Because the Psalmist is so sure that that character is purely, perfectly, simply good—nothing else but good and blessing—and that He cannot act but in such a way as to magnify Himself. He is all "light, and in Him is no darkness at all." There needs but the shining forth in order that the light of His character shall bring gladness and joy wheresoever it falls. A. M. 12-14. The study of the external and internal condition of the Church fills the heart with rapture and the lips with praise. In figurative martial terms the Psalmist celebrates the position, strength, glory, and perpetuity of the Church. Based upon the eternal Rock, it will stand until a long groaning creation awakes to hear the Easter hymn that is to be sung in the jubilee of the final Sabbath. E. S. Porter. The citizens, who in the temple have been rendering the tribute of their meditation and thankful gratitude to God for His lovingkindness, are now called upon to come forth from the enclosure of the besieged city, and free from all fear of the invading army, to "walk about Zion, and go round about her and tell the towers," and "mark her bulwarks" and palaces. They look first at the defences, on which no trace of assault appears, and then at the palaces guarded by them, that stand shining and unharmed. The deliverance has been so complete that there is not a sign of the peril or the danger left. Not one stone has been smitten from the walls, nor one agate chipped in the windows of the palaces. It is unharmed as well as uncaptured. Thus, we may say, we have a city which cannot be moved; and the removal of the things which can be shaken but makes more manifest its impregnable security. Whatever is His will stand forever. A. M. 13. Tell this to the generation following, as a wonderful instance of God's care of His holy city, that the enemies should not only not ruin or destroy it, but not so much as hurt or deface it. This must certainly be applied to the Gospel Church, that Mount Zion (Heb. 12: 22). See it founded on Christ, the Rock fortified by the Divine power, guarded by Him that neither slumbers nor sleeps. See what precious ordinances are its palaces, what precious promises are its bulwarks; tell this to the generation following, that they may with purpose of heart espouse its interests and cleave to it. H. All the discoveries of God which nature and providence are competent to make fade into comparative insignificance before the transcendent disclosures of redemption. That scheme stands like a temple of majestic proportions, and bears visibly engraved upon its portals not only the name of God, like the ancient temple of Isis, but also the sublimer mystery of His personal distinctions. In walking about Zion, telling her towers and marking well her bulwarks, we perceive the hand of the Father, the hand of the Son, and the hand of the Holy Ghost. There are palaces adorned for the great King which we are exhorted to consider, for there the Trinity reigns, there God displays His mysterious personality, and the whole house is filled with His glory. Thornwell. 14. The Father who made, the Son who redeemed, the Holy Ghost who sanctified and who liveth in the temple of our hearts—"this God is our God forever and ever; He shall be our guide unto death." Farrar.—The verse as it stands is admirably in harmony with the song, and is its crowning beauty. When the Lord does great things for Church or nation, He means that all the faithful, however humble their station, should take courage from it, should repose in Him fresh confidence, and cling to Him with a firmer hope, and say, "This God is our God forever; He will guide us even unto death." W. Binnie. God, our God, is our guide, an approved guide. The history of His guidance, the map of the tracks by which He has led His people, is before us. We can study it for ourselves, and can convince ourselves that God has made no mistakes; that He has never yet led any soul of man astray. The map of men's courses through life is indeed a confused one; but the confusion is made by men's wandering feet, by men's divergences from God's lines. The first instance has yet to be shown of one who has fared other than well by following God as a guide. V.—Heaven often seems distant and unknown, but if He who made the road thither is our guide we need not fear to lose the way. We do not want to see far ahead—only far enough to discern Him and trace His footsteps. Christ does not give us the full revelations of God and heaven at once; we could not bear them now. He gives us Himself, and in that gift everything is secure. Our peace lies not in believing much, but in believing well. If our faith in Him is unwavering He will return it with knowledge. The way to escape from doubts is to think about Christ. What we need is not explanation, but confidence. Sometimes we know not what to believe, but always we know whom we have believed. Religion is not a theory, nor a doctrine; it is the coming of a person to a person, by a person. They who follow Christ, even through darkness, will surely reach the Father. H. Van Dyke. If God be our God, He is ours forever, not only through all the ages of time, but to eternity; for it is the everlasting blessedness of glorified saints that God Himself will be with them, and will be their God (Rev. 21: 3). If He be our God, He will be our guide, our faithful constant guide, to show us our way, and to lead us in it; He will be so even unto death, which will be the period of our way, and will bring us to our rest. He will be our guide beyond death. He will conduct us safe to a happiness on the other side death, to a life in which there shall be no more death. If we take the Lord for our God, He will conduct and convey us safe to death, through death, and beyond death, and up to glory. H.—What a portion is that of the believer! Possessions shall soon change masters; possessors shall soon mingle with the dust, and even the graves they shall occupy may not long be theirs; but it is the singular, the supreme happiness of every Christian to have a right to say, “This glorious God with all His Divine perfections is my God, forever and ever, and even death itself shall not separate me from His love.” G. Burdur. Our God, our guide unto death. God’s presence is enough for toil and enough for rest. If He journey with us by the way, He will abide with us when nightfall comes; and His companionship will be sufficient for direction on the road, and for solace and safety in the evening camp. We have often to travel by solitary ways. Some of us have perplexed paths to tread. Some of us have sad memories of times when we journeyed in company with those who will never share our tent or counsel our steps any more, and as we sit lonely by our watchfire in the wilderness, have aching hearts and silent nights. Some of us may be, as yet, rich in companions and helpers, whose words are wisdom, whose wishes are love to us. But for us all, cast down and lonely, or still blessed with dear ones and afraid to live without them, there is a presence which departs never, which will move before us as we journey, and hover over us as a shield when we rest; which will be a cloud to veil the sun that it smite us not by day, and will redden into fire as the night falls, being ever brightest when we need it most, and burning clearest of all in the valley at the end, where its guidance will only cease because then “the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall lead them.” A. M. The aged believer knows that his salvation is nearer than when he believed. As one long in bondage looks out wistfully for deliverance, so he lifts up his head, because his redemption draweth nigh. Hearkening for the footsteps of his beloved Master, who is coming to transport him to Himself, he patiently waits till his change come. These are blessed fruits of grace, enjoyed at a period when the world has nothing to offer to its outworn devotees. It is the privilege of aged Christians to expect these comforts, which are the more satisfying, as being altogether independent of all outward circumstances; they may be possessed, nay, they have been ten thousand times possessed, by the poor, the infirm, the diseased, the deaf, the blind; the united voice of hope and exultation, which rises from the tabernacles of aged pilgrims is, “For this God is our God forever and ever, He will be our guide even unto death.” J. W. A. One is constantly surprised by the correspondence between these words of the Psalms and the words of Christ. More and more it seems that the Psalms are full of Christ. And surely we cannot miss the correspondence here, “This God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even unto death;” “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” We want the guide at the end, but in order to that we want Him all the way to the end. That is what He says we shall have. “He will be our guide even unto death.” Beyond death we shall have Him if we have Him up to that point, for the great object of His guidance is to bring us to His own home. Again, the sev- enty-third Psalm expands the thought, "Thou shalt guide me by Thy counsel and afterward take me to glory." That word "take" is very suggestive. You find it in the forty-ninth Psalm, "God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave, for He shall take me." It is the same word which is used in the story of Enoch: "Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him." Just think how significant it is, that, back in that far-off time, long before life and immortality were brought to light, the departure from life is put in this most beautiful and comforting way—being taken by God. V. 1. HEAR this, all ye peoples; Give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world: 2 Both low and high, Rich and poor together. 3 My mouth shall speak wisdom; And the meditation of my heart shall be of understanding. 4 I will incline mine ear to a parable: I will open my dark saying upon the harp. 5 Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, When iniquity at my heels compasseth me about? 6 They that trust in their wealth, And boast themselves in the multitude of their riches; 7 None of them can by any means redeem his brother, Nor give to God a ransom for him: 8 (For the redemption of their soul [life] is costly, And must be let alone [it faileth] for ever:) 9 That he should still live alway, That he should not see corruption. 10 For he seeth that wise men die, The fool and the brutish together [alike] perish, And leave their wealth to others. 11 Their inward thought is, that their houses shall continue for ever, And their dwelling places to all generations; They call their lands after their own names. 12 But man abideth not in honour; He is like the beasts that perish. 13 This their way is their folly: Yet after them men approve their sayings. [Selah] 14 They are appointed as a flock for Sheol; Death shall be their shepherd: And the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; And their beauty shall be for Sheol to consume, that there be no habitation for it. 15 But God will redeem my soul from the power of Sheol: For he shall receive me. [Selah] 16 Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, When the glory of his house is increased: 17 For when he dieth he shall carry nothing away; His glory shall not descend after him. 18 Though while he lived he blessed his soul, And men praise thee, when thou doest well to thyself, 19 He shall go to the generation of his fathers; They shall never see the light. 20 Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, Is like the beasts that perish. The Vanity of Earthly Aggrandizement. Psalm 49 is didactic, and contains no national or historic allusions. It is addressed to all men without distinction. "It discusses the problem of temporal happiness and the prosperity of the ungodly, and is therefore related to 37 and 73" (Moll). It exhibits the transitoriness of the success and joy of the wicked, and the sure hope of the upright resting upon God. Its character is in harmony with the title which ascribes it to David as the author. De Witt. This Psalm contains the most perfect development of Hebrew thought on the deepest problem of existence. It affirms clearly the doctrine of a future state of compensation, and establishes it on the strongest grounds. It is altogether didactic, resembling in style and rhythm the Book of Proverbs, in brief, compact, and highly poetic sentences, adapted for solemn recitation with lyric accompaniment; it brings together a series of striking thoughts on the present and future condition of men "who trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches." Through life they prosper, leave a rich inheritance to their children, look forward to the permanence and grandeur of their posterity, who laud their names and approve their sayings; but with the end of life comes the end of all; they are the prey of death, wise and fools alike; their noble forms rot in the grave, and they have no futurity of life (v. 19). The righteous, on the contrary, is redeemed from death (v. 15), taken unto Himself by God; and in the morning he will have dominion over them. The contrast is complete: in this life the wicked has everything, even the hope of permanent prosperity for his family, but for him there is no hope after death; the righteous in this life may have absolutely none but evil days, may be beset by treacherous foes (v. 5), but he is sure of redemption, of acceptance with God, of a morning ushering in the dominion of light. Cook. This Psalm, like the thirty-seventh, is intended to console the righteous under the trials arising from the prosperity and enmity of wicked men, by showing these to be but temporary, and by the prospect of a speedy change in the relative position of the parties. A.—It is designed as a vindication of the ways of God in sight of the different fortunes of the righteous and the wicked in this world. It is no mere commonplace on the shortness of life and the uncertainty of riches. It is no philosophical dissertation, which bids us bear up bravely in our perils and sufferings, telling us that virtue is its own reward. It goes at once to the root of the matter. It shows us not only the vanity of riches, but the end of those who "boast themselves in their riches." It comforts the righteous in their oppression and affliction, not merely by the assurance that they shall finally triumph over the wicked, but by the more glorious hope of life everlasting with God. Here is the true ground of consolation, that God will not only not forsake those who trust in Him in this life, but that He will take them to Himself. It is this doctrine specially enunciated ated which gives the Psalm its distinctive character, and which leads the Psalmist himself to claim for it so attentive a hearing. The Psalm consists of three parts. First, an introduction, in which the whole world is called upon to listen to the words of the poet, and in which he further declares that he speaks by Divine inspiration (vs. 1-4). Then follows the main body of the poem, in two principal divisions, marked by the refrain, which closes each (vs. 5-12 and vs. 13-20). The former of these contains, generally, a description of men prosperous and rich, whose riches puff them up with pride, and with the foolish imagination that they can secure for themselves an immortality upon earth; but who are so far from being able to save themselves or others from death by their riches, that they are no better than the beasts that perish (vs. 5-12). The remainder of the Psalm deals chiefly with the consolation to be derived from the end of the righteous, as contrasted with the end of the worldly (vs. 13-20). P. 1-4. It is a theme of common human interest that the poet means to treat of, and therefore he calls upon all the peoples and all the inhabitants of the world. This term denotes primarily temporal life, which slips away unnoticed, then the world itself which passes away in time. He purposes to proclaim to the rich the nullity of their false ground of hope and to the poor the superiority of the true ground, and therefore he desires for himself as pupils both children of common people, who are men and have nothing to distinguish them from others, and children of people of quality—rich and poor, as he adds by way of explanation. For his mouth will or shall utter not a great variety of wise doctrines, but weighty wisdom. D. 1. The word translated world means primarily duration or continued existence; then more specifically, human life, the present state of things; and by a natural transition, the world, as the place where it is spent. A. 2. The Psalm opens by calling the attention of all people of every possible rank in life. The Hebrew language has two very unlike words for man; one drawn from the earth, and significant of frailty; the other significant of his relative strength and nobility. Both are brought together here: man, the low; and man, the high. This distinction is germain to the present theme; an admonition to the rich and the nobly born, suggesting that they forbear to set undue value on wealth and honor, and a comfort to the poor of humble origin, inasmuch as the more enduring good of God's favor and love are free to their choice and fully within their attainment. C.—Let those that are high and rich in the world hear of the vanity of their worldly possessions, and not be proud of them, nor secure in the enjoyment of them, but lay them out in doing good, that with them they may make to themselves friends; let those that are poor and low hear this, and be content with their little, and not envy those that have abundance. Poor people are as much in danger from an inordinate desire toward the wealth of the world as rich people from an inordinate delight in it. H. 3. "Wisdom" and "understanding" have here the meaning common in the Proverbs of Solomon, practical sound sense in the choice of the highest and best good of life—viz., God's favor and love—far above all the glittering, fallacious treasures of earth. C. 4. I will incline mine ear, as one who listens patiently for the Divine revelation. The inspiration of the poet, as well as that of the prophet, is from above. He cannot speak of his own heart; he must hear what God the Lord will say. P. 5. Why should I fear in days of evil (when), the iniquity of my oppressors (or supplanters) shall surround me? The theme of the whole Psalm is the negative proposition involved in this interrogation—namely, that the righteous has no cause to fear, even when surrounded by powerful and spiteful enemies. A.—The consolatory result at which he has arrived, after looking at the world, and weighing in the balance those whose fortune seems fair and prosperous, is placed first, before he tells the tale, as in chaps. 37:1; 73:1. It should be remarked, that the rich men of the Psalm are not described as "the wicked," "the ungodly," "the violent," etc., as in other Psalms. Only one hint is given, in the word "iniquity" (v. 5), that they are evil men. But this seems to be designed, as in our Lord's parable of the rich man and Lazarus, to show that the selfish, proud, boastful use of riches, the mere luxuriousness of wealth, apart from violence or unscrupulousness of conduct, is evil, and finds its end in the outer darkness. 6-9. All that is here taught is, that no wealth can save a man from death, because the life of men is not in their own hands, or in that of their fellows, but only in the hand of God, who cannot be bribed. There is a kind of solemn irony in the idea of the richest of men offering all his riches to God to escape death. P.—With all his wealth not a man of them can redeem his brother from death and the grave! They may have unbounded trust in their riches, they may make any amount of display of their abundant wealth, and may shine before the eyes of men (so the Hebrew word for "boast" implies); but God will by no means accept their gold as a ransom from the grave. Such redemption of the soul (life) is costly; it costs too much for them to pay in gold. One desists from the effort forever, or he utterly and forever fails to make up an adequate ransom, and therefore all hope of success perishes forever. The former seems to be more precisely the sense of the original; man must give over the effort in eternal despair! The richest of men will not, cannot, live forever so as not to see the corruptions of the grave. C. 6. A man may have abundance of the wealth of this world and be made better by it, may thereby have his heart enlarged in love and thankfulness and obedience, and may do that good with it which will be fruit abounding to his account; and therefore it is not men's having riches that denominates them worldly, but their setting their hearts upon them as the best things; and so these worldly people are here described. 1. They repose a confidence in their riches; they trust in their wealth; they depend upon it as their portion and happiness, and expect that it will secure them from all evil, and supply them with all good, and that they need nothing else, no, not God Himself. 2. They take a pride in their riches; they boast themselves in the multitude of them, as if they were sure tokens of God's favor, and certain proofs of their own ingenuity and industry. My might and the power of my hand have gotten me this wealth; as if they made them truly great and happy, and more really excellent than their neighbors. H.—As a rule, rich men are content with the world as it is—naturally; for, as they think, the world has dealt very kindly by them, and therefore they see no great need for bettering it. And then, if they hoard their money, it speedily becomes a rival with Christ in their affections; while, if they spend it, they multiply the luxuries and enjoyments which relax their moral fibre, and dispose them to an easy toleration of much that is mean and sensual in themselves and in their neighbors. If they seek to rise in the world, to make themselves a great place and name, they must give themselves to the endeavor with a devotion which is always in danger of becoming excessive. In short, wealth has many wiles; it is full of all deceitfulness; and no man is worthy of profounder honor than the rich man who keeps himself unspotted, whether by world or Church. Cox. However acquired, if wealth is not held and kept as a solemn trust in stewardship for God, it tends to attract the heart and hold it fast to itself. It narrows the range of sympathy; it tempts one to treat his poorer neighbor with scorn and neglect. It leads him to exalt pride above humanity. He is in danger of forgetting whence his affluence came, who gave it, and who continues it, and who can make it worthless in a moment. He is in danger of forgetting God in the idolatry of his wealth; of counting himself, with the resources at his command, independent of the great Giver; of living to enjoy his money rather than employ it for God. There is danger of its becoming his greatest curse—its very touch infecting his soul with a kind of leprosy—his grasp upon it leading him to neglect to seize upon what is infinitely more important. There is danger of his regarding it as his own, exclusive of the claims of God, and employing it as an instrument of luxury and pride, building and furnishing himself a heaven with it here, to the neglect of a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. E. H. G.—The price which the rich man pays for his wealth is the temptation to be selfish. They have paid in spirituals for what they have gained in temporals. Now, if you are crying for a share in that wealth, and a participation in that power, you must be content to run the risk of becoming as hard and selfish and overbearing as the man whom you denounce. Blame their sins if you will, or despise their advantages; but do not think that you can covet their advantages and keep clear of their temptations. God is on the side of the poor, and the persecuted, and the mourners—a light in darkness and a life in death. But the poverty, and the persecution, and the darkness are the condition on which they feel God's presence. They must not expect to have the enjoyment of wealth and the spiritual blessings annexed to poverty at the same time. If you will be rich, you must be content to pay the price of falling into temptation, and a snare, and many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in perdition; and if that price be too high to pay, then you must be content with the quiet valleys of existence, where alone it is well with us; kept out of the inheritance, but having instead God for your portion, your all-sufficient and everlasting portion. Peace, and quietness, and rest with Christ. F. W. R. 7-9. The thought of man's redemption of himself is far from the poet's mind; the antithesis esis he has in view is this: one man cannot redeem another; God alone can redeem man. That none of his fellows can redeem a man, is expressed in the strongest possible manner. Luther's rendering is substantially correct: a brother can no one redeem, nor make atonement for any one to God. With a slight tinge of irony v. 8 says that the ransom which would have to be paid for the souls of men is dear or of large amount, i.e., exorbitant, and that he (who would fain pay it down) lets it alone (must let it alone) forever. This is clear grammatically and quite in keeping with the contest. We take v. 8 as a parenthesis; the principal clause (v. 10) declares: no man can give to God a ransom that defends another from death, so that he should live on without seeing the pit, i.e., without having to sink down into the grave. D. 7. Give to God a ransom for him.** Death is but the jailor or the prison; the ransom must be one which God accepts, and God is the only Redeemer. 8. The redemption . . . precious.** So costly that it cannot be achieved (see Job 36: 18, 19); when the fatal blow is once inflicted, "then a great ransom cannot deliver thee." And it ceaseth, or, "and he gives it up," i.e., abandons the attempt; then each man once lost will remain unredeemed forever; no mediation will avail, or be thought of hereafter. Cook.—We cannot bribe death, that our brother should still live, much less that he should live forever in this world, nor bribe the grave, that he should not see corruption; for we must needs die and return to the dust, and there is no discharge from that war. What folly is it to trust to and boast of that which will not enable us so much as for one hour to respite the execution of the sentence of death upon a parent, a child, or a friend that is to us as our own soul! H. 10. Wise men. Not simply meaning that their wisdom cannot save them, but that their utmost wisdom will not lead them to make so profitable a use of their wealth as thereby to escape the grave. Die . . . perish,** the words seem purposely chosen to denote the end respectively of the wise and the brutish. P. 10-14. "For" assigns a reason for accepting the truth previously stated. Every observer of human life will see that the rich, whether wise or foolish, die and are compelled to leave their hoarded wealth to others. It matters not how wise they may have been, nor, on the other hand, how foolish or even brutish; all alike must in their time go down to the grave and leave their riches to others. They may have inwardly thought that their houses would stand forever, and they may have tacitly assumed that their own life would be as permanent as their earthly mansions. They may have even given their own names to their estates and magnificent establishments; but this insures no perpetuity to their own frail life. So perish all man's vain hopes of an earthly immortality! A few days or years only, and he is numbered with the dead, and the places that knew him once shall know him no more! C. 11. Their inward thought is. This expresses the sense of the Hebrew, which is singularly forcible; it means that their whole inner man (see v. 9) is filled with one thought: they know they must die, but then their houses will stand for many generations, their lands will bear their name, and preserve their memory. Cook.—Though he seeth that all die, the godly and the wicked, still there is the cleaving imagination of an eternity on this side of death. He builds as securely on the world as if the world were to last forever. The worldly generation that succeed him shall admire his wisdom, honor him for the prosperity to which he has risen, praise him for the success of his own selfishness, even as he congratulated his own wisdom and good fortune while he was alive. Chalmers. Amid unbroken felicity and successes, the worldly spirit increases in power. It becomes strong, absorbing of mind and heart, far-reaching, rancorous, and unsatisfied. Then there is no end to its ambition—no limit to its hopes—no boundary to its aims; it would engross the whole soul and would gain the whole world. There never was a more blind and stupid spirit. It aims after what it does not need and cannot use. It longs to attain that which has no other tendency than to prove a burden. And this stupidity and blindness are not to be cured by moral lectures. Lecture to rock as soon. I. S. Spencer.—The man that accumulates wealth lives for himself. He gathers into his coffers, and he entertains his friends; old age creeps upon him. You know what he is; an isolation, a monument in the midst of a wilderness, a monument of miserliness, of selfishness, a monument that stands solitary Bp. Carpenter. 13. This their way. Both the meaning and the construction of this clause are doubtful. It may mean (1) "This their way (i.e., manner of life, course of conduct) is their folly;" or (2) "This their prosperous condition is (or becomes) their infatuation (blind confidence);" for késél may mean "a stupid security or presumptuous confidence," as well as "folly." As regards the construction, it may be as above, or the clause may consist of two independent sentences: "This is their way; they have confidence;" or finally, the latter part of it may be a relative sentence (as Ewald takes it): "This is the way of those who are foolish." P.—The most probable meaning of this rather obscure verse is, "This is the way of men who are self-confident, and of those after them who approve their sayings." The Selah marks the climax—viz., that they should feel such utterly foolish confidence and transmit their notions to their posterity. Cook.—Notwithstanding the gross folly of such sinners, as proved by the end to which it brings them, they will still find some to walk in their footsteps and to share their ruin. Against this propagated and perpetuated folly there is a tacit but emphatic protest in the meditative pause which follows, and in the Selah which denotes it. A. The world reckons sins not by the inward contrariety to God, but by the outward excesses; and therefore if covetous and worldly men do not break out into acts foul and shameful, they have much of the honor and respect of the world. "Their way," according to the Psalmist, "is folly, yet their posterity praise their sayings"—that is, praise and esteem such a course of life. It is quite possible for the Lord to abhor those whom men bless; for they do not measure sin so much by the inward enmity as by the outward excess. God's hatred arises from His own purity—but man's from the external inconveniences of disgrace and loss. Manton. There is nothing more contagious than example. The multitude are possessed with foolish admiring of worldly greatness, treasures, and delights, neglecting to make a due estimation of things. It is the ordinary artifice of the devil to render temporal things more valuable and attractive to particular persons, from the common practice of men who greedily pursue them as their happiness; as some crafty merchants by false reports raise the exchange, to advance the price of their own wares. The men of the world think those only wise and happy that shine in pomp, abound in riches, and overflow in pleasures. Bates.—Let the reader note how true to the human nature and life of to-day are these records of the life and thought of the rich and worldly men of twenty-five hundred years ago. "Selah;" let this be thought of deeply and laid to heart. C. 14. A further description of the end of these rich fools. They perish like cattle (v. 12); they are laid in the grave; they descend to Hades (Sheol, the world of spirits), and there they are like a flock of sheep, with death for their shepherd, their beauty and their glory gone. P.—Like a flock to the grave they drive; death is their shepherd; and the righteous shall rule over them in the morning; and their form the grave (is) to consume; from (their) home to Him (they go or they belong). This is one of the most obscure and difficult verses in the book, although its general meaning is obvious enough. The figure of a flock is carried out by representing death as the shepherd, by whom they are led or driven. The literal meaning of the words is, Death shall feed them, but the Hebrew verb means to feed as a shepherd; or rather to perform the whole office of a shepherd. A.—Death shall be their shepherd, taking them in charge as the shepherd does his flock. This seems to be the precise sense of the Hebrew verb and its pronoun. They are as sheep, both in their wholesale slaughter and in their falling under the control of death, conceived of as the monarch of the myriads of the dead. The upright shall tread over their fresh graves “in the morning,” for their pleasure-life has been said (v. 12) not to outlast the night. These men, wicked, proud, and rich, are hurried in throngs, like sheep, from their splendid palaces and magnificent estates into the dark and dismal grave—death their shepherd there. Corruption quickly mars their beauty. The earthly homes they build for immortality are their dwelling-places no longer. C. The upright have dominion in the morning. What is meant is a morning, which will be the end of oppression and the dawning of dominion, not only for individual righteous men, but for all the upright; the godless are rooted out, and the righteous now triumph over their graves. In this the end of all history is expressed in Old Testament fashion. According to the New Testament view also, history closes with the triumph of good over evil. D. 15. In grand contrast to all this stands the hope of the righteous. God will redeem him from the hand of Sheol, death has put forth his hand and seized him, but is forced to surrender his captive, for God takes him to Himself (Gen. 5 : 24). This is the plain meaning. To suppose that the Psalmist speaks of deliverance before death is absurd; such a hope would put him on a level with the merest fool, who knows at least that redemption from the universal doom is impossible. It is satisfactory to find those critics who are least inclined to admit anticipations of the Gospel in the Old Testament agreed in this interpretation. None defends it more forcibly than Hupfeld. He says truly that it is not stated as a revealed doctrine, but as a presentiment, a deep inward conviction inseparable from real living faith in a living God. Cook. The lot of the righteous is now contrasted with that of the wicked, but with a personal application to the Psalmist himself, “God shall redeem my soul.” From the power of the unseen world, literally, “from the hand of Sheol,” i.e., the grave and Hades. For He shall take me. This short half-verse is, as Böttcher remarks, the more weighty from its very shortness. The same expression occurs again (73 : 24), “Thou shalt take me;” the original of both being Gen. 5 : 24, where it is used of the translation of Enoch, “He was not; for God took him.” We have, then, in this passage, again (cf. 16 : 11 ; 17 : 15), the strong hope of eternal life with God, if not the hope of a resurrection. In the preceding verse, in the very midst of the gloomy picture which he draws of the end of the ungodly, there breaks forth one morning ray of light—the bright anticipation of the final triumph of the good over the evil. This is the inextinguishable hope which animates the Church of the Old Testament, as well as that of the New. Righteousness shall eventually, must in its very nature, reign upon the earth. The wicked shall find their end in Sheol (see 9 : 18), and the righteous shall trample on their graves. This, and not more than this, seems to have been the meaning, originally, of the Psalmist in the words, “And the righteous have dominion over them in the morning.” But now that he comes to speak of himself, and his own personal relation to God, he rises into a higher strain. He who knows and loves God has the life of God, and can never perish. That life must survive even the shock of death. “God,” says the Psalmist, “shall redeem my soul from the hand of Hades, for He shall take me,” as He took Enoch, and as He took Elijah to Himself. We are not, of course, to suppose that he himself expected to be taken up alive to heaven; but those great facts of former ages were God’s witnesses to man of His immortality, and of the reality of a life with Him beyond this world. It is a hope based on facts like these which here shines forth. It is a hope, not a revealed certainty. It rests on no distinct promise; it has not assumed the definite form of a doctrine. But it was enough to raise, to cheer, to encourage those who saw ungodliness prospering in this world. The end of the wicked, after all, was a thick darkness which had never been penetrated; the end of the righteous, life with God. P. God and He only will redeem my soul from the hand of Sheol; for He will take me, i.e., to Himself. No such state awaits me in the under-world as awaits the ungodly; for my God will take me to His own mansions. The force of the first Hebrew word "only" is quite left out in the English version. It is a thought too precious to be missed. God alone; no other arm save His; I know no other; I trust none other; God by His own Divine arm will redeem my soul from the death-power of Sheol, and from his dominion, compared just before to that of the shepherd controlling his sheep. C.—It is wrong to deny to the Old Testament writers a belief in a future life. Death with them was not an eternal sleep. Death also did not leave them mere shades wandering aimlessly on another shore. No, stronger than death was love of Jehovah, and with Him there must be life hereafter. E. L. Curtis.—The righteous has hope in his death, so has the Psalmist here hope in God concerning his soul. The believing hopes of the soul's redemption from the grave, and reception to glory, are the great support and joy of the children of God in a dying hour. He redeems their souls that He may receive them (31:5). Into Thy hands I commit my spirit, for Thou hast redeemed it. He will receive them into His favor, will admit them into His kingdom, into the mansions that are prepared for them (John 14:2, 3), those everlasting habitations (Luke 16:9). H. 16. Be not thou afraid because a man grows rich, because the glory of his house increases. Here begins the application or practical conclusion of the foregoing meditations. It is marked by a change of form, the Psalmist now no longer speaking of himself, but to himself or to another, as the person most directly interested in his subject. A. 17. When he dies it is taken for granted that he goes into another world himself, but he shall carry nothing away with him of all that which he has been so long heaping up. The greatest and wealthiest cannot therefore be the happiest, because they are never the better for their living in this world; as they came naked into it, they shall go naked out of it. But those have something to show in the other world, for their living in this world, who can say, through grace, that though they came corrupt, and sinful, and spiritually naked into it, they go renewed and sanctified, and well clothed with the righteousness of Christ. H.—All our pieces of gold are but current to the grave; none of them will pass in the future world. Therefore as merchants when they travel make over their moneys here, to receive them by bills of exchange in another country; let us do good with our goods while we live, that when we die, by a blessed bill of exchange, we may receive them again in the kingdom of heaven. To part with that we cannot keep, that we may get that we cannot lose, is a good bargain. Wealth can do us no good, unless it help us toward heaven. Adams. An Eastern legend furnishes a remarkable, though unconscious commentary on these words of the Psalmist. Alexander the Great, we are told, being upon his death-bed commanded that, when he was carried forth to the grave, his hands should not be wrapped, as was usual, in the sercelotts, but should be left outside the bier, so that all men might see them, and might see that they were empty; that there was nothing in them; that he, born to one empire, and the conqueror of another, the possessor, while he lived, of two worlds, of the East, and of the West, and of the treasures of both, yet now when he was dead could retain no smallest portion of those treasures; that in this matter the poorest beggar and he were at length upon equal terms. This was his comment, or the comment of those who may have devised this legend, on the text of the Psalmist. "He shall carry nothing away with him when he dieth; neither shall his pomp follow him." This was his anticipation of the declaration of the apostle, "We brought nothing into the world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." Anon. It is only the meaner things of the earth which lie under the bondage of corruption, which refuse to accompany their owners on that last long journey which, one day or other, every man must make. Whatever is of true value and dignity, whatever is really worth the winning, whatever is akin to the Divine and immortal in man, whatever comes to him from God through Christ (and this includes every good and perfect gift), of all that, nothing can rob him. He shall carry it away with him when he dieth, to be his riches and treasure in the life eternal, as it was his riches and treasure here. Trench.—Let us see to it that not in utter nakedness do we go hence, but clothed with that immortal robe, and rich in those possessions that cannot be taken away from us, which they have who have lived on earth as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Let us pierce, for the foundation of our life's house, beneath the shifting sands of time down to the Rock of Ages, and build there. A. M. Even in regard of earthly things, while it is quite true that a man can carry nothing of them away with him when he dies, he may send much of them before him while he lives. The Apostle Paul declares no less when, urging those who are rich that they be glad to distribute, he proposes this as a motive, that they will be thus "laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come." God will not forget the least of these things that are wrought for His name's sake. Trench. —The world teacheth me that it is madness to leave behind me those goods that I may carry with me. Christianity teacheth me that what I charitably give alive, I carry with me dead; and experience teacheth me that what I leave behind, I lose. I will carry that treasure with me by giving it, which the worldling loseth by keeping it; so, while his corpse shall carry nothing but a winding cloth to his grave, I shall be richer under the earth than I was above it. Bishop II. Character is that which alone we can carry with us out of the world. Everything else, fame, fortune, station, influence, must be left behind; but our character will be our own. If it has been built up of holy aims, and sacred emotions, and the experience of charity and faith; if it has been so shaped and featured that we may trace upon it the image of Jesus; if it is beautiful with the image of penitence, and cheerful obedience, and sweet submission; then it is our unspeakable treasure—our family likeness to the redeemed, the token of our relationship to the Holy Spirit before the throne. It constitutes, by the grace of God, our title to the rank of the nobility of heaven. E. H. G. 18. While he lived, literally, in his life, that life which to him was all in all, to which his hopes and joys were confined. He blessed his soul, i.e., congratulated himself on his prosperity, and indulged all his appetites. Men will praise thee.** A fine point in the sarcasm; the rich man's self-congratulations are echoed by his neighbors; they admire his luxury, his self-indulgence, and repeat his axioms. It is remarkable how the Psalmist exhausts the subject; of all trials to the faith of thoughtful observers none is greater than to see the "honor, reverence, and troops of friends" which surround the rich man, as such, to the very end. Cook. This verse assigns the reason of the fact alleged in the one before it. The wealthy sinner is to carry nothing with him when he dies, bebecause he is to have his "good things" in the present life. This is God's appointment in accordance with his own free choice. In his life (or lifetime), as long as he lives, he is to bless his soul (or himself), i.e., to reckon himself happy, and to be so esteemed by others. In the last clause, the third person is abruptly exchanged for the second, and the wealthy sinner, of whom the Psalmist had been speaking to himself or his disciple, is directly addressed, as if personally present. This application of the figure called apostrophe is made with great skill and rhetorical effect. There is pungent sarcasm in the close of this verse; they will praise thee because thou doest good—to thyself. Or, because thou doest well—for thyself. The addition of this last phrase serves to characterize vividly not only the rich sinner, but his flatterers. There can be little doubt that our Saviour tacitly alluded to the first clause of this verse, when He made Abraham say to Dives, "Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented" (Luke 16: 25). This is indeed a most instructive commentary on the passage now before us, as exhibiting the future revolution in the relative position of the parties, as a reason for not envying the wealthy sinner now. It is equally certain that the Rich Fool's address to his own soul, in Luke 12: 19, was suggested by the same clause of the Psalm before us, in his lifetime he will bless his soul. Indeed the whole conception of the Rich Man in the one case, and the Rich Fool in the other, may be said to be borrowed from this Psalm, and may therefore derive instructive and interesting illustration from it. A. To-day God gives us time, and with it opportunity. The precious gift is in our hands; the past cannot be recalled; the future cannot be foreseen. To-morrow, of which we so often boast ourselves, may never come to us. We do not live to-morrow. The man who owns whole blocks of real estate and great ships on the sea does not own a single minute of to-morrow! Anon. Of the priceless gift of time, how much will one day be seen to have been lost; how ruinous shall we deem our investment of this our most precious stock! How many interests, occupations, engagements, friendships—I speak not of the avowed ways of "killing time," as it is termed with piteous accuracy—will be then regarded only as so many expedients for assuring our failure to compass the true end of our existence! It may not now seem possible that we should ever think thus. Life is like the summer's day; and in the first fresh morning we do not realize the noonday heat, and at noon we do not think of the shadows lengthening across the plain, and of the setting sun, and of the advancing night. Yet, to each and all, the sunset comes at last; and those who have made most of the day are not unlikely to reflect how little they have made of it. H. P. L. 19. Go to the generation of his fathers.** The clause has reference to the frequent description of death in the Old Testament as a man's sleeping with his fathers, or being gathered to his fathers. The meaning of the whole verse is, that the wealthy sinner is to die as his fathers died before him, and continue dead like them, without returning to revisit, much less to repossess, the riches and honors which he once imagined were to last forever. This completes the proof that these advantages are not legitimate or even rational occasions of envious dissatisfaction to the righteous. 20. At the close of the first strophe, the rich fool is compared to the brutes that perish, with respect to the uncertainty of his enjoyments; and again at the close of the second, with respect to his irrationality, the points of comparison being distinct but inseparable. No wonder that the sinner is cut off unawares like the brutes, when in fact he is equally irrational. A. 1. God, even God, the LORD, hath spoken, And called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof. 2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined forth. 3 Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence: A fire shall devour before him, And it shall be very tempestuous round about him. 4 He shall call to the heavens above, And to the earth, that he may judge his people: 5 Gather my saints [beloved] together unto me; Those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice. 6 And the heavens shall declare his righteous- ness; For God is judge himself. [Selah 7 Hear, O my people, and I will speak; O Israel, and I will testify unto [against] thee: I am God, even thy God. 8 I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; And thy burnt offerings are continually be- fore me. 9 I will take no bullock out of thy house, Nor he-goats out of thy folds. 10. For every beast of the forest is mine, And the cattle upon a thousand hills. 11 I know all the fowls of the mountains: And the wild beasts of the field are mine. 12 If I were hungry, I would not tell thee: For the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. 13 Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats? 14 Offer unto God the sacrifice of thanksgiv- ing; And pay thy vows unto the Most High: 15 And call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. 16 But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes, And that thou hast taken my covenant in thy mouth? 17 Seeing thou hatest instruction, And castest my words behind thee. 18 When thou sawest a thief, thou consentedst with him, And hast been partaker with adulterers. 19 Thou givest thy mouth to evil, And thy tongue frameth deceit. 20 Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; Thou slandestest thine own mother's son. 21. These things hast thou done, and I kept silence; Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself: But I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. 22. Now consider this, ye that forget God. This is the first of twelve Psalms that bear the name of Asaph. The others (73-83) are the first eleven of the third book. Asaph and his sons were leaders of four out of the twenty-four classes into which the musical service for Divine worship was divided by David (1 Chr. 23: 2-5). As a writer of Psalms Asaph is mentioned with David in 2 Chr. 29: 30, where he is also called "the seer." The Asaphic Psalms have several characteristics in common. They are distinguished by loftiness of tone, combined with spirited and picturesque expression, and especially by their frequent exhibition of the sovereign judgment of God as determining the future. De Witt. This Psalm furnishes us with no evidence as to the time of its composition, but in elegance and sublimity of language, in force and dignity, it is worthy of the best days of Hebrew poetry. It is a magnificent exposition of the true nature of that service and worship which God requires from man. It rebukes the folly which thinks that religion is a matter of sacrifices and gifts, and declares that obedience and thanksgiving are the true fulfilling of the law. It condemns alike a prevalent formalism and a prevalent hypocrisy. How needful it was to insist upon such truths we learn from the whole history of Israel and the perpetual and indignant remonstrances of the prophets. The tendency to substitute the outward act for the inward, the sacrifices of bulls and goats for the sacrifice of thanksgiving, was deeply ingrained in the nation, till at last it ossified in Pharisaism, and wore its most hideous aspect on that day of solemn Passover, when the sacrifices of the law were offered by those whose hands were stained with the greatest crime which the world has seen. In its general tone and character it is essentially prophetic. In vs. 8-15 Hengstenberg remarks that prevailing errors as to the first table of the law, the worship of God, are condemned. In vs. 16-21 the discourse turns to the second table. Here those are reproved who have the law of God constantly in their mouths, and at the same time wickedly transgress it in their behavior toward their neighbor. P. Lest I tear you in pieces, and there be none to deliver: 23. Whoso offereth the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifieth me; And to him that ordereth his conversation aright Will I shew the salvation of God. The theme of this Psalm is, God, the Judge of all the earth, holding men to sincere and honest worship of God and to intrinsic righteousness toward men, i.e., to obedience as to both the first table of the law and the second. Under the first head, God does not reprove His people for failure in the external rites of sacrifice and offering, but insists upon thanksgiving, the payment of vows, and prayer for Divine help in all trouble. The wicked He rebukes for insincere religion; for a heart utterly out of sympathy with God's Word and will, and in sympathy with thieves, adulterers, and with slander of nearest friends. C. This ode, sublime in its imagery and its scenic breadth of conception, is a canon of the relationship of men, as professed worshippers of God, toward Him who spurns from His presence the hypocrite and the profligate and the malignant, but invites the sincere and the humble on terms of favor. The Psalm is sternly moral in its tone, and makes its way with anatomic keenness through the surface to the conscience of those who are easily content with themselves, so long as they keep clear of overt acts of sin. It is God's voice we hear, for man has never spoken in any such manner as this to his fellows. I. T. The central thought of this Psalm is the inefficacy of outward sacrifices compared with the offerings of the heart and purity of life. The same principle is distinctly recognized in the Davidic Psalms (see 40: 6, 8; 69: 30, 31; 51: 16, 17) and by all the prophets, but is nowhere set forth more explicitly and solemnly than in this Psalm; the circumstance that it is the composition of a chief among the Levites, whose whole life was devoted to the temple-service, is specially important, showing how unfounded is the notion of a spirit of opposition or rivalry between the prophetic and priestly orders in the best days of Israel. Cook. 1-6. A magnificent exordium, in which the whole scene of judgment is described. As formerly, at the giving of the law on Sinai, so now, God is represented as appearing in Zion for the explanation of it, and for judgment against its transgressors. He comes with all the terrors of thunder and lightning and storm. He summons before His judgment-seat those whom He has taken into covenant with Himself; and at the same time, as exercising universal dominion, He calls heaven and earth to be His witnesses against them. P—The exordium of this Psalm is the most grand and striking that can possibly be imagined—the speaker God, the audience an assembled world! We cannot compare or assimilate the scene here presented with any human resemblance; nor will earth ever behold such a day till that hour when the trumpet of the archangel shall sound, and shall gather all the nations of the earth from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other; when the dead, small and great, shall stand before God. Bouchier. 1. Three Divine names are put together in a kind of climax, El, Elohim, Jehovah. The first represents God as almighty, the second as the only proper object of worship and (by its plural form) as perfect, the third as self-existent and eternal, and at the same time as the peculiar God of Israel. The same combination occurs in Josh. 22:22. It is here intended to enhance the grandeur of the scene by setting forth the titles of the judge or sovereign. A. —The Psalm opens with the three most common and distinct names of God—El, Elohim, Jehovah—best rendered, the Almighty, God, Jehovah or Lord. The first gives the element of supreme power; the second, that combination of infinite qualities which makes Him the only proper object of worship; the third, makes prominent His changeless, eternal nature, and consequently His faithfulness to His word. The name Jehovah commonly represents Him as the God of His covenant people. This great God hath spoken and hath convened the whole earth, summoning all before His tribunal, from extremest east to remotest west. C. 2. When the Bible speaks of Zion as the dwelling-place of God, it is but the expression of the fact that there, between the cherubim, was the visible sign of His presence—that there, in the temple, as from the centre of the whole land, He ruled, and “out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shone.” The idea of the dwelling of God with men had its less perfect embodiment, has its more perfect embodiment, will have its absolutely perfect embodiment. It had its less perfect in that ancient time. It has its real but partial embodiment in this present time, when, in the midst of the whole community of believing and loving souls, which stretches wider than any society that calls itself a church, the living God abides and energizes by His Spirit and by His Son in the souls of them that believe upon Him. “Ye are come unto Mount Zion and unto the city of the living God.” And we wait for the time when, filling all the air with its light, there shall come down from God a perfect and permanent form of that dwelling; and that great city, the New Jerusalem, “having the glory of God,” shall appear, and He will dwell with men and be their God. But in all these stages of the embodiment of that great truth the glory of Zion rests in this, that in it God abides, that from it He flames in the greatness of His manifestations, which are “His praise in all the earth.” It is that presence which makes her fair, as it is that presence which keeps her safe. A. M. 3 (first clause). The future in the first clause may be rendered He is coming, as if the sound of His voice and the light of His glory had preceded His actual appearance. The imagery is borrowed from the giving of the law at Sinai. A.—He who has given the law will enter into judgment with those who have it and do not observe it; He cannot forever look on in silence. He must punish in the first instance with words, in order to warn against punishment by deeds. Fire and storm are the heralds of the Law-giver of Sinai who appears as Judge. The fire threatens to consume the sinners, and the storm threatens to drive them away like chaff. The fire is His wrath, and the storm the power of His wrath. D. Our Lord Jesus has been prophesied of in this Psalm, wherein we have heard and sung, “God will come manifested, our God, and will not keep silence.” For the Lord Christ Himself, our God, the Son of God, in His first Advent came hidden, in His second will come manifested. When He came hidden, He was known only to His own servants; when He will come manifested, He will be known both to good and bad. When He came hidden, He came to be judged; when He will come manifested, He will come to judge. Lastly, when at that time He was judged, He kept silence; and of His silence the prophet had foretold, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer so He opened not His mouth.” But He will not be silent when He is to judge, as He was when He was to be judged. Even now, if there is any one to listen, He is not silent; but, it is said, then “He will not keep silence,” when even those who now contemn His voice shall recognize it. Augustine. The Son of God will come in His glory with His angels. For "He will come, and will not keep silence"—that is, when He will come to judge the quick and the dead, and to render to every man according to his work; when that trumpet with its great and terrible sound will awaken those who have slept since the world began, and they will "come forth, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation." Remember the heaven-sent vision of Daniel, how it brings the judgment before our eyes. "I beheld," he says, "until thrones were set, and the Ancient of days did sit; His garment was white as snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool, and His wheels a burning fire. A river of fire was rolling before Him. Thousand thousands ministered unto Him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him; a judgment was set, and books were opened;" books openly unfolded, things good, things bad, things manifest, things hidden, acts, words, thoughts, all things at once, so as to be heard by all, both men and angels. And those who have led evil lives, with what feeling must they needs face all this? Basil. 6. And (now) the heavens have declared His righteousness, for God (is) judge Himself. Selah. The heavens are witnesses of God's judicial rectitude, for He Himself (and not a delegated man or angel) is the judge. The parties and the witnesses having been summoned, the judicial process now begins. The pause, denoted by the Selah, is one indicative of awe, excited by the dread solemnity of these proceedings. A. —All this confessedly metaphorical representation of a judicial period is intended undoubtedly to convey the solemn general truth that every man's religion will one day be tried as by fire. We may deceive ourselves, as well as others now; but the undeceiving period draweth near, and a period of inexpressible solemnity it will be to us all. D. Thomas. 7-15. From His judgment-seat God solemnly rebukes the errors and delusions which prevailed as to the nature of His service. He reminds His people of the peculiar relation in which they stand to Him, and asks if they can believe that sacrifices, merely as sacrifices, can be of any value to Him who has all creatures at His command. Thanksgiving and prayer are the sacrifices in which He delights, and these will best avail in the day of trouble. P. —God will not enter into judgment with them on account of sacrifices in the external sense, for He needs not sacrifices from Israel. His is every wild beast of the forest, His are the animals upon the mountains of thousands, i.e., the thousand (and more than thousand) mountains. D.—"I am not now rebuking thee for neglecting the forms and ritualities of sacrifice. This is not the charge brought against thee. It is not thy bullocks or he-goats that I now demand. All the cattle of the earth—the wild and the tame—are Mine." The "beasts of the forest" are wild animals, while the cattle on the hills are domestic. The tone of these verses seem to imply that Israel had not been specially deficient in the rituals and externals of the Mosaic system. It also implies that God regards the worship of the heart as incomparably more important than these externals. C. The reason for this act of judgment is given. First, negatively; it is not because the people had neglected the externals of the law, or had forgotten to offer the sacrifices appointed by the law. They had brought them; but they had brought them as if the act were everything, and as if the meaning of the act and the spirit in which it was done were nothing. But God demands no service for its own sake, but only as the expression of an obedient will. A thankful heart is more than all burnt-offerings. The prophets are full of the like sentiments. Thus, in Isaiah, God expostulates, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams" (1: 12). Micah asks, "Will Jehovah be pleased with thousands of rams?" (6: 6-8.) Hosea testifies, "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice." And so deep-rooted was this tendency in the people to exaggerate the importance of the dead work, to bring the sacrifice of the dumb animal instead of the sacrifice of the heart, that Jeremiah carries the opposition between sacrifices and obedience to the extreme of a paradox (7: 22, 23). P. To obey is better than sacrifice, and to love God and our neighbor, better than all burnt-offerings, so much better that God by His prophets often told them that their sacrifices were not only not acceptable, but abominable to Him, while they lived in sin; instead of pleasing Him, He looked upon them as a mockery, and therefore an affront and provocation to Him. They are therefore here warned not to rest in these performances; but to conduct themselves, in all other instances, toward God as their God. H.—It is even so to day. Sacraments (so called) and sacred rites are the main concern with unconverted but religious men, but with the Most High the spiritual worship which they forget is the sole matter. Let the external be maintained by all means according to the Divine command, but if the secret and spiritual be not in them, they are a vain oblation, a dead ritual, and even an abomination before the Lord. S. 12. There is no portion of our time that is our time, and the rest God's; there is no portion of money that is our money, and the rest God's money. It is all His; He made it all, gives it all, and He has simply trusted it to us for His service. A servant has two purses, the master's and his own; but we have only one. Monod. 13. Will I eat the flesh of bulls and drink the blood of goats? The future of the Hebrew verb is very expressive, suggesting the ideas of possibility, necessity, and desire. Do I desire the flesh and blood of beasts for My refreshment? Do I need them for My sustenance? Or is it even possible for Me to use them, in the way that you imagine? The negative answer, which is obviously expected to these questions, presupposes the great doctrine that Jehovah is a spirit and as such exempt from all corporeal necessities. This, then, is another refutation of the gross and impious error that He needed their oblations. If they were necessary in themselves, He could obtain them elsewhere; and that they are not necessary, follows as an inevitable consequence from the spirituality of the Divine nature. This is the language of impassioned and indignant expostulation, holding up the absurdities, to which the error of the formal worshipper inevitably tended, as a refutation of the error itself. A. 14,15. There follows now, positively, what God requires. The sacrifices which He would have are thanksgiving and the prayer of faith in the time of trouble. Under the name of thanksgiving and prayer all the rest of religion is comprehended. P.—On the side of things positively required stand thanksgiving—the grateful acknowledgment of mercies received from God; a perpetual recognition of His favors and of the love from which they come. Next, the payment of vows unto the Most High, i.e., honest and truthful dealing with God, recognizing Him as really existing, and a vow to Him therefore as a real obligation to a personal being. Next (remarkably) God invites (shall we not say requires?) them to call upon Himself in the day of their trouble, giving the promise that in such case He will set them free from such trouble and they shall glorify Him for this deliverance. The beautiful thing here is that God seems to recognize it as one of His rights and privileges to be called upon by His people for help in their time of need, asking only that then they suitably acknowledge His delivering grace and give Him the honor due therefor. Is it not wonderful? Yet it is like God! C. 14. Offer unto God thanksgiving**, literally, "sacrifice thanksgiving;" i.e., instead of the legal "sacrifice of peace offerings for a thanksgiving or a vow" (Lev. 7: 11-16), the true worshipper must offer that which the victim represents—viz., praise from a grateful heart, and all duties to which he is bound by the terms of his covenant with God. This does not imply that the outer forms are to be omitted, but that they are valueless, except as the expression of genuine devotion and obedience to God's will. The reader must always bear in mind the Hebrew idiom, which, if taken literally, would seem to condemn that which it simply represents as of subordinate and conditional importance. It must not be supposed that this view implies a more advanced stage of religious consciousness than is found in the Pentateuch; for in that book all the obligations of the law are summed up in circumcision of the heart, and duty to God and man resting on the one great central principle of love. Cook. Everywhere throughout Scripture is gratitude represented as a necessary quality of acceptable prayer. A humble heart not only brings the sin-offering before the Lord, but the thank-offering. Hear the duties of the devout life summed up in a few brief sentences: "Offer unto God thanksgiving, and pay thy vows unto the Most High; call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee; and thou shalt glorify Me." And study well an example full of these important lessons. Paul and Silas, covered with bruises, their feet in the stocks, cast into the dungeon of the prison, if they had been like some people we have seen, would have forgotten praise in the agony of prayer for deliverance. But it seems they "sang praises to God, and the prisoners heard them." Aye, and God heard them. Potts.—Call upon Me in the day of trouble. Our troubles, though we see them coming from God's hand, must drive us to Him, and not drive us from Him. We must thus acknowledge Him in all our ways, depend upon His wisdom, power, and goodness, and refer ourselves entirely to Him, and so give Him glory. This is a readier way of seeking His favor than by a peace-offering, and yet more acceptable. When He in answer to our prayers delivers us, as He has promised to do in such a way and time as He shall think fit, we must glorify Him, not only by a grateful mention of His favor, but by living to His praise. Thus must we keep up our communion with God; meeting Him with our prayers when He afflicts us, and with our praises when He delivers us. H. Thankfulness should mingle with all our thoughts and feelings, like the fragrance of some penetrating perfume through the common scentless air. It should embrace all events. It should be an operating motion in all actions. We should be clear-sighted and believing enough to be thankful for pain and disappointment and loss. That gratitude will add the crowning consecration to service and knowledge and endurance. It will touch our spirits to the finest of all issues, for it will lead to glad self-surrender, and make of our whole life a sacrifice of praise. A. M. Prayer is the outlet of the saints' sorrows and the inlet of their supports and comforts. Flavel.—If your mind be overcharged with trouble and anxiety, go into the presence of God and spread your case before Him. Though He knows the desires of your hearts, yet He has declared He "will be sought after;" He will be "inquired of to do it for you." Go, therefore, into the presence of that God who will at once tranquillize your spirit, give you what you wish, or make you more happy without it, and who will be your everlasting consolation if you trust in Him. He will breathe peace into your soul, and command tranquillity in the midst of the greatest storms. How much are they to be pitied who never pray! R. Hall. The boldest words from a loving heart, jealous of God's honor, are not irreverent in His eyes. Perfect love casts out fear and deepens reverence. We may come with free hearts, from which every weight of trembling and every cloud of doubt has been lifted. But the less the dread, the lower we shall bow before the loftiness which we love. We do not pray aright until we tell God everything. The boldness which we as Christians ought to have means literally a frank speaking out of all that is in our hearts. Such "boldness and access with confidence" will often make short work of so-called seemly reverence, but it will never transgress by so much as a hair's-breadth the limits of lowly, trustful love. A. M. 16-21. There were those in Israel who not only exalted the outward service unduly, but who made its punctual observance a cloak for and a makeweight against their iniquity. The first evil, indeed, of superstitious formalism naturally engendered the still deadlier evil of conscious hypocrisy. Against hypocrites the Divine rebuke is now directed. Compare Rom. 2: 17-24. P.—This earnest rebuke applies in all its force to those who by acts more or less public recognize God's law as binding and take His covenant into their lips, yet in heart hate the restraints of duty to God, hate the instruction which demands a holy life, and thrust from them the claims of God. C.—We may deny Christ in our action and practice, and these speak much louder than our tongue. To have an orthodox belief and profession concurring with a bad life, is only to deny Christ with a greater solemnity. South. 19,20. Mischief and slander are brought out here. The first verb, "givest," is strong; sendest forth, giving it unbounded range and no restraint; making the doing of evil its distinct and direct function, its mission, its business. The tongue concocts deceit—artful schemes for mischief. "Sittest and speakest"—as if sitting down to a day's work, making a business of slander. C. 21. These things hast thou done, and I have held My peace; thou hast imagined I was just like thyself. I will reprove thee, and array (thy sins) before thine eyes. God is described as silent when He does not interpose with His reproofs or manifest His displeasure. Array, arrange, set in order, so that none shall be emitted or overlooked. Before thine eyes, literally, to thine eyes, or to thy face, again implying that the sight of them is not to be avoided. This declaration of severe fidelity forms an appropriate conclusion to the second lesson of the Psalm, or that in which the mask is stripped off from the vicious hypocrite, who professes to serve God while he lives in the grossest violation of His precepts, as in the first part (vs. 7-15) it was torn from the formal hypocrite, who satisfies himself with a mere outward and mechanical performance of rites designed to be significant of spiritual and devout affections. A. Because the sinner is allowed to go on long unpunished, he waxes confident by his impunity, and imagines that God is like himself, and that good and evil are things indifferent; not that he says so in words, but his conduct shows his ignorance both of the exceeding sinfulness of sin and of the truth and righteousness of God. P.—"Because vengeance against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart is fully set on evil." So here: While thou wast committing these sins I kept silence; and then, so far from interpreting this silence as only the longsuffering of God designed for salvation, to give thee space to repent, thou thoughtest that I was really and entirely like thyself—well enough pleased with sin and sinners. C. I kept silence. God has spoken, and now He is giving mankind a trial, to see whether they will heed what He says. “All things continue as they were;” and an infidel may deny God if he pleases, and a bad man may defy God if he pleases. No lightning falls from heaven to blast him who denies, or him who defies. Since we know God to be grievously displeased with sin, there is something very awful in His keeping silence while it is committed under His eyes. In countries where earthquakes happen, a dead silence always goes before the earthquake. So it is with God’s silence. It will be followed, when it seems deepest, by the earthquake of His judgments. E. M. G. I will lay in order—the whole sin in all its evil course, its poisonous root, and its deadly branches shall be put before the man. The sin that he did and would not look at, God shall make him look upon. The sin which he thought he could hide from God, or which, with strange infatuation, he supposed God took no notice of, shall be proclaimed upon the housetops. P.—What a narrow and finite apprehension this is of God! He that causeth and produceth every action—shall He not be present at every action? What can we do without Him that cannot move but in Him? He that takes notice of sparrows and numbers the seeds which the very ploughman thrusts in the ground, can any action of man escape His knowledge or slip from His contemplation? He may seem to wink at things, but never shuts His eyes. He doth not always manifest a reprehensible knowledge, yet He always retains an apprehensive knowledge. T. Adams. Men think that some declarations of God are fitted only to make them mad; that He takes little notice of these things and will easily pass them by, as they suppose better becomes Him. This is their inward thought, “The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil,” which, says the Psalmist, is men’s “thinking that God is such a one as themselves.” They have no serious thoughts of His greatness, holiness, purity, severity, but think He is like themselves, so far as not to be much moved with what they do. If, with them, a slight ejaculation be enough to expiate sin that their consciences be no more troubled, they think it is enough with God that it be not punished. All sin’s concernments flow from its relation to God; and as men’s apprehensions are of God so will they be of sin, which is an opposition to Him. This is the frame of the most of men; they know little of God and are little troubled about anything that relates to Him. God is not reverenced, sin is but a trifle, forgiveness is a matter of nothing; whoso will may have it for asking! Whereas he who is not acquainted with God’s holiness and purity, who knows not sin’s desert and sinfulness, knows nothing of forgiveness. Owen. No searching can find out in Scripture any plans or promises of winning offers and tender appeals, that are to be made to those in the next world, who abuse the strivings of the Holy Spirit in this world. Therefore we would shudder to encourage people to depend upon calls to repentance after death, of which there is no echo in this world, or indication in the Word of God. We are not called upon to believe in the perdition tortures of Dante, Milton, Edwards, and others of olden time. But we do believe, and bow our heads to Him who, the gentle Jesus that He was, spoke again and again of the consequences of continued sin, in a way to make it frightfully sure that, beyond the sight of this world, there is a scene of retribution, which is unrelieved by the joys of redemption. J. L. Withrow. 22. Men live “without God in the world.” They fill their lives, or strive to do, without Him who is the alone abiding fulness; and direct their conduct without reference to His authority; and habitually act from principles which He condemns; and seek after ends which are different from and inconsistent with the great ends He has put before us all. They forget God—live and act much as if He had not spoken, as if He were not speaking now—almost as if He had no existence. Raleigh.—To the mind of the unbeliever God can scarcely be said to exist. For him and to his apprehension there is no God. Walking amid the multitudinous traces and signatures of Divine power, wisdom, and beneficence, and receiving showers of favor from His hand every moment, the unbeliever entertains no willing thought of his Creator and preserver. J. W. A. 23. (The man) sacrificing praise shall honor Me, and prepare a way (that) I may show him the salvation of God, that of which He is the author. This phrase is used instead of My salvation, for the sake of a more sonorous close. The common version of the first clause makes it an identical proposition: Whoso offereth praise glorifieth Me. At the same time it greatly weakens the expression by the use of the ambiguous term offer. The words are all borrowed from vs. 14, 15, to which there is therefore a direct allusion, and by which the clause must be interpreted. It is really a promise that he whose offerings are genuine expressions of thanksgiving shall have cause or occasion to praise God for His mercies. A.—The Psalm concludes with the assertion of the same truth as v. 14. The lesson of the Psalm for all who pervert the law of God, whether to purposes of superstition or hypocrisy, is the same; God desires the heart and the will of man as the true sacrifice. Sacrificeth thanksgiving, as above, v. 14. The verb is designedly employed in order to mark the nature of the sacrifice which God will have; slay not victims, bring not animals, but bring thanksgiving as sacrifices. There is no duty so commonly forgotten. God showers benefits upon us with both hands, large and free, and we receive them as a matter of course, and never consider whose love has bestowed them; and thus, in our unthankfulness, we rob God of His honor. Further, as thanksgiving is thus dwelt upon because it is so commonly forgotten, so it is also put as the sum of religion because it, in fact, includes all else. Faith, and prayer, and self-denial, and the endurance of the cross, and all holy exercises are, as Calvin observes, comprised in this one grace of thankfulness. P.—Praise is the best sacrifice; true, hearty, gracious thanksgiving from a renewed mind. The songs of redeemed men are the music which the ear of Jehovah delights in. Sacrifice your loving gratitude, and God is honored thereby. Not to ceremonies, not to unpurified lips, is the blessing promised, but to grateful hearts and holy lives. S. When the thought that God's purpose in all His acts is His own glory, is firmly united with that other, that His purpose in all His acts is our blessing, then we begin to understand how full of joy it may be for us. His glory is sought by Him in the manifestation of His loving heart, mirrored in our illuminated and gladdened hearts. To say that God's glory is His great end is surely but another way of saying that He is love. The love that seeks to bless us desires, as all love does, that it should be known for what it is, that it should be recognized in our glad hearts, and smiled back again from our brightened faces. God desires that we should know Him, and so have eternal life; He desires that knowing Him, we should love Him, and loving should praise, and so should glorify Him. He desires that there should be an interchange of love bestowing and love receiving, of gifts showered down, of praise ascending, of fire falling from the heavens, and sweet incense, from grateful hearts, going up in fragrant clouds acceptable unto God. It is a sign of a Fatherly heart that He "seeketh" such to worship Him." He will be glorified by our praise, because He loves us so much. He commences with an offer, He advances to a command. He gives first, and then (not till then) He comes seeking fruit of the "trees" which are "the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified." First, He showers down blessings; then looks for a revenue of praise! A. M. Ordereth his conversation aright. The word "conversation" here must be carefully taken in its ancient, not its modern sense—in the sense of one's entire life, not by any means of one's speech only. The original has no specific reference to speech, though obviously it must include words along with deeds. The specifications of the Psalm include slander and sins of the tongue, but by no means exclude all other sins. The demand is that men be honestly, conscientiously careful to obey God's entire law, and shape their whole life into harmony with His revealed will. So doing they shall richly experience His salvation. C.—Though the main work of religion lies within, yet "our light must so shine" that others may behold it; the foundation of sincerity is in the heart, and sincerity is a holy leaven, which if it be in the heart will work itself into the life, and make it swell and rise as high as heaven. T. Watson. You glorify God when you are fruitful in holiness and obedience. "Herein is My Father glorified," says our Lord, "that ye bear much fruit." You ought to live and walk so as you may in a sort express the glorious perfections of God in your conversation, and that the image of God may be seen stamped on your very lives. Your lives should be a constant hymn to the glory and praise of God, by proclaiming to the world a deep sense of the omniscience, infinite justice, and holiness of that God whom you profess to serve. And you should walk so as others may be induced to glorify God: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father, who is in heaven." Wisheart.—The Spirit of God does what He does in us through our own agency and with our own consciousness. This is the principal drift of the direction, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who (thus) worketh in you to will and to do of His own good pleasure." G. Bowen. This Psalm is remarkable for other things besides its lyric grandeur and dramatic vivacity, and its foregleams of the great white throne and the last assize. It is as spiritual and heart-searching as anything in the Gospels or epistles, and it brings out in a most satisfying way the inner side of the Old Testament religion. This it does without reflecting upon other portions of the Hebrew revelation or introducing a fatal discord between priests and prophets. Chambers. The instruction of the Psalm abides; it has not lost its force. The sacraments and ordinances of the Christian Church may become to us what sacrifice and offering were to the Jews, a mere opus operatum; a man may give all his goods to feed the poor, and yet have no love; a man may be punctual in his attendance at all holy ordinances, and yet cherish iniquity in his heart, and, upon occasion, secretly practise it. Hence the Psalm is truly prophetic—that is, universal in its character. It deals with “the sinners and the hypocrites in Zion,” but it reaches to all men, in all places, to the end of time. P. FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN. A PSALM OF DAVID: WHEN NATHAN THE PROPHET CAME UNTO HIM, AFTER HE HAD GONE IN TO BATH-SHEBA. 1. HAVE mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: According to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.2 Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, And cleanse me from my sin.3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: And my sin is ever before me.4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, And done that which is evil in thy sight: That thou mayest be justified when thou speakest, And be clear when thou judgest.5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; And in sin did my mother conceive me.6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: And in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.8 Make me to hear joy and gladness: That the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.9 Hide thy face from my sins, And blot out all mine iniquities.10 Create in me a clean heart, O God;And renew a right spirit within me11 Cast me not away from thy presence, And take not thy holy Spirit from me.12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation And uphold me with a free [willing] spirit.13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; And sinners shall be converted unto thee.14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation; And my tongue shall sing aloud of thy right- cousness.15 O Lord, open thou my lips; And my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.16 For thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou hast no pleasure in burnt offering.17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.18 Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: Build thou the walls of Jerusalem.19 Then shalt thou delight in the sacrifices of righteousness, in burnt offering and whole burnt offering: Then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar. THE Psalmists run with a rapid hand over the whole scale of the affections of the human spirit seeking after God. We may pass the hardest judgment upon David; yet the tenderest, purest, saintliest, most virgin souls—Augustine, St. Louis, Ken, Keble, Leighton—have found nothing more suitable in life or death than words of his. Nay, it was chiefly with them that our All-Holy Lord broke the silence of Calvary. Bishop Alexander. A tradition as old as Origen gives to a cluster of Psalms (6, 32, 37, 51, 102, 130, and 143) the title of Penitential, as being peculiarly expressive of sorrow for sin. But one of these far exceeds the rest in fulness and depth and intensity. It is the theme of the famous Miserere, which, as sung during Passion Week in the Sistine Chapel at Rome, is a strain of the most powerful, heart-moving pathos ever heard by mortal ear. It is the cry of a broken spirit, a bleeding heart, prostrate under a sense of the dreadful evil of sin, and every line bears the token of genuine, unaffected emotion, the exact transcript of a living experience. Nowhere else in the Old Testament or the New is there so complete an exhibition of the nature, grounds, extent, and results of the grace of repentance. The penitent confesses his sin (vs. 1-3), states its enormity (vs. 4-6), entreats forgiveness (vs. 7-9), seeks a renewed nature (vs. 10-12), expresses it in holy resolutions (vs. 13-17), and intercedes for the whole Church (vs. 18-19). Chambers. This Psalm is the expression of a deep and unfeigned repentance. It is a prayer, first, for forgiveness, with a humble confession of sinful deeds springing from a sinful nature as their bitter root; and then for renewal and sanctification through the Holy Ghost; together with vows of thankfulness, for God's great mercy to the sinner, and holy resolutions for the future. It is the first of a series of Psalms (51-65) which, in the second Book of the Psalter are ascribed to David, and, according to the title, was written by him after his great sin, when the words of the prophet Nathan roused his conscience from its uneasy slumber. P. A whole year had elapsed between David's crime and David's penitence. It had been a year of guilty satisfaction not worth the having; of sullen hardening of heart against God and all His appeals. The thirty-second Psalm tells us how happy David had been during that twelve-month, of which he says, "My bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long. For day and night Thy hand was heavy on me." Then came Nathan with his apologue, and with that dark threatening that the sword should never depart from his house, the fulfilment of which became a well-head of sorrow to the king for the rest of his days, and gave a yet deeper poignancy of anguish to the crime of his spoiled favorite Absalom. The stern words have their effect. The frost that had bound his soul melted all away, and he confessed his sin, and was forgiven then and there. "I have sinned against the Lord," is the confession as recorded in the historical books; and, says Nathan, "The Lord hath made to pass from thee the iniquity of thy sin." Immediately, as would appear from the narrative, that very came day, the child of Bathsheba and David was smitten with fatal disease, and died in a week. And it is after all these events—the threatening, the penitence, the pardon, the punishment—that he comes to God, who had so freely forgiven, and likewise so sorely smitten him, and wails out these prayers. A. M. So profound a conviction of sin, so deep and unfeigned a penitence, so true a confession, a heart so tender, so contrite, a desire so fervent for renewal, a trust so humble, so filial in the forgiving love of God, are what we find nowhere else in the Old Testament, but what we might surely expect from "the man after God's own heart." This Psalm, indeed, and the thirty-second, justify the title thus given him. In them we see the true man. Great as had been his sin, it was not the sin of a hardened nature, of the merely selfish sensualist, of the despot to whom all men were but as tools to minister to his pleasures and his crimes. And, therefore, when the prophet comes to him he turns to God with a real sorrow, and God meets him, as the father in the parable meets his erring son, with a free forgiveness. P.—Here the broken spirit casts off its heavy load and opens itself without reserve to the re-creating influence of the Holy Spirit. Better might the Christian heart deny itself the comfort of such a Psalm as the twenty-third than part with this deep-toned Miserere which appeals to a still more active consciousness and voices a sorer need. E. C. B. We must have a fifty-first Psalm put always within reach for time of need. For this is not the last man upon the earth that shall come thus before God. At what time have there not been many such as he, whose wretchedness might have been voiceless and despairing without such a prayer as this? Not so marvellous is the inspiration that enabled him, this royal poet, long after he had sinned and received pardon, to reproduce truly and in suitable accents his pleadings before God, as the far-seeing wisdom and grace that had brought him up into a position of great temptation to indulge every evil passion of his nature, in the almost irresponsible power of royalty, and had then withheld the grace that up to that time had strengthened his heart in honor, and purity, and truth. How poorly furnished for us miserable sinners our Book of Prayer would have been without the Penitential Psalms! De Witt. It is this truth of human feeling which makes the Psalms more than any other portion of the Old Testament the link of union between distant ages. The historical books need a rich store of knowledge before they can be a modern book of life; but the Psalms are the records of individual experience. Personal religion is the same in all ages. The deeps of our humanity remain unruffled by the storms of ages which change the surface. This Psalm, written three thousand years ago, might have been written yesterday—describes the vicissitudes of spiritual life in an Englishman, as truly as in a Jew. “Not of an age, but for all time.” F. W. R.—After the lapse of thirty centuries its living words still quiver with the emotion of the broken-hearted penitent, and its wail of godly sorrow instructs while it quickens the thoughtful reader. It sees sin as no uninspired man ever saw it, and it apprehends mercy as no mere child of this world ever conceived it. Chambers. This man mixes with the world’s sins in such sort that we shudder. But he draws near the majesty of God and becomes softened, purified, melted. It is good to observe this, that we rightly estimate: generously of fallen humanity, moderately of highest saintship. In our best estate and in our purest moments there is a something of the devil in us which, if it could be known, would make men shrink from us. The germs of the worst crimes are in us all. In our deepest degradation there remains something sacred, undefiled, the pledge and gift of our better nature; a germ of indestructible life, like the grains of wheat among the cements of a mummy surviving through three thousand years, which may be planted, and live, and grow again. F. W. R.—David had fallen into sins enough—blackest crimes. Unbelievers sneer and ask, “Is this your man after God’s own heart?” The sneer seems to me but a shallow one. What are faults, what the outward detail of a life, if the inner secret of it, if the remorse, the temptations, the true often baffled, never-ended struggle of it, are to be forgotten? Of all acts is not for a man repentance the most Divine? The deadliest sin were that same supercilious consciousness of no sin; that is death. David’s life and history as written for us in those Psalms of his I consider to be the truest emblem ever given of a man’s moral progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will ever discern in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human soul toward what is good and best—struggle often baffled down as into entire wreck; yet ever with tears, repentance, true unchangeable purpose begun anew. Poor human nature! Is not a man’s walking, in truth, always a succession of falls? Man can do no other. In this wild element of a life he has to struggle onward; now fallen, deep abased; and ever with tears, repentance, with bleeding heart, he has to rise again, struggle again still onward. That his struggle be a faithful, unconquerable one; that is the question of questions. Carlyle. Happy for every man that the battle between the spirit and the flesh should begin in him again and again, as long as his flesh is not subdued to his spirit. If he be wrong, the greatest blessing which can happen to him is that he should find himself in the wrong. Whatever anguish of mind it may cost him, it is a light price to pay for the inestimable treasure which true repentance and amendment brings; the fine gold of solid self-knowledge, tried in the fire of bitter experience; the white raiment of pure and simple heart; the eye-salve of honest self-condemnation and noble shame. If he have but these—and these God will give him in answer to prayer, the prayer of a broken and contrite heart—then he will be able to carry on the battle against the corrupt flesh and its affections and lusts in hope, in the assured hope of final victory; “For greater is He that is with us than he that is against us.” He that is against us is ourself, our selfish self, our animal nature; and He that is with us is God—God and none other; and who can pluck us out of His hand! C. Kingsley. A noble nature, stung before its sin and seared before its time, contending between the whirlpool of passion and the strong, still impulses of poetry and faith, ruling all spirits except his own, and yet forever seeking to regulate it, too, sincere in all things—in sin and in repentance—but sincerest in repentance—often neglecting the special precept, but ever loving the general tenor of the law, unreconciled to his age or circumstances, and yet always striving after such a reconciliation, harassed by early grief, great temptations, terrible trials in advanced life, and views necessarily dim and imperfect—David, nevertheless, retained to the last his heart, his intellect, his simplicity, his devotion—above all his sincerity—loved his God, saw from afar off his Redeemer; and let the man who is “without sin” among his detractors cast the first stone. His character is checkered, but the stripes outnumber the stains, and the streaks of light outnumber both. In his life there is no lurkingplace—all is plain; the heights are mountains—“the hills of holiness,” where a free spirit walks abroad in singing robes; the valleys are depths, out of which you hear the voice of a prostrate penitent pleading for mercy, but nothing is, or can be, concealed, since it is God’s face which shows both the lights and shadows of the scene. David, if not the greatest or best of inspired men, was certainly one of the most extraordinary. Gilfillan. It was the decidedly God-seeking and God-honoring disposition of his heart which made him the true David—the beloved of the Lord. It was his faith in Jehovah as the only God of heaven and earth, as the only source of salvation, happiness, and blessing. Even his sins brought out all the clearer that the key-note of his soul was a thirst after holiness, a perfect peace of the heart through union with the Holy One of Israel. This “thirsting after God” characterized him throughout his whole life. We observe it in him from the first moment we make his acquaintance. It was because the Lord “looketh on the heart” that the young shepherd was preferred above his brethren. And no wonder. That young shepherd, when following the sheep, found his delight in tuning his harp to the praise of his God. It was not the prospect of being praised by the people, and rewarded by the king that prompted him to take up his sling against Goliath, but his burning zeal for the honor of the God of Israel, whose holy name he had heard reviled. To him God is his life’s beginning and end, the only true foundation and rock. When he breaks out into exultation it is because he knows himself near to Him, and when he pours out his heart in doleful lamentations it is because he feels that his sins have made a separation between that God and his soul. De Liefde. More is to be learned of God and of our relations to Him from this single Psalm of David than from all the heathen philosophers taken together. The living God, subject to no fate, reigning with no divided empire, blotting out transgressions, inhabiting eternity, yet dwelling with the humble and contrite to revive the spirit of the humble, abiding with us when father and mother forsake, and satisfying the soul by himself alone, was not known. In the heathen philosophy, with its expositions of law and duty, there is no sure word of consolation for the dying thief, the penitent prodigal, the publican groaning under the burden of sin. There is no authorized hope that can light up the dark valley of death for a sinner. Many fine and beautiful things Augustine said he found in Plato; but not the words, “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” G. P. Fisher. TITLE. To the Chief Musician. A Psalm. By David. When Nathan the Prophet came unto him, as he (i.e., David) had come unto Bathsheba. The first inscription was particularly necessary here, to show that the Psalm was designed for permanent and public use, since it might otherwise have been regarded as expressive of mere personal emotions. It has reference to the one great crime of David’s life, noted as such in the inspired history itself (1 Kings 15 : 5), and involving the guilt of both adultery and murder. The significant repetition of the phrase came unto in v. 2 is lost in the English and most other versions. As is not a mere particle of time, simply equivalent to when, but suggests the ideas of analogy, proportion, and retaliation. A.—Assigned to “the chief musician” for perpetual use in the service of song before the congregation of Israel, it testifies that no false modesty and no indulged pride withheld him from making his confession as public as his sin had been notorious. He had sinned before the nation; so he would have his repentance go forth before not the nation only, but the world. C. 1-3. David uses here and in all the Psalms which refer to his great guilt three words, which comprise all the characteristics of sin committed by an offender against God’s law, save one, that of wilful, impenitent wickedness. Our A. V. is generally careful in observing the distinction, “iniquity” (acon), or “perversity;” “transgression” (pesha), the breach of God’s law; “sin” (hattath), as a defilement. He does not use the word wickedness (resha), nor is it in any case imputed to a servant of God. (See Psalms 32 : 1, 2 ; 38 : 18 ; 39 : 8-11 ; 40 : 12.) Cook. 1. The prayer for forgiveness. According to Thy lovingkindness. In all godly sorrow there is hope. Sorrow without hope may be remorse or despair, but it is not repentance. Hence the true penitent always looks to the lovingkindness of God, even at the very time when he feels most deeply how he has sinned against it. The cry on his lips is, “My Father,” even when he confesses, “I am no more worthy to be called Thy son.” P.—Mercy, lovingkindness. The first word is strong; it implies kindness, graciousness; but the second is much stronger; it speaks of deep, tender, parental sympathy, of an abundance and overflow of those feelings which assure the penitent child of his mother’s unalterable love, of her yearnings for his return to her bcom. Cook. His whole hope rests upon God's own character, as revealed in the endless continuance of His acts of love. He knows the number and the greatness of his sins, and the very depth of his consciousness of sin helps him to a corresponding greatness in his apprehension of God's mercy. This is the blessedness of all true penitence, that the more profoundly it feels our own sore need and great sinfulness, in that very proportion does it recognize the yet greater mercy and all-sufficient grace of our loving God. And for us who have the perfect love of God perfectly expressed in His Son, that same plea is incalculably strengthened, for we can say, "According to Thy tender mercies in Thy dear Son, blot out my transgressions." A. M. We need always to keep in mind that it is through Christ only that forgiveness is possible. God's character, as revealed by Christ, is seen to be one of holiness and love. Love says, "Forgive," but holiness, of which righteousness and justice are an integral part, says: "Evil is foreign to me; I cannot condone it or have fellowship with it." Christ is the reconciling factor that makes it possible for love to forgive without violating righteousness and justice. It does not make much difference about our theory of the Atonement if we only keep in mind that only in Christ crucified "mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." It must be remembered, too, that this promise of forgiveness is conditional. God will forgive no unrepentant man. There must be unequivocal hatred of sin. There can be no denial of the reality of sin, nor of responsibility for it, nor of the fact of sin in our case. The humiliating reality of it all must be acknowledged along with our helplessness. The old life must be left behind; our eyes must be turned heavenward, not earthward, and the aim and desire of our heart must be to live a life such as God would have us live. Only on that condition can we claim the promise. Then we feel that we are not our own, but bought with a price. Divine pardon has made us debtors to Divine favor. That debt can be quit only by making others debtor to the favor of love and service that we bestow. Interior. 2. Without one word or thought of self-defence or even extenuation, admitting everything, confessing all, and humbling himself low before God, he pleads for mercy—mercy simple and pure—nothing else. Yet he would add, not in the line of self-vindication, but of conscious weakness and of inexpressible longings to be kept pure henceforth and forever: "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity; cleanse me from my sin." Take away from me not only the condemnation under which my guilty soul might justly sink, but the very spirit of sinning—that pollution of soul which makes sin morally possible. "Cleanse me"—that I sin no more. C.—Wash me thoroughly. Heb., multiply to wash me; by which phrase he implies the greatness of his guilt, and the insufficiency of all legal washings, and the absolute necessity of some other and better thing to wash him, even of God's grace and the blood of Christ. M. Pool.—Abiding sorrow for sin is quiet. It is all from God, and all of God. We love because much has been forgiven, and we always remember how much it was. We love because the softness of sorrow is akin to the filial confidence of love. David gives it a voice, "Wash me more and more, O Lord;" and the whole Church throughout the world has adopted his Misere, and is continually crying, "Wash me more and more." Anon. My sin. In all the petitions we see that the idea of his own single responsibility for the whole thing is uppermost in David's mind. It is my transgression, it is mine iniquity, and my sin. He has not learned to say with Adam of old, and with some to-day: "I was tempted, and I could not help it." A. M.—It is sin as sin, not its punishment here nor hereafter, not simply any of its evil consequences; but sin against God, the daring impiety of my breaking the good and holy law of this living, loving God. Thomas Alexander. 3. I acknowledge my transgressions.** Whilst he would not consider confession as giving a claim to the favor of God, he knew it was a condition of forgiveness. He who does not confess his sins with a broken, penitent, contrite heart has no reason to hope for absolution. It is sin, not its consequences that he deplores. Sin is the abominable thing. D. Thomas.—My sin is ever before me. A man's sins must come before him at some time or other; and whenever they do come before him it is a very solemn time. To some, by God's grace, that meeting comes in mid-life; to some on a deathbed; to some, for the first time, as far as their consent goes, in another world. J. V. 4. To Thee, Thee only, have I sinned, and done the evil in Thine eyes, to the intent that Thou mayest be just in Thy speaking, and be clear in Thy judging. The particle at the beginning denotes general relation, as to, or respecting. It does not therefore directly and explicitly substitute God for man as the injured party, which is the only sense that can be put upon the English phrase against Thee. This idea, however, is undoubtedly implied, as well as perfectly consistent with the usage of the Scriptures in describing all sin as committed against God. Even murder, the highest crime that can be committed against man, is condemned and punished as the violation of God's image (Gen. 9 : 6). A. The words are to be explained by David's deep conviction of sin as sin. Face to face with God, he sees nothing else, can think of nothing else, but His presence forgotten, His holiness outraged, His love scorned. Therefore he must confess and be forgiven by God before he could even think of the wrong done to his neighbor. But, secondly, this deep feeling of the penitent heart, of the heart which loves God above all things, has its root in the very relation in which God stands to His creatures. All sin, as sin, is and must be against God. All wrong done to our neighbor is wrong done to one created in the image of God; all tempting of our neighbor to evil is taking the part of Satan against God, and, so far as in us lies, defeating God's good purpose of grace toward him. All wounding of another, whether in person or property, in body or soul, is a sin against the goodness of God. In like manner, all love to our neighbor is love to God, whom we love in Him. On this principle we shall be judged: "Inasmuch as ye have done it to the least of these, ye have done it unto Me." It is not, therefore, enough to explain these words of David, "Against Thee only," by saying that they are the expression of his own deep sense of his guilt and the dishonor done to God. That feeling rested upon the eternal truth of which it was the expression—a truth on which, as Hengstenberg observes, the Decalogue itself is based: "Thou must honor and love God in Himself, in those who represent Him on earth (Deut. 5 : 12), in all who bear His image (vs. 13, 14). Earlier still, in Gen. 9 : 6, the punishment of murder is grounded on this, that man bears God's image." "How must David have trembled," says the same commentator "how must he have been seized with shame and grief, when he referred everything to God, when in Uriah he saw only the image of God, the Holy One, who deeply resented that injury—the gracious and compassionate One, to whom he owed such infinitely rich benefits, who had lifted him up from the dust of humiliation, had so often delivered him, and had also given him the promise of so glorious a future!" P. Against thee, thee only. The word "only" is striking, considering how David had cruelly injured his fellow-men, and the terrible results of his guilt; but sin, as such, is directed primarily against God. His law is broken, His name dishonored, and the special heinousness even of such offences as that of David consists in their antagonism to God's will. At the same time the Hebrew idiom must be remembered, which represents secondary and subordinate objects as absolutely nothing compared with the first and highest. Whatever guilt David might have contracted toward man; in the mind of a true Israelite it was absolutely nothing compared with his sin against God. Cook.—Our first parent Adam might justly have said to God: "Against Thee only have I sinned," who never sinned against any other; but for David to say it, who had committed two notorious sins against his neighbor and faithful friend Uriah, what unfitter speech could possibly be devised? These actions of David were great wrongs indeed, and enormous iniquities against Uriah; but can we properly say they were sins against Uriah? For what is sin but a transgression of God's law? And how then can sin be committed against any but against Him only whose law we transgress? R. Eaker. True penitence is not a dead knowledge of committed sin, but a vivid consciousness of it, as a source of restlessness and anguish; and although this penitential sorrow is not a merit which earns grace, it is nevertheless the condition without which no bestowal of grace is possible. Such true recognition of sin regards all sin directly as sin against God, and in the last analysis as sin against Him alone; for all the relationships in which man stands to men are only forms in which is manifested his fundamental relationship to God; and sin is "that which is evil in God's sight;" it is a contradiction of the will of God, the sole most high Law-giver and Judge. So the case stands, as David confesses, with his sin. D. The core and essence of the criminality in every case, even in transgressions of the second table of the Law, lies in this, that they are offences against God; this the penitent offender recognizes, That Thou mightest be right in Thy speaking, mightest be pure in Thy judging. God suffered him in His holy providence to go on unchecked, involving himself in one sin after another, revealing the depravity of his heart in open acts to such an extent that he was stripped of every excuse and subterfuge, and was himself obliged to own the justice of the fearful sentence pronounced upon him by the mouth of Nathan, and of any infliction with which God should see fit to visit him hereafter. This passage is quoted in Romans 3 : 4, in evidence of God's unimpeachable rectitude. W. H. G. To make David say, I have sinned against thee, O God, to the end that, or in order that, thou mayest be justified in condemning me, is to miss his meaning egregiously. But that he should say, I make this fullest possible confession of my sins as specially against Thee, so that thou mayest be vindicated in the severest inflictions upon me therefor, is germain to his state of feeling, is in itself intrinsically right, and is therefore to be accepted as his meaning. C.—That God may stand justified when He decisively speaketh and judgeth, that He, the Judge, may carry His point in opposition to all human judging—this is the ultimate issue of David's confession of sin and of the whole history of humanity, and more especially of Israel. D.—This recognition of God's righteousness is the first and most certain proof that a man is in a true position and is capable of justification. Justify God by admitting that man has no hope whatever but in His free forgiveness, that nothing is due to man but punishment, and He will justify man by taking away the imputation of sin. Cook. God sees sin not in its consequences but in itself; a thing infinitely evil, even if the consequences were happiness to the guilty instead of misery. So sorrow, according to God, is to see sin as God sees it. The grief of Peter was as bitter as that of Judas. He went out and wept bitterly; how bitterly none can tell but they who have learned to look on sin as God does. But in Peter's grief there was an element of hope; and that sprung precisely from this—that he saw God in it all. Despair of self did not lead to despair of God. [Thus was it with David.] F. W. R. Paul, near the close of life, spoke of himself as the chief of sinners. He was not so much comparing himself with his fellow men as noting his relation to God and His Christ. The expression conveys, without extravagance or exaggeration, the literal truth in regard to Paul as he saw himself under the illumination of the Divine Spirit. It is no question between man and man, or concerning degrees of criminality, but between the soul and infinite holiness. And when the light of infinite purity has flooded the inmost life, when every secret chamber of the soul, with its actual guilt and its horrible possibilities of sin is laid open to view, each may adopt the language as his own—"sinners, of whom I am chief." C. W. Miller.—Every believer who has attained a right knowledge of himself will acknowledge, with blessed Bradford the martyr, that "the seeds of every sin that ever was or can be committed are in his own heart and nature." This knowledge affords the Christian great cause of humility. But it affords him greater still, that the Lord hath loved him in his state of rebellion and apostasy; yea, hath washed him so pure in the blood of His Son that the moral law itself can find no speck of sin upon him; and that by the power of the Holy Ghost he chooses God for his portion. Hill. Into true penitence the idea of punishment never enters. If it did it would be almost a relief; but oh! those moments in which a selfish act has appeared more hideous than any pain which the fancy of a Dante could devise! when the idea of the strife of self-will in battle with the loving will of God prolonged forever has painted itself to the imagination as the real infinite hell! when self-concentration and the extinction of love in the soul has been felt as the real damnation of the devil-nature! F. W. R. 5. Sin is now regarded in its source. From my very earliest being sin has been with me. Sinfulness consists not merely in so many several sinful acts, but in a sinful and corrupt nature. The depth of the abyss of sin is here opened before the eyes of the penitent with a distinctness of which the instances are comparatively few in the Old Testament. (Compare, however, Job 14 : 4 ; Gen. 8 : 21.) Manifestly not in extenuation, but in aggravation of his sin does David thus speak. "He lays on himself the blame of a tainted nature, instead of that of a single fault; not a murder only, but of a murderous nature. 'Conceived in sin.' From first moments up till then, he saw sin—sin—sin; nothing but sin."—(Robertson.) Luther says: "If a man will speak and teach aright of sin, he must consider it in its depth, and show from what root it and all that is godless springs, and not apply the term merely to sins that have been committed. For from this error, that men know not and understand not what sin is, arises the other error that they know not nor understand what grace is. . . . According to this Psalm, then, we must say that all is sin which is born of father and mother, and from so evil a root nothing good can grow before God." And Stier says: "Men may say what they will, the doctrine of original sin is contained in this passage;" and so it is precisely in that sense in which alone it is true—that sinfulness is innate, that corrupt parents can only have corrupt children. P. David thinks of himself as of a sinning race, born of sinning parents, born with the antecedent temptations and occasions of sin (not the efficient and necessitating causes) existing in himself, and consequently under circumstances which induced sin at the earliest moment possible. This fact is pertinent here, not as an extenuation of his guilt, but as suggesting his own moral frailty, his danger of falling again before temptation's power, and his pressing need—a want that seemed almost crushing—of most thorough moral cleansing and of most effective moral succor from God's Spirit that he may stand henceforth in purity. In this view of it his meaning is fully in harmony with the words that immediately follow, as we shall see. In this construction the passage classes itself with Job 31 : 18, and Psalm 58 : 3, as evincing a special Hebrew idiom or proverbial expression in the sense of doing a thing from the earliest practicable moment. Job said : "From my youth the fatherless was brought up with me as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother's womb;" the Psalmist : "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." C. 6. Behold!** Lo, on one hand I have seen sin as I never saw it before! on the other, lo, I have learnt that truth is what Thou desirest in the secret heart! P.—Truth in the reins signifies the firm establishment and rule of truth and right in a man's deepest and most inward experiences and emotions, in his most secret life, the life of his conscience and heart. D. "In the inward parts," "in the hidden part," are expressions precisely equivalent to our usage of the word heart. God seeks an honest, pure, truthful heart. Behold, his approving eye is only upon true sincerity! He abhors all hypocrisy. The sincerely honest heart he will teach true wisdom. This verse, therefore, gives us God's standard of holiness. His ideas of what it really is. Consequently, the opposite of this is sin. C.—Reality, sincerity, true holiness, heart fidelity, these are the demands of God. He cares not for the pretence of purity; He looks to the mind, heart, and soul. Always has the Holy One of Israel estimated men by their inner nature, and not by their outward professions; to Him the inward is as visible as the outward, and He rightly judges that the essential character of an action lies in the motive of him who works it. S. Obedience must be sincere. An action may look like a friendly act when there is nothing of friendship and good-will in the heart. Every precept requires not only an outward but an inward conformity, not only a bodily action but a spiritual frame. God would not have the skin of a sacrifice without the flesh, nor the carcass of obedience without truth in the inward parts. Charnock.—There are at least three forms of conspiracy against truth observable in human character: hypocrisy, "cant," insincerity. Truth of heart is that heavenly principle whereby each soul is guided to a blessed result, under the action of the law of life in subjection to which we prepare to meet our Redeemer and our Judge. God is truth, and God is reigning. They who "will to do His will shall know." Seek above all to be true, for truth is the first condition of a soul's perfection. J. Knox Little. In the hidden part shall make me to know wisdom. The inward and hidden parts are mentioned as opposed to the mere outside. Wisdom, Divine illumination, without which no correct view either of sin or holiness is possible. Thou wilt make me know, involves a prayer, although in form it is an expression of strong confidence. A.—"Truth in the inward parts" shall be rewarded with "wisdom in the hidden part." The more your knowledge of what is right is carried out into action, the more shall that knowledge be increased. It is like what Peter says: "Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge." Diligently practice all that you scripturally believe to be right, and your knowledge of what is right shall increase. Anon. 7. Purge me** (literally, Thou wilt purge me). The language, not merely of prayer, but of confident expectation. The word is used of purgation by expiatory sacrifice or by purifying rites. It is not employed of the removal of the lighter kinds of defilement, for which the law prescribed simply bathing in clean water, but as in the case of leprosy (Lev. 14 : 49, 52, where the same word is rendered cleanse). To this also the hyssop points, which, as the symbol and the appointed means of purgation, was used in the same service. W. H. G.—The Hebrew words for "purge" and for "hyssop" come from the sacrificial system, and indicate that moral cleansing from sin of which those sacrifices and rites were typical. "Purge" means, take sin out of me: set me free from its presence and power. C. Here is majesty in misery; a king in penitence; a monarch of the earth at the footstool of mercy. David, as a miserable sinner, polluted with the complicated crimes of adultery and murder, is here ascribing honor to the blood of the Lamb by pleading of faith. True faith manifests itself in the heart, by its turning away from every other ground of deliverance, and turning to that blessed fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. Not my tears of repentance, but Thy precious blood, O Lamb of God, can wash me. Precious word! W. Mason.—It is not the language of one who felt himself to be a castaway. It is anything else than the language of despair; it is that of a child who knows that he is still beloved, although he has grievously offended. He expresses no dread of utter and final condemnation; but his cry is that of a wanderer who longs to get back; a captive who cries for deliverance. He sees and feels his guilt, and prays, “Purge me, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” J. Copley. While there is but one Sacrifice, there are many sprinklings. As long as we live, and every day that we live, our rising evils of heart and life are such as would destroy all peace, if it were not for the hyssop-branch in the hand of the Spirit. There is a twofold application to the soul of Christ’s atoning righteousness by the Holy Spirit; one, which is single, and never repeated, the effect of which is to interest such soul in the redemptive acts; the other, which is perpetually renewed, the effect of which is to give peace to the soul under a sense of pardon. That experience may justly be distrusted in which there is no going again and again to the blood of Jesus for new applications. Thousands have used the words of the great penitential Psalm with a feeling of their necessity. The royal sinner knew that he had received the Holy Spirit, for he prays that he may not lose the gift. He knew that he had possessed the joy of God’s salvation, for he implores that it may be restored. But at the same time he sues for fresh pardons: “Blot out my transgressions;” “Purge me with hyssop;” and for new peace of conscience, “Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.” The Divine affusion of the sacred blood upon the heart and conscience, tends, as the Christian life goes on, to make the subject a more obedient and a happier Christian. J. W. A. The “mystery of the blood” David may not have fathomed. What Old Testament writer has clearly done so, if we except Isaiah (chap. 53)? But could he have reached a higher level of revelation or of experience than he has done in this petition, “Un-sin (Thou) me with hyssop and I shall be clean: Wash (Thou) me and I shall be whiter than snow.” He sees in the rite only a symbol, it is true, and not a type. But the rite he does not fail to see, or the essential thing about it whether as symbol or type, that it is to the Priest-King Jehovah, to whom he must look for pardon, and that to him he will not look in vain. In this circumstance, after all, we find the culmination of biblical teaching, both of the old covenant and the new. E. C. B. 8. Thou shalt make me to hear. Not said with reference to God’s announcement of forgiveness by the Prophet Nathan, or as made in His Word, but rather with reference to those public festivals in which the whole congregation would unite in praising God, and in which David hoped now, as a forgiven sinner, to take his own part. He would be one of those who, with a heart full of thankfulness, would openly testify that thankfulness. P. The emphatic figure, crushed or broken, expresses, in a very lively manner, the disorder and distress produced by consciousness of aggravated and unexploited guilt. The change from this condition to a sense of safety and reconciliation with God, is not too strongly represented by the bold but most expressive figure of broken bones rejoicing. A.—The bones; not merely instead of the heart, but as constituting the strength and framework of the body; the crushing of the bones being a very strong figure, denoting the most complete prostration, mental and bodily. P. 9. The two clauses of this verse are essentially parallel, both giving the idea of true forgiveness, which is that of overlooking sin, regarding it no longer as demanding punishment, but passing it over, “remembering it no more.” It amounts therefore to the same thing whether the Lord hides His face from sin or blots the sin out; in either case He is thought of as putting the sin away from His mind’s eye and looking upon the sinner in a sense as if he had not sinned. For this the penitent soul of David longed exceedingly, for it seemed to him unendurable that God should hold his sin continually before the eye as if too bad to be forgiven. C.—What he longs for is that God would hide His face from the sin which He is now punishing in him, so that it be, as it were, no more existent for Him; that He would wipe out all his iniquities, so that they should no more bear witness against him. D.—Beginning with the first Psalm and going straight through till we come to the end of the collection, there is nowhere any lack of evidence that in the Psalmist’s mind there is nothing that God loathes like sin, and that to be a friend of God and enjoy His favor he, too, must loathe it and put it away. E. C. B. 10. The prayer for justification is followed by the prayer for renewal. A clean heart is a heart undisturbed by sin and the consciousness of sin; a steadfast spirit is a spirit assured of its standing in grace and well-grounded therein. David's prayer is for that very thing which is promised by the prophets as a future deed of salvation to be wrought by God the Redeemer upon His people (Jer. 24: 7; Ezek. 11: 19; 36: 26). D.—A pure heart create for me (oh) God, and a fixed (or settled) spirit renew within me. The petition in the first clause involves a confession of impurity, and of dependence on almighty power and sovereign grace for its removal. A pure heart is a familiar scriptural figure for affections free from the taint of sin. A.—The creation of a pure heart, free from the taint and consciousness of sin, is altogether an evangelical doctrine, prefigured in old symbolical rites, but first anticipated by the yearnings of a soul smitten to death by sin. Renew a right spirit. A steadfast spirit, one not disquieted by fears or doubts, a mind stayed on the Lord, and therefore kept in perfect peace. Cook.—The thing David prayed for was precisely a spirit, a mind, fixed, settled, established in piety. This is the sense of the Hebrew word for "right"—"a right spirit." David prayed to be kept steadfast in obedience, as opposed to a fickle, changeful mind, easily seduced into sin by temptation. C. Create in me a clean heart, O God. This "creation" is from nothing. David uses the same word of our creation which Moses uses of "the creation of the heaven and the earth." Our creation "in Jesus Christ" is no mere strengthening of our powers, no mere aiding of our natural weakness by the might of the grace of God; it is not a mere amendment, improvement of our moral habits; it is a creation out of nothing, of that which we had not before. There was nothing in us whereof to make it. We were decayed, corrupt, dead in trespasses and sins. What is dead becometh not alive except by the infusion of what it had not. What is corrupt receiveth not soundness save by passing away itself and being replaced by a new production. "The old man" passeth not into the new man, but is "put off." It is not the basis of the new life, but a hindrance to it. It must be "put off" and the new man "put on," "created in Christ Jesus." Pusey.—Nothing under a thorough change will suffice; neither tears nor trouble of mind, neither good desires nor intentions, nor yet the relinquishment of some sins, nor the performance of some good works, will avail anything, but a new "creature," a word that comprehends more in it than words can well express; and perhaps after all that can be said of it, never thoroughly to be understood by what a man hears from others, but by what he must feel within himself. South. He that can in truth say, with David, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew within me a right spirit," hath the beginnings of eternal life. He that laments the disorders of his heart and inward thoughts, and wishes and strives to be delivered from them, hath the sparks of Divine love, and the tokens of Divine grace; for there can be no such thing as preparation for heaven with an allowed indulgence of sin. It is in being "perfect in holiness," unblamable in holiness, that this mechness consists; for the preparation must be of the same sort with the final condition; the change must be of the same nature as that in which the character is perfected. R. Hall. The Bible notion of what men need in order to be pure and good is very different from the superficial notions of worldly moralists and philanthropists. We hear a great deal about "culture," as if all that were needed were the training and strengthening of the nature, as if what was mainly needed was the development of the understanding. We hear about "reformation" from some who look rather deeper than the superficial apostles of culture. And how singularly the very word proclaims the insufficiency of the remedy which it suggests! "Re-formation" affects form and not substance. It puts the old materials into a new shape. Exactly so—and much good may be expected from that! They are the old materials still, and it matters comparatively little how they are arranged. It is not re-formation but re-inovation, or to go deeper still re-generation that the world needs; not new forms but a new life; not the culture and development of what it has in itself, but extirpation of the old by the infusion of something new and pure that has no taint of corruption, nor any contact with evil. "Verily, I say unto you, ye must be born again." All slighter notions of the need and more superficial diagnosis of the disease lead to a treatment with palliatives which never touch the true seat of the mischief. A. M. 11. "Take not (again) Thy Holy Spirit from me." The petition expresses the holy fear of the man who has his eyes open to the depth and iniquity of sin, lest at any moment he should be left without the succor of that Divine Spirit who was the only source in him of every good thought, of every earnest desire, of every constant resolution. It is the cry of one who knows, as he never knew before, the weakness of his own nature, and the strength of temptation, and the need of Divine help; and to whom therefore nothing seems so dreadful as that God should withdraw His Spirit. P.—The manifestations of God's presence are essentially the same as the expressions of His favor and love. Hence David prays here that God would not repel him away from his kind regard because of his great sin. Let me still live before Thee, still walk in Thy light, believe in and enjoy Thy love. The New Testament doctrine, that the Holy Spirit dwells in the heart of each saint, as God of old dwelt in His earthly temple, appears here in its full development. David prayed that God would not take this Divine presence from his soul, but let it return rather and abide in all its power. C.—The acts of breathing which I performed yesterday will not keep me alive to-day; I must continue to breathe afresh every moment, or animal life ceases. In like manner, yesterday's grace and spiritual strength must be renewed, and the Holy Spirit must continue to breathe on my soul, from moment to moment, in order to my enjoying the consolations, and to my working the works of God. Toplady. There is nothing shadowy or mystical in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and in the resultant spirituality of life. It is an intelligent and intelligible state, conscious and voluntary. It is the worship of God in spirit and truth, the converse with God which is the natural and habitual outcome of a clear knowledge of what God is and of what you are, the conscious and mutual exchange of thought between an erring, needy, penitent child and its holy, loving Father, who is in heaven. In or out of the Church, that is spirituality, the fixed habit of dealing with invisible and eternal realities. To be filled with the Spirit is simply to be under the dominance of those convictions which give reality to God and the soul, as the two sole factors by which the universe is constituted, and by which time and eternity are shaped. For when the heavens and the earth pass away, God remains and the soul abides. The reason and the will are the sphere of the Divine impact and indwelling; these are not mystical but dynamic, and they are dynamic by illumination of the understanding and by securing voluntary obedience to the revelation. To be filled with the Spirit is the same thing as being guided by the Spirit into all truth; it is to see things as they really are, and to act in accordance with that vision. Spirituality, therefore, is a rational and voluntary state. It begins with mental sanity, piercing through all shams and deceptive appearances, to God as the Holy Father, and to man as His lost and wandering child. It is easy enough to repeat these phrases, but they are not real perceptions unless they become the fixed and habitual temper of your whole mental and moral life, the standard of universal rational judgment and the living law of obedience. With every advance in the clearness of your apprehension of what God is and what man is, there must come the prompt and voluntary practical response. You must live as you think; you must be obedient to the heavenly vision; for God and the soul, fatherhood and sonship, are not figures of speech, the empty generalizations of the speculative understanding, but the only eternal realities in a universe of change. . . . The nature of man is rational, ethical, spiritual. Considered as rational, the quest of the soul is Truth. Its watchword is Reality. Considered as ethical, the soul fixes attention upon a peculiar quality with which truth is invested, giving to it the force of an imperative, demanding personal conformity and enforcing universal self-judgment. Its watchword is Obligation. Considered as spiritual, the soul fixes attention upon God as the eternal fountain of Truth, and the creative source of Moral Law, Himself the uncreated and sovereign Reality and Imperative. Rebrends. 12. In the midst of these abased confessions and cries for pardon there comes with wonderful force and beauty the bold prayer for restoration to "joy and gladness"—an indication surely of more than ordinary confidence in the full mercy of God, which would efface all the consequences of his sin. As before he had ventured to ask for the joy of forgiveness, so now he pleads once more for "the joy of Thy salvation," which comes from cleansing, from conscious fellowship—which he had so long and deeply felt, which for so many months had been hid from him by the mists of his own sin. The Psalmist's buoyancy, the gladness which was an inseparable part of his religion, and had rung from his harp in many an hour of peril, the bold width of his desires, grounded on the clear breadth of his faith in God's perfect forgiveness, are all expressed in such a prayer from such lips at such a time, and may well be pondered and imitated by us. A. M. Uphold me with a free spirit. It is indeed a prayer for God's gracious help; but his precise meaning is, Uphold me by quickening in me a willing, obedient, loving, and spontaneously acting spirit, i.e., help me, O Lord, to do right with all my heart and soul, with the most spontaneous outgoing of my soul's aspirations and endeavors. That is, he is here indicating what he wanted, rather than the agency by which he hoped to get it. C.—A willing spirit is one that obeys the Divine law, not by constraint, nor for the sake of reward, nor from fear of punishment, but spontaneously. His will, in all its impulses and inclinations, is in harmony with the will of God. De Witt. What a prayer these clauses contain to be offered by one who has so sinned! What a marvellous faith in God's pardoning love, and what a boldness of hope in his own future they disclose! They set forth a profound ideal of a noble character; they make of that ideal a prayer; they are the prayer of a great transgressor, who is also a true penitent. In all these aspects they are very remarkable, and lead to valuable lessons. A. M. 13. Then will I teach.** The Hebrew implies a longing. I would fain teach transgressors. Thy ways, those who, like me, have committed heinous sins. Such a desire is one of the surest signs of spiritual repentance. Cook.—David fulfilled his own longing and desire by embodying this Psalm, and so making public his own sin and shame and sorrow, in the Praise-Book of Israel and of the world. B. 13. With a conscience set free from guilt, with a heart renewed by the Spirit of God, and full of thankfulness for God's great mercy, he cannot keep silent, but will seek to turn other sinners to God. Terrible had been the fruit of his sin, not only in the wasting of his own soul, but in the injury done to others. Terrible was his punishment in witnessing this; and therefore the more anxious is he, though he cannot undo his own sin, to heal the breach, and repair the evil of sin in other souls. P.—By this Psalm David is, and will be to the world's end, teaching transgressors, telling them what God had done for his soul. H. 15. Open my lips.** His lips had been sealed by sin, but God by His free forgiveness would give him fresh cause of rejoicing, and so would open them. Calvin compares 40 : 4, where the Psalmist says that God had put a new song in his mouth. David thus prays God to be gracious, that he may be the loud herald of that grace to others. 16. For,** as expressing the reason why he will offer to God the spiritual offering of thanksgiving, a grateful heart and grateful lips. P.—If the sacrifice of animals even by the thousand could have washed away his guilt, or in any way appropriately met his case and the demands of infinite justice, how gladly would he have made the offering! But God had taught him better. C.—They did not confer or convey the remission of sins. They were external, and their efficacy was external. How far the Jewish believer saw into the typical meaning of his sacrifices is a question which cannot now be answered. But the typical meaning and the real efficacy are two very different things. In truth, as has been truly argued, if we assign to the type the virtue of the antitype, if we make the remission of sins procured by the one coextensive with the remission of sins procured by the other, we destroy the type altogether. The sacrifice had no moral value. Hence the Psalmist says, "not sacrifice, but a broken heart." 17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.** When speaking of thankfulness, we might have expected him to say, "a joyful heart, or a thankful heart," but instead of that he says, "a contrite heart." For the joy of forgiveness does not banish sorrow and contrition for sin; this will still continue. And the deeper the sense of sin, and the truer the sorrow for it, the more heartfelt also will be the thankfulness for pardon and reconciliation. The tender, humble, broken heart is therefore the best thank-offering. P.—Though other things may be the worse for breaking, yet a heart is never at the best till it be broken; for till it be broken we cannot see what is in it; till it be broken it cannot send forth its sweetest odor; and, therefore, though God loves a whole heart in affection, yet He loves a broken heart in sacrifice. And no marvel, seeing it is He Himself that breaks it. Therefore, accept, O God, my broken heart, which I offer Thee with a whole heart; seeing Thou canst neither except against that for being whole which is broken in sacrifice, nor except against that for being broken which is whole in affection. R. Baker.—A heart renewed—a loving heart—a penitent and humble heart—a heart broken and contrite, purified by love—that and only that is the rest of man. Spotlessness may do for angels, repentance unto life is the highest that belongs to man. F. W. R. 18,19. These verses are not only appropriate but necessary as a conclusion to the Psalm, and every difficulty is removed by giving them their natural but figurative meaning, as an expression of desire and hope that God would favor His own people and graciously accept their service. A.—It is refreshing to see David's heart return to its former love for Zion and to prayer in her behalf, with a just sense of his royal responsibilities. Doubtless he felt that his sins had brought great scandal on the name of Israel's God, and spiritual danger upon the Zion he had once loved and labored for. But now with a broken heart and a sense of pardon from God and of His restored favor, it was most pertinent that his prayer should revert again to those great interests of national worship and national piety which he, alas! had done so much to imperil. Will he not give his spared life and his restored soul afresh to the care of the Lord's people, and to prayerful sympathy for Jerusalem, the city of his God? God smiling again upon his Zion as well as upon his own long burdened and guilty soul, there shall be within her sacred walls yet many other acceptable offerings and sacrifices to the honor of Israel's God and for the good of His worshipping people. It impresses us as one of the masterly compensations wrought out in God's wisdom that so many thousand hearts have prayed and sought mercy of God in the use of these fitting words, and have been lifted out of the depths of despair into peaceful hope by the inspiring power of this Psalm and of this case of forgiving, restoring mercy. C. Modern blasphemy delights to blacken "the man after God's own heart." His was a terrible fall, terrible as well as piteous. He, so blameless in youth—could he, when life had begun to set, be stained so miserably through the passions of youth? It is an intense mystery of sin that man should admit so black a spot where all around was so fair; it is an intense mystery of God's love that He should have arrested so black a spot from spreading and overcasting and infecting the whole. In one way the sin was irremediable. It changed David's eternal condition. David, like the blest robber, the first-fruits of the redeeming blood of Jesus, is, through those same merits, glorious with the indwelling glory of God; yet his soul, doubtless one of the highest of much-forgiven penitents, is still a soul which by two insulated acts broke to the uttermost God's most sacred laws of purity and of love. How then was he restored? Grace had been sinned away. He was left to his natural self. He had still that strong sense of justice and hatred of the very sins by which he had fallen, which responded so quickly and so indignantly against cruelty and wrong when called out by Nathan's parable. He must have had remorse. Remorse is the fruit of the most condescending love of our God. Neglected or stifled, it is the last grace by which God would save the soul; it is the first by which God would prepare the soul which has forfeited grace to return to Him. But remorse, although a first step to repentance, is not repentance. For remorse centres in a man's self. While it is mere remorse it does not turn to God. And so God, in His love, sent to David the prophet, the very sight of whom might recall to him the mercies of God in the past, His promises for the future, and the memory of those days of innocent service and bright aspirations to which the soul overtaken by sin looks back with such sorrowful yearning. The heavy stone which lay on the choked, dead heart was rolled away; the dead was alive again; the two-edged sword of God's Word, judgment, and mercy had slain him to himself that he might live to God. The awakened soul burst forth in those two words, "I have sinned against the Lord." Then was remorse absorbed, transformed, spiritualized into penitent love. But this was the beginning of the renewed life of the soul, not the end. It issued in a constant longing for a re-creation, a reverent fear springing from the sense of what it had deserved, an earnest craving for a more thorough cleansing from every stain or spot of sin, a thirst for the purging by the atoning blood, an unvarying sight of his forgiven sinfulness, spreading far and wide from the core of original sin, a longing to do free, noble, generous service, and all from God to God, from God's re-creating, renewing, enfreedom, ennobling grace. Pusey. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ We are not all alike temptable. There are some with sweet temper and equable disposition whom nothing disturbs. God seems to have sheltered them by their very nature from the power of evil. Then there are others whose natures seem to be open on all sides, exposed to every danger. To live truly costs them fierce struggles every day. The easily-tempted ones are they to whom Christ's sympathy and helpfulness go out in most tender interest. He singles out the one from every circle that is most liable to fall, and makes special intercession for that one. Even the Johns, with their gentle loveliness, receive less of help from the Master than do the fiery Peters. Our very sins, if we repent of them, will be used of God to help in the growth and upbuilding of our character. If we are Christ's true followers, even our defeats shall become blessings to us, stepping-stones on which we may climb higher. This is one of the marvels of Divine grace that it can make all things work together for good. J. R. M. FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN. MASCHIL OF DAVID: WHEN DOEG THE EOOMITE CAME AND TOLD SAUL, AND SAID UNTO HIM, DAVID IS COME TO THE HOUSE OF AHIMELECH. 1. WHY boastest thou thyself in mischief, O mighty man? The mercy of God endureth continually. 2 Thy tongue deviseth very wickedness; Like a sharp razor, working deceitfully. 3 Thou lovest evil more than good: And lying rather than to speak righteousness. [Selah] 4 Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou deceitful tongue. 5 God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, He shall take thee up, and pluck thee out of thy tent, And root thee out of the land of the living. [Selah] 6. The righteous also shall see it, and fear, And shall laugh at him, saying, 7 Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength; But trusted in the abundance of his riches, And strengthened himself in his wickedness. 8 But as for me, I am like a green olive tree in the house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever. 9 I will give thee thanks for ever, because thou hast done it: And I will wait on [hope in] thy name, for it is good, in the presence of thy saints. VARIOUS attempts have been made to find some other probable occasion for this Psalm than that mentioned in the title. But they have all failed. It is connected with the dastardly act of Doeg, the keeper of Saul's asses, informing the king of Ahimelech's kind treatment of David, as related in 1 Sam. 22 : 9. It resulted in the slaughter of eighty-five priests, with many men, women, and children in a priestly city. In fact, by the command of Saul he slew these defenceless ones with his own hand, and so merited the scornful salutation, "O hero!" It is a remarkable feature of this Psalm that God is not invoked in any part of it. The poet begins with direct address to the infamous offender, and severe arraignment and castigation, as representing the Almighty, in whose name and by the inspiration of whose Spirit he speaks. De Witt. This Psalm is not a prayer or complaint addressed to God against the oppression of the wicked; it is a stern upbraiding addressed to the man who, unscrupulous in the exercise of his power, and proud of his wealth (v. 9), finds his delight in all the arts of the practised liar. It is a lofty challenge, a defiance conceived in the spirit of David when he went forth to meet the champion of Gath. The calm courage of faith breathes in every word. There is no fear, no trembling, no doubt, as to the end which will come upon the tyrant. How vain is his boast in presence of the lovingkindness of God, which protects His people; in presence of the power of God, which uproots the oppressor! Such is briefly the purport of the Psalm. P. 1-5. In interpreting the Psalms, Christian faith receives the principle of intensity. It is not for nothing that the Spirit of God so stirs the spirit of these Divine singers. The words of the Psalmists are truest when we pitch their significance highest. The enemies are not personal enemies of David and the rest. The notes of victory which ever and anon tremble from the strings thrill across no earthly battlefield. Bishop W. Alexander. 2-4. It is remarkable that there follows, not the description of the bold, bad man, ruling all around him by brute force, and crushing others into submission at his will, but that of one who gains his evil end by means chiefly of unblushing, deliberate falsehood. 5. Now comes, in short and powerful contrast to the unscrupulous violence, deceit, and falsehood of the proud oppressor the righteous judgment of God. P.—“Thou lovest all destructive words,” words having the power to swallow up and destroy. God also will destroy thee, for vengeance against such wickedness is demanded of the righteous God. The verbs in Hebrew are strongly significant, thus: God will tear thee down (“destroy”) as men tear down old or worthless buildings; will seize upon thee (“take”) as men take up fire from the hearth; He will pluck thee from thy dwelling-place as a tree is torn up, and will uproot thee from the land of the living. Pause and consider! for who can withstand the mighty God! C. Wonderful is the force of the verbs in the original, which convey to us the four ideas of laying prostrate, dissolving as by fire, sweeping away as with a bosom, and totally extirpating root and branch, as a tree is eradicated from the spot on which it grew. If a further comment be wanted, it may be found in the history of David’s enemies, and the crucifers of the Son of David, but the passage will be fully and finally explained by the destruction of the world of the ungodly at the last day. G. Horne.—When good men die, they are transplanted from the land of the living on earth, the nursery of the plants of righteousness, to that in heaven, the garden of the Lord, where they shall take root forever; but when wicked men die, they are rooted out of the land of the living, to perish forever; as fuel to the fire of Divine wrath. This will be the portion of those that contend with God. H. Unequivocally the Master speaks to us the words of warning. They are as much a part of His message to mankind as any words that He spoke. Whatever proportion they bear to different words, they have their fixed place. They are no more to be set aside, or passed over, or hidden, than any others. We may not be able wholly to explain them, but they are not to be explained away. “Wherever this Gospel is preached” warnings of judgment, of a real danger, of penalty for transgression, of a coming of the Son of Man which will bring with it terror to the disobedient, rejection to the unbelieving, and righteous retribution to the ungodly, must be heard. To say nothing of the fearful maledictions and woes of many other passages, and nothing of the fearful explicit disclosures of judgment in the twenty-third and twenty-fourth chapters of Matthew, ponder the parables. Of the thirty no less than thirteen turn directly on the reiterated fact of a future retribution. See the tares and the burning of them; the draw-net and the bad fish cast away; the fruitless branches of the vine in the fire; the unprofitable servant doomed to outer darkness; the wicked husbandman destroyed; the ten virgins too late shut out; the utter rejection and misery inflicted for lack of the wedding garment; the unused talent a damnum; the barren fig-tree blasted; the rich fool and his shrivelled soul; Dives in torment; the Pharisee bidden to look straight at the damnation of hell. What can a reader of the New Testament, who reads in his right mind, mean by saying that Christ does not seek to save men by forewarning them of the terrific consequences of their sins, “pulling them out of the” metaphorical “fire?” And this is the real and most gracious explanation of all that seems so hard. It is all to save. It is a Saviour’s word and a Saviour’s way. If you will let Him take His other and heavenly way, be sure He will gladly leave this way untrodden. No true father scourges his son but to receive him, and for the son’s sake. It is love’s altered voice, the merciful stroke of love’s hand, delivered with anguish and pity unspeakable, infinitely reluctant, infinitely sad. F. D. H. 6. “And shall laugh at him;” or, over him—over the wicked man thus cast down—they shall laugh. Such exultation, to our modern sensibilities, seems shocking, because we can hardly conceive of it, apart from the gratification of personal vindictiveness. But there is such a thing as a righteous hatred, as a righteous scorn. There is such a thing as a shout of righteous joy at the downfall of the tyrant and the oppressor, at the triumph of righteousness and truth over wrong and falsehood. P.—The exultation of the righteous at the just punishment of the wicked is frequently described in Holy Scripture. It is inseparable from a hearty and thorough sympathy with God's law. That punishment which it is consistent with God's attributes to inflict, it cannot be inconsistent for His people to view with a stern and holy gratification, utterly distinct from the indulgence of personal feelings of revenge or animosity. It was impossible for David not to desire the punishment of the treacherous murderer, nor to rejoice in the certainty of retribution. 7. Here again the Psalmist goes to the root of the evil; it began with alienation from God, was promoted by love of riches, such as Saul would of course heap on his unscrupulous adherent, and attained its full development in a heart strong only in its longings for evil. Cook. He trusted in the abundance of his riches, which he imagined were laid up for many years; nay, he thought his wickedness would help to support it; right or wrong, he would get what he could and keep what he had, and be the ruin of any one that stood in his way; and this he thought would strengthen him; they may have anything that will make conscience of nothing. But now see what it comes to; see what untempered mortar he built his house with, now that it is fallen and himself buried in the ruins of it. II. If a staff be placed in the hand of a bent and feeble man, what more natural than that he should lean on it? Man is that impotent traveller, and wealth is the staff which offers to support his steps. Hence, in the Word of God it is repeatedly intimated that to possess riches and to trust in them is one and the same thing, except where grace makes the distinction. The term mammon, according to its derivation, imports whatever men are apt to confide in. The original term for faith is of the same derivation, and for the same reason—because it implies such a reliance on God as the worldly mind places on riches. So that mammon came to signify riches, because men so commonly put their trust on them. And when our Lord perceived the astonishment He had excited by exclaiming, "How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of heaven!" the only explanation which he gave, and which he deemed sufficient, imported that as the danger of riches consisted in trusting in them, so the difficulty of possessing them, and not trusting in them is next to an impossibility—a difficulty which can only be surmounted by omnipotent grace. Harris. So-called riches may free the life from many of its annoyances and cares, but beyond this their power of contenting the soul is ridiculously limited. Realizing, as most men do, how little, for example, the selfish spending of fifty thousand dollars annually can add to the sum total of life's enjoyments above the spending of ten thousand dollars, they have ceased expecting to extract much of satisfaction from the expenditure of wealth, unless it be a benevolent expenditure, and they usually devote their energies to the heaping up of riches, either from the gratification of pride, or from the steady, fixed habit of life. These things being so, it must be plain to all who are not morally idiotic that a man's life cannot consist in possessions external to himself of which he can make no use. A man's life consists in what he appropriates to himself, of that which ministers to the varied wants of his physical, intellectual, and spiritual nature, and he has the largest and truest life who appropriates most abundantly that which ministers to his higher and truer nature; so that we are not surprised to hear Jesus identifying life, even life eternal, with the loving knowledge of God as He is revealed in Jesus Christ. That man does not live, in any high sense of the word, who sits in miserly greed upon a heap of gold, neither spending nor enjoying, and fretted with the fear of losing. We have all heard of men whose resources were enormous, who thought themselves far poorer than many a man living on a small salary, for the man with the meagre income had an enlarged mind, a contented spirit, the temper of benevolence, freedom from anxiety, and a thorough trust in Him who said, and so saying has quieted many a fretful spirit: "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." And if he who miserably hoards is not rich, equally poverty-smitten is he who miserably spends on that which satisfieth not. Without peace of mind, without a loving heart, without domestic happiness, without an affectionate trust in God, unlimited money will vex and not content both the avaricious and the luxurious. It is the knowledge of God as good, made real in Jesus Christ, which underlies all earthly possessions and makes them good, which enters into all earthly enjoyment and makes it a blessing, which penetrates earthly experiences and takes from them their sting if they be sorrowful, and the fearful dread of losing them forever if they be joyful. Our higher life rests ultimately in the knowledge of God as our Father, of ourselves as sprung from a Divine lineage, as heirs to an infinite patrimony, as the redeemed by a Divine sacrifice. Without such a faith the pessimist's creed is justified, that "life is not worth living," and may as well be ended at once. Human existence is a dismal and tragic failure, and all things that enter into it are lowered and cheapened. He who doubts, denies, or fails to rejoice in the goodness of God is allied to a philosophy that would be glad of the simultaneous suicide of all mankind. And such is the ultimate logical outcome of all philosophy which does not see that life consists not in goods, but in God; not in things external to the soul, but in the loving fellowship of the human with the Divine, by which man finds himself and his eternal Heaven by finding God. J. H. Barrows. 8. 9. Each trait of the description of the true servant of God is suggested by the contrast between him and the wicked. They make not God their strength, the Psalmist lives and prospers in God's house; they trust in riches, he in God's mercy; they are wholly given up to evil lusts, he waits only on God's name. Cook. The green tree is a figure—at once beautiful and expressive—of that which is pleasant to the sight, useful, thriving, and enduring. The root of David's strength was finely indicated by locating this tree in the house of God. "I trusted," literally, I have trusted, but implying also the future: I will trust in God's name, which endures forever. "I will praise Thee forever, because Thou hast wrought"—achieved—he does not define what, but leaves us to assume it to be that which I trust Him for—viz., my safety and ultimate success in my life-work—the thing which God virtually promised when He called David to the throne of Israel. "I will wait on Thy name in the presence of the saints," making the most public manifestations of my grateful and absolute trust in my God. C. 8. Those that by faith and love dwell in the house of God shall be like green olive-trees there; the wicked are said to flourish like a bay-tree (37 : 35) which bears no useful fruit, though it have abundance of large leaves; but the righteous flourish like a green olive-tree which is fruitful as well as flourishing. H.—The verdant olive flourishing round the year, nourished by a rich soil, fostered by a pure element and glowing temperature, and gizing to man freely what it freely receives from heaven, may well represent David in his holy and happy condition while depending upon God and benefiting His people. Anon. 9. I will praise Thee forever. Like Thy mercy shall my thankfulness be. While others boast in their riches I will boast in my God; and when their glorying is silenced forever in the tomb, my song shall continue to proclaim the lovingkindness of Jehovah. S. The common version, I will wait on Thy name, is not so happy as the one in the Prayer Book, I will hope in Thy name. The clause, for it is good, relates not to the act of expectation, but its object. He does not mean, "because it is good to hope in Thy name," but "because Thy name is good, and is therefore to be hoped in." A.—We know that His name is just the highest name for goodness and blessedness. We know that His is the mind to which evil is the supreme impossibility. We know that He is the God of truth and without iniquity; just and right is He. Amidst the multitude of promises which His munificence has prompted Him to make, we know that not one good word hath failed, but every yea has found its Amen. Amidst the multitude of creatures over which His sovereignty extends we know that there exists no instance of unkindness, or neglect, or oppression. And amidst the multitude of thoughts and emotions which make up the joys of Deity, we know that there is not one malevolent affection; but all is condescension to His creatures, care for their well-being, and delectation in their joy. Hamilton. Thy saints. A saint is a believer in Christ, who is a partaker of His spirit, maintains a close walk, and keeps up a communion and fellowship with the Lord; lives in the fear of Him and in good conscience toward Him. He is chosen out of the world and separate from it; though in it he is not of it. He is warmly attached to the Lord's cause, is diligent in the means of his appointment, orders his steps by God's Word, and follows his Lord in the regeneration. Such souls the Lord hath sanctified, and such souls will ever sanctify Him. William Huntington. Saints are made saints not by doing extraordinary or uncommon things, but by doing common things in an uncommon way, on uncommonly high principles, in an uncommonly self-sacrificing spirit. Be sure that this is the only substantial thing. The bits of knowledge that we call our learning, the bits of property that we call our wealth, the momentary vanities of delight that we call the conquests of social life—how swiftly they hurry to their graves, or are lost in forgetfulness! Nothing, nothing else but character survives, and character is Christ formed within. Character is an integral and not a fragmentary thing. It is a symmetrical growth, having laws, proportions, and vital conditions of its own. It cannot be a practical force without having its root in unseen reali- ties, and its conscious source in the living God, and its perpetually replenished supply by communion with Him. There cannot be a developed and healthy saint without a constant putting forth of vitality and vigor in a principled activity of use and exercises of righteousness. F. D. II. 1. THE fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity; There is none that doeth good. 2 God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there were any that did understand [deal wisely], That did seek after God. 3 Every one of them is gone back; they are together become filthy; There is none that doeth good, no, not one. 4 Have the workers of iniquity no knowledge? Who eat up my people as they eat bread, And call not upon God. 5 There were they in great fear, where no fear was: For God hath scattered the bones of him that encampeth against thee; Thou hast put them to shame, because God hath rejected them. 6 Oh that the salvation of Israel were come out of Zion! When God bringeth back the captivity of his people, Then shall Jacob rejoice, and Israel shall be glad. THIS Psalm is only another version of the fourteenth Psalm, from which it differs in two particulars. First, in its use of the name of God, which here is Elohim, instead of Jehovah—a peculiarity which is characteristic of all the Psalms in the second book. Next, in the remarkable deviation (v. 5) from the language of the parallel passage in Psalm 14: 5, 6. There seems to have been an intentional alteration, with a view of adapting the Psalm to different circumstances. Perhaps, as Bunsen suggests, a later poet may have wished to apply Psalm 14 to the events of his own time, when Israel was threatened by foreign enemies, and thus have sought to encourage the people to hope for deliverance by reminding them of God's help vouchsafed in former times of trouble. In this case vs. 4, 5 [5, 6] must be taken as referring to the past, not to the future. That of the two texts Psalm 14 is the original appears to me almost certain. P. 1. The fool hath said in his heart, no God. This I dare affirm in knowledge of nature, that a little natural philosophy and the first entrance into it doth dispose the opinion to atheism; but, on the other side, much natural philosophy and wading deep into it will bring about men's minds to religion; wherefore atheism every way seems to be combined with folly and ignorance, seeing nothing can be more justly allotted to be the saying of fools than this, "There is no God." Bacon. Truly it is only the fool who hath said in his heart, "No God," for to prove it one would need to be himself a god and to travel abroad over the surrounding universe till he had exhausted it. He must search backward through all the hidden recesses of eternity; traverse in every direction the plains of infinitude; he must sweep the outskirts of that space which is itself interminable, and then bring back to this little world of ours the report of a universal blank, wherein he had not met with one movement of a presiding God. For man not to know of a God he has only to sink beneath the level of our common nature, but to deny Him he must be a god himself; he must arrogate the ubiquity and omniscience of God Himself. Hallock. An atheist there may be, but an anti-atheist there cannot possibly be. That is to say, a man may declare that he does not find any evidence that satisfies him of the existence of a God; but no man may dare to say absolutely, There is not a God. The former is merely the expression of that individual's necessarily most limited, imperfect, and restricted experience; but the latter proposition would imply that the individual had soared among the stars and ransacked the contents of the worlds that are there; that he had descended to the caves of the ocean and explored the unknown treasures that are there; that he had travelled through the mines and strata of the earth and discovered the hidden recesses and depths and mysteries there; that, in short, he had been in time past possessed of omnipresence and omniscience, and in the exercise of two attributes of Deity had not discovered a God. The fact is, such an individual must be himself God in order to be in a position to announce the proposition, There is not a God. Cunning. We are placed amidst the amazing scene of His works, extending on all sides from the point where we stand to far beyond anything we can distinctly conceive of infinity; in a diversity which not eternal duration will suffice for any creature to take account of all; having within one day, one hour, one instant, operations, changes, appearances to which the greatest angel's calculating faculty would be nothing; combining design, order, beauty, sublimity, utility. Can we glance over the earth and into the wilderness of worlds in infinite space, without being impressed with the solemn thought that all this is but the sign and proof of something infinitely more glorious than itself? And that there should be men who can survey the creation with a scientific enlargement of intelligence, and then say, "There is no God," is one of the most hideous phenomena in the world. J. F. Sin is always folly, and as it is the height of sin to attack the very existence of the Most High, so is it also the greatest imaginable folly. To say there is no God is to belie the plainest evidence, which is obstinacy; to oppose the common consent of mankind, which is stupidity; to stifle consciousness, which is madness. If the sinner could by his atheism destroy the God whom he hates there were some sense, although much wickedness, in his infidelity; but as denying the existence of fire does not prevent its burning a man who is in it, so doubting the existence of God will not stop the Judge of all the earth from destroying the rebel who breaks His laws; nay, this atheism is a crime which much provokes heaven and will bring down terrible vengeance on the fool who indulges it. S. An atheist is a moral monster. Man has fallen, but not so low as to be satisfied with the atheist's cold, dark, and dreary creed. Recoiling from that, he has erred on the side of a multiplicity of gods. The soul craves for a god as the body craves for food. It clings to the thought as a creeper to the pole it climbs; and rather than his spirit should want such a support, man will catch at the wildest and most childish notion of beings above himself—just as ivy, when it has not a rock, will embrace a rotten tree, or as a drowning wretch for lack of something better clutches at a straw. Guthrie. In distresses he must be of all creatures the most helpless and forlorn; he feels the whole pressure of a present calamity without being relieved by the memory of anything that is past, or the prospect of anything that is to come. Annihilation is the greatest blessing that he proposes to himself, and a halter or a pistol the only refuge he can fly to. But if you would behold one of these gloomy miscreants in his poorest figure, you must consider him under the terrors or at the approach of death. Addison. — I have heard of some that deny that there was a God; yet never knew the man but when he was sick he would seek unto God for help; therefore they do but lie that say there is no God; they sin against the light of their own consciences; they who most studiously go about to deny God yet cannot do it but some check of conscience will fly in their faces. Augustine. Naked atheism is a repulsive creed. It is a mere and monstrous negation. It touches no sympathy; it attracts, it stimulates no play of intellect; under the deadly chill of its unlighted vacancy imagination cannot breathe. There is nothing about it refined, or subtle, or profound. It is the vulgarest form of infidelity, and has been professed by the coarsest minds. It demands no effort to comprehend it, and no skill to expound it. It is an arid and barren, a cold and dreary hypothesis, which no genius, not even that of Lucretius, could make either attractive or credible. J. H. Riggs. Atheism is consistent with itself when, as in the French Revolution, it writes over the gateway to the grave, "Death is an eternal sleep." It is consistent with itself when it annuls every restraint that is exercised over wicked men by the apprehension of a Supreme Judge and a final retribution. It is consistent with itself when it closes every temple of worship, and rends to atoms all those hallowed sympathies and hopes with which the soul of man is inspired to do and suffer on earth. It is consistent with itself when it leaves the unaided reason of man to grapple in blank despair with the fearful problems of his existence and destiny; when it sends him to the grave with all the racking uncertainty and doubt that invest the possibilities of a hereafter; when it robs the injured sufferer of the last hope of redress in the justice of heaven, and at the same time unbars the gates of every lawless passion and impulse, emancipating it from all sense of accountability or dread of retribution. If there is any one conception into which all these elements of the terrible, the sublime, and the despairing are compressed and combined it is that this scheme of existence, this moral and physical universe is without a controlling mind; without a God. Then life is only a brilliant dream, lighting its own way to the grave, kindled just long enough to flash upon the gloom that is to cover it. Man is an orphan, or a helpless child of uncertainty, want, guilt, and anguish. The world is a desert and a graveyard. Eternity is a terrible, unexplored chaos, the more terrible because unknown. The fond affections that would follow their loved object to the grave, and will not desert it even then—these are but the implements of our torment, the chains that we must wear to gall us. No hope lights up the parting hour of earth; no possible prospect of a blest reunion can extract its sting. We must stand shuddering over the fathomless gulf of annihilation and feed our fancy on the shadows that imagination summons out of its darkness. E. H. G. Confession of a living atheist. When we look abroad over life, when we see how cruel fate often is; how nature, in the shape of floods, conflagrations, and disease strikes into our wisest plans and wrests from us the most cherished objects of our affection; when we see in society around us vice often exalted to honor and virtue trodden under foot, then we need to rise in spirit above the present pain to a future good, above the present wrong to a future right, above the present incompleteness to a future perfection. Then we need to feel that at the deep central heart of the world there abides an eternal purpose for whose accomplishment we, by our sufferings, are helping to pay the price. We need to feel that no effort is ever wasted, that no honest reaching out for the good is ever lost, that the great all is pressing forward toward a high, a glorious goal. But how shall we obtain this conviction that there is a good tendency in things? In the old religion it is based on revelation; but how shall those who cannot accept revelation build it up in themselves? We cannot logically demonstrate it. It is in vain we go to science for help. All science seizes only a fragment of the whole. It can never hope to prove the certainty of the triumph of the good. There is only one way to obtain this conviction: Act the good, and then you will believe in it. F. Adler, in N. A. Review. What sort of a world would be that in which materialism should bear sway? A world without God, even in dim traditionary sentiment; a world disenchanted of all the grandeur and loveliness with which a religious imagination has invested it; a world robbed of conscious liberty, crushed, benumbed by an iron fate, ubiquitous, perpetual, inescapable; a world without moral order, without moral law, without conscience, unvisited by remorse, unblessed by moral self-esteem; a world bounded and shut in by the leaden horizon and sunless sky of death; without any glimpse of fairer, more resplendent spheres; without any distant sky-bright prospect of millennium beyond millennium, rising like “Alps o’er Alps” in the perspective of immortality; a world without any Jacob’s ladder, thronged with supernal forms of visitants from heaven to earth, and of transfigured saints ascending from earth to heaven; a world without the name, or memory, or wondrous example, or consoling presence, or Divine sweetness of Jesus our God! Of all this the materialism of the age seeks to rob mankind. Z. Eddy. 3. None that doeth good.** It needed no revelation to tell us that sin is, that mankind is sinful. Without, within us is the fact, the experience, the evidence, the presence of sin. It is sin which makes life troublous and gives death its sting. The revelation of the fall tells of an entrance, of an inburst of evil into a world all good, into a being created upright; tells, therefore, of a nature capable of purity, of an enemy that may be expelled, and of a holiness possible because natural. From man’s fall we infer a fall earlier yet and more mysterious. Once sin was not; and when it entered man’s world it entered under an influence independent, not inherent. The first sin is also the specimen sin. It is in this sense, too, the original sin, that all other sins are copies of it. Unbelief first, then disobedience; then corruption, then self-excusing; then the curse and the expulsion—turn the page and you shall find a murder! J. V. Left to itself the race not only revels in unholy imaginings and desires and purposes; it even exalts and adorns and glorifies its impure creations. It seeks to give them the charm of supreme and perfect literary form, polluting even the poetry of every nation. It bodies them forth in every form of art, until it would seem as if the only pure studios and art galleries of the world were those which nature holds high up above our corrupting touch, in the chaste skies of morn and even. In heathendom the very altars of religion have been dedicated to deities of unnameable loathsomeness. W. F. Warren. What is it that sin does to a man? It averts his will from all that is good, and right, and true; it bribes his conscience; it impoverishes his heart of every pure affection; it squanders and lays waste all the treasures of his immortal soul; it gives him a bias and interest, as he fancies, in rejecting the message that comes to close quarters with him and his transgression. It makes him in love with his own passions and desires, and consequently not in love with the pure Word of the Divine truth; just as those old Israelites with their perverted taste longed for the leeks and onions and garlic, the strong-smelling and tasting dainties that they had got down in the land of their captivity, and said, "Our soul loathes this light bread," that came from God and had nothing in it to pamper sense and feed the flesh. Every transgression deprives us, in some degree, of power to receive the Divine Word of God's truth, and making it our own. And these demons of worldliness, of selfishness, of carelessness, of pride, of sensuality, that go careering through the soul are like the goblin horseman in the old legend; wherever that hoof-fall strikes, the ground is blasted, and no grass will grow upon it any more forever! The heart is trodden down by the rebel rout of beastly sins that go storming through that once fair garden, eating up what they can, and trampling down what they cannot eat. These turn it from the field in which seed may be sown, into the hard, beaten path where the seed only lies on the top, and never goes down at all. A. M. 5. There have they feared a fear, because God hath scattered the bones of thy besieger; thou hast put (them) to shame, because God hath rejected them. (See Psalm 14: 5, 6.) The design to strengthen the expression is particularly clear in this case, where two verses are compressed into one, and the other changes all enhance the emphasis. Thus instead of a general assurance of Divine protection, God is in the righteous generation, we have here a description of their enemies' destruction in the most poetical and striking terms, God hath scattered the bones of thy besieger—literally, thy encamper, him that encampeth against thee. So, too, instead of the complaint that the wicked treat the faith of pious sufferers with contempt—the counsel of the sufferer ye will shame because Jehovah is his refuge—we have here the tables turned upon the scoffers by the scorn both of God and man; thou hast put to shame (the individuals included in the collective phrase thy besieger), because God has rejected them, an act implying both abhorrence and contempt. In this, which is by far the most considerable variation of the two editions, the existence of design is so apparent that the supposition of an inadvertent or fortuitous corruption seems preposterous. So far are the two Psalms from being contradictory, or even inconsistent, that they might be sung together, by alternate or responsive choirs, with the happiest effect. A. These impious men had been absolutely confident of their power to maintain themselves against all opposition. Not recognizing the power of God to sweep away every combination of evil, they had come forward in perfect fearlessness, and the ruin that befell them was a terrible surprise. This verse corresponds with Psalm 14: 5 only in the first line, after which another verse is there added that has no counterpart here. But here, even more distinctly than there, some overwhelming calamity is referred to which cannot be identified historically. 6. The question may be asked, here or at Psalm 14, whether the poet is speaking of the race at large, in general terms, and without historic connection, or has in mind some special Divine interposition in behalf of the victims of oppression. His language in vs. 2 and 3 seems to describe humanity, as such and everywhere, as evil and not good. But such absolute ungodliness and utter abandonment to gross moral corruption as his words indicate can never have been universal. There was always a holy seed, a people of God who worshipped and served Him. Even this dark picture of crime is lighted up by more than one glimpse of an Israel quite distinct from the infamous world in the foreground. The seventh verse, with its pointed allusion to time and place in the adverb "there," shows clearly that the writer had before him a manifestation of peculiarly atrocious wickedness on the one hand, and of Divine justice in appropriate severity on the other. We have here an instance of judgment on a limited scale in the past, as symbolizing the com- plete and final overthrow of evil in the future. But in being idealized it is generalized, and brought into the present, as belonging to all time, an object lesson for the world. This is the poet's true position in dramatic representation. The historic basis is found, if possible, among the occurrences of his own lifetime. Having chosen this, it is easy to recall the past most vividly and to describe it as an eyewitness of events in their succession. David had a large store of such material, accumulated during the hard experiences of his early manhood, and giving profitable employment to his serene old age. De Witt. FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN; ON STRINGED INSTRUMENTS. MASCHIL OF DAVID: WHEN THE ZIPHITES CAME AND SAID TO SAUL, DOTH NOT DAVID HIDE HIMSELF WITH US? 1. SAVE me, O God, by thy name, And judge me in thy might. 2 Hear my prayer, O God; Give ear to the words of my mouth. 3 For strangers are risen up against me, And violent men have sought after my soul: They have not set God before them. [Selah 4 Behold, God is mine helper: The Lord is of them that uphold my soul. 5. He shall requite the evil unto mine enemies: Destroy thou them in thy truth. 6 With a freewill offering will I sacrifice unto thee: I will give thanks unto thy name, O LORD, for it is good. 7 For he hath delivered me out of all trouble; And mine eye hath seen my desire upon mine enemies. THE language of this Psalm is of so general a character that it might have been composed under almost any circumstances of peril. The Psalm consists of two principal divisions: A prayer to God to hear and to judge the cause of His servant, together with the reason for this prayer in the violence and unscrupulousness of the enemies who beset him (v. 1-3). The confident assurance that God will hear his prayer, and the promise and vow of thanksgiving for God's goodness which is thus anticipated (v. 4-7). P—Two notes only sound from his harp: One a plaintive cry for help; the other thanksgiving for deliverance as already achieved. The two are bound together by the recurrence in each of "the name" of God, which is at once the source of his salvation and the theme of his praise. We have only to read the lowly petitions to feel that they speak of a spirit somewhat weighed down by danger, and relaxed from the loftier mood of triumphant trust. A. M. TITLE. For the musician, with accompaniment of stringed instruments, a meditation, by David, when the Ziphites had come and said to Saul: Doth not David hide himself with us? Abiathar, the son of Ahimelech, had escaped to David, who was then in the fortified city of Keilah with 600 men, but received information from God through Abiathar that when Saul should invest the city the inhabitants would deliver him up. We meet him next in the wilderness of Ziph; the Ziphites betray him and pledge themselves to capture him, so that he is brought into the greatest straits, from which he was delivered only by an inroad of the Philistines, which compelled Saul to return from his pursuit of him (1 Sam. 23: 19). D. 1. Save me, O God! As David was at this time placed beyond the reach of human assistance, he must be understood as praying to be saved by the name and the power of God, in an emphatical sense, or by these in contradistinction to the usual means of deliverance. Though all help must ultimately come from God, there are ordinary methods by which He generally extends it. When these fail, and every earthly stay is removed, He must then take the work into His own hands. It was in such a situation that David here fled to the saints' last asylum, and sought to be saved by a miracle of Divine power. John Calvin. 3. Not to set God before them is to act as if they did not remember or believe in His existence and His presence. The Selah indicates a pause of indignation and abhorrence. A.—They have not set God before them; they have quite cast off the thoughts of God; they do not consider that His eye is upon them, that, in fighting against His people they fight against Him, nor have they any dread of the certain fatal consequences of such an unequal engagement. What bonds of nature, or friendship, or gratitude, or covenant will hold those that have broken through the fear of God? Selah; Mark this! H. When the hand is full and the purse is full, and the heart has all it can wish, there is danger lest men should forget God. "Soul, take thine ease," is a very common feeling among those whose circumstances are, on the whole, fairly pleasant. They have no desire to see God, no desire to be with God. Let them be without changes, and they do not feel that God is essential to them at all, and they do not fear Him. All the changes of this life which unsettle us, derange our schemes, and destroy our pleasures are meant to appeal to us and to remind us that "here we have no continuing city"—that this is not our rest. E. Mellor. 4. The upholder of my soul—literally, "among them," or, "with them that uphold my soul." But this would not convey the meaning of the Psalmist. For God is not to him one out of many helpers, but the only true Helper. The use of the plural denotes the class or category of upholders in which God is, though, of course, without placing Him on a level with human helpers. (See the same grammatical figure in 118 : 7; Judges 11 : 35.) 5. With free will, or, with glad, willing heart, as the expression occurs in Num. 15 : 3. This explains the motive of the sacrifice. The offering would be a literal offering, as appointed by the law, but brought with the cheerfulness of a thankful heart. P. There are many of us whose question seems to be, "How little can I get off with! How much can I retain?"—many of us whose effort is to find out how much of the world is consistent with the profession of Christianity, and to find the minimum of effort, of love, of service, of gifts which may free us from the obligation. And what does that mean? It means that we are slaves. It means that if we durst we would give nothing and do nothing. And what does that mean? It means that we do not care for the Lord, and have no joy in our work. And what does that mean? It means that our work deserves no praise, and will get no reward. If we love Christ we shall be anxious, if it were possible, to do more than He commands us, in token of our loyalty to the King, and of our delight in the service. Of course, in the highest view, nothing can be more than necessary. Of course He has the right to all our work; but yet there are heights of Christian consecration and self-sacrifice which a man will not be blamed if he has not climbed, and will be praised if he has. What we want, if I might venture to say so, is extravagances of service. Judas may say, "To what purpose is this waste?" but Jesus will say, "He hath wrought a good work on Me." And the fragrance of the ointment will smell sweet through the centuries. A. M. Many Christians, obedient to the call to "draw nigh unto God," are prone to cultivate too exclusively the inner graces. The beginning and ending of their prayers is, "Lord, increase our faith." But only the hemisphere of the Christian life has been traversed when one has experienced the delights of communion with his God. It is when the outward fruits of the spirit begin to cluster and drop by the wayside that the religious life begins to become joyful not only to its possessor, but to all within its radius. Among God's gifts faith has undisputed primacy. But the command is to "add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity." Our experimental religion is best proved when it lives in the experience of those with whom we deal. Interior. 6,7. Thanks to Thy name, for it is good.** The name—the revealed character of God—was the storehouse of all the saving energies to which he appealed in v. 1. It is the theme of his praise when the deliverance shall have come. It is almost regarded here as equivalent to the Divine personality—it is good, it has delivered him. Thus, we may say that this brief Psalm gives us as the single thought of a devout soul in trouble, the name of the Lord, and teaches by its simple pathos how the contemplation of God as He has made Himself known, should underlie every cry for help and crown every thanksgiving; whilst it may assure us that whosoever seeks for the salvation of that mighty name may, even in the midst of trouble, rejoice as in an accomplished deliverance. And all such thoughts should be held with a faith at least as firm as the ancient Psalmist's, by us to whom the "name" of the Lord is "declared" by Him who is the full revelation of God, and the storehouse of all blessings and help to His "brethren." A. M. The petitions are such as David might well have made after his conversation with Jonathan. The Psalm is evidently the song of one whose hand had been "strengthened in God." Its great central truth is, "God is mine Helper; the Lord is with them who (like Jonathan) uphold my soul." And there comes after that a happy exercise of the spirit of trust, enabling the Psalmist to say, "He hath delivered me out of all trouble." This result is wonderful and beautiful. How remarkable that in that wilderness of Judah, amid a life of hardship, exposure, and peril, with a powerful king thirsting for his blood, and using his every device to get hold of him, he should be able to say of God, "He hath delivered me out of all trouble." It is the faith that removes mountains; it is the faith that worked so wonderfully when the lad with the sling and stones went out so bravely against the giant. What wonders cannot faith perform when it gets clear of all the entanglements of carnal feeling, and stands, firm and erect, on the promise of God! How infinitely would such a faith relieve and sustain us in the common troubles and anxieties of life, and in deeper perplexities connected with the cause of God. Take this short clause as marking out the true quality and highest attainment of simple faith, and resolve that you will not rest in your own endeavors till your mind reaches the state of tranquillity which it describes so simply—"He hath delivered me out of all trouble." W. G. B. 1. GIVE ear to my prayer, O God; And hide not thyself from my supplication. 2 Attend unto me, and answer me: I am restless in my complaint, and moan; 3 Because of the voice of the enemy, Because of the oppression of the wicked; For they cast iniquity upon me, And in anger they persecute me. 4 My heart is sore pained within me: And the terrors of death are fallen upon me. 5 Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, And horror hath overwhelmed me. 6 And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then would I fly away, and be at rest. 7 Lo, then would I wander far off, I would lodge in the wilderness. [Selah 8 I would haste me to a shelter From the stormy wind and tempest. 9 Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongue: For I have seen violence and strife in the city. 10 Day and night they go about it upon the walls thereof: Iniquity also and mischief are in the midst of it. 11 Wickedness is in the midst thereof: Oppression and guile depart not from her streets. 12 For it was not an enemy that reproached me; Then I could have borne it: Neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; Then I would have hid myself from him: 13 But it was thou, a man mine equal, My companion, and my familiar friend. 14 We took sweet counsel together, We walked in the house of God with the throng. 15 Let death come suddenly upon them, Let them go down alive into the pit: For wickedness is in their dwelling, in the midst of them. 16 As for me, I will call upon God; And the LORD shall save me. 17 Evening, and morning, and at noonday, will I complain, and moan: And he shall hear my voice. 18 He hath redeemed my soul in peace from the battle that was against me : For they were many that strove with me. 19 God shall hear, and answer them, Even he that abideth of old, [Selah The men who have no changes, And who fear not God. 20 He hath put forth his hands against such as were at peace with him : He hath profaned his covenant. 21 His mouth was smooth as butter, But his heart was war : His words were softer than oil, Yet were they drawn swords. 22 Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee : He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. 23 But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction : Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days ; But I will trust in thee. A COUNTERPART to Psalm 41, which refers to the same intrigue and hatred of enemies, and to the same treacherous friend. It belongs to the time just before David's dethronement by the partisans of Absalom under the crafty lead of Ahithophel. The latter is the person whose faithlessness is complained of, and he is well called "the Old Testament Judas." (See 2 Sam 15.) De Witt. As this Psalm is in the title ascribed to David, and as it contains a bitter complaint of the faith- lessness of a trusted friend, it has been com- monly supposed to refer to the desertion and treachery of Ahithophel in Absalom's rebellion. One thing is certain, and that is, that whoever the hollow friend may have been, who knew so well to cloak his treacherous designs—who with war in his heart could use words smoother than oil—his perfidy was very deeply felt and very bitterly resented by the man who here records it. At one moment sadness, at another indignation prevails. The abruptness in many parts of the Psalm is to be accounted for, to a great extent, by the strong emotion under which it was written. The Psalm consists of three principal divi- sions : The first contains the earnest appeal to God against his enemies, the expression of his suffering, and the horror of mind which has come upon him, together with the longing to es- cape from the hostility to which he was exposed, and the evil he was compelled to witness (vs. 1-8). In the next his tone changes. The por- tentous wickedness which has filled the whole city, and worse even than this, the perfidy of the man he had trusted, rouse his indignation, and he prays that all the counsels of the wicked may be brought to naught, and that they them- selves may go down alive into the grave (vs. 9-15). The last strophe is altogether in a calmer strain. It opens and closes with the confes- sion of trust in God ; and though the figure of the traitor again comes prominently into view, it does not provoke the same burning impreca- tion as before. Instead of this, the Psalmist rests calmly confident that the righteous shall never be moved, and that the bloodthirsty and deceitful man shall speedily be cut off (vs. 16-23). P. TITLE. To the Chief Musician. With (or on) stringed instruments. A didactic Psalm. By David. The Psalm is designated as a Maschil, because it might at first sight seem to have re- lation merely to a case of personal maltreatment and distress, whereas it is a general description of the sufferings of God's people, or the right- cous as a class, at the hands of false friends and malignant enemies. Although there seem to be allusions to the writer's own experience, in the times both of Saul and Absalom, the whole de- scription can be applied exclusively to neither. A. 6. Don't spend your time in wishing for wings, or for anything else that is impossible. Not that there is anything wrong in a wish, unless that we wish for what is wrong. Wishes will come flying into our minds, as little birds sometimes hop in at an open window. But do not feed and fondle them. Let them fly away again. Wishing is profitless work, even for possible things. God gave David something much better than wings. Read vs. 16, 17, 22, and look at the last six words of v. 23, and you will see how this was. Often God denies our wishes that He may give us something better than we ask or think. The Lord Jesus needed no wings to fly up to heaven. And we need no wings to get near enough to Him to talk to Him. Ask Him to help you to use your hands and feet in His service. Love to Him will be better than the winged shoes you read of in the old Greek fables. It will make your feet swift and your hands nimble for every duty and every kindness. E. R. Conder. To sigh is sometimes natural, but to waste time in sighing, to suffer ourselves to be absorbed in the dark side of life, to exclude ourselves from its many and estimable gladnesses, is unthoughtful and useless. No good and great life will ever suffer itself to be crippled by conquerable melancholy. If we sigh for our own weakness and sins, we cannot, indeed, fly to ourselves, but we can fly to the grace of God and amend ourselves. If we sigh for our surroundings, no wings of a dove, indeed, can bear us away from the dwellings of Meshach and the tents of Kedar; but, by God's grace, we may help to make them better and happier places; for, after all, at all times of our pilgrimage, primary duties "Shine aloft like stars, And charities, that soothe and heal and bless, Lie scattered at the feet of men like flowers." Sorrow may take from life its delights, but it can never take its duties. At the lowest ebb of dejection we still have much to do. That was a good motto, "Work here, rest elsewhere, cease thy sighing, do thy work, the day is short, the work abundant, the laborers few, the reward is great." Farrar. 7. To lodge is here to take up one's abode. The wilderness, not necessarily a barren desert but an uninhabited region, the essential idea here being that of separation from human society, a strong though indirect mode of affirming its extreme corruption. The strength of the feeling which prompted this desire is indicated by a solemn pause. A. 9. The tone of sadness and melancholy now gives way to one of hot and passionate indignation. He would have escaped if he could from that city of sinners, who vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their ungodly deeds; but as he could not do this, he would gladly see God's judgments executed upon them. The sudden outburst of these fervent, impetuous feelings gives an irregularity to the whole poem. But this is natural. 14. The first clause speaks of private intimacy, the next of association in public acts, and especially in the great festivals and processions to the Temple. 15. Again, indignation at the blackness of this treachery, so far worse to be endured than any open enmity. To have trusted, and to find his trust betrayed; to have been one with a man in public and in private, bound to him by personal ties and by the ties of religion, and then to find honor, faith, and affection all cast to the winds—this it was that seemed so terrible; this it was that called for the withering curse. Thus the second strophe ends as it began (v. 9), with imprecations upon the wicked; the intervening stanzas, in describing the faithlessness of the trusted friend, giving the reason for this anathema. P. 15. Desolations (are) upon them! They shall go down to Sheol alive? For evils are in their dwellings, in their heart. All that the Hebrew words express is a confident anticipation. The common version of the first words (let death seize upon them) is founded on the masoretic reading; but the best critics now prefer the older reading in the text, which, instead of a verb and a singular noun, exhibits one noun in the plural number, meaning desolations, and agreeing with the substantive verb understood. Sheol, the grave, the state of the dead, the wide old English sense of hell. There is an obvious allusion to another great historical type of God's contributory judgments, the destruction of Korah and his company, who went down alive into the pit (Num. 16: 33). A.—There is justice in the universe, love itself demands it; pity to rebels against God, as such, is no virtue—we pray for them as creatures, we abhor them as enemies of God. We need in these days far more to guard against the disguised iniquity which sympathizes with evil, and counts punishment to be cruelty, than against the harshness of a former age. S. 16,17. Another change of tone, now sweet and solemn, with the name Jehovah, for the first time in the Psalm, speaking of inward hope and sure salvation. There may possibly be an allusion to prayers habitually offered thrice daily, but the Psalmist is speaking now of his unceasing supplication in the time of trial. Cook.—"As for me" well indicates the strong contrast which David designedly puts between his case and that of his enemies. They, prayerless and awfully wicked, go down suddenly and fearfully to their own place; but I cry to my God for help, and in Him I find precious salvation. This allusion to David's stated times for prayer is interesting as showing that he lived in the atmosphere of prayer, waiting continually upon his God at all times, and preeminently in all his straits. C. This is the excellent advantage of the prayer of faith, that it quiets and establishes the heart in God. Whatever be his estate and desire, when once the believer hath put his petition in God's hand, he rests content in holy security and assurance concerning the answer, refers it to the love and wisdom of God how and when He will answer; not doubting that whatsoever it be, and whensoever, it shall both be gracious and seasonable. Leighton.—A father encourages his child to make known his wishes, and lets him know that they will be attended to. This does not imply that every one of the petitions will be granted, even those that are capricious, or which the father knows might injure his boy. He complies with the entreaties, so far as this can be done consistently with the wise regulations of his household, so far as circumstances admit, and so far as the youth's best welfare is not interfered with. It is much the same with our heavenly Father when we are assured that 'if men who are evil know how to give good things to their children, much more shall our heavenly Father give good things to those who ask Him.' The two cases, indeed, that our heavenly and that of our earthly father, are not identical, but they are parallel, and the earthly may throw light on the heavenly. God, in His sovereign wisdom and for our good, has laid down governmental laws, and these He cannot be expected to contravene; and much as He may yearn to grant the requests of those who pray, yet He will not do so when this might injure their best interests; He will not, for instance, give them wealth when this might make them vain and proud, or tempt them into sinful indulgences. McCosh. You may confidently take up David's conclusion—'The Lord shall save me.' Is not this too bold? Yes, if founded upon anything in yourself as the cause why God should save you, it is daring presumption; but from the Lord's absolute declarations, full and free promises given us in Christ, we are divinely warranted thus to conclude. Then take and prize the Lord's word as your blessed charter of salvation; plead before Him; expect all salvation from Him, even victory over all sin, deliverance from every trouble, the comfort of holiness here, and the joys of glory in eternity—'All are yours, and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.' W. Mason. 17. Evening and morning.** The three principal parts of the day are mentioned, either as marking special times set apart for prayer, or as a poetical expression for 'the whole day,' 'at all times,' 'without ceasing.' P.—It is as impossible for the soul to live and thrive without daily prayer, as for the body to live and thrive without daily food. Our graces are like plants that need daily watering; lamps that need daily filling; bodies that need daily feeding. It is as necessary for the graces of the inner, as for the strength, and health, and life of the outward man that we should wait on God to say, 'Give me day by day my daily bread.' Guthrie. Easiness of desire is a great enemy to the success of a good man's prayer. It must be an intent, zealous, busy, operative prayer. For, consider what a huge indecency it is, that a man should speak to God for a thing that he values not. Our prayers upbraid our spirits, when we beg tamely for those things for which we ought to die; which are more precious than imperial seeptres, richer than the spoils of the sea, or the treasures of the Indian hills. Bishop J. Taylor.—It is frequent converse with God which begetteth a particular acquaintance with Him, a migdful regard of Him, a hearty liking to Him, a delightful taste of His goodness, and consequently a sincere and solid good-will toward Him; but intermission thereof produceth estrangement or enmity toward Him. If we seldom come at God, we shall little know Him, not much care for Him, scarce remember Him, rest insensible of His love and regardless of His favor; a coldness, a shyness, a distaste, an antipathy toward Him will by degrees creep upon us. Abstinence from His company and presence will cast us into conversations destructive or prejudicial to our friendship with Him. Barrow. As we are creatures of impulse, inspiration, liberty, so also we are creatures of drill, and there is no way to perfect or establish us in anything unless we could be required to do what we are not inclined to do; to appoint our times of prayer, keep ourselves in rounds of observance, and hold fast in the punctual discipline of times. If we have no times in religion but such as we take by mere impulse or inclination, we shall fall away at last from all times and all duties. Let any one take the ground, for example, that he will never pray except when he is drawn to it, and he will less and less frequently be drawn. If any one tells me that he cannot pray when he is disinclined or not moved to it, and would feel it even to be an act of insincerity, I understand that he prays very seldom, and perhaps never. Such a rule of prayer would gradually let down the best Christian, and finally take him quite away from the exercise. If instead of girding himself to what interest he may find, he yields to his mere self-indulgence, that self-indulgence will rot away his confidence, exterminate his peace, turn itself into habitual disinclination, and so, by a fixed law, put an end to his praying altogether. Let any most dull and worldly minded Christian gather himself up to the established rule of prayer for three times, twice, or even once a day, determined not to have it as a mere observance, but as an exercise of grace and practical waiting on God, and it will not be long before he is truly restored and walks in liberty. So that if we grant the inherent defect of any and all prayers in which there is nothing better than a forced exercise, no impulse, no liberty, the true way to be in liberty, and be kept habitually there, is to live in that holy routine which is the bond of all true application, and the certain method of all earnestness and fidelity. And accordingly it will be found, as a matter of fact, that they who are readiest to endure hardness, and have least delicacy about forcing themselves in constrained exercises, have really most liberty, live closest to God, enjoy most of His smile, and as they keep up the rounds of duty most faithfully, will have really least feeling of constraint, or even think of it as no constraint at all. Bushnell. 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 toward heaven, the windows of heaven are open to us. Have but a pleading heart, and God will have a plenteous hand. S. 18. The battle against me.** Many a great battle turns at last on the reserve. Life's battles and crises are determined in like manner, ofttimes, by the reserve or the absence of reserve. We must all be assailed by temptations and by spiritual foes, when victory can be gained only if we have reserves of resistance to call into action. We must all stand before tasks and duties which will altogether baffle our ability if we have no more strength to draw on than we have been using in the common duties of the common days. Blessed are they who have learned to draw on the infinite resources of Divine strength; with the fulness of God as reserve they can never fail. J. R. M. 19. God will hear and answer them, and (He) inhabiting antiquity (will hear and answer those) to whom there are no changes, and (who) fear not God.** As He has heard me in mercy, so will He hear them in wrath. As He has answered my prayer in the way described above (v. 18), so will He answer them in the way described below (v. 23). In this case, what is heard and answered is not prayer, but the voice of the enemy (v. 3), and his malignant slanders (v. 12). Inhabiting antiquity, or as the English Bible phrases it, he that abideth of old. The first Hebrew verb, however, could not fail to suggest it primary meaning, which is to sit, and more especially to sit enthroned, as a sovereign and a judge. A.—God will hear and answer them—i.e., as their wicked prayer deserves. “He that abideth of old” is not merely He who liveth of old, but He who sits enthroned of old, from everlasting, the Eternal King. “Selah;” think of this: He who has reigned through all the ages of the eternal Past, will not He subdue the wicked beneath His feet? Then, continuing the construction without pause, we may translate: “God will hear and answer them to whom there are no changes and who fear not God.” The word for “changes” might possibly refer to inward, moral changes; but its current usage as well as the logic of this passage strongly favor its reference to physical changes of condition—e.g., calamities, reverses. God will hear and answer (in righteous justice) those who, long prosperous, have been hardened in iniquity, past all wholesome fear of His name. C. Because they have no changes, no afflictions, no interruption to the constant course of their prosperity, no crosses to empty them from vessel to vessel, therefore they fear not God, they live in a constant neglect and contempt of God and religion, which is the cause of all their other wickedness, and by which they are certainly marked for destruction. H.—Their prosperity keeps a settled course, and because they find all things going on in the old course of Providence, therefore they go on in their old course of sinfulness, “they fear not God;” intimating that as such changes always should, so usually they do, awaken fear; and that, if the Lord would but change, and toss, and tumble them about, by various troublesome dispensations, surely they would fear him. Caryl. To you who prosper in everything, and are agitated by no kind of adversity, no word of God is more pointedly serious than this. The danger is that, disturbed by no crosses, unsettled by no changes, you will finally become so fast-rooted in pride and forgetfulness of God as to miss everything most dear in existence. Nothing could be more perilous for you than just that which you deem your happiness. Bushnell. The only thing perfectly certain in life is its changefulness. The law of changes is a law that cannot change. It has already been carried out in every life that has ever lived on earth; it shall be carried out to the letter in our lives. There is a ministry in changes—a ministry of grace, which He who changes not would work in us; and they who have no changes must lose that ministry, and do in fact encounter perils in their spiritual life. One peril of prosperity is deadness and dulness toward truth; hearing as though one heard not; seeing as though one saw not; handling and tasting the bread and wine of truth as though no consecrating hands were offering them to us, no Word Incarnate saying of them: They are My Body and My Blood. Another peril which comes in the absence of changes is the decay of gratitude. They to whom life has long been rich and full, and sheltered from impoverishing changes, are in danger of losing that blessed grace of gratefulness which sanctifies the joy of possession. One may have his church so abundantly, his home so familiarly, his health so confidently that all conception of these things as gifts of God may fade from him. Another peril, and a greater one, which comes in the absence of changes, is the loss of the sense of dependence. Into many a life has crept that most subtle and most terrible loss, in times of unbroken, unchanged happiness. The loss of the sense of dependence has affected the soul's judgment concerning earthly things; it has undermined its earnestness in prayer; it has tempted it to entrust life to the guidance of its own sagacity, rather than to the guidance of the Spirit and the providence of God. C. C. Hall. 20,21. David reverts suddenly to the fixed and deepest thought in his heart, the treachery of his friend. Deeply as he felt the revolt of his son, that probably did not surprise him; it was in accordance with previous indications of his character; but Ahithophel's treason came on him without any preparation. Cook. 22. Cast upon Jehovah (what) He gives thee, and He will sustain thee; He will never suffer the righteous to be moved. What He gives thee to endure, what He lays upon thee, cast thou upon Him, by trusting in Him. A.—Cast thy burden upon the Lord. Hand it over, heave it upon Him, and He shall sustain thee, shall bear both, if thou trust Him with both; both thee and thy burden; He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved. Leighton. Scarcely do we find in the Bible stronger expressions of anxiety and distress than in this Psalm. The writer's first impulse was to free himself from the annoyances occasioned by the wickedness of others and the responsibilities that were laid upon him, by fleeing away and remaining in solitude. But better counsels prevailed. Instead of casting off his responsibilities and fleeing from his troubles, he was led to see that there was a God on high who was able to sustain him under the one, and to deliver him from the other, and to go to Him in earnest and confiding prayer. "As for me," says he, "I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me." Having thus found the true source of relief and strength, he invites others to share it with him: "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain thee; He shall never suffer the righteous to be moved." M. Hopkins. God has taken our care upon Him already. It is no burden to Him, and He knows it would crush us, and He has assumed it. He understands our shortsightedness and weakness and frailty. He knows well how liable to err in our management we should be, even with the best intentions, and for interests dearest of all to our hearts. These interests, all that can affect our happiness, peace, and welfare here and hereafter, enter into His great scheme of universal Providence—that scheme which is to subdue all evil, enthroned right for an undisputed eternity—and are there and thus provided for; not apart, indeed, from our loyalty, our prayers, and our obedience, but in connection with them, and so made forever secure. He has arranged and provided for all, as our Father and Friend, guarding our treasures against the time of our glad inheritance. A. L. Stone. Every soul has an individual life, and an individual history; then, as we are each a separate creation, so we are each a separate care to God. We are shut out from fellow-creatures in the seclusion of individuality that we may be shut in more closely with God. We differ from others that God may deal with each of us personally, that He may know us, love us, watch over us individually. God gives us special care, because He needs various workers. Each of us is sent into the world to do some particular work in some special place, and the very specialty of each one's experience brings things to him in an aspect which cannot be exactly the same to any other. What a thought of precious comfort, that each one of us is the object of God's care as much as if we were the only being in the universe. Surely! it is a balm for every sorrow to think that we may cast ourselves and our burdens upon God's infinite care. Hallock. What if we should, each one, read the verse for awhile just as it is and live by it. "Cast thy burden on the Lord." "Thy burden"—not thy neighbor's; "thy burden"—not the burden of sin, the spiritual burden, the temporal burden, the big burden, the little burden; not any one or two or three of these alone, but all of them and every other conceivable burden. "Cast thy burden on the Lord," and put Him to the test of His sustaining power. Will it fail, think you? Interior. When you have prayed to God about your distresses, and cast them upon Him, learn to be silent and be at peace. Your affairs are His affairs. If you have tried to live as His servant, and to do all things to please Him, He is your partner in business, and the real Head of the firm. He can protect you from misfortunes; but if He wants you to serve Him in trouble, it is because He can make trouble do more for you than prosperity. "Rest in the Lord." The great life you live in Him is your true life, and none of the uncertainties or accidents of your external condition can touch it. Hallock. "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. S. He shall sustain thee. The word "sustain" well expresses the sense of the Hebrew, which, though sometimes used for support and nourishment by food, yet readily admits the wider sense, uphold, sustain—i.e., to bear the lot of care, labor, or suffering which God may appoint. The passage is essentially reproduced by Peter: "Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you." Of kindred sentiment is Psalm 37: 5: "Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass." No words can adequately express the richness and preciousness of these promises in their practical relations to the cares and burdens of every-day life. Every heart has its burdens; every heart knoweth its own as none else save God can know them. But this broad promise proffers all needful help under every burden. C. It is very difficult to sympathize with one another's burdens; and of course each, knowing only his own, thinks his own the heaviest. Christ alone can sympathize with all. But your burden is the one main thing you have to do with, suited for present discipline, a selected, ordained, adjusted thing—"thy burden." Leave the balancing, and trust the Balancer. The Lord does not say, "I will take away thy burden," but "I will sustain thee." He will be "your arm every morning," on which leaning you cannot faint. He will feed you with such hidden manna that you will grow so strong that you can carry anything. J. Vaughan.—True confidence in God and resting upon God will both free thee of thy burden and also bring in the strength of God to sustain and bear thee up from falling. Wouldst thou, therefore, own God as thy strength and fetch strength from God to thy soul? Rest upon God, roll thyself upon Him, and that, in time of greatest weakness; in time of greatest service; in times of greatest trials. S. Blackerby. To the humble and obedient soul life has not one burden too many to carry, or one difficulty too severe to encounter; it says: All these things are appointed as gracious necessities in the perfecting of my education; I know that all things work together for good to them whose love is set upon the living God. This spirit drives away impatience and tranquilizes the soul with confidence. If the children of God suffered nothing but punishment, those who look on from the outside might well wonder as to the rewards and issues of virtue even in this world; but chastening is not punishment, it is training, it is education, it is experience, it is part of an inscrutable but beneficent method. J. P. On most of those whom He loveth God layeth some burden. He gives them something to carry, and carry through. There are some burdens which go beyond our own ability, and in bearing which vain is the help of fellow-creatures. It is therefore unspeakably kind and gracious in the Lord that He invites us to communicate such solicitudes and sorrows to Himself, offering to sustain us under them or to sustain them in our stead. The burden, the care, or calamity which God helps us to carry will hurt us far less, and will be much more easily borne, than a minor sorrow to which we bring only our own resources, or at best the aid of a fellow-creature. The believer is no burden to his God, and He will not suffer the righteous to be removed. Hamilton. Every true Christian has his own special burden of humiliation, difficulty, self-denial to carry. Mine is not the same as my fellow's, but all of us are cross-bearers. Some of us try to get off, as the Crusaders did, by having a bit of red rag cut cross-shape and sewed on our sleeves. That is the fashionable sort of discipleship; but it is not real. The cross is heavy, and hard to carry; but, unless we do carry it, we are not His. And all the procession of cross-bearers go after the Lord. That implies the imitation of Jesus as the very badge of discipleship, and it contains a blessed lightening of the severity of the previous requirement; for, if we follow after Him, our crosses grow light, remembering His, and with Him for leader and companion. A. M. The true way to live is to yield to no burden, to carry the heaviest load with courage and gladness, never to let one's eyes be turned downward toward the earth, but to keep them ever lifted up to the hills. Men whose work requires them to stoop all the time, to work in a bent posture, every now and then may be seen straightening themselves up, taking a long, deep breath of air, and looking up toward the skies. Thus their bodies are preserved in health and in erectness in spite of their work. If, however, they never straighten up, they soon grow into the bent form in which they have to work. Whatever their toil or burden, men should train themselves to look often upward, to stand erect and get a glimpse of the sky of God's love, and a breath of heaven's pure, sweet air. Thus they will keep their souls erect under the heaviest load of work or care. J. R. M. That state to which the Master refers when He forbids us to take thought is not foresight, neither is it sagacity. It is not prevision. It is anxious fretting. It is anxious forethought, and afterthought, too; for men fret both ways—for what is past and for what is coming; up and down; in all ways; in every direction; in ways imaginable and unimaginable. Anon.—Foresight and foreboding are two very different things. It is not that the one is the exaggeration of the other, but the one is opposed to the other. The more a man looks forward in the exercise of foresight, the less he does so in the exercise of foreboding. And the more he is tortured by anxious thoughts about a possible future, the less clear vision has he of a likely future, and the less power to influence it. A. M.—We have nothing to do with to-morrow until we get to it. When the day comes with its cares, then we may meet them and then God will provide for them. Duty only is ours—the faithful, diligent doing of God's will day by day. The rest is God's, and anxious care is unbelief. Our Father will surely take care of us if we are only faithful to Him. Away, then, with anxiety. Do your work, your duty, the bit of God's will for the day, and let God care for you. Then the peace of God shall keep your heart and mind. J. R. M. Even the innocent cares of life sometimes render it a burden. Toil for a living in such conditions as this world gives us is a daily disquietude. Human labor is heavily weighted with human wrongs. Competitions, rivalries, deceits, overreachings, treacheries, enmities, heartburnings, and oppressions make up large fragments of the life of trade. To encounter safely its conditions in this world, we need to make life itself a continuous prayer. We need to retire into God's silence in the stillness of a state of prayer. Meditation and prayer are twin helpers to spiritual repose. The busiest and most heavily burdened life is full of spiritual analogies, by the aid of which thought may alternate in quick succession between earth and heaven, between daily toil and God. Thus the most laborious life may be enclosed in God's thoughts, and made tributary to His plans. In no other way can we live in sympathy with God, or be assured of God's sympathy with us. For such a hidden life, we need unwavering sympathy with Him who rose up a great while before day, and departed into a solitary place and prayed; and who continued all night in prayer—'The morning star finding Him where the evening star left Him.' Phelps. The child of God lays his affairs and himself on God, and so hath no pressing care. No care but the care of love, how to please, how to honor his Lord; and in this he depends on Him, too, both for skill and strength; and, touching the success of things, leaves that as none of his to be burdened with; casts it on God, and He careth for it. They need not both care, His care alone is sufficient; hence peace, inconceivable peace. Be careful for nothing; but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds, through Jesus Christ. Leighton. 23. This verse sounds like a prophetic anticipation of the suicide of Ahithophel, and the fate of Absalom; but the Psalmist probably does but express a fixed conviction in the justice of God. Cook.—God's laws are no insignificant things to be broken with impunity. They are immutable, adamantine ordinances, set to guard all great and universal interests, lifting themselves up as impassable barriers between sin and holiness, and as long as God reigns they will never be relaxed in one title of their righteous requirements, nor fail one jot of their full vindication. Hallock. Shall not live out half their days. A wicked man never lives out half his days; for either he is cut off before he hath lived half the course of nature, or he is cut off before he hath lived a quarter of the course of his desires; either he lives not half so long as he might, or not a tenth part so long as he would; and therefore let him die when he will, he dies out of season. He never kept time or season with God, and surely God will not keep or regard his time or season. Caryl.—Sin is a shortener of everything; it consumes our wealth, it confines our liberty, it impeacheth our health, and it abbreviateth our life, and brings us speedily unto our graves. Griffith Williams. I will trust. Trust awakens fortitude. It gives strength of heart and hope; inspires courage; lights the eye; nerves the impotent arm; plucks victory from defeat. Hope that is born of faith makes a man patient and strong. Amid all life's vicissitudes he is sustained by the thought that within and around all things is the unfailing mercy of God. When the hearts of other men are failing them for fear on account of the future of the world, he dwells in quietness. He sees the evil looming up; he knows that the storm will break; but he is not afraid of the issue, believing that it does not turn on the question of big battalions, but on the question as to what side has God on it. It is the goodness of God that he expects to see, and that vision cannot fail him. J. M. Campbell. FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN; SET TO JONATH ELEM REHOKIM. A PSALM OF DAVID: MICHTAM: WHEN THE PHILISTINES TOOK HIM IN GATH. 1. Be merciful unto me, O God; for man would swallow me up: All the day long he fighting oppresseth me.2 Mine enemies would swallow me up all the day long: For they be many that fight proudly against me.3 What time I am afraid, I will put my trust in thee.4 In God I will praise his word: In God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid; What can flesh do unto me?5 All the day long they wrest my words: All their thoughts are against me for evil.6 They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, They mark my steps, Even as they have waited for my soul. 7. Shall they escape by iniquity? In anger cast down the peoples, O God.8 Thou tellest my wanderings: Put thou my tears into thy bottle; Are they not in thy book?9 Then shall mine enemies turn back in the day that I call: This I know, that God is for me.10 In God will I praise his word: In the LORD will I praise his word.11 In God have I put my trust, I will not be afraid; What can man do unto me?12 Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render thank offerings unto thee.13 For thou hast delivered my soul from death. Hast thou not delivered my feet from falling? That I may walk before God In the light of the living. HERE again the title is a sufficient guide. The Psalm is connected with the seizure of David by the Philistines, and his presentation to Achish, the King of Gath, as the champion of Israel (1 Sam. 21: 10-15). De Witt.—It is a characteristic possessed in common by the Psalms of this period, that the prospect of the judgment that will come upon the whole of the hostile world is combined with David's prospect of the judgment that will come upon his enemies (7: 8; 55: 8; 59: 5). D. The complaint of one who, though hard pressed by enemies, nevertheless trusts in God, rests in His promises, flees to Him for succor, and renders thanks for His mercy. Throughout, his confidence never forsakes him. Indeed, we see here the victory rather than the struggle of faith. Hence the refrain, with which the first and second parts conclude, "In God will I praise His Word. What can flesh (man) do unto me?" The Psalm falls naturally into three divisions: The first and second scarcely differ in their subject-matter. They each contain a cry for help against enemies, and an expression of confidence in God; the second, however, being somewhat more emphatic than the first. The first consists of vs. 1-4; the second of vs. 5-11. The Psalm then concludes (vs. 12, 13) with words of devout thankfulness. P. 2. The word translated "O Thou Most High” (A. V.) is commonly an adverb, meaning proudly, as from a higher position and with superior claims. In this sense it would here describe the spirit of their fighting against Him. Hebrew usage does not sustain our translators in taking it as a name of God. C. 3. Trust in God does not make us cease to be men, and to have the feelings of men; but it gives a better than any stoical calmness; it lifts the man who is trembling in himself above the fear which assails him; in the very midst of fear it listens to the voice which says, Fear not, for I am with thee. “Assuredly,” says Calvin, “this is the true test and proof of our faith: when fears harass us, so far as our fleshy nature is concerned, but do not overthrow and unsettle our minds.” P. It is a good maxim with which to go into a world of danger; a good maxim in a storm, and when in danger on the land; a good maxim when we are sick; a good maxim when we think of death and the judgment—“What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” Barnes.—If we accustomed ourselves to think of our common mercies, to study God as an affectionate parent in His every-day dealings; if we thought of His love as sustaining us at night, awakening us in the morning, and guarding us during the daytime; if we saw His love in everything; felt it in the beating of the pulse, heard it in the voices of friendship around us, it could hardly be that we should think it withdrawn from us the moment we were overtaken by any sorrow. We should have this truth, then, graven upon our minds: our common mercies are the best preparations for trials. We may have to go down into the deep, the great deep of God’s judgments; and our faith may be shaken because we lose sight of the mountains of God’s righteousness which are round about us, those attributes which guarantee the fitness of every dealing; but it will cheer us, it will sustain us, if we have stored our minds with the tokens of God’s unvaried loving-kindness, and have been in the habit of pondering our daily mercies. Then we can say, “Thou art good, and doest good continually.” “Whatsoever time we are afraid, we will trust in Thee.” E. Mason. There is nothing like faith to help at a pinch; faith dissolves doubts as the sun drives away the mists. And the time for believing is always. There are times when some graces may be out of use, but there is no time wherein faith can be said to be so. Wherefore faith must be always in exercise. Faith is the eye, is the mouth, is the hand, and one of these is of use all the day long. Faith is to see, to receive, to work, or to eat; and a Christian should be seeing, or receiving, or working, or feeding all day long. Let it rain, let it blow, let it thunder, let it lighten, a Christian must still believe. “At what time,” said the good man, “I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” Banyan. Faith in God clears the mind and dispels fears, so it is the most sure help—What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee. It resolves the mind concerning the event, and scatters the multitude of perplexing thoughts that arise. No matter, says faith, though all fail, I know one thing that will not; I have a refuge that all the strength of nature and art cannot break in upon or demolish; a high defence, my rock in whom I trust. The firm belief of and resting on His power and wisdom and love gives a clear, satisfying answer to all doubts and fears. It makes day in the soul, and so chases away those fears that vex us only in the dark, as affrightful fancies do. This is indeed to sanctify God and give Him His own glory, to rest on Him. And it returns us peace and victory over fears and troubles, and persuades us that nothing can separate from His love. Leighton. 3. 4. Notice how beautifully there comes out here the occasion of trust. “What time I am afraid, I will trust in Thee.” That goes deep down into the realities of life. It is when we are afraid that we trust in God, not in easy times, when things are going smoothly with us. This principle—first fear and only then faith—applies all round the circle of our necessities, weaknesses, sorrows, and sins. And very beautifully, too, these two clauses give us the victory of faith. “In God I have put my trust; I will not fear.” He has confidence, and in the strength of that he resolves that he will not yield to fear. The one true antagonist and triumphant rival of all fear is faith, and faith alone. The true way to become brave is to lean on God. That, and that alone, delivers from otherwise reasonable fear. Faith bears in her one hand the gift of outward safety and in her other that of inward peace. A. M. 4. In God (I give praise for His Word). The rendering, “In God will I praise His Word,” is unmeaning. Such a combination occurs nowhere else. But nothing is more natural, in connection with an avowal of fearless trust in God’s mercy and power in great peril, than a thankful reference to His faithful promise of deliverance. The ejaculation included in the parenthesis, with the repetition of the name of God required after it, gives great emphasis to the avowal. This emphasis is greatly increased at the recurrence of the refrain in vs. 10 and 11, by a repetition of the ejaculation of praise, with the Divine name Jehovah, and followed by the exact echo of the closing line here, "In God do I trust, and am fearless." Immense weight and power are thus gained, in preparation for the thankful sentences that close this beautiful hymn. De Witt. 6. The enemies of religion have not anywhere so quick an eye as in observing the ways of such as seek after God; my remarkers, David calls them (Psalm 56 : 6), they that scan my ways, as the word is, and will not let the least step pass unexamined. If nothing be found faulty, then their invention works, either forges complete falsehoods, or disguises something that lies open to mistake; or if they can catch hold on any real failing, they aggravate and raise it to the highest. L. 8. As in the last Psalm we noticed the sudden transition from sadness to anger, from a tone of weariness and despondency to one of stern indignation, so here we have the contrary. For a moment the Psalmist prays for destruction upon his adversaries; then he turns, with words of touching entreaty, to God. He knows that each day of his wandering, each nook in which he has found shelter, each step that he has taken, every artifice by which he has baffled his foes—all have been numbered by his Heavenly Keeper. Yea, no tear that he has shed, when his eye has been raised to heaven in prayer, has fallen to the ground. He asks God to gather them all in His bottle, and trusts that He will note them in His book. The bottle is the skin-bottle which in Eastern lands is used for keeping water, milk, wine, etc. In this he prays God, by a bold figure, to treasure his tears. P.—A very bold but expressive metaphor. As the traveller carefully preserves water, milk, or wine in leather bottles or bladders for a journey, so David trusts that God keeps in memory every tear which he sheds. They are precious as memorials of many a sorrowful pleading, many a prayer offered with streaming eyes. Cook. The act of counting implies particular attention. The idea of recollection is expressed by the strong figure which follows, put my tears into Thy bottle—i.e., preserve them in Thy memory. The interrogation in the last clause has the force of a direct assertion. Thy book, the book of Thy remembrance, another figurative expression for the memory itself. (Compare Mal. 3 : 16.) A.—"Thou tellest"—by record in a book; literally, thou dost book them. So also bottle Thou my tears, for a permanent record, to keep them ever before Thine eye. Is it not even so? Precious thought—that the Great Father lets no tear of His child escape His notice or fail from His memory! C. It is the witty observation of one, that God is said in Scripture to have a bag and a bottle, a bag for our sins and a bottle for our tears; and that we should help to fill this, as we have that. There is an allusion here in the original that cannot be Englished. Trapp.—God has a bottle and a book for His people's tears, both those for their sins and those for their afflictions. This intimates that He observes them with compassion and tender concern; He is afflicted in their afflictions, and knows their souls in adversity. As the blood of His saints and their deaths are precious in the sight of the Lord, so are their tears—not one of them shall fall to the ground. I have seen thy tears (2 Kings 20 : 5); I have heard Ephraim bemoaning himself (Jer. 31 : 18). God will comfort His people according to the time wherein He has afflicted them, and give to them to reap in joy, who sowed in tears. What was sown a tear will come up a pearl. H. Tears are here employed as exponents of sorrows and troubles. They have a sort of sacramental meaning, being outward and visible signs of an inward and invisible grief, and sometimes, too, though more rarely, of an inward and visible joy. One class of tears that are treasured up by God are those which are wept in the spiritual conflicts of life. There are the earlier and the latter rains in the life of God in the soul of man. The chief sorrows of a Christian life are those which arise from a sense of sin, and defect, and unbelief, and ingratitude. It is but a poor life which has not its hours of secret self-examination, and its hours, therefore, of secret grief. The tears we shed then are seen by Him who ever seeth in secret, and they are put into His bottle and recorded in His book. Another sort of tears which are equally dear to God are the tears wept over the wickedness of men and the apparent slowness with which the kingdom of God makes its way. Blessed are they that thus mourn, for they shall be comforted. E. Mellor. The tears of which David speaks in this Psalm were such as any one may shed in ordinary disappointment or distresses of life. The Psalmist knew that such tears would be dear to God. He uses three metaphors: the arithmetical table; the process of preserving precious wine; the memorandum book. "Thou tellest my flittings, my changes, my flutterings, my agitations." Thou tellest my flittings; put Thou my tears into Thy bottle; are they not (written) in Thy book? Things so treated by God cannot be wrong. It would be a very severe creed, and little suited to man and his world, which should exclude tears from the Christian's vocabulary of language. Sorrow is not our normal condition. That graceful verse seems written as for this very end, to show that sorrow is the parenthesis: "Weeping may endure for a night." Still sorrow is a very real thing. No one can despise it. And when it comes God sends it so that it shall be felt. And sorrow comes with many missions. Sorrows tell of sin—sin that would else be latent and unknown. Sorrows break up the ground; the ploughshare passes through the clods to break them. Sorrows draw out graces which were sleeping. Sorrows throw us into the arms of Jesus. But we must deal with our sorrows measuredly. If we are not to despise them, we are not to faint under them. There are tears which, if they do not actually rebel, are nevertheless murmuring tears. They complain of God. There are selfish tears and too protracted tears. The highest exercise of sorrow is to return to duty bravely, throwing into duty more of Christ and more of heaven. J. V. Faith sets the soul in God, and where is safety if it be not there? It believes that He fits and rules the affairs of the world with an all-seeing eye and all-moving hand. He orders the march of all armies and the events of battles, and yet thou and thy particular condition slips not out of His view. The very hairs of thy head are numbered. Are not all thy steps, and the hazards of them, known to Him, and all thy desires before him? Doth He not number thy wanderings, every weary step thou art driven to, and put thy tears in His bottle? Thou mayest assure thyself that, however thy matters seem to go, all is contrived to subserve thy good, especially thy chief and highest good. There is a regular motion in them, though the wheels do seem to run cross. All those things are against me, said old Jacob, and yet they were all for Him. Leighton.—It is possible, if a man puts all his wanderings and tears into the hand of God, that they may be seen at last to end in a plan, man freely contributing his part and God suggesting and guiding. We cannot but think that this shall be one of the occupations of eternity—to read the meaning of the past in the possessions of the future. Ker. 9. What doth not prayer overcome and conquer? What doth not resistance drive back when accompanied by distrust of self and trust in God? And in what battle can he be conquered who stands in the presence of God with an earnest resolve to please Him? "When I cry unto Thee, then shall mine enemies turn back." Scupoli.—What a God is this who hearkens to the cry of His children, and in a moment delivers them from the mightiest adversaries! "This I know." This is one of the believer's certainties, his infallible, indisputable verities. "God is for me." "If God be for us, who can be against us?" Who will restrain prayer when it is so potent? S. 10. "In God will I praise His Word: in the Lord will I praise His Word." The first word, Elohim, is a name belonging to God as a Judge; the second word, Jehovah, is a name of mercy. I will praise God whether He deal with me in a way of justice or in a way of mercy, when He hath thunder in His voice as well as when He hath honey under His tongue. Oh, how should we praise God, and pleasure ourselves by such a frame! Charnock. 11. The words "in God," repeated here, give a striking prominence to his precious relations to his God. We might translate, "In God will I exult, even in His Word (of promise); in God have I put my only trust; I will not fear; what can man do against me while God is on my side?" C.—It is the picture of a human mind at rest, and at rest in view of the Word and the character of the living God, and this, too, in the hour of trial. The language is not that of a man who is at rest because there is nothing in his present condition to annoy and disturb him, and nothing seen in the future to awaken painful apprehensions, but that of a man in the most depressing circumstances, uttered in an hour of peril, when the present was all disaster and the future all gloom; when earthly confidences failed him, and the vanity of human help was demonstrated, and nothing was left upon which to stay his spirit but simple confidence in God. E. Mason.—This triumphant word, so expressive of a holy magnanimity, the apostle puts into the mouth of every true believer, whom he makes a Christian hero (Heb. 13: 6). We may each of us boldly say, The Lord is my Helper, and then I will not fear what man shall do unto me; for he has no power but what he has given him from above. H. 12. Thy vows are upon me. David, when overwhelmed by afflictions and oppressed by dangers, often established his heart with the reflection that the vows of his God were upon him. There is no privilege, no exaltation of blessedness, comparable with that by which a sinner is permitted to avouch the Lord to be his God. Everything of good, whether for this world or that which is to come, is embraced in the compendious declaration, I will be a God to thee and to thy seed after thee. The vow corresponds to this promise, and presents the man as an oblation to the Lord, holy and acceptable through Jesus Christ. It is an exercise of faith which strengthens faith. Thornwell. Vows made in his trouble David does not lightly forget, nor should we. We voluntarily made them, let us cheerfully keep them. All professed Christians are men under vows, but especially those who in hours of dire distress have rededicated themselves unto the Lord. S.—It ought to be the matter of our consideration and joy that the vows of God are upon us; our baptismal vows, renewed at the Lord's table, our occasional vows under convictions, under corrections, by these we are bound to live to God. H. Psalms of thanksgiving are not all reserved for the end of the book. Even in those which read like the very sobs of a broken heart there is ever present some tone of grateful acknowledgment of God's mercy. He sends us sorrow, and He wills that we should weep; but they should be tears like David's, who, at the lowest point of his fortunes, when he plaintively besought God, "Put Thou my tears into Thy bottle," could say in the same breath, "Thy vows are upon me, O God; I will render praises unto Thee." God works on our souls that we may have the consciousness of sin, and He wills that we should come with broken and contrite hearts, and like the King of Israel wail out our confessions and supplications—"Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness." But, like him, we should even in our lowliest abasement, when our hearts are bruised, be able to say along with our contrition, "Open Thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth Thy praise." Our sorrows are never so great that they hide our mercies. The sky is never covered with clouds, so that neither sun nor stars appear for many days. And in every Christian heart the low tones of lamentation and confession are blended with grateful praise. A. M. 13. Thou hast delivered my soul from death; wilt Thou not deliver my feet from falling? Here, as in the beggar's Psalm (chap. 85), we are emboldened to ask other benefits by the remembrance of what the Lord has already done for us. If God has saved our souls from perdition, may we not surely trust the same grace to keep us from falling? Pierson.—He gratefully refers, in conclusion, to the personal experiences which constrained him thus to "offer thank-offerings" unto God. His life had been preserved and his steps made firm, so that he might still honor God in his further life, that he might continue to "walk before God in the light of the living." B. Nothing raises the price of a blessing like its removal; whereas it was its continuance which should have taught us its value. There are three requisitions to the proper enjoyment of earthly blessings—a thankful reflection on the goodness of the Giver, a deep sense of our unworthiness, a recollection of the uncertainty of long possessing them. The first should make us grateful, the second humble, and the third moderate. Hannah More. FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN; SET TO AL-TASHHETH. A PSALM OF DAVID: MICTAM: WHEN HE FLED FROM SAUL, IN THE CAVE. 1. Be merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me; For my soul taketh refuge in thee: Yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I take refuge, Until these calamities be overpast. 2 I will cry unto God Most High; Unto God that performeth all things for me. 3 He shall send from heaven, and save me, When he that would swallow me up reproacheth; God shall send forth his mercy and his truth. 4 My soul is among lions; I lie among them that are set on fire, Even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, And their tongue a sharp sword. 5 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; Let thy glory be above all the earth. 6. They have prepared a net for my steps; My soul is bowed down: They have digged a pit before me; They are fallen into the midst thereof themselves. [Selah 7 My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing, yea, I will sing praises. 8 Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake right early. 9 I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the peoples: I will sing praises unto thee among the nations. 10 For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, And thy truth unto the skies. 11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; Let thy glory be above all the earth. THIS Psalm also belongs to the time of David's persecution by Saul. The cave mentioned is probably the cave of Adullam, to which he made escape from the sharp pursuit of Saul (1 Sam. 22), rather than the cave in the wilderness of Engedi, where later on he sojourned for a time (1 Sam. 24). There are various resemblances in style and expression in this group of Psalms that indicate the same time and authorship. De Witt. This Psalm is in many respects like the last, and, like that, was probably written by David. Both Psalms open with the same cry to God for mercy; both are written in circumstances of no common peril; both are full of the same lofty trust in God, and courage in the midst of danger, and of the same joy and thankfulness in the assurance of deliverance. Both have even the same peculiar and characteristic expression, by which the enemy is described as one ready to swallow up the Psalmist, and both have a double refrain at the conclusion of the two principal divisions of the Psalm. But this Psalm is written in a still more triumphant strain of holy joy than the last, and closes with a shout of exultation. P.—A refrain verse of grand purport closes the first and last strophes. In the first courageous resignation predominates; in the second assurance of victory, which breaks out beforehand into strains of praise. D. TITLE. The cave. There was a cave in the darkened cool of which David and his men were hid. Such caves in Palestine and the East are frequently enlarged by human hands, and so capacious that they accommodate hundreds of people. This song of complaint was written during the hours of suspense which David spent there, to wait until the calamity was overpast (v. 2); in which he only gradually gains a stout heart (v. 8). His life was really suspended by a hair, if Saul or any of his attendants had espied him! Tholuck. 1. Perhaps there is nothing more remarkable in the Psalms than this ever-recurring expression of a tender personal affection on the part of the sacred poets to God. There is no parallel to this in the whole range of heathen literature. P. Be merciful, be merciful. The repetition notes both the extremity of the danger and the ardency of the supplicant. Mercy! Mercy! Nothing but mercy, and that exerting itself in any extraordinary way, can now save him from ruin. He pleads his reliance upon God as an argument to move mercy. "My soul trusteth in Thee." He pleads former experiences of his help in past distresses as an argument encouraging hope under the present strait (v. 2). Flavel. In the past he has sheltered his soul in God, but no past act of faith can avail for present distresses. It must be perpetually renewed. The past deliverances should make the present confidence more easy; and the true use of all earlier exercises of trust is to prepare for the resolve that we will still rely on the help we have so often proved. "I have trusted in Thee" should ever be followed by, "And in the shadow of Thy wings will I trust." A. M. The shadow of God's wings is the protection of His sweet and gentle love; and the shade of His wings is the refreshing solace associated with this protection. To this shade the poet now as ever betakes himself, until the danger from the abyss that threatens him be overpast. Not that he would then no longer require the Divine protection; but now he feels specially in need of it, that he may be able to endure the sorrows hovering over him undauntedly. D. The hiding places of men are discovered by affliction. As one has aptly said, "Our refuges are like the nests of birds; in summer they are hidden among the green leaves, but in winter they are seen among the naked branches." Troubles drive each one to his refuge, and each has his little retreat, his shrine and his idol, which he seeks at such times. And the child of God has his refuge and goes into it. Above the raging of the water floods, when all around is consternation, he hears the voice, as of a trumpet, saying from the bulwarks: "Come, My people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut the doors about thee; hide thyself, as it were, for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast" (Isa. 26: 20). And emerging from the waves, he responds: "In the shadow of Thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast." J. W. A. Suffering first, satisfaction afterward. The fruit of power and peace, gathered out of trial, comes not all at once, but gradually. Ripening under a clouded sky, it ripens slowly. You are not to be discouraged by that. Almost all God's spiritual harvests come to maturity in the same silent way. That secret and gracious work of the Spirit, whatever it is, which brings tranquillity out of inward tumult, clear sightedness out of sorrow, and sympathy for others out of your own heartache, goes on not by swift transformations of the inner man, or sudden reactions, but little by little. The promise is a promise made to trust, not to be fulfilled at once, but "in due season." F. D. H. 2. I will cry.** Faith is never dumb. We pray because we believe. We exercise by faith the spirit of adoption whereby we cry. He says not I do cry, or I have cried, but I will cry, and this resolution may stand with all of us until we pass through the gates of pearl; for while we are here below we shall still have need to cry. S. There are higher things than knowledge in the world; there are living energies; and in the moral world certainly it is not knowledge but aspiration that is the moving power, and the wing of aspiration is prayer. How far with regard to any special matter, not irrevocably fixed in the Divine concatenation of possibilities, our petition may prevail, we never can tell; but this we do know, that the most natural and the most effectual means of keeping our own noblest nature in harmony with the source of all vital nobleness is to hold high emotional communion with that source, and to plant ourselves humbly in that attitude of devout receptiveness which is the one becoming attitude in the created toward the Creator. J. S. Blackie. The Psalmist goes on to fulfil his resolve. He takes refuge by prayer in God, whose absolute elevation above all creatures and circumstances is the ground of his hope, whose faithful might will accomplish its design and complete His servant's lot. "I will call to God Most High; to God, who perfects (His purpose) for me." And then assured hope gleams upon his soul, and though the storm clouds hang low and black as ever, they are touched with light. "He will send from heaven and save me." A. M. God, that performeth all things for me. Heb., that performeth (or perfecteth, or finisheth, as this word is rendered, Psalm 138: 8—i.e., will certainly perform or finish), for, or toward, or concerning me. God's favors already received are a pledge that He will complete His work of love "upon me." The beginning is the earnest of the completion. His word is a guarantee for the performance of "all things" that I need. Fausset.—"He performeth" or perfecteth all that He hath promised; engageth Himself to perform what He hath begun to do, or what is yet to be performed. Pool.—To a happy issue the Lord hath brought all his doubtful and difficult matters before; and this gives him encouragement that He will still be gracious, and perfect that which concerneth him now, as he speaks (Psalm 138 : 8), "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me." Flavel. David, even when he fled from Saul, looks upon God as having performed all things for him. The word is, he hath perfected all things; and it is observable that David uses the same expression of praising God here when he was in the cave, hiding himself to save his life, as he did when he triumphed over his enemies (Psalms 6 : 108). Burroughs.—He has cogent reason for praying, for he sees God performing. The believer waits and God works. The Lord has undertaken for us, and He will go through with His covenant engagements. Our translators have very properly inserted the words "all things," for there is a blank in the Hebrew, as if it were a carte blanche, and you might write therein that the Lord would finish anything and everything which He has begun. Whatsoever the Lord takes in hand He will accomplish; hence past mercies are guarantees for the future, and admirable reasons for continuing to cry unto Him. S. 3. "God will send forth from heaven His mercy and His truth" is bold personification, as if mercy and truth were the very messengers of His power, the mighty agents, angels of deliverance to His imperilled servants. C. 4. My soul (is) in the midst of lions; I will lie down (among) burning ones, sons of man, (whose) teeth (are) spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. By his soul he means himself, or rather his endangered life. Lions, as often elsewhere, mean ferocious enemies. The form of the verb which follows is the one denoting fixed determination—"Though surrounded by lions, I will fearlessly lie down," etc. Among or upon them. Burning may possibly refer to lions and mean raging; but the indefinite application is more natural. Sons of man is added to show that what precedes is to be figuratively understood; but in the very next clause the writer relapses into language still more highly metaphorical. In likening their teeth to swords he presents the double image of a wild beast and a warrior. The mention of the tongue has reference, no doubt, to the slander and abuse which entered so largely into the Sauline persecutions. A. It is the spirit that moves the tongue; and what horrors the sword of the tongue achieves! We read of the froward tongue, the lying tongue, the false tongue, the flattering tongue, the crafty tongue, the tongue "as a devouring fire," "the perverse tongue that falls into mischief." And again, the wise man tells us there is "the power of life and death in the tongue." The spirit must be right! The tongue is the index of the heart. How many homes have been cursed, how many dear friends divided through the tongue! Anon. 5. Be Thou exalted—i.e., manifest Thy glory and Thy majesty in the exercise of Thy universal dominion both in heaven and in earth. For this manifestation David prays; that this will be he rests assured, and this is his comfort when enemies assail. P. 7-9. If the former part may be regarded as the evening song of confidence, this is the morning hymn of thankfulness. He lay down in peace among lions; he awakes to praise. He calls upon his soul to shake off slumber; he invokes the chords of his harp to arouse from its chamber the sleeping dawn. Like a mightier than himself, he will rise a great while before day, and the clear notes of the rude lyre, his companion in all his wanderings, will summon the morning to add its silent speech to His praise. But a still loftier thought inspires him. This hunted solitary not only knows that his deliverance is certain, but he has already the consciousness of a world-wide vocation, and anticipates that the story of his sorrow and his trust, with the music of his Psalms, belong to the world, and will flow over the barriers of his own generation and of his own land into the whole earth. A. M. The song is the language of love. When you sing your faith it is a power in you. The more you can sing it the more love it has, and the more love it has the more of character it represents. The ancient creeds were liturgies, they were to be sung. The modern Christian life is to be an anthem incarnate, an oratorio of the soul, a living hymn. Blossom and fruit of Christian character follow the bud of the living song of a Christian experience. It is not strange that Bunyan puts songs into the mouths of his pilgrims as they are borne across the last river to the golden beach. You are to set your life to music, you are to sing your Christianity. If your life is an epic, its parts are still to be set to music. If your life is a simple lyric, it is still to be set to music. Your Christian life begins by obedience to certain precise, clear, iron statutes: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy mind, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself. Your life thus beginning goes on chanting the beatitudes and melody of increasing sweetness and harmony of greater power, till at last it ends in the new song of praise and glory to Him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever. The statutes have become songs. C. F. Thwing. 7. Fixed (is) my heart, O God, fixed (is) my heart; I will sing and play.** The repetition adds solemnity and force to the declaration. Fixed—i.e., firmly resolved and proof against all fear. A.—If it be refined from creature-love and self-love, spirituality and love of God will fix the heart, and then shall it be fit to praise, which an unstable, uncomposed heart can never be any more than an instrument can be harmonious and fit to play on that hath loose pins, still slipping and letting down the strings, pins that never fasten. And thus are the most; they cannot fix to Divine thoughts, to consider God, to behold and admire His excellency and goodness, and His free love. Oh, that happy word of David, worthy to be repeated, when shall we say it? O God, my heart is fixed; well might he add, I will sing and give praise. Leighton. Let us clearly understand that all special occasions in the life of church or of individual—church services, stated preaching, social meetings, closet communing, sacraments—are aimed directly at our ordinary life; are designed to help us live that better. We are led up to these Pisgals and Hermans of spiritual vision to the end that we may carry the power of these visions into life's common routine, to sanctify and to elevate that. These things are intended to foster in us that constantly prepared, fixed heart of which David here sings; the heart that shall be prepared for praise, and for trust, and for worship not only while sitting in heavenly places, but also among lions, among them that are set on fire; when the net has been prepared for the steps, and the soul is bowed down amid the fret and worry of life, and on the dead level of daily duty and care. Christ, with all His power and sweetness and refreshing, is willing to come down into our common life; to teach us how to make our "common task" "bring us daily nearer God." When He shall thus abide with us and we with Him all our life, whether commonplace or sublime, will get its character from that abiding; business, domestic life, pleasure—all will fall into the key of His spirit, and he who thus walks with Him will know, in the ready response of every detail of his life to Christ's touch, what the Psalmist meant when he said, "My heart is prepared." V. 8. Awake, my glory.** The faculty of speech is one of the best gifts of God's mercy to man. It is an essential element of his well-being. It gives scope and energy to the affections, and enables them to call forth kindred affections from others. It renders the increase of knowledge possible, and advances the cause of truth by enabling each individual to pour his discoveries into the common stock, and to share in those of others in return. It sharpens the faculties by the play of intellects one on the other, and enriches all minds by the mutual interchange of ideas. It unlocks the gates of sympathy, of compassion, affection, and charity, and thus gives liberty to the purest happiness of our nature. It was, therefore, that the heathen, both poets and philosophers, would define man by the gift of speech as his distinguishing quality, and that the tongue, in Scripture, is called the glory of man. "Awake up, my glory." Bishop J. Jackson. As the tongue is the glory of a man, so the glory of the tongue is to glorify God. Praise is the glory of all other uses to which the tongue is employed; and the tongue is, in the body, that "temple of the Holy Ghost," what the silver trumpet was in the Temple of Solomon—to sound the high praises of God and express the raised affections of our souls. Meditation cannot have a better help than in singing. The slow movement of the time gives room for the mind to compass the full sense of the matter, and while the tongue is making the pause, the heart may make the elevation. In short, it is adapted and suited to all circumstances, as appears from the Psalms composed upon all occasions and subjects, doctrinal, prophetic, hortatory, and historical; of praise and prayer, of grief and joy, in the penitential and complaining, in the triumphal and rejoicing; as if singing of Psalms could stand for everything we enjoy in the house of God. B. Grosvenor. 8. I will wake the morning dawn.** The figure is at once bold and beautiful. My song shall itself awake the morning. P.—Strictly translated, this clause contains a bold but beautiful poetical conception, that of awakening the dawn instead of being awakened by it—in other words, preventing or anticipating it by early praises. We thus obtain the same sense, in a far more striking form, than is expressed by the inexact and prosaic version, I will awake early. A. 9. As with thanksgiving we are to make our requests known unto God, so thanksgiving is to be the prevailing and the ultimate note of our life. At last all our thoughts and petitions will end in praise. Saphir.—Praise is our best preparation for usefulness, and usefulness in its reflex influence is the secret of all true happiness. We fail to bring the fruit of righteousness to perfection because there is not enough of the sunshine of praise to God and love for others in our souls to ripen it. H. J. V. The people—the nations. The Hebrew Church was neither called nor qualified to be a missionary society, but it never ceased to desire and hope for the conversion of the nations. This is seen in those passages in which the Psalmists betray a consciousness that they shall one day have all the world for auditors. How boldly does David exclaim, “I will sing unto Thee among the nations!”! In the same spirit a later Psalmist summons the Church to lift up her voice, so that all the nations may hear her recital of the Lord’s mighty acts: “Oh, give thanks unto the Lord; call upon His name; make known His deeds among the people.” The full import of this class of texts is often hidden from the English reader by the circumstance that our translators have hardly ever used the word people in its plural form. Twice in the Revelation they venture to write peoples; everywhere else the singular form has to do duty for both numbers; so that in not a few passages the sense is greatly obscured to those who have no access either to the original or to other versions. In the Psalms in particular the mention of the Gentiles is more frequent than the English reader is made aware of. It is to be observed, moreover, that in addition to this strain of indirect prediction the conversion of the world is articulately celebrated in many glorious Psalms. Indeed, so numerous are these, and so generally distributed over the centuries between David and Ezra, that it would seem that at no time during the long history of inspired Psalmody did the Spirit cease to indite new songs in which the children of Zion might give utterance to their world-embracing hopes. W. Binnie. 10,11. It is in his heart to let all the people of the wide world know how faithful and true is his God, and how rich in mercy to all who call upon Him. To say “mercy and truth are great even to the heavens, reaching unto the clouds,” labors to set forth the exceeding greatness and excellent glory of these moral qualities. How simple the conception, yet how sublime! Thus, in the highest strain of poetic beauty, and with imagery magnificently grand, does the Psalmist give the testimony of his grateful heart to the mercy and the power shown him of God in his deliverance from his enemies, and in his final triumph in reaching the throne of Israel. C. 10. God’s mercy is so great that it forgives great sins to great sinners after great lengths of time, and then gives great favors and great privileges, and raises us up to great enjoyments in the great heaven of the great God. As John Bunyan well saith, “It must be great mercy, or no mercy; for little mercy will never serve my turn.” S. 11. In the refrain verse, which differs only in one letter from v. 6, the Psalm reverts back to prayer. Greater words of prayer than these never came from human lips. Heaven and earth have as they imply a mutually interwoven history, and the blessed, glorious end of this is in the sunrise of the Divine glory over both. Delitzsch. 1. Do ye indeed in silence speak righteousness? Do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men? 2 Nay, in heart ye work wickedness; Ye weigh out the violence of your hands in the earth. 3 The wicked are estranged from the womb: They go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. 4 Their poison is like the poison of a serpent: They are like the deaf adder that stoppeth her ear; 5 Which hearkeneth not to the voice of charmers, Charming never so wisely. 6 Break their teeth, O God, in their mouth: Break out the great teeth of the young lions, O LORD. 7 Let them melt away as water that runneth apace: When he aimeth his arrows, let them be as though they were cut off. 8 Let them be as a snail which melteth and passeth away: Like the untimely birth of a woman, that hath not seen the sun. 9 Before your pots can feel the thorns, He shall take them away with a whirlwind, the green and the burning alike. 10 The righteous shall rejoice when he sceth the vengeance: He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked. 11 So that men shall say, Verily there is a reward for the righteous: Verily there is a God that judgeth in the earth. A PSALM of stern reproof, such as a king might address to unrighteous judges, the great and permanent evil of Oriental despotisms. It belongs probably to the first year of David's reign; the style is rugged and obscure, the tone solemn and earnest, such as might well become a prince succeeding to a period of anarchy and turbulence. He describes the wickedness as so great, so thoroughly identified with the nature of the oppressors, as to leave no hope of improvement, no resource but prayer for their extirpation. The obscurity of the language points to an early date, nor is there any sufficient reason for rejecting the inscription found in all the old versions. Cook. The incomparable boldness of the language does not warrant us to deny it to David. In no Psalm are there found together within a similar brief space so many transcendent figures. To a certain extent, however, Psalms 64 and 140 are a guarantee that David speaks here. These three Psalms, whose similar closing verses of themselves challenge comparison, show that the same David who usually writes so elegantly, tenderly, and transparently can soar in a great variety of transitions to a sublimity in which his language, especially where it implores (58 : 7) or announces (140 : 10) God's judgment, rolls on like deep thunder through a gloomy mass of dark clouds. D. This Psalm is a bold protest against unrighteous judges. It opens with an indignant expostulation on their deliberate perversion of justice, while they pretend to uphold it. It lays bare their character and that of those whom they favor as men thoroughly, habitually, by their very nature corrupt. And finally, because they are thus beyond all hope of correction or amendment, it calls upon God to rob them of their power and to bring all their counsels to nought. The Psalm abounds in bold and striking images, and is remarkable for a nervous force of expression. The title ascribes it to David, but without assigning it to any particular occasion in his life. Various guesses have been made as to the time of its composition, but the Psalm furnishes us with no data for any certain or even probable conclusion. It consists of three principal divisions: The forcible picture of unrighteousness in the seat of judgment (vs. 1-5); the swift punishment which is about to overtake these unjust judges, and for which the Psalmist prays (vs. 6-9); lastly, the joy of those who shall behold their overthrow, and who shall acknowledge that, however the name of justice may have been profaned by human judges who abuse their office, there is, nevertheless, a righteous Judge in the earth (vs. 10, 11). P. 1. The interrogation expresses wonder, as at something scarcely creditable. Can it be so? Is it possible? Are you really silent, you whose very office is to speak for God and against the sins of men? That the speaking here meant is judicial speaking appears from the more specific parallel expression. The address to them as sons of man reminds them of their own dependence and responsibility. A.—In silence. They are dumb when they ought to speak, as afterward they are said to be deaf when they ought to hear. P. Do ye judge uprightly. He who is, or wishes to be, righteous in his Saviour's righteousness is always the man who is also the most righteous in the discharge of all the duties of this present life. The question, therefore, takes an easy and necessary transit. In this very place, at this very moment, are you honest—honest to God and to your own souls in the work in which you are engaged? You have received the stewardship of many talents; where is the capital, and where is the interest ready to be given back to the Proprietor when He comes? "Are your minds set upon righteousness, O ye sons of man?" J. V. 2. Nay, in heart iniquities ye practise; in the land the violence of your hands ye weigh. Not contented with neglecting their official functions, they were guilty of positive injustice. The Hebrew for iniquities denotes various acts of injustice. The sense of weighing agrees well with the favorite idea of the scales of justice, which is found not only in the classics but in Scripture. The meaning, then, is that these wicked rulers, instead of weighing out justice to their subjects, weighed out, administered, dispensed the most violent injustice, and that, too, devised and practised by themselves. A.—So far from sustaining justice and right, they wrought wickedness, and this with the heart, through sympathy with wrong. How could the Lord endure that the courts of justice should themselves perpetrate monstrous iniquity in His own land! The fact gives the Psalmist a painfully keen sense of the terrible depravity of human hearts, as we see in the next verse. C. 3. Abandoning the form of address, he goes on to give a further description of their character in the third person. The object here is clearly not to insist upon the general truth of an innate depravity, but rather to mark the special character of these wicked men as men whose whole life has been one continuous, unchecked career of wickedness—bold, habitual, hardened transgressors, whose maturity in vice is what might be expected from their early depravity. P. Go astray—speaking lies. Children can neither go nor speak as soon as born, but their first speaking is lying, and their first going is straying; yea, the first step they are able to take is a step out of the way. Caryl.—No sin can call Satan father like to lying. This sin of forging and lying is from the devil more than any; tastes of the devil more than any. Hence the very first depravation of our nature came in by lying, and our nature doth taste much still of this old block to be given to lying, the devil also breathing into us a strong breath to stir us up to lying. A liar, then, is as like the devil as ever he can look; as unlike to God as ever he can be. R. Capel. As soon as they be born. This is saying in a very strong way that the race take to sinning as early as they can, and sin with their whole heart in it. The last words of the verse, "speaking lies," fortunately guard us against imputing to David or to the inditing Spirit the idea that infants do in fact begin to sin from their very birth. Nothing in this passage justifies us in assuming that there is sin where there is no evidence of thought, of knowledge of God and duty, or of voluntary moral choice. C. 4,5. Their wickedness is desperate, for they are like the adder, which the subtlest charmer cannot tame. The adder is mentioned as peculiarly dangerous. P.—The "adder," or "asp," is the haje naja, or cobra of Egypt, according to Cuvier. The hearing of all the serpent tribes is imperfect, as all are destitute of a tympanic cavity and of external openings to the ear. The "deaf adder" is not a particular species. The point of the rebuke is, the pathen, or "adder," here in question could hear in some degree, but would not; just as the unrighteous judges or persecutors of David could hear with their outward ears such appeals as he makes in vs. 1, 2, but would not. The charmer usually could charm the serpent by shrill sounds, either of his voice or of the flute, the serpent's comparative deafness rendering it the more amenable to those sounds which it could hear. But exceptional cases occurred of a "deaf adder" which was deaf only in the sense that it refused to hear or to be acted on. Fausset. The poison or virus of wickedness in man may be compared with the poison of the serpent in the points of its power of mischief and of its terrible malignity, yet with no assumption of moral quality in the serpent. The comparison cannot "go on all fours." We need not suppose that in David's view man's poison of depravity runs in his blood—belongs to his physical nature in precisely the same sense as in the serpent's. C. 6. There is an abrupt change in the image employed. As these men are incorrigible in their wickedness, as they cannot be tamed, the Psalmist prays God to destroy their power for mischief; but instead of continuing the figure of the serpent-charmer, who robs the serpent of his poison, he suddenly represents them as young lions, whose teeth he would see broken that they may no longer devour. 7. Then in a series of bold figures he draws further the picture of the destruction which he would fain see come upon them. The first is taken from water running away, and so wasted and lost (comp. 2 Sam. 14 : 14); the next from arrows shot, but with their points broken off and blunted, so that they fail to inflict a wound. P. 8. As a snail melts, let him go. The idea of speedy and entire disappearance is still more strongly expressed here. The meaning of the word translated snail rests upon rabbinical tradition and a doubtful etymology. A.—The allusion is to the slimy trail which the snail leaves behind it, so that it seems to waste away. Evidently this is nothing more than a poetical hyperbole. P.—Let his march be like the snail's crawl—the point of the figure being the melting away of substance and power—according to the current notion that the snail used himself up by locomotion, perhaps depositing the slime of his body so as to exhaust the body itself. C. 9. The general sense of this difficult verse seems to be this: As a sudden whirlwind in the desert sweeps away the thorns which have been gathered for cooking almost as soon as they have been set on fire, and before the caldron has grown hot, so shall the wicked and all their yet incomplete designs be swept away by the wrath of God. P.—Feel, perceive the heat. The thorn, used as fuel, kindles quickly and immediately burns out, so that this comparison suggests the idea of a very sudden change. The verse may be paraphrased: "Before the seething pot of your contrivances begins to feel the quickly kindled heat which you apply to it, the tempest of Divine wrath carries you away, whether your mess be cooked or raw." A.—Here we must think of cooking done in the open air, and the pots heated with the thorn-bush for fuel. Sudden gusts of wind sweep the fuel away before any heat is felt. So let the concocting of wicked schemes be suddenly blasted by the breath of the Almighty! Before your pot shall feel the heat of the thorn-fire, let Him (God) sweep the fuel, green or dry, away with His whirlwind. C. 10. A broad and vital distinction is to be made between desire for the gratification of personal vengeance and zeal for the vindication of the glory of God. "The glory of God" includes necessarily the real good of the offender and the well-being of society. Desire for retaliation is always wrong; desire for retribution may be in the highest degree praiseworthy. For personal motives only can I desire retaliation upon the wrong-doer; but for motives most disinterested and noble I may desire retribution. R. A. Bertram. 11. "Verily," in very deed, "there is a reward for the righteous." If nothing else be true this is. The godly are not forsaken and given over to their enemies; the wicked are not to have the best of it, truth and goodness are recompensed in the long run. "Verily He is a God that judgeth in the earth." All men shall be forced by the sight of the final judgment to see that there is a God, and that He is the righteous Ruler of the universe. Two things will come out clearly after all—there is a God and there is a reward for the righteous. Time will remove doubts, solve difficulties, and reveal secrets; meanwhile, faith's foreseeing eye discerns the truth even now, and is glad. S. These manifestations of God's righteous retribution will be so clear that the righteous cannot mistake His hand or His heart either. They will rejoice most assuredly, and most righteously, too; for ought they not to sympathize with righteousness, to mourn over abounding and mischievous wickedness, and be glad when God puts forth his strong arm to suppress it? Indeed they will have occasion to say, "Of a truth, there is a God! Most certainly He will reward the righteous"—the suffering and oppressed ones who stand with Him in right doing and in the love of righteousness. In His own time He will judge the earth and bring the wicked to an exemplary and righteous doom! C. FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN; SET TO AL-TASHHETH. A PSALM OF DAVID; MIGHTAM: WHEN SAUL SENT, AND THEY WATCHED THE HOUSE TO KILL HIM. 1. DELIVER me from mine enemies, O my God: Set me on high from them that rise up against me.2 Deliver me from the workers of iniquity, And save me from the bloodthirsty men.3 For, lo, they lie in wait for my soul; The mighty gather themselves together against me: Not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O LORD.4 They run and prepare themselves without my fault: Awake thou to help me, and behold.5 Even thou, O LORD God of hosts, the God of Israel, Arise to visit all the heathen: Be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. [Selah]6 They return at evening, they make a noise like a dog, And go round about the city.7 Behold, they belch out with their mouth; Swords are in their lips: For who, say they, doth hear?8 But thou, O LORD, shalt laugh at them; Thou shalt have all the heathen in derision.9 O my strength, I will wait upon thee: For God is my high tower. THIS Psalm, which in tone, coloring, and expression has much in common with the four preceding Psalms, is said in the title to have been composed by David when Saul's emissaries watched him in his own house. It is quite consistent with David's character that he should commemorate in his songs such a crisis in his life. But the internal evidence lends little confirmation to the accuracy of the title. All that seems certain is that the Psalm was called forth by some attack upon the life of its author. P. 1,2. The Psalm begins abruptly with a passionate cry for help, which is repeated four times, thus bringing most vividly before us the extremity of the danger and the persistency of the suppliant's trust. The peculiar tenderness and closeness of his relation to his heavenly 10. The God of my mercy shall prevent me: God shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies.11 Slay them not, lest my people forget: Scatter them by thy power, and bring them down, O Lord our shield.12 For the sin of their mouth, and the words of their lips, Let them even be taken in their pride, And for cursing and lying which they speak.13 Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they be no more: That men may know that God ruleth in Jacob, Unto the ends of the earth. [Selah]14 And at evening let them return, let them make a noise like a dog, And go round about the city.15 They shall wander up and down for meat, And tarry all night if they be not satisfied.16 But I will sing of thy strength; Yea, I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning: For thou hast been my high tower, And a refuge in the day of my distress.17 Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing praises: For God is my high tower, the God of my mercy. Friend which is so characteristic of David's Psalms, and which they were almost the first to express, breathes through the name by which he invokes help, "my God." A. M.—"My God" is such a plea as infinitely overbalances all other things. He has engaged Himself to do His people good; and it is time for Him to work when the enemy exalts himself. We may plead God's promise and the enemies' power, too; both are a ground of hope to a believer in Jesus. John Hill. 3,4. He pleads his own innocency, not as to God—he was never backward to own himself guilty before Him—but as to his persecutors; what they charged him with was utterly false, nor had he ever said or done anything to deserve such treatment from them. "Not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord, Thou knowest, who knowest all things. And again (v. 4), Without my fault. Though our innocency will not secure us from troubles, yet it will greatly support and comfort us under our troubles. The testimony of our conscience for us, that we have behaved ourselves well toward those that behave themselves ill toward us, will be very much our rejoicing in the day of evil. If we are conscious to ourselves of our innocency, we may with humble confidence appeal to God and beg of Him to plead our injured cause, which He will do in due time. H. 6. In bringing their secret plans to bear, they are represented as hungry dogs prowling about the city in the darkness for prey; ranging, each with his own object, but in one common cause. W. H. Tucker.—The masterless dogs are countless, as they have been from the earliest times in Eastern towns. They are hateful-looking, yellow beasts, with sharp muzzles. The prophet vividly describes their mode of life by day, as I often noticed it: “They are dumb, they do not bark, they dream, and lie about and like to sleep” (Isa. 56 : 10). After sunset, however, they are active enough, and swarm through the streets, breaking the quiet of the night with their dissonant noise. At the same time they act like sanitary police. Whatever is unclean, useless, or unholy according to Jewish (or Eastern) ideas, is thrown out on the streets. The dogs come and eat all this up. Furrer’s Palaestina. 9. How weak soever the believer finds himself, and how powerful soever he perceives his enemy to be, it is all one to him; he hath no more to do but to put faith on work, and to wait till God works. “I will wait upon Thee,” saith he to the Lord, “for God is my defence.” Dickson. 9,17. These two parallel verses are a kind of refrain coming in at the close of each division of the Psalm. The first stands at the end of a picture of the Psalmist’s trouble and danger, and makes the transition to the second part, which is mainly a prayer for deliverance, and finishes with the refrain altered and enlarged. The cry of the suppliant was to God, his strength and defence; the song of the saved is to the God of his mercy. The experiences of life have brought out more fully the love and tender pity of God. When our troubles are past, and their meaning is plainer, we shall be able to look back on them all as the mercies of the God of our mercy. A. M. 10. Read first clause, “My God with His lovingkindness shall meet me.” Am. Com.— The God of my mercy shall meet me with the blessings of His goodness and the gifts of His mercy, prevent my fears, and be better to me than my own expectations. It is very comfortable to us to eye God not only as the God of mercy, but as the God of our mercy, the Author of all good in us, and the Giver of all good to us. Whatever mercy there is in God, it is laid up for us, and is ready to be laid out upon us. Justly does the Psalmist call God’s mercy his mercy, for all the blessings of the new covenant are called the sure mercies of David (Isa. 55 : 3); and they are sure to all the seed. H. 11. Bring them down.** He would have them so brought down and consumed in their strength, dignity, command, wealth, riches, that made them proud, that they never be able any more to oppose God, hurt His people, trample upon religion and His Church; he would have them live. W. Nicholson. 14. This verse repeats what was said in v. 6, but the language of v. 15 shows plainly that a different turn is given here to the expression. There, the conduct of his enemies is described; here, their punishment. They came about him like dogs; like dogs shall they be treated. Their sin becomes its own curse. They come with their mouth wide open, ready to devour, but they shall find nothing to satisfy their hunger; they shall remain lean, hungry, savage, as they came. P. 17. The refrain, which occurs twice in the Psalm, witnesses to the growth of his faith even while he sings. At first he could only say in patient expectance (v. 9), “My strength! I will wait upon Thee, for God is my fortress.” But at the end his mood is higher, his soul has caught fire as it revolves, and his last words are a triumphant amplification of his earlier trust—“My strength! unto Thee will I sing praises; for God is my high tower, the God of my mercy.” A. M. Strength—mercy. He joins these two attributes, “strength” and “mercy,” very well; for take away strength from Him, and He cannot; remove mercy, and He will not protect; both must go together in any one that will defend; power, that he can—mercy, that he will; otherwise ‘tis but in vain to hope for help from him. David found God to be both, and for both he extols Him. W. Nicholson.—When I have mercy and power together, then, with the Psalmist, I can say, “Lord, Thou art my defence.” There is the power that can preserve me; there is the mercy that will. When these two are brought together, there is a refuge for my soul. Thou canst be a refuge, for Thou hast the might; Thou wilt be a refuge, for Thou hast the mercy. A. G. Brown. The singer girds himself with the almightiness of God, and calls it all his own by faith. Sweet is the music of experience, but it is all for God; there is not even a stray note for man, for self, or for human helpers. "For God is my defence, and the God of my mercy." With full assurance he claims possession of the Infinite as his protection and security. He sees God in all, and all his own. Mercy rises before him, conspicuous and manifold, for he feels he is undeserving, and security is with him, undisturbed and impregnable, for he knows that he is safe in Divine keeping. S. Joy-bells ring all through the Bible. The mission of the Gospel is to make happiness. The angel's announcement of good tidings of great joy is going forth yet on every breeze. The story of the love of Christ is changing darkness to light, despair to hope, tears to laughter, sorrow to rejoicing in all lands. It is the mission of every Christian to be a happiness-maker. Each one of us has power, too, to add something at least to the world's gladness. We can do this in a thousand ways—by being joyful Christians ourselves, making our lives a sweet song; by telling others the joyful things of the Word of God; by doing kindnesses to all we meet; by comforting sorrow, lifting burdens away, cheering sadness and weariness, and scattering benefictions wherever we go. J. R. M. Every condition and place we are in should be a witness of our thankfulness; this will make the times and places we live in the better for us. Praise is a just and due tribute for all God's blessings. It is a debt always owing and always paying; and the more we pay the more we shall owe; upon the due discharge of this debt the soul will find peace. And a thankful heart to God is the greatest blessing of all. Sibs. FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN; SET TO SHUSHAN EDUTH: MICTAM OF DAVID, TO TEACH: WHEN HE STROVE WITH ARAM-NAHARAIM AND WITH ARAM-ZOBAH, AND JOAB RETURNED, AND SMOTE OF EDOM IN THE VALLEY OF SALT TWELVE THOUSAND. 1. O God, thou hast cast us off, thou hast broken us down; Thou hast been angry; O restore us again. 2 Thou hast made the land to tremble; thou hast rent it: Heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh. 3 Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: Thou hast made us to drink the wine of staggering. 4 Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, That it may be displayed because of the truth. [Selah 5 That thy beloved may be delivered, Save with thy right hand, and answer us. 6 God hath spoken in his holiness; I will exult: I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth. 7 Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the defence of mine head; Judah is my sceptre [or, lawgiver]. 8 Moab is my washpot; Upon Edom will I cast my shoe: Philistia, shout thou because of me. 9 Who will bring me into the strong city? Who hath led me unto Edom? 10 Hast not thou, O God, cast us off? And thou goest not forth, O God, with our hosts. 11 Give us help against the adversary: For vain is the help of man. 12 Through God we shall do valiantly: For he it is that shall tread down our adversaries. THE title takes us back to the longest and the most glorious of David's wars, that with the Ammonites and their Aramean allies. (See 2 Sam., chaps. 8, 10-12.) While David's troops were advancing so victoriously in the north the Edomites had fallen upon the unprotected land in the south, and here a new war awaited the victorious host, which called in question all the results achieved in the north. This Psalm refers especially to this Edomitic war. It is only in a general kind of way that the title gives to the Psalm its historical setting. It was composed before the victory in the Valley of Salt, and presupposes that the southern part of the land of Israel was badly laid waste by the Edomites, against whom it could bring into the field no sufficient body of troops. D. TITLE. "When he strove with Aram-naharaim and with Aram-zobah." An insult offered to David's ambassadors by Hanun, King of the Ammonites, led to a serious war. Hanun obtained mercenaries from Syria to re-enforce his army, Joab and Abishai his brother, David's generals, gave them battle. Joab, opposed to the Syrians, gained the first success, and the Ammonites, seeing their allies routed, took to flight into their town. But this defeat provoked a great coalition, embracing all the people between the Jordan and the Euphrates. David, however, fearlessly marched against them at the head of his army; he vanquished all his enemies, and made himself master of the small Aramean kingdoms of Damascus, Zobah, and Hamath, and subjugated the Eastern Idumeans, who met their final defeat in the Valley of Salt. Lenormant. — The Syrians on the north and east, and the Edomites on the south and southeast—the most powerful among all the adjacent kingdoms—made common cause against David, so that this eventful year became a crisis of immensely critical interest to himself and his people. Hence the pertinence of this Psalm. These were live issues, instinct with every element of vital interest. Would their God indeed be with His covenant people? Would He make them victorious over these ancient and mighty nations? C. 3. Infatuation, or "bewilderment"—literally, "reeling, staggering," as the effects of intoxication. This infatuation is the wine which God has made them drink. The same figure occurs in many other passages. It denotes not merely a Divine punishment, but that kind of punishment which comes of men's own desperate indulgence of their pride, folly, passion. When men will drink presumptuously of the cup of their own wickedness, God forces it, as it were, into their hands till they have drained the very dregs as the cup of His wrath. Thus God punishes evil with greater evil, pride with presumptuous pride, folly with more desdesperate folly. As is usual in the Old Testament, this, though sin as well as curse, is ascribed directly to God, as is the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, the sending of the evil spirit into Saul, and of a lying spirit into the false prophets. P. 4. Thou hast given a banner. Thou hast given us by the recent victory, after our prostrate condition, a banner of triumph to lift up (so the Hebrew), because of Thy faithfulness to Thy promise. "The truth" here answers to God's "holiness" (v. 6). So long as soldiers see their banner uplifted, they flock round it with confidence. But when it is prostrate their spirits and hopes fall. The "banner" is a pledge of safety and a rallying point to those who fight under it. Fauset. — "That it may be displayed because of the truth." Banners are for the breeze, the sun, the battle. Israel might well come forth boldly, for a sacred standard was borne aloft before them. The truth of God was involved in the triumph of David's armies, he had promised them victory; and so in the proclamation of the Gospel we need feel no hesitancy, for as surely as God is true He will give success to His own Word. S. 5-7. Shechem, Succoth, Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim, Judah. The Divine oracle promising victory confirmed David in the possession of the whole of Canaan, in accordance with its original geographical distribution. Shechem represents the east and Succoth the west side of the Jordan. Gilead was the portion of the tribes of Reuben and Gad, and so in conjunction with a part of the tribe of Manasseh covered the territory first reached after the journey through the wilderness, while Ephraim and Judah were the principal tribes between the river and the sea. My sceptre. An allusion to the promise of royal dignity to Judah in Gen. 49 : 10, where the same word is used. It is vested with supreme authority, but his staff or sceptre as its symbol. De Witt. 6. What God speaks "in His holiness" is a declaration or promise for the certainty and inviolability of which He answers with His holiness; it is, therefore, like an oath "by His holiness." D. 6-8. David having received this word stands assured, that as Shechem and Succoth, Gilead and Manasseh, Ephraim and Judah would willingly submit to him and yield obedience, so, also, that Moab, Edom, and Philistia, who were his professed enemies, should be subdued to him. He expected to conquer and triumph over them because God had decreed and spoken it in His holiness. Caryl. 7. To me (belongs) Gilead and to me Manasseh, and Ephraim the strength of my head, Judah my lawgiver. The idea is that the whole of Canaan rightfully belongs to Israel. The form of expression is analogous to that in the preceding verse, but with a beautiful variation. As the two great divisions of the country east and west of Jordan are there represented by detached points, Shechem and Succoth, so here by the names of extensive districts, Judah and Ephraim, the two largest territories on the west, Bashan and Gilead on the east, the latter called by its own name, the former by that of the tribe which occupied the greater part of it. The last clause does due honor to the military strength of Ephraim, but asserts the civil supremacy of Judah. A.—This verse has reference both to the geographical and to the political division of the Holy Land. Geographically, Gilead and Manasseh denote the Israelitish territory east of the Jordan, as Ephraim and Judah represent Western Palestine. Politically, the two last-mentioned tribes were the most important, the one in the north, and the other in the south; and thus the whole land and nation are, in fact, summed up. P. “Judah is (or, shall be) my lawgiver”—i.e., all his subjects should be brought under one Head, one governor, who should give them laws according to which they should be ordered or governed, which power and authority belonged to the tribe of Judah according to that prophecy of Jacob to which the Psalmist here alluded. Now in the Church and in matters of religion this one Head is Christ, even that “Lion of the tribe of Judah,” as He is called (Rev. 5 : 5). J. Brinsley. 8. The Psalmist anticipates not the constitution only of the kingdom in its integrity and its firm consolidation by the union of the various tribes, but the extension of the kingdom also by the subjugation of neighboring nations. Those nations are chiefly mentioned which had been from the earliest times the enemies, and the bitterest enemies, of Israel. The order in which they are mentioned is from the east, and thence along the south to the west. None of them was ever completely subjugated, though David greatly reduced them and humbled their power (2 Sam., chap. 8), but triumph over them forms part of the promise of later prophets. See especially Isa. 11 : 14, where it is promised in connection with the union of Ephraim and Judah. The expressions which follow, indicating the subjugation of Moab and Edom, are decidedly contemptuous. P. Moab (is) my washpot; at Edom will I throw my shoe; at me, Philistia, shout aloud! The three hostile powers with which Israel was most frequently at war are here put together as the objects of a contemptuous address. Moab is likened to the humblest household utensil, the vessel in which slaves were wont to wash their master’s feet. Edom is likened to the slave himself, to whom or at whom the master throws his shoe when about to bathe his feet. A.—The Moabites as well as the Edomites were subdued by David, for David here justly celebrates his triumphs over them; but then was merely typified what Christ at length fulfilled, in that He reduced under His sway all adversé and hostile nations. Calein. 9. Who will bring me (to) the fenced city? Who has led me up to Edom? In reliance on God’s promise, and in the possession of the hope and courage just expressed, His people are ready to go forward, and only waiting for some one to conduct them into the enemy’s country—nay, into his very citadel. The fenced city—literally, city of defence or fortification, a phrase already used in Psalm 31 : 21, is Petra, the famous capital of Idumea, hewn in the rock, and almost perfectly impregnable. A.—The entrance to Petra is by a narrow gorge lined by lofty precipices, formed by the channel of a rivulet. This defile is nearly two miles in length. At some places the overhanging rocks approach so near to each other that only two horsemen can proceed abreast. Tweedie. Great success must be a stimulus to greater efforts, but must not become a reason for self-confidence. We must look to the strong for strength as much at the close of a campaign as at its beginning. High up among the stars stood the city of stone, but God could lead His servant up to it. No heights of grace are too elevated for us, the Lord being our leader, but we must beware of high things attempted in self-reliance. Excelsior is well enough as a cry, but we must look to the highest of all for guidance. S. 12. Through God we shall do. In war these two must be joined, and indeed in all actions—He, we; God and man. “We shall do valiantly,” for God helps not remiss, or cowardly, or negligent men. And yet, that being done, the work is His; “He shall tread down;” the blow and the overthrow are not to be attributed to us, but to Him. A. Clarke.—From God all power proceeds, and all we do well is done by Divine operation; but still we, as soldiers of the great King, are to fight, and to fight valiantly, too. Divine working is not an argument for human inaction, but rather is it the best excitement for courageous effort. S.—The Israel of God, His spiritual Israel, are likewise through Him more than conquerors. Though sometimes they may be tempted to think that God has cast them off, and may be foiled in particular conflicts, yet God will bring them into the strong city at last. H. 1. HEAR my cry, O God; Attend unto my prayer. 2 From the end of the earth will I call unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. 3 For thou hast been a refuge for me, A strong tower from the enemy. 4 I will dwell in thy tabernacle for ever: I will take refuge in the covert of thy wings. [Selah 5. For thou, O God, hast heard my vows: Thou hast given me the heritage of those that fear thy name. 6 Thou wilt prolong the king's life: His years shall be as many generations. 7 He shall abide before God for ever: O prepare lovingkindness and truth, that they may preserve him. 8 So will I sing praise unto thy name for ever, That I may daily perform my vows. THERE is no reason to doubt that David was the author, and the language of v. 2 renders it probable that it was written when he was shut out from the sanctuary, and therefore either during his persecution by Saul or during the rebellion of Absalom. V. 4 makes the latter the more probable occasion. At a time when the tabernacle had itself no settled resting-place, the wish to dwell and abide in it is not so natural as afterward, when the ark was fixed on Mount Zion. P.—It is a Psalm belonging to the time of Absalom, composed in Mahanaim or somewhere else in Gilead, when the royal army had beaten the rebels in the wood of Ephraim. D.—The king referred to in vs. 6 and 7 is evidently himself. He probably uses the third person because his thought embraces the royal line that God had promised should descend from him, and rule in righteousness forever. Under this aspect the Psalm is Messianic. De Witt. The Psalm itself consists of a prayer with an expression of strong confidence (vs. 1-4), and an appeal to the Divine promise, as the ground and object of that confidence (vs. 5-8). A. 1-3. We may take this language as an index of his feeling of exile and loneliness when thrust away from the city of his throne and of his God. To such a heart as David's such an exile would seem like a banishment to the ends of the earth. From this heart-oppressing exile—his soul overwhelmed with grief—he cried to God for help. Verily, that was a time for a child of God to pray! Why should he not? What else could he think of? Whither else could he turn for help? "Lead me to the rock which is too high for me to reach for safety without a guiding and helping hand." He pleads what God had done in his former exigencies: "For Thou hast in other days been a shelter for me: so be Thou my shelter yet again." This is one of the comforts of Christian experience—the logic of past mercies, good to inspire hope and prayer for help under pending and pressing want. C. 1. Hear my cry. When it comes to crying with us, we need not doubt but that it will come to attending with God. Our Heavenly Father is not hardened against the cries of His own children. What a consoling thought it is that the Lord at all times hears His people's cries, and is never forgetful of their prayers! Whatever else fails to move Him, praying breath is never spent in vain. S. 2. Will call unto Thee when my heart is overwhelmed. It is not lack of faith to feel an ill nor to be oppressed by it. The heart may and must rise and sink; we can by God's grace control it, hold it down, keep it outwardly still, hinder it from having any wrong vent; we cannot hush its beatings. Hard words will vex; unkindness will pierce; neglect will wound; threatened evils will make the soul quiver; sharp pain or weariness will rack the body or make it restless; cold will fret the frame; hunger will gnaw it. But what says the Psalmist? "When my heart is overwhelmed I will cry." To whom? Not of God, but to God. As thou learnest this lesson, to carry all thy sorrows to God and lie at the Saviour's feet and spread thy griefs before Him, thou wilt find a calm come over thee thou knowest not whence. Thy heart will still rise and sink, not restlessly nor waywardly, not in violent gusts of passion; but whether rising or sinking, amid all outward heavings of this world's waves, resting in stillness on the bosom of the ocean of the love of God. Then shalt thou learn, not to endure only patiently, but in everything against thy will humbly and quickly to see and to love the loving will of God. Thy faith and thy love and thy hope will grow the more thou seest the work of God with thee; thou wilt joy in thy sorrow, and thy sorrow will be turned into joy. Pasey. The rock was too high for David himself to get into, and therefore he sets to the scaling ladder. "Lead me to the rock. Hear my cry, attend unto my prayer." So he makes prayer the scaling ladder to get upon that rock that otherwise had been too high for him; he gets that safety and deliverance which otherwise but by prayer unto God had been impossible to have been obtained. Jeremiah Dyke. It is more the image of one overtaken by the tide, as he is hastening onward to get beyond its reach, and yet with every step he sees it rolling nearer and nearer to him; he hears its angry roar, the loosening sand sinks beneath his tread—a few minutes more, and the waves will be around him; despair hath "overwhelmed his heart;" when in the very depths of his agony he sees a point of rock high above the waves. "Oh, that I could reach it and be safe!" And then comes the cry, the agonizing cry, to Him that is mighty to save, "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I." It is the sinner's cry to the sinner's Saviour! Bouchier.—Tribulation brings us to God, and brings God to us. Faith's greatest triumphs are achieved in her heaviest trials. Affliction encompasses me as a cloud, it swallows me up like a sea, it shuts me in with thick darkness, yet God is near, near enough to hear my voice, and I will call Him. Is not this brave talk? S. Christ is the Rock of Ages, to whom all weary, thirsty, wandering souls are invited to come for rest. No floods or storms can carry away that sure and safe retreat. Amid all the changes and agitations of the world the Rock of our salvation stands firm. It has been beaten upon by the tempests of war; it has been assailed by the combined hosts of earth and hell; busy hands have been laboring for centuries to dig up its foundations. But the Rock of Ages stands to-day, amid all the wastes and conflicts of the world, offering rest to the weary and the water of life to the perishing. Never before were the reasons for trusting in Christ so many and so strong as they are to-day. D. Macdonald. How many confessions underlie these words. Blindness, else David would not have said, "Lead me." Weakness, otherwise he would not have thought of a rock. Littleness; therefore he says, "Higher than I." The first thing that we all want is the feeling of safety. We need a calm, quiet place where our heaving thoughts will grow still, and where no external circumstances shall be able to move us greatly. That calm and refuge is Christ, and all who come nearer to Him do at His side pass strangely into peace. His work is so strong, His faithfulness is so sure, His presence is so tranquillizing that those who are brought to Him are always at rest. J. V. In a state of ease, we have only to exchange one object of desire for another; but when the world is impaired to us, when those we lean on are taken from us, then we must choose between despair and God; we must find comfort nowhere, or all in Him! The Christian is often observed to bear an overwhelming calamity better than the lighter afflictions of life; and the reason is this: that then, beaten off from every other support, he is driven to his Rock. In ordinary trials, we are apt to look to ourselves; in great disasters we are compelled to go in the strength of another; the world appears a shadow, and only God remains! R. Hall. 4. Let me find shelter in the covert of Thy wings. The Psalmist refers to the outspread wings of the cherubim on the Mercy-seat. The tabernacle was a figure of the heavenly sanctuary, the cherubim represented the protecting love of the heavenly King, and were the recognized symbols of His presence. Cook.—I will sojourn (or abide) in Thy tent (or tabernacle) ages (or eternities—i.e., forever); I will trust (take refuge or find shelter) in the shadow of Thy wings. The first verb expresses strong desire or fixed determination. To dwell in God's tent or house is to be a member of His family, to enjoy His bounty and protection, and to live in intimate communion with Him. A. He is of good cheer, for God has already proved Himself a refuge to him, a strong tower, bidding defiance to every attack, a tower which has surrounded him, the persecuted one, so that the enemy cannot possibly get at him (cf. Prov. 18 : 10). He is already on the way toward home, and that, too, his own most dearly loved, his true home; he will or shall (in accordance with God's will) dwell in God's tent. D.—This is the utterance of David's heart. Having loved the house and worship of God in His holy tabernacle above his chief joy; having given to it his best thoughts, his noblest powers of poetry and song; and having rested in the sweetness of trust and in the simplicity of faith upon God's promises to himself and his seed for generations to come, including the Great Messiah as the ultimate consummation of these promises (See 2 Sam., chap. 7), what could be more fitting than this outpouring of prayer and this utterance of his strong confidence in God? "Selah" is fully in place here. Let the reader pause and enter into the sympathies of David's great and godlike heart! C. The bird will endure any violence of storm, if only the wing of the mother bird be extended over it and gathered about it. "I will cry unto Thee," said David, "when my heart is overwhelmed; I will trust in the covert of Thy wings." "I know whom I have believed," said Paul. The faith we have in His dealings rests upon the knowledge we have of Him. Comfort, therefore, widens as knowledge deepens. In our sorrow we shall as children of God be quieted by remembering that if we could see things exactly as He sees them, we should want events ordered precisely as He has ordered them. And if we are true sons and daughters of God, then we can trust Him for all the future. His love never wears out. C. H. P.—God's love covers all our sins; it hides us in the hollow of His hand; restless and care-worn as we are, it shields us beneath the wings of the dove of peace. It brings rest to the weary, the entering into the rest that remaineth for the people of God, not after death only, but now. Hallock. It is the within that makes the without. If the soul be jarring, no circumstances can be chiming. If the inner life be smitten with winds and tossed, the brightest and stillest outward prospect will look stormy. If the soul but know how to sing inwardly, there will be birds enough outside to sing, even amid the most wintry weather. The great trouble is heart trouble. It is the philosophy of Christianity that it searches for the soul; if that be made right, prisons will become palaces. Rest for souls is the supreme gift. The great Teacher tells us that the way of the reception of this supreme gift is the way of the yoke. This is the inexorable way. The lawless soul must be the clashing soul. Wayland Hoyt. 5,6. Observe how the Psalmist rings the changes on, "Thou hast," and "I will" (vs. 3, 4, 5, and 6). Experience is the nurse of faith. From the past we gather arguments for present confidence. Many and many a time had the persecutions of Saul and the perils of battle imperilled David's life, and only by miracle had he escaped, yet was he still alive and unhurt; this he remembers, and he is full of hope. S. God has acknowledged David's cause; the land of Israel is again wrested from those to whom it does not belong, and there begins a new period of the reign of its lawful king. With reference to this new period the king beseeches for himself that God would add to the duration of his life another measure of more than a generation—i.e., a rich measure. D.—His use of the third person shows that he does not mean himself alone, but the king of Israel as an ideal or collective person, comprehending his posterity. The life of this ideal person would of course not be restricted to a single generation, but continued through many, which is the meaning of the idiomatic expression in the last clause. A. His years as many generations. He lived to see generation after generation personally; in his descendants he lived as king through a very long period; his dynasty continued for many generations; and in Christ Jesus, his seed and Son, spiritually David reigns on evermore. S.—The series of years and even ages of which he speaks extends prospectively to the coming of Christ, it being the very condition of the kingdom that God maintained them as one people under one head, or when scattered united them again. The same succession still subsists in reference to ourselves. Christ must be viewed as living in His members to the end of the world. Calvin. 8. So, in this hope, inspired by this sweet confidence in Thy promise, I will sing the praises of Thy name forever. We see that his religion was a living power in his soul—a fountain of inspiration to his hope and endurance—an inexpressible comfort to his otherwise desolate heart. What time all else, or almost all, had failed him, his hope still rested on God's promise. He had known God; had trusted Him through scenes of sore and searching trial before; and this new avalanche of trouble only drove him again to the same Refuge. C. He who has not in the sunny days made the Divine promises his own has no comforts to sustain him when trouble comes. But he who has pondered the Scriptures, and laid up in memory the precious truths and assurances, when called to pass through affliction has light in his dwelling. J. R. M. 1. My soul waiteth only upon God: From him cometh my salvation. 2 He only is my rock and my salvation: He is my high tower; I shall not be greatly moved. 3 How long will ye set upon a man, That ye may slay him, all of you, Like a bowing wall, like a tottering fence? 4 They only consult to thrust him down from his excellency [dignity]; They delight in lies: They bless with their mouth, but they curse inwardly. [Selah 5 My soul, wait thou only upon God; For my expectation is from him. 6 He only is my rock and my salvation: He is my high tower; I shall not be moved. 7 With God is my salvation and my glory: The rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. 8. Trust in him at all times, ye people; Pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. [Selah 9. Surely men of low degree are vanity [a breath], and men of high degree are a lie: In the balances they will go up; They are together lighter than vanity. 10. Trust not in oppression, And become not vain in robbery: If riches increase, set not your heart thereon. 11. God hath spoken once, Twice have I heard this; That power belongeth unto God: 12. Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: For thou renderest to every man according to his work. THIS bears a close resemblance in style and structure to the thirty-ninth, and was undoubtedly written by the same author. The earnestness of thought, the depth and force of religious feeling, no less than the vigor and sublimity of the language, leave no room for doubting the correctness of the inscription, which attributes it to David. The date of the composition is uncertain. It is more cheerful and hopeful than the Psalms written about the time of Absalom's revolt, though some expressions may seem to refer to the outburst of an insurrection. Cook. Strong in his trust in God, though assailed and threatened afresh, the Divine poet places himself, in calm resignation, in the hands of the one true Redeemer, and not only finds in Him rest, refreshment, strength for himself, but is also enabled to encourage, enlighten, and comfort others. Scarcely anywhere do we find faith in God more nobly asserted, more victoriously triumphant; the vanity of man, of human strength and riches, more clearly confessed; courage in the midst of peril more calm and more unshaken than in this Psalm, which is as forcible in its conception and its language, as it is remarkable for the vigorous and cheerful piety which it breathes. P.—The central thought—the key note of the Psalm is—God only my help and salvation; man powerless to harm me, but God almighty to defend. C. The Psalm consists of three equal stanzas or strophes, each beginning with the particle only, and the first and second ending with salah. In all these parts the theme or burden is the same—to wit, a contrast between God and man, as objects of confidence. A.—The first two express the blessedness and security of trust in God when enemies assail (vs. 1-4, 5-8). The last places in forcible contrast with this the folly of reliance on man (vs. 9-12). P. The whole tone is that of patient resignation. The first words are the key-note of the whole, “Truly unto God my soul is silence”—is all one great stillness of submissive waiting upon Him. It was in the very crisis of his fate, in the suspense of the uncertain issue of the rebellion, that these words, the very sound of which has calmed many a heart since, welled to his lips. The expression of unwavering faith and unbroken peace is much heightened by the frequent recurrence of the word, which is variously translated “truly,” “surely,” and “only.” It carries the force of confident affirmation, like the “verily” of the New Testament, and is here most significantly prefixed to the assertions of his patient resignation (v. 1); of God’s defence (v. 2); of the enemies’ whispered counsels (v. 4); to his exhortation of his soul to the resignation which it already exercises (v. 5); and to the triumphant reiteration of God’s all-sufficient protection. How beautifully, too, does that reiteration—almost verbal repetition—of the opening words strengthen the impression of his habitual trust. His soul in its silence murmurs to itself, as it were, the blessed thoughts over and over again. Their echoes haunt his spirit “lingering and wandering on, as loth to die;” and if for a moment the vision of his enemies disturbs their flow, one indignant question flung at them suffices, “How long will ye rush upon a man? (how long) will ye all of you thrust him down as (if he were) a bowing wall, a tottering fence?” and with a rapid glance at their plots and bitter words, he comes back again to his calm gaze on God. Lovingly he accumulates happy names for Him, which, in their imagery, as well as in their repetition, remind us of the former songs of the fugitive. “My rock,” in whom I hide: “He is my salvation,” which is even more than “from Him cometh my salvation;” my “fortress,” my “glory,” “the rock of my strength,” “my refuge.” So many phases of his need and of God’s sufficiency thus gathered together, tell how familiar to the thoughts and real to the exexperience of the aged fugitive was his security in Jehovah. The thirty years since last he had wandered there have confirmed the faith of his earlier songs; and though the ruddy locks of the young chieftain are silvered with gray now, and sins and sorrows have saddened him, yet he can take up again with deeper meaning the tones of his old praise, and let the experience of age seal with its “verily” the hopes of youth. Exhortations to his people to unite themselves with him in his faith, and assurances that God is a refuge for them too, with solemn warnings to the rebels, close this Psalm of glad submission. It is remarkable for the absence of all petitions. He needs nothing beyond what he has. As the companion Psalm (sixty-third) says, his soul “is satisfied.” Communion with God has its moments of restful blessedness, when desire is stilled, and expires in peaceful fruition. A. M. 1-4. This Psalm was composed when David had become aware of a conspiracy to cast him down from his position of confidence and honor. His enemies had sought to undermine his reputation by calumny; and now they were preparing to rush upon him and overturn him like a tottering wall. But he descends into the depths of his soul, and finds there the calmness and security of an abiding trust in God. So deep and holy is this confidence, that he describes his soul as silent unto God—for such is the beautiful expression of the original—waiting without anxiety and without complaining. J. P. T. 1. For “only upon God” read “in silence for God only.” So in v. 5. Am. Com.—Or, “my soul is silently waiting unto God,” i.e., turned toward Him in speechless expectation, with unutterable yearning (see Psalm 33: 20). Cook. “My soul is silent toward God.” In reverent awe and quiet trust my soul sits peacefully before Him, biding His time for deliverance, trustful that He doeth all things well. The same word, in a different grammatical form, occurs v. 5: “My soul, be thou silent toward God only. C.—The Hebrew word used is dumijah—that is, silent, resting, expecting, reflecting, solicitous, and observing. We ought to be subject to God as silent disciples before a master. Whatever God has allowed to happen to me, yet I will be silent before Him, and from my heart admire, both enduring His strokes and receiving His teaching. Thomas Le Blanc. Only. The particle may be rendered only, as restrictive; or, surely, as affirmative. Our translators have rendered it differently in different verses of this Psalm; in v. 1, “truly,” in vs. 2, 4, 5, 6, “only,” in v. 9, “surely.” If we render “only,” the meaning will be here that God exclusively is the object of trust; if “surely,” that this truth, that God is his salvation, has come home to him with a more lively conviction, with a more blessed certainty than ever. The first line of the verse rendered literally is, “Only unto God my soul is silence,” i.e., is hushed into perfect resignation before Him, simply trusting in His love, and leaving all that concerns me to the disposal of His fatherly will. “It is,” says Calvin, “that settled submission, when the faithful rest in the promises of God, give place to His Word, obey His rule, and keep down every murmur of passion in their hearts.” But this, as he also remarks most truly, is the result not of one only, but of many struggles with the temptations of Satan. P. The heart is ever prone to divide its confidence between God and the creature. We must “wait only upon God.” “He only” must be our “rock,” our “salvation,” and our “defence.” Then we are frequently tempted to look to an arm of flesh first, and when that fails us we look to God. He must be our first as well as our only resource. C. Mackintosh.—He who talks much of his troubles to men is apt to fall into a way of saying too little of them to God; while he who has often experienced the blessed alleviation which flows from silent converse with the Eternal, loses much of his desire for the sympathy of his fellows. Spreading out our distress too largely before men serves only to make it broader; and hence the proverb, “Talking of trouble makes it double.” On the contrary, if when in distress we can bear it always as in the sight of God, submissively waiting for succor from Him, according to these words of the Psalmist, the distress lies upon the surface of the heart like the morning mist, which the sun as it ascends dissipates into light clouds. Tholuck. The plain meaning of this phrase is resignation; and resignation is just a silent will. Such a silent will is a strong will. The true secret of strength lies in submission. We must keep our hearts silent too. He cannot say, “My soul is silent unto God,” whose whole being is buzzing with vanities and noisy with the din of the market-place. There must be the silence of the mind as well as of the heart and will. We must cultivate the habit of detaching our thoughts from earth and keeping our minds still before God, that He may pour His light into them. A. M. 2. Only He (is) my rock and my salvation, my height (high place, refuge, or asylum); I shall not be shaken (moved from my firm position) much (or greatly). The adverbial use of much is the same in Hebrew and in English. This qualified expression seems to be intended to suggest that he does not hope to escape all disaster and calamity, but only such as would be ruinous. He only, God and no one else, can be such a protector. A. My salvation. The repetition of the word is not without meaning. Not only does his salvation come from God, but God is his salvation. The being on whom he waits, the loving person in whom he trusts, the God whose arms compass him about, is to him all that is comprehended in that great word salvation. He heaps these epithets upon God, says Calvin, that he may use them as so many shields against the assaults of Satan. P.—“Even He that is the Rock of ages is my Rock; He that is the God of salvation is my Salvation; He that is the Most High is my High Place; and therefore I have all the reason in the world to confide in Him. H. 3. How long will ye rush against a man, Will ye all of you break (him) down, As (though he were) a bowing wall, a tottering fence? 4. Only from his dignity have they taken counsel to thrust him down. P. 5. Only to God be still my soul, for from Him (is) my hope. The view just taken of his fellow-men drives him back to God, and he exhorts himself to cherish the same confidence which he had before expressed. Be still, silent, trusting, and submissive. A.—Emphatic here is the word “only.” Look to God and to Him only; to no one else; shut off absolutely all other reliance; settle it deeply in thy soul that no other help is to be thought of. His is all-sufficient; none other can avail to the least purpose whatever. C. They trust not God at all who trust Him not alone. He that stands with one foot on a rock and another foot upon a quicksand will sink and perish, as certainly as he that standeth with both feet upon a quicksand. David knew this, and therefore calleth earnestly upon his soul (for his business lay most within doors) to trust only upon God. Trapp.—That life is most holy in which there is least of petition and desire, and most of waiting upon God; that in which petition most often passes into thanksgiving. In the prayer taught by Christ there is only one petition for personal good, and that a singularly simple and modest one. Give us this day our daily bread," and even that expresses dependence far rather than anxiety or desire. F. W. R. For from Him is my hope. He never disappoints the patient abiding of His children. There is laid up, He says, a sure reward for my silence, and therefore will I restrain myself lest my haste should hinder the course of my salvation. Calvin.—Our patience is quite as much a measure of our wisdom as our enterprise; nay, what folly stamps every enterprise which is not begun in the patience which can bear delays as well as in the courage that can dare risks! Children of time, when we are doing our best we must wait God's hours for opportunity in our special aims; and, above all our special aims, we must lean upon Him to carry us forward in the one Divine way which earthly power may accept but not control. Blessed is the office of true patience in relation to time. Vast is the loss it saves by keeping for efficient action the time and thought saved from fretting and struggling against what cannot be helped. Vast is the gain it secures by keeping the soul calm before God, accepting the allotments of His providence, and watching wisely the lessons of the events which it cannot control. Hallock. 6,7. Twice in this Psalm hath he repeated this, in the second and in the sixth verses, "He is my rock and my salvation, and my defence," and (as it is enlarged in the seventh verse) "my refuge and my glory." If my "refuge," what enemy can pursue me? If my "defence," what temptation shall wound me? If my "rock," what storm shall shake me? If my "salvation," what melancholy shall deject me? If my "glory," what calumny shall defame me? God is all these, and all else that all souls can think to every believer. Donne.—He in whom believers trust is a great God, and loves to do all things like Himself. Wherefore look for great things from Him: great assistances; great enlargements; great deliverances; yea, the forgiving of great sins, and the great gift of a great salvation. Arrowsmith. Observe how the Psalmist brands his own initials upon every name which he rejoicingly gives to his God—my expectation, my rock, my salvation, my glory, my strength, my refuge; he is not content to know that the Lord is all these things; he acts faith toward Him, and lays claim to Him under every character. S. 8. Trust in God is that high act or exercise of faith whereby the soul, looking upon God and casting itself on His goodness, power, promises, faithfulness, and providence, is lifted up above fears and discouragements; above perplexing doubts and disquietments; either for the obtaining and continuance of that which is good, or for the preventing or removing of that which is evil. "Trust in Him at all times." T. Lye.—Trust in Him upon every emergency, to guide us when we are in doubt, to protect us when we are in danger, to supply us when we are in want, to strengthen us for every good word and work. H.—We should trust when we can see, as well as when we are utterly in the dark. Adversity is a fit season for faith; but prosperity is not less so. God at all times deserves our confidence. We in all circumstances need to place our confidence in Him. S. What God seeks is the confidence, the affection, the entire possession of the living, thinking, intelligent, undying spirit—the spirit which was originally formed to bear the lineaments of His own image—the spirit for whose redemption His only begotten Son hath lived and labored and died. It is this which God seeks, and when He gets it He not only obtains what He seeks, but He gets moreover everything else which the man has—a key to all his treasures—a place in all his enjoyments—a life-interest in all his possessions. He has only to touch the springs that are in the heart, and everything else which the man has will be consecrated or set apart for His service. J. A. W. Pour out your heart before Him. David's faith had been so richly joyous to his own soul, and had brought him such salvation over his personal enemies, that he can now commend it most heartily to all people in all their possible emergencies. Oh, all ye people of every name and of all conditions—at all times, under whatever trials or straits—pour out your heart before this great and bountiful God. He is a refuge for all who put their trust in Him. Pause and think of it! Burdened hearts will here find their burdens lifted; desolate hearts will be cheered; the sad will be made joyful; the lost will be saved, in the love and the might of this perfect Saviour. C. It is a personal and sacred intimacy which the Psalmist means, a dear, confidential friendship, a coming to Him as we come to the tenderest and truest heart on earth that gives back the throbbing of our own, a touching of His hand, a looking into His eyes, a hearing of His tender words, a consciousness of His nearness, the sunny warmth of His smile bathing us, the door of His sheltering bosom open to us in all hours of cold and fear and loneliness, His light shining upon our darkened path, His strength helping us over difficulties, His joy illuminating sad hours, His sympathy bending over us when we droop in grief, His assured, unchanging and inalienable faithfulness abiding by us in trials and cares and wanderings till the world shall end. We cannot tell a stranger of this alliance: we have no language for those strange, conscious interviews wherein heaven and earth blend, those speechless moments when God and we come together, and down in the tongueless joy of our souls the thought throbs silently, "It is good to draw high to God." A. L. Stone. According to our love, so is our faith and trust in God; and according to our trust, such is our freedom at the throne of grace. Trust in Him, and pour out your hearts before Him. S. Lee.—God has given thee His Son's righteousness to justify thee; He has also, because thou art a son, sent forth the Spirit of His Son into thy heart to satisfy thee, and to help thee to cry unto Him, Father, Father! Wilt thou not cry? wilt thou not desire? Thy God has bidden thee open thy mouth; He has bid thee open it wide, and promised, saying, "and I will fill it;" and wilt thou not desire? Oh, thou hast a license, a leave, a grant to desire; wherefore, be not afraid to desire great mercies of the God of heaven. Bunyan. Prayer is believing work, thinking work, searching work, and nothing worth if heart and hand do not join in it. T. Adams.—When thou prayest, rather let thy heart be without words than thy words without heart. Prayer will make a man cease from sin, or sin will entice a man to cease from prayer. An. Faith in prayer is a general quality of the whole soul in all its acts and aspects toward the Saviour, and pertains to its habitual attitude; It is not a mere sudden, special expectation of having some greatly wanted been granted. It is, for the most part, a grace of slow, patient, and silent growth. Most of us, in our common moods, scarcely touch the rim of its great depth of meaning, or taste of its incalculable peace. It is true just as it stands—"According to your faith, in asking, be it unto you." It is true of our private conflicts with the tempter, our struggles with ourselves, our resistance of the sins that most easily beset us, our fight with temper and pride and indolence and luxury, with Satan in his most angelic garment. Spiritual victory and progress will be gained on our knees. F. D. H. Prayer, to one who lives in daily service of God, oftentimes takes the form of simple communion, the spreading out of our life to one whom we love and trust, not for the sake of any special advice or help, but for the heartheart which there is in the thing itself. For none love to lean and recline entirely upon another so much as strong natures that ordinarily do not lean at all; and so the heart that goes shaded and shut, that hides its thoughts and dreads the knowledge of men's eyes, flings itself wide open to the eye of God. Anon. To be a religious man and to pray are really one and the same thing. To join the thought of God with every thought of any importance that occurs to us; in all our admiration of external nature to regard it as the work of His wisdom; to take counsel with God about all our plans, that we may be able to carry them out in His name; and even in our most mirthful hours to remember His all-seeing eye; this is the prayer without ceasing to which we are called, and which is really the essence of true religion. Schleiermacher. The habit of exposing the contents of the heart to Christ, of referring all our actions to His will, of commending all our troubles to His care, and all our difficulties to His direction, the realizing Him in some measure as being by our side, always sympathizing, always inviting our confidence, always ready and willing to help us, the being sincere in all our dealings with Him, and perfectly single-minded in seeking to know His will—this is one great and sure test of love for Him. E. M. G. Learn to entwine with your prayers the small cares, the trifling sorrows, the little wants of daily life. Whatever affects you—be it a changed look, an altered tone, an unkind word, a wrong, a wound, a demand you cannot meet, a change you cannot notice, a sorrow you cannot disclose—turn it into prayer and send it up to God. Disclosures you may not make to man you can make to the Lord. Man may be too little for your great matters; God is not too great for your small ones. Only give yourself to prayer, whatever be the occasion that calls for it. Winslow. The more we pray, so much the more prayer becomes indispensable to us. The more our heart is accustomed to converse with Jesus—to tell Him everything, both great and small, to lay before Him our heights and depths—the more the heart pours out itself to Him, the more it longs for Him. For not merely our being accustomed to Him, but His Spirit that He gives us, binds us to His heart. Caspars. When we turn to Jesus, who can read our inmost soul—when we turn to Him, who never will upbraid us or despise us, though we make bare to Him every poor weakness, every sorrow, and every sin about us—we feel that the need for that reserve is gone, and that it is no shame nor humiliation to tell out to Him all we fear and suffer, with the same abandonment with which the little child sobs out the story of its little sorrows at a kind mother's knee. At the throne of grace, the man who, whatever he suffered, would never complain to mortal, may without reserve lay before the Redeemer the tale of his wants and woes. A. K. H. Boyd. We are opposing God's method of working, if our life has a tendency to incapacitate us for the enjoyment of prayer at all times If by needless excess of worldly cares; if by inordinate desires, which render it impossible for us to accomplish our objects in life without such excess of care; if by frivolous habits; if by the reading of infidel or effeminate literature; if by an indolent life; if by any self-indulgence in physical regimen—we render the habit of fragmentary prayer impracticable or unnatural to us, we are crossing the methods of God's working. Something has gone wrong, is going wrong, in the life of that Christian who finds himself thus estranged from filial freedom with God. Such a Christian must, sooner or later, be brought back to Christ, and must begin life anew. He will come back heavy laden and in tears. Phelps. Private prayer is a golden key to unlock the mysteries of the Word unto us. The knowledge of many choice and blessed truths are but the returns of private prayer. The Word dwells most richly in their hearts who are most in pouring out of their hearts before God in their closets. T. Brooks. God is a refuge for us. The time of trouble is the time of prayer. And this throws light upon God's dealings with men, and families, and nations. He sends trouble to make men see their weakness and feel their need of Him, and call unto Him for help and rescue. The one hundred and seventh Psalm recites these fluctuations of God's providence and of man's confidence, and reiterates with every illustration this historic burden: "Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and He delivered them out of their distresses." A. L. Stone. Cavils against prayer. "God's promises, by reason of His unchangeableness, may be relied on; what occasion, then, of prayer, seeing the thing promised will come round of its own steady accord, whether you open your lips or no?" The answer is short and simple. These promises are made only to those who expect, and desire, and ask for them. They are not promised indifferently and come out of their own accord to all, but to such only who have meditated them, and who value them, and desire them, and earnestly seek them; being the high and holy attractions by which God intended to work upon the nature of man, and lead it out of its present low and sunken estate into glorious liberty and unwearied ambition of every noble excellence. They are prizes in the hand of God to stimulate the soul's activities—more glorious prizes than laurel wreaths—and they are yielded only to an application of faculties, at the least, as intense and ardent as is put forth in pursuit of human ambition. God doth not cheapen His promises down to a glance at them with the eye, or a mouthing of them with the tongue, but He requireth of those that would have them an admiration equal to that of lovers, an estimation equal to that of royal diadems, and a pursuit equal to that of Olympic prizes. Another cavil against prayer is drawn from the unchangeableness of God. If God's promises did embrace nothing but abstract justice, and measure out nice and strict desert, then their unchangeableness were the death-blow to all expectation of future weal; but seeing they contain mercy, and forgiveness, and peace, and everlasting blessedness to all who receive His oracles and walk thereby—being a rule not to equity only, but a rule to mercy and to bounty, and to whatever else is amiable and attractive to the soul of man—it comes to pass that their stability and unchangeableness is the stability and unchangeableness of that wise and wide and lovely administration which sufficeth to comfort and upbind the fallen, as well as to strike down and discomfit the refractory and rebellious. E. Irving. 9. Of low degree.** Our estimate of man depends upon our estimate of God. David knows that men of low and high degree, if separated from the primal fount of every good, weigh nothing, and are less than nothing. Tholuck.—All are less (lighter) than a breath. Two Hebrew words for man—the man of the earth, frail; and the man in power and dignity, commanding—are brought together here to give force to this statement; that all men alike—the least or the greatest—are less than a breath when measured against the great God. C.—If there were any one among men immortal, not liable to sin, or change, whom it were impossible for any one to overcome, but who was strong as an angel, such a one might be something; but inasmuch as every one is a man, a sinner, mortal, weak, liable to sickness and death, exposed to pain and terror, and liable to so many miseries that it is impossible to count them, the conclusion must be a valid one: "Man is nothing." Arndt. 10. They are not to allow their heart to be befooled by unjust gain on their own part, neither are they when their riches increase to set their heart upon them, as if they were something truly great and making blessed. D.—Money will purchase plenty, but not peace; it will furnish your table with luxuries, but not you with an appetite to enjoy them; it will surround your sick-bed with physicians, but not restore health to your sickly frame; it will encompass you with a cloud of flatterers, but never procure you one true friend; it will bribe into silence the tongues of accusing men, but not an accusing conscience; it will pay some debts, but not the least one of all your debts to the law of God; it will relieve many fears, but not those of guilt—the terrors that crown the brows of Death. He stands as grim and terrible by the dying bed of wealth as by the pallet of the poorest beggar whom pitiless riches has thrust from her door. Guthrie. If riches increase set not your hearts thereon. Because it is hard to have riches and not to trust in them if they increase, though by lawful and honest means, we must take heed lest we let out our affections inordinately toward them. Set not your heart upon them; be not eager for them, nor put a confidence in them as your portion; do not value yourselves and others by them; make not the wealth of the world your chief good and highest end; in short, do not make an idol of it." This we are most in danger of doing when they increase; when the grounds of the rich man brought forth plentifully, then he said to his soul, Take thine ease in these things. It is a smiling world that is most likely to draw the heart away from God, on whom only it should be set. H.—Many a man when he begins to accumulate wealth commences at the same moment to ruin his soul, and the more he acquires, the more closely he blocks up his liberality, which is, so to speak, the very mouth of spiritual life. Instead of doing more for God he does less; the more he saves the more he wants, and the more he wants of this world the less he cares for the world to come. S. Trust not to the omnipotency of gold, and say not unto it, Thou art my confidence. A slave unto Mammon makes no servant unto God. Covetousness cracks the sinews of faith; numbs the apprehension of anything above sense, and only affected with the certainty of things present makes a peradventure of things to come; lives but unto one world, nor hopes but fears another; makes their own death sweet unto others, bitter unto themselves; brings formal sadness and scenical mourning. Browne.—Where wealth accumulates around those whose hearts are set upon it, it develops and gives domination to self-conceit; a conceit that they can do something better for themselves than bowing to God; that they know something better than to submit to God's teachings; that they can secure to themselves what is better, and happier, and more ennobling than the holiness, the meekness, the humility, the self-denial, the devotion, which are inseparable from the possession of the favor of God. Growing wealth nourishes this vain conceit. It makes men feel that riches are a sure, reliable basis of their trust; that wealth actually meets all their wants; that it is a resource which will always transcend all their wants. It inflates them to say to the claims of religion, to the pleadings of Christ's ambassadors, to God Himself, "Who is the Lord, that we should serve Him? and what profit shall we have if we pray unto Him." J. Vance. It is dangerous even to contemplate successful, sudden riches. While you look, you envy, you thirst. There is nothing evil in riches, unless got by wrong. No, but the deceitfulness of riches, their dominion over the heart, their idolatrous, absorbing power, that is the danger. Riches may increase, by God's providence, even in the way of this pilgrimage; but God's direction is, if they increase, set not your heart upon them. G. B. C. To be rich is a grave responsibility; to desire to be rich is a great temptation; to resolve to be rich is a fearful peril. None are ever accused or denounced in the Gospel simply for having riches; but such are warned against making riches their trust. The history of mercantile communities, of railway investments, of stock speculations, show that nothing is more uncertain or delusive than what men fancy to be prosperity; and the history of the Church shows that nothing is more likely to draw away the heart from God than the possession of great wealth. Hence the rich are admonished to cultivate the sense of dependence upon God, and to save themselves from corruption and apostasy by giving freely to all good causes. The desire of riches should never be suffered to take possession of the heart, for this corroding passion is a root of all evil; while the purpose to be rich, as the one aim of life, is almost certain to lure one on to the destruction of his soul. No sin is more dangerous than covetousness; none more damning. The offset to this perilous temptation is faith. A faith that measures this life by the next; a faith that believes in God as the rewarder of them that seek Him; a faith that puts righteousness above Mammon; a faith that sees Christ upon His throne, and feels assured of immortality at His appearing—can rest content with the bare means of living, and of serving Him. When earthly possessions vanish this contented piety realizes the greatness of its gain. J. P. T. If a rich man employ his wealth well, he will possess it the longer; but if he set his heart too much upon it, he will quickly lose it; he may possess it, but by no means must he let his wealth possess him. Spencer.—If thou desire not to be too poor, desire, also, not to be too rich. He is rich, not that possesses much, but that covets no more; and he is poor, not that enjoys little, but that wants too much. The contented mind wants nothing which it hath not; the covetous mind wants not only what it hath not, but likewise what it hath. Quarles. Be charitable before wealth make thee covetous, and lose not the glory of the mite. If riches increase, let thy mind hold pace with them, and think it not enough to be liberal, but munificent. Though a cup of cold water from some hand may not be without its reward, yet stick not thou for wine and oil for the wounds of the distressed, and treat the poor as our Saviour did the multitude, to the reliques of some baskets. Diffuse thy beneficence early, and while thy treasures call thee master; there may be an Atropos of thy fortunes before that of thy life, and thy wealth cut off before that hour when all men shall be poor. Browne. There can be nothing intrinsically wrong in the gathering of riches. The harm comes in through the spirit in which all this is done, and the distinction between the right way and the wrong way has been stated with singular force and felicity by Ruskin: “With all brave and rightly trained men their work is first, their fee second—very important always, but still second. And this is no small distinction. It is between life and death in a man; between heaven and hell for him. You cannot serve two masters. If your work is first with you, and your fee second, work is your master, and the Lord of work, who is God. But if your fee is first with you, and your work second, fee is your master, and the lord of fee, who is the devil.” Wealth won by those with whom fee is second should bring with it slight taint of poison, and be no more deserving of disapprobation than the acquirement of great stores of learning, or the attainment of high skill in the use of the pen, the brush, or the chisel. Herein, no doubt, lies the great difficulty in the whole matter. It is safe to say that it takes more grace to get rich in a strictly Christian spirit than to spend what has been accumulated. In order to win wealth, one must face fierce competition at every turn; and the temptations are frequent and severe to meet the competition that is unfair and unscrupulous upon its own ground—to fight the commercial devil with his own weapons, forgetting to take God into counsel, that a better way may be found. “Christianity says, Whatever thy hands find to do that is lawful to be done, do it with the whole heart. But do it to the glory of God. Be unworldly at your world’s work. Buying, possessing, accumulating—this is not worldliness. But doing this in the love of it, with no love of God paramount, doing it so that thoughts of eternity and of God are an intrusion, doing it so that one’s spirit is secularized in the process—this is worldliness. Let a man beware of this. It will eat out his piety as inevitably as he lives, and allows it.” (H. Johnson.) J. M. Oxley. 11,12. In conclusion, the sacred poet solemnly confirms his previous exhortation by an appeal to God’s revelation. Once . . . twice, i.e., many times. Compare Job 33: 14; 40: 5. And this is the substance of the revelation, that God is both a God of power and a God of love. If we need strength, we shall find it not in man, who is but as a fleeting vapor, but in God, who is Almighty. If we covet a reward, let us seek it not in robbery or in riches, but from the loving hand of Him who rewardeth every man according to his work. This is the only truly worthy representation of God. Power without love is brutality, and love without power is weakness. Power is the strong foundation of love, and love is the beauty and the crown of power. P.—There are really three attributes of God here mentioned, His power, His mercy, and His justice; but as the last is only introduced to qualify the second, by a kind of afterthought, they may still be reckoned as but two. A. There now follow two Divine utterances. They are the two great truths: that God has power over everything earthly, so that nothing happens without Him and everything opposed to Him must sooner or later succumb; and that to this same God, the Lord of all, belongs also grace, the energy of which is measured in accordance with His omnipotence. The poet confirms these two truths by appealing to His righteous rule in history. He recompenses every man according to his work, as Paul confesses (Rom. 2 : 6) no less than David, and indeed in David's words. Each one is recompensed according to his behavior, which is the outcome of the relation in which he stands to God. He who opposes the will of God has to feel God's punitive power; and he who, longing for salvation, resigned his own will to God's, receives from God the promised reward of fidelity; his resignation becomes attainment, and his hoping accomplishment. D. The life and vigor of faith is very much concerned in the belief of God's power. It is, indeed, one of the first steps to all religion. Therefore it is put in the front of our creed: "I believe in God, the Father Almighty;" and he that believes that first article will the more easily believe all the rest. W. Wisheart. This tender attribute sweetens the grand thought of his power; the Divine strength will not crush us, but will be used for our good. God is so full of mercy that it belongs to Him, as if all the mercy in the universe came from God, and still was claimed by Him as His possession. His mercy, like His power, endureth forever, and is ever present in Him, ready to be revealed. S. A perfectly righteous Being must be merciful, because He must desire that all other beings were righteous, and to attain this is the highest mercy. And, conversely, a perfectly merciful Being must be righteous, because that which mercy or grace desires is the highest welfare of all, and this can be attained only through righteousness. The truth that justice and mercy are from the same root in the Divine nature apappears to be obscured in modern Christendom, where mercy is too often thought of as opposed to justice, and needing some artificial reconciliation with it. But it was understood in Israel of old. "To Thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy, for Thou renderest to every man according to his work," said the Psalmist—that is to say, "Because justice is Thine, therefore is mercy Thine also." M. These, then, are the two grand truths that the law, yea, the whole revelation of God, declares through every page. He is the Almighty—He is the Most Merciful; and hence the inference, the powerful, just, and holy God, the most merciful and compassionate Lord, will by and by judge the world, and will render to man according to his works. A. Clarke. Be careful rather of what thou dost than of what thou hast; for what thou hast is none of thine, and will leave thee at thy death. But what thou dost is thine, and will follow thee to thy grave, and plead for thee or against thee at thy resurrection. Quarles. These great central truths in respect to God and His ways with man were impressively revealed to the ancients of David's time, and indeed to the ages long before. They are here because they bear strongly on the points contemplated in this Psalm. This great God, of boundless power, and of blended justice and mercy, will forevermore take cognizance of the moral life of His creature man. Let none think to evade His judgments! To all who wait before Him in silent reverence and obedient trust, it shall be well; but woe to him who recklessly disowns His authority and tramples on His law! C. 1. O God, thou art my God; early [or, earnestly] will I seek thee: My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee, In a dry and weary land, where no water is. 2 So have I looked upon thee in the sanctuary, To see thy power and thy glory. 3 For thy lovingkindness is better than life My lips shall praise thee. 4 So will I bless thee while I live: I will lift up my hands in thy name. 5 My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; And my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips; 6 When I remember thee upon my bed, And meditate on thee in the night watches. 7 For thou hast been my help, And in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice. 8 My soul followeth hard after thee: Thy right hand upholdeth me. 9 But those that seek my soul, to destroy it, Shall go into the lower parts of the earth. 10 They shall be given over to the power of the sword: They shall be a portion for foxes. 11 But the king shall rejoice in God: Every one that sweareth by him shall glory; For the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped. THROUGHOUT his Psalms David expresses intense delight in all holy seasons, services, and observances, fervent longing when separated from the tabernacle for a season (61, 63); he is never weary of extolling the grandeur, beauty, and heart-controlling influences of the sanctuary; but he dwells with far higher rapture upon the heavenly realities, of which these are significant adumbrations; secure of God's love, joying in God's presence, reposing on His protection, whether in his flight from Saul, or in conflict with foreign enemies, or in the period of deepest humiliation, of bodily and mental suffering. Cook. The great peculiarity of this Psalm is its intense spirituality. It does not recount God's wonders in creation or in providence, does not dwell on anything He has made, but thinks only of Himself as He has been set forth in the institutions of the covenant people, or in the experience of the writer. The soul kindles as it muses on the Most High and His varied perfections. It is the Giver and not His gifts on which it loves to meditate. When God's praises are sung it is not formally or as a matter of course, but with jubilant lips as a most grateful service. And even in the stillness of the night the same theme occupies the mind as that to which it instinctively turns whenever left to its own impulses. No ancient literature of any people or country expresses such a rapturous sense of communion with God, and yet free from any sense of mystic absorption in Him. It is peculiar to the Psalter alone. T. W. C. The Psalms have found such constant favor in every portion of the Christian Church because they address themselves to the simple, intuitive feelings of the renewed soul. They represent the freshness of the soul's infancy, the love of the soul's childhood; and, therefore, are to the Christian what the love of parents, the sweet affections of home, and the clinging memory of infant scenes are to men in general. Irving. This is unquestionably one of the most beautiful and touching Psalms in the whole Psalter. Donne says of it: "As the whole book of Psalms is oleum effusum, an ointment poured out upon all sorts of sores, a cerecloth that supplies all bruises, a balm that searches all wounds; so are there some certain Psalms that are imperial Psalms, that command over all affections and spread themselves over all occasions—catholic, universal Psalms, that apply themselves to all necessities. This is one of those; for of those constitutions which are called Apostolical, one is that the Church should meet very day to sing this Psalm. And Chrysostom testifies, "That it was decreed and ordained by the primitive fathers that no day should pass without the public singing of this Psalm.' And again he observes, that "the spirit and soul of the whole Book of Psalms is contracted into this Psalm." That the author was David I see no reason to doubt. Characterized as it is by an exquisite tenderness and a deep personal affection toward God, and yet not wanting, withal, in energy, and even a certain abruptness of expression, it bears all the marks of his poetry. It is probable that the Psalm was composed when he was on the other side of the Jordan, in his flight from Absalom. The very tenderness and depth of feeling which characterize it, and which it has in common with 42, are what might be looked for in a heart sorely wounded and tried in its natural affections, and therefore cleaving with the more intense, devoted love to Him of whom it could say: "Thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of Thy wings will I shout for joy." It is remarkable that in this Psalm, as in the last, there is no petition. There is gladness, there is praise, there is the most exalted communion with God, there is longing for His presence as the highest of all blessings; but there is not one word of asking for temporal, or even for spiritual good. As David's life shines in his poetry, so also does his character. That character was no common one. It was strong with all the strength of man, tender with all the tenderness of woman. Naturally brave, his courage was heightened and confirmed by that faith in God which never, in the worst extremity, forsook him. Naturally warm-hearted, his affections struck their roots deep into the innermost centre of his being. In his love for his parents, for whom he provided in his own extreme peril—in his love for his wife Michal—for his friend Jonathan, whom he loved as his own soul—for his darling Absalom, whose death almost broke his heart—even for the infant, whose loss he dreaded—we see the same man, the same depth and truth, the same tenderness of personal affection. On the other hand, when stung by a sense of wrong or injustice, his sense of which was peculiarly keen, he could flash out into strong words and strong deeds. He could hate with the same fervor that he loved. Evil men and evil things, all that was at war with goodness and with God—for these he found no abhorrence too deep, scarcely any imprecations too strong. Yet he was, withal, placable and ready to forgive. This Psalm in particular exhibits with singular beauty and truth both sides of David's character. The same tenderness of natural affection, the same depth of feeling, which breathes in every word of his elegy upon Jonathan, is here found chastened and elevated, as he pours out his soul toward God. It is the human heart which stretches out the arms of its affections, yearning, longing for the presence and love of Him who is more precious to it than life itself. This is the one side of the Psalm. The other is almost startling in the abruptness of its contrast, yet strikingly true and natural. It breathes the sternness, almost the fierceness, of the ancient warrior, hard beset by his enemies. From that lofty strain of heavenly musing with which the Psalm opens, he turns to utter his vow of vengeance against the traitors who are leagued against him; he triumphs in the prospect of their destruction. P. The Psalm consists of two parts, each exhibiting essentially the same succession of ideas. Both begin with the expression of intense desire for God's presence and communion with Him, and end with a confident anticipation of His mercy; but in the first (vs. 1-8), this is supposed to be displayed in the deliverance of the Psalmist from his sufferings; in the second (vs. 6-11), it is viewed as securing the destruction of his enemies. A. Title. The contents of this Psalm fully verify its title. Like 61 and 62, it belongs to the time of Absalom's rebellion. More specifically it is connected with the sufferings of David and his followers while he tarried near the fords of the wilderness (2 Sam. 15: 23, 28), in the region lying between the plain of Jericho and the northern shore of the Dead Sea. This is described as barren and desolate in the extreme. While here the band of exiles endured weariness and thirst (2 Sam. 16: 2). In connection with v. 2, Delitzsch quotes Furrer: "Not a strip of grass refreshes the eye here upon the wide plain, not a brook ripples, except during the rainy season." The title is in accordance with the direction which the historian relates that David's flight took. "It throws light upon the whole Psalm and is verified by it. The poet is a king. He longs for God in Zion, where he has so gladly beheld Him who is there revealed. He is persecuted by enemies, who have aimed at his destruction. The assertion that he finds himself in the wilderness is no mere figure of speech; and when he anticipates for his enemies that they shall become 'a portion for jackals' (v. 11), we can easily discern the impression that the wilderness has had upon the shape taken by his thoughts." De Witt. 1. O God, Thou art my God. This permission to appropriate God is one of the most precious revelations of Scripture. Wonderful as it may seem, God gives Himself to us. We talk of God's giving Himself in Christ as if that were some new gift. God had given Himself to men long before Christ came. Long before Jesus told men to pray "Our Father," the Psalmist had said, "O God, Thou art my God." That little word "my" represents the eternal relation of God to His people; and if God is ours, then whatever in God is available for us is ours. V.—When God, the Perfect Being, loves the creature of His Hand, He cannot divide His love. He must perforce love with the whole directness, and strength, and intensity of His Being; for He is God, and therefore incapable of partial and imperfect action. He must give Himself to the single soul with as absolute a completeness as if there were no other being besides it. And, on his side, man knows that this gift of Himself by God is thus entire; and in no narrow spirit of ambitious egotism, but as grasping and representing the literal fact, he cries, "My God." Therefore when God had "so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that who-solver believed in Him should not perish but have everlasting life," we find Paul writing to the Galatians as if his own single soul had been redeemed by the sacrifice of Calvary: "He loved me, and gave Himself for me." H. P. L. Early will I seek Thee. The noun which signifies "the early morning" and the verb "to seek" are both from the same root, and are both to be referred to the same primitive idea. The meaning of the root is to break in, and hence this in the verb passes into the signification of seeking (earnestly), and in the noun the dawn is so called as that which breaks in upon the darkness. P.—The verb means to begin to seek and inquire early in the morning and therefore earnestly. D. In this hour of extremest trial, when his own son heads a powerful rebellion, and hosts of his old friends forsake him and combine to sustain this uprising, his soul turns to his God as to his best and only capable Helper. "Thou art my God"—with a precious emphasis on "my;" I will seek Thee both early and earnestly—with the early dawn of morning, and as those do who are up betimes to indulge the most yearning desire of their heart. C. My soul thirsteth for Thee. Think who it was that made this confession. He was the greatest king of a great nation, so magnificent in his royalty that he was made a type of the Almighty King to come, to whom all the kingdoms of the earth belong. He was the greatest poet, too, of a poetical people—singing such hymns to his harp that the whole Church of God, for nearly three thousand years, down to this very day, has kept on repeating them as the ceaseless and inexhaustible liturgy of its worship because all its great ranks of intellects could make nothing like them. Such a man as this, a soldier, a monarch and a minstrel without a peer, feels himself weak and empty and thirsty before God. F. D. H. My flesh, i.e., "my body," answering to "my soul" in the parallelism, and so describing the whole man. In that intense worship in which every thought, feeling, desire, affection are centred in the one true object of love, body and soul both take their part. It is as a living man, every pulse of his being filled with the love of God, that he responds to that love. And when he cries out "O God, Thou art my God," this is not merely an appropriation of God as the God of his worship and trust; it is the heart of flesh stretching out its human affections toward him who has a personal affection for his creature, and whose lovingkindness it knows to be better than life. In a dry and weary land. The language is figurative, and expresses the spiritual thirst and weariness of one who is shut out from God's presence in the sanctuary. P. Immanuel Kant like David found two things to move his soul to awe, the starry heavens above his head and the moral nature in his breast. And it is just here in his moral and religious necessities that man is most conscious of a craving for that, for which in every age his better nature has cried out—namely, "the living God." It is because in our Lord we have found one clothed in our nature, but freed from our defects, that we, tempest-tossed by sin, exclaim with the great-soulled Charles Kingsley, "I cannot live without the man Christ Jesus." The beauty of human life even at its best estate is a beauty which only makes the more evident to a thoughtful mind its marring. Like that matchless bust of Psyche in the museum of Naples, its beauty and its brokenness constitute our joint despair. What a joy it is to the soul, conscious alike of its dignity and its guilt, to behold in the gift of God's own Son one who both honors and saves. He took not on Himself, says the apostle, the nature of angels, but took upon Him the seed of Abraham. We are drawn toward Him by every tender and grateful tie. He reaches down; but that were not enough; did He not also reach up. Man, conscious of the bondage of his will, in every age and in every clime, seeks one whose left hand is laid upon his fetter and whose right hand is laid upon God's throne. This one who might have assumed as something infinitely below Him the estate of heavenly messengers, stooped lower still, the apostle tells us, and became man. None but man can so draw out our hearts; none but God satisfy our craving after a higher life; and we find both in "the one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." Interior. Upon those to whom God is a God, He bestows special favors; and those to whom God is a God, return special services to Him. So we find it to be all along in Scripture, as this David in another place: "Thou art my God, and I will praise Thee; Thou art my Lord, I will exalt Thee." And so here: "Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee." The text is an expression not only of faith, but likewise of obedience. T. Horton.—It is a great thing to have grand views of God, to get some approach to an idea of the exceeding greatness of God. We go to God too much for what we want to get. We ought to go to God, and meditate upon Him, and worship Him for what He is in Himself—His attributes, His glory. Important as this is, it is of infinitely more importance to be able to say, "Thou art my God." This is faith. Nature can say, "O God!" but only the believer can say, "My God." To those who can say that, the last part of David's words and his firm resolve will come as a very easy and a necessary thing; they cannot help saying it: "Early will I seek Thee." For it is attraction that does it. The secret of all true religion is attraction. As soon as God is "my God," I cannot help coming nearer and nearer to Him; it is my necessity; it is my life. J. V. In the truth that God has created us, we see much of the meaning of the Psalmist's words. But we see even more when we reflect that He has created us for Himself. That which would be selfishness in a creature is in the great Creator a necessary result of His solitary perfection. The knowledge and love of our Maker is not, like the indulgence of a sentiment or a taste, a matter of choice. For every man who looks God and life steadily in the face, it is a stern necessity. Not to serve God is to be in the moral world that which a deformity or monster is in the world of animal existence. It is not only to defy the claims of God. It is to ignore the plain demands of our inner being, to do violence to the highest guidance of our mysterious and complex life. . . . Is God the Author and the End of our existence? Is it a solemn truth that by the incarnation and death of the Everlasting Son we have been redeemed from disobedience to the true law of our being, and that we are really free to serve our God? Is this redemption characterized by a prodigality of tenderness which must appeal, if to nothing higher, to our mere natural sense of generosity? Then we may not sit still, interested indeed but passive, as if these central and soul-stirring truths were addressed merely to our speculative faculties. There is such a thing as giving ourselves to God. It is not a beautiful but impracticable aspiration. Believe it, we can only glorify God by yielding ourselves to Him. No other attitude on our part does justice to His claims. Only when we have given ourselves to God do we know what it is indeed to pray, to speak to God with that trustful yet reverent familiarity which becomes children who feel that they have and can have no secrets to hide from their Father in heaven. Only when we have given ourselves to God do we know anything of the joy of an untroubled conscience, and of a true inward peace of soul, and of a moral assurance of salvation, through His most precious death, who makes our self-oblation an acceptable reality. In short, only when we have given ourselves to God does the full meaning of the Psalmist's words dawn upon us, "O God, Thou art my God." H. P. L. We could be satisfied with no gifts from Him, however great and godlike, unless His love were in them—for in His love we have Himself. We feel that God, who has given a heart to man, must have a heart to meet it, else amid all His gifts we are orphans. Were He to cast down His redemption from an inaccessible throne, with a pride that cares not for thanks, or an indifference that despises affection, it would not be the redemption which our souls desire. But neither does He. His salvation does not coldly drop from His hand, it enters with His heart; and that heart is opened in the sympathy and sacrifice of the Son of God. The Sovereign of the universe wishes to be our friend and father, to satisfy the thirst of the soul, which longs to be pressed to an infinite heart. Ker.—He will be with us if we seek Him, and open our hearts to receive Him. What we want, and what He has promised, is His personal presence with ourselves. It is not His presence with the Church that will save us, but His presence in our own hearts. His presence with the Church—that is, with other Christians, will doubtless save them; but they are not our saviours, nor must we look for our safety from them. The point for us to seek is that He should be present with us; that our own personal faith should apprehend Him, our own personal love cleave to Him. Then He is with us, and we with Him, then are we His and shall be His at the great day. T. Arnold. “They that seek Me early shall find Me.” It is the spring seeds that make the richest harvests, and a God sought early will be a God found ever. J. V.—For those who with the Psalmist seek Him early and intensely, and who give Him the hopes of their youth and the strength of their manhood; for those who give intellect when it is now expanding to the full measure of its grasp, and affections when they have as yet lost nothing of their freshness and purity, and will when it has learned by obedience something of that freedom, and rectitude, and strength of movement in which its perfection consists; for a Samuel, for a David, for a Saul of Tarsus, for a Timothy, aye, for an Augustine, He prepares, even in this world, a lavish acknowledgment; He bestows on such as these a fulness of blessing, and joy, and peace, which the eye of nature hath not seen nor its ear heard, nor the unrenewed heart of man conceived to tell. H. P. L. 2. The Hebrew has, Thus have I contemplated Thee in the sanctuary, to behold Thy strength and Thy glory. The meaning appears to be, The devout feelings which now possess me are the same as those with which I was animated when I worshipped in the sanctuary, and realized the strength and glory symbolized by the ark of the covenant. Cook. “I have seen Thee.” We cannot see the essence of God, but we see Him, in seeing by faith His attributes and perfections. These sights David here pleases himself with the remembrance of; those were precious minutes which he spent in communion with God, he loved to think them over again; these he lamented the loss of, and longed to be restored to. H.— In the sanctuary. The devotions of the sanctuary exert and are designed to exert no small influence on those of the closet and the family. The lamp of personal or domestic piety will send forth but a dim and sickly ray, unless trimmed and replenished by frequent visits to the house of the Lord. If the Psalmist David poured forth the sweetest and warmest strains of devotion in the wilderness of Judea and in the forest of Hareth, we must go back, for the secret of his high and holy inspiration, to the days when he trod the courts of the temple—days which caused his soul still to long for the courts of the Lord. If we would rise to true elevation of heart in the closet, we must “lift up our hands in the sanctuary.” Symington. 3. The first clause gives a reason for the strong desire expressed in the foregoing verses, for Thy favor is better than life, and the last clause merely add a pledge of thankful acknowledgment, my lips shall praise Thee. Better than life, not merely than the life I now live, which was scarcely entitled to be so considered, but better than any life I could live, destitute of God’s favor, which is therefore more than a sufficient substitute or compensation. A.—God’s grace is better than life, better than natural life, which is also a blessing and as the presupposition of all earthly blessings, a very great blessing. God’s grace, however, is a greater blessing, it is the summum bonum and the true life; this God of grace his lips shall praise, his morning song is of Him; for that which makes him truly blessed, and after which he even now, as heretofore, only and solely longs, is the grace of this God, the infinite value of which is to be measured by the greatness of His power and glory. D. The Scriptures propose the fellowship of God as the consummation of felicity. We may concentrate upon Him all the faculties of our nature. He can evoke their intensest activities, give them full scope and never put a period to their flow. Thornwell.—The Divine blessing in a single word is life. Life embraces all good things that pertain to earthly prosperity. But it is not these earthly benefits in themselves that make up life. They are good things only when the possession of them is united with the experience of the gracious presence of the covenant God, so that they are pledges of His favor. Hence David (Psalm 4: 8) says that he would not exchange his heart’s delight in God for the abundance of the godless (16: 2, 5); he praises Jehovah as the highest good; and here he says, “Thy favor is better than life.” O. God’s favor includes and bestows all that is desirable in the life that now is and in that which is to come, for God Himself is the great want of the human soul. Not merely as from His present, protecting, preserving, supplying providence He metes out to us with unsparing hand all needful temporal bounty, not merely as He hath given in the world around us all that can minister delight to the sense, all that feeds and clothes the body, as He rears our dwellings and establishes for us therein our family circles, as He rewards our industry with the means of personal and home comforts, not merely as He watches over us by night and day, as He giveth us all outward blessings richly to enjoy—but as the God of all grace, He ministers more largely and blessedly to every want of our souls, as He bestows upon us, through the blood of His Son and the quickening energy of His Spirit, pardon, peace, holiness, and the joyful hope of eternal fellowship with Him in heaven. These are the great need of every human soul. These rich, inestimable gifts of His grace for which all other gifts are but subordinate, these which flow from His favor only, these include all that is desirable to every soul. This is the grand truth which sums up all truth. In God's favor is life, all that is to be desired and sought, all that can be possessed and enjoyed here and forevermore. And nothing that is known from human observation or experience can fix a doubt or question upon this truth. Its proofs are so many, so conclusive, that no objection drawn from the admitted mysteries of providence, from any of the darkest facts of human experience can lie against it. Without it, deny it, and what is existence, what is man? Whence he came, wherefore he lives, and whither bound, none can tell. Without it all, all is a dark, utterly insoluble problem. B. If the excellence of others may become mine, as I cannot tell how or why, save that I love them, am in them and they in me in a sort of mingled life, what may I not become when God, in whom all beauty and all that should be loved has its original and perfection, is the object on which my thoughts attend by day and by night; when He deigns to dwell in me, as spirit only can dwell in spirit, richly by His fruits and virtues, perfecting His strength in the conscious want of mine; when He calls and I hear, yea, speaks as with a brother's voice, and face to face in Jesus Christ, revealing Himself to my sympathies, my sight, my faith, as all in all? Here is a companionship one would think sufficient to preserve us from the corruption of the world, to awe down the rising of evil within us, and rewarding our devotion with such strong consolation as should beguile us of the sense of sorrow and overmaster all inferior attachments. H. H. 4. The connection between the first four verses is not very exact, but may be traced as follows: My soul longeth for Thee (v. 1). With the same longing with which I now desire to see Thee, I once did see Thee in Thy sanctuary (v. 2). This longing is because of Thy lovingkindness, which is more precious than all else (v. 3). Accordingly, I will praise Thee all my life long (v. 4). P. Thus, i.e., with the same ardent desire as before expressed, he feels himself summoned to praise, which shall continue as long as life lasts. The highest expression of a truly renewed soul is the habit of earnest, grateful praise. But it is a privilege as well as a duty; and so the next couplet compares it to the joy of a rich and splendid banquet. Even in the arid wastes of the wilderness he is as much refreshed as he could be by the richest and most savory food; and his lips burst forth into jubilant song, the natural, necessary utterance of a joyful spirit. T. W. C. Those that have their hearts refreshed with the tokens of God's favor ought to have them enlarged in His praises. A great deal of reason we have to bless God that we have better provisions and better possessions than the wealth of this world can afford us; and that in the service of God and in communion with Him, we have better employments and better enjoyments than we can have in the business and converse of this world. H.—When the soul has found God in Christ, who is its life, its glory, its treasure, its heaven, its all, not only are the lips opened in praise, the tongue loosed to speak of the glory of Jesus; but the life, the practice, the conversation, will also be savored with the grace of truth, as an evidence that we know His love, and have been with Jesus. W. Mason. My mouth shall praise Thee. Prayer is not only—perhaps in some of the holiest souls it is not chiefly—a petition for something we want and do not possess. In the larger sense of the word, as the spiritual language of the soul, prayer is intercourse with God, often seeking no end beyond the pleasure of such intercourse. It is praise; it is adoration; it is a colloquy in which the soul engages with the All-wise and the All-holy. When we seek the company of our friends, we do not seek it simply with the view of getting something from them. It is a pleasure to be with them, to be in possession of their sympathies and showing our delight at it; to be assuring them of their place in our hearts and thoughts. So it is with the soul, when dealing with the Friend of friends—with God. In this sense of spiritual intercourse with God, it is clear that as to much prayer the question whether it is answered can never arise, for the simple reason that no answer is asked for. H. P. L. In nothing is the Christian's progress in holiness more signally manifest than in his prayers. They become more and more the natural expression of the new life. Christ being more completely formed within, the believer's seasons of communion with the Father spread themselves more widely through his days and nights. He passes very frequently, almost unconsciously, and by imperceptible gradations of feeling, from his ordinary existence among the things of this world into direct converse with that Friend who is ever nearest, while also most high and most mighty. The current of adoring thought flows on in joyous, satisfying concord with the Eternal Will. We do not stop, perhaps, to shape every aspiration into articulate speech, but we yield to the Divine breath, and move whithersoever the Spirit that maketh intercession moves. In such measure as may be, the disciple is in the Mount with the Master. And a larger and larger part of devotion will consist in thanksgiving and praise, a sure mark of spiritual growth. F. D. H. 5. "My soul shall be satisfied with fatness and fatness;" so the Hebrew hath it—that is, my soul shall be filled up to the brim with pleasure and delight, in the remembrance and enjoyment of God. T. Brooks.—The fulfilment is cotemporaneous with the desire. In the one breath, "my soul thirsteth;" in the next, "my soul is satisfied"—as when in tropical lands the rain comes, and in a day or two what had been baked earth is rich meadow, and the dry torrent-beds, where the white stones glistered in the sunshine, foam with rushing waters and are edged with budding willows. The fulness of satisfaction when God fills the soul is vividly expressed in the familiar image of the feast of "marrow and fatness," on which he banquets even while hungry in the desert. The abundant delights of fellowship with God make him insensible to external privations, are drink for him thirsty, food for his hunger, a home in his wanderings, a source of joy and music in the midst of much that is depressing: "My mouth shall praise Thee with joyful lips." A. M. The earthly child of his heavenly Father finds his capacity for happiness filled to the utmost only when he is at the fountain-head. He is happy when employed on the works of God, or in performing the lowliest duties which are laid upon him here; but still the great want of his soul is unsatisfied. His most intense desires are not appeased. He is not at home till he can rest in God with the most entire complacency; till he can contemplate with calm satisfaction, and, sometimes, with almost insupportable delight, the Divine attributes, while his feelings outrun his thoughts, and delightfully anticipate the great central rest to which they converge. B. B. E. To feel as if you were in the company of God, to have delight in this feeling, to triumph in God as you would in a treasure that had come into your possession, to dwell upon Him as one friend dwells in pleasing remembrance on another, to find that the minutes spent in communion with the heavenly and unseen Witness are far the sweetest and the sunniest of your earthly pilgrimage, to have a sense of God all the day long, and that sense of Him in every way so delicious as to make the creature seem vain and tasteless in the comparison, to have His candle shining in your heart, and a secret beatitude in Him of which other men have no comprehension, to bear about with you that cheerful trust in Him, and that cherished regard to Him, which children do to a father whose love they rejoice in, and of whose good will they are most thoroughly assured, to prize the peaceful Sabbaths and the sacred retirements when your soul can wing its contemplation toward His sanctuary and there behold new glories of His character at the very time that you can exult in confidence before Him—thus to be affected toward God, and thus to glory and be glad in Him, is certainly not a common attainment; and yet we do not see how any true saint, any genuine disciple, can be altogether a stranger to it. Chalmers. 6. When I call Thee to mind upon my bed, then in the night-watches, or throughout the night-watches, I meditate on Thee, i.e., it is no fugitive recollection, but it so holds me that I spend a great portion of the night absorbed in meditation on Thee. Matter for meditation is not wanting to him, for God has become his help; He has rescued him and brought him into this wilderness; and, carefully hidden under the shadow of His wings which affords him coolness in the heat of conflict and protection from his persecutors. D.—David frequently speaks of night as the season for devout meditation (see Psalms 4: 4; 16: 7). In this passage there is evidently a direct reference to that first long night of peril and watchfulness. In the night-watches David turned to God in prayer, and received the support of which he speaks in the next verse. Cook. Observe the connection. Meditation turns the promises into marrow, it conveys the strength of them to our souls. One morsel of meat masticated and digested dispenses more nourishment than a greater quantity that is swallowed down whole; so one promise that is ruminated upon and digested by meditation, conveys more comfort than a bundle of promises in the head that are not meditated upon, which we do not consider. The comfort which meditation brings is the most spiritual, refined joy that we are capable of. It is spiritual meditation which rejoices the angelical part of our souls within us. He that performs conscientiously the duty of meditation doth maintain such a correspondence with God as angels do; such a one doth enter into heaven by degrees and steps. Salter. How shall we fill the chambers of meditation? The soul never sits alone within her retreat. She invites some congenial companionship. She is not altogether mistress of that retirement. Thoughts she cannot welcome will sometimes obtrude their presence. But, for the most part, she chooses her fellowships. She calls in the thoughts in whose silent circle she finds most agreeable communion. And then, in such alliance, a swift process of assimilation goes on. The soul becomes like her chosen intimates. She takes on the hue and character of those objects with which she is most at home. And here is another item in the final reckoning: We must answer for these intimacies of thought. A. L. Stone. Meditation is the life of the soul; action is the soul of meditation; honor is the reward of action. So meditate that thou mayest do; so do that thou mayest receive honor, for which give God the glory. Quarles. 7. "Because Thou hast been my Help, when other helps and helpers failed me, therefore I will still rejoice in Thy salvation, will trust in Thee for the future, and will do it with delight and holy joy. Thou hast been not only my Helper, but my Help;" for we could never have helped ourselves, nor could any creature have been helpful to us, but by Him. Here we may set up our Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto the Lord has helped us, and must therefore resolve that we will never desert Him, never distrust Him, nor ever droop in our walking with Him. H. In the shadow of Thy wings will I rejoice. The shadow of God's wing is a safe shadow. Creep closer under it, closer yet. Earth has nothing human so gentle as true mother-love; but God's wing that folds down over you is gentler than even mother-love, and you can never get out from beneath it. You need never be afraid while resting there. In all the universe there is no harm that can come nigh you. J. R. M. 8. My soul cleaves after Thee, Thy right hand holds me. This is a strong metaphorical description of the mutual relation between God and the believer; a relation of trustful dependence on the one hand, and of constant favor and protection on the other. Cleaves after is a frequent phrase for follows cleaving to thee. The right hand is the constant symbol of strength. A. —The soul follows after God and cleaves to Him (the expression in the Hebrew is literally, "My soul hath cleaved after Thee," so that the two ideas of following and cleaving are mingled); and God, on the other hand, stays and upholds the soul with His right hand. Out of that hand of power and love neither man nor devil can pluck it. P. The first clause describes the cleaving of the soul to God, the second God's steadfast support of the soul; a reciprocal action and reaction; prevenient grace first draws out the spiritual affection, then follows the assurance of support. Cook.—In the first verse we read, "My soul thirsteth for Thee;" in the fifth verse, "My soul shall be satisfied;" in the eighth verse, "My soul followeth hard after Thee." These three points are the turning-points of the Psalm; and they show us the soul longing, the longing soul satisfied, and the satisfied soul still seeking. The word translated "followeth" here literally means to cleave or to cling. "My soul cleaveth after God." Desire expands the heart; possession expands the heart. More of God comes when we can hold more of Him, and the end of all fruition is the renewed desire after further fruition. There is also very beautifully here the co-operation and reciprocal action of the seeking soul and the sustaining God. We hold and are held. The Psalm is a transcript of the passage of a believing soul from longing through fruition to firm trust, in which it is sustained by the right hand of God. A. M. To press hard after God is to follow Him close, as those that are afraid of losing the sight of Him and that long to be with Him. This David did, and he owns to the glory of God, Thy right hand upholds me. God upheld him in his holy desires and pursuits, that he might not grow weary in well-doing. Those that follow hard after God would soon fail and give off if God's right hand did not uphold them. It is He that strengthens us in the pursuit of Him, quickens our good affections, and comforts us while we have not yet attained what we are in the pursuit of. This was a great encouragement to the Psalmist to hope that He would in due time give him that which he so earnestly desired, because He had by His grace wrought in him those desires and kept them up. H. 9. And they to (their) ruin are seeking my soul; they shall go into the depths of the earth. The phrase to ruin has precisely the same sense as in Psalm 35:8—namely, to their own destruction. Are seeking, will seek; the idea suggested by the future is, that if they still persist in seeking it, they will do so to their own destruction. To seek the soul implies a purpose of destruction, without any qualifying adjunct, even in prose. The depths of the earth, literally, its lower or lowest parts, which may simply mean the grave (as we say under ground), or contain an allusion to the fate of Korah and his company. A. 9,10. Upon our modern feelings and thoughts these verses seem, perhaps, somewhat to jar. We pass all at once into a different atmosphere. We have come down from the mount of holy aspirations into the common every-day world, where human enemies are struggling and human passions are strong. Yet this very transition, harsh as it is, gives us a wonderful sense of reality. In some respects it brings the Psalm nearer to our own level. The man who has been pouring out the fervent affection of his heart toward God is no mystic or recluse, lost in ecstatic contemplation, but one who is fighting a battle with foes of flesh and blood, and who hopes to see their malice defeated, their power crushed, and their carcasses left to be the prey of jackals in the wilderness. What may be called the human force of character remains even amid thoughts whose impassioned earnestness is not of this world, and whose strain of intensely exalted spiritual fervor is such as but very few can reach. P. David's enemies are God's enemies, and their success would frustrate His holy and gracious purposes. And therefore in the midst of the Psalmist's exalted spiritual fervor, he can turn aside to set forth their sure and deserved overthrow. It shows us that David was not the victim of a weak sentimentality, but the possessor of a robust faith which took in the whole nature of God, His justice as well as His mercy, and apprehended the sterner as well as the milder of His perfections. Such Psalms as this one are of immense service in days like our own, when the moral fibre of Christians is weakened, and they speak with bated breath of the wrath to come, and fear lest any reference to the doom of the impenitent should sound harsh. For here we see by actual example that the very highest joy in God, the closest communion with Him, can and does coexist with a calm and deliberate approval of the surrender of His foes to the overthrow which their conduct has provoked. T. W. C. 11. Every one that sweareth by Him**—i.e., every one to whom God is the object of religious fear and trust and worship, the Psalmist himself and his friends and companions. Those on the other hand who, because they have no fear of God, seek to prevail by lies, shall be confounded. P. The healthy Christian life finds its inspiration, not in contemplating its own spiritual states, but in beholding Christ. In the memoirs of most successful missionaries we find little record of subjective experiences. They were absorbed in viewing the needs of men and the love of Christ. They spent not much time in gauging their faith. They were looking unto Jesus, the beginner and completer of it. A. E. Dunning. Penitence is the first movement to mercy, and confession to God is the first step upward. Were you satisfied with self that would be death; pain is the evidence of vitality, the outcry and alarm-bell of the sinning conscience. Take heart from it. The holiest saints on earth and in Paradise have had a poor sense of their own advancement. The true way to get comfort is to look away from yourself to Him. Our power, our light, our satisfaction, our better life itself, are in Him, and to Him we must go, and go again and again for them, not to ourselves. God grant us just discontent enough with what we are to stir and nerve us for harder and nobler labor, not so much as to depress our energies or darken our daylight! The best reply you can make to your reproachful memory, charging you with meagre attainments and slow progress, is that you will stop measuring yourself by yourself, drop the bad habit of prying about in the interior of your own weak heart for satisfaction which can come only from a higher source. Look unto the hills of God, whence comes your help, and forgetting the things which are behind reach on to better things before. F. D. H. David, Jacob, and Paul, may be considered the three great patterns of thankfulness which are set before us in Scripture: saints, all of whom were peculiarly the creation of God's grace, and whose very life and breath it was humbly and adoringly to meditate upon the contrast between what, in different ways, they had been and what they were. A perishing wanderer had unexpectedly become a patriarch; a shepherd, a king; and a persecutor an apostle; each had been chosen, at God's inscrutable pleasure, to fulfil a great purpose, and each, while he did his utmost to fulfil it, kept praising God that he was made His instrument. Of the first, it was said, "Jacob have I loved;" of the second, that He chose David also His servant, and took him away from the sheep-folds. And Paul says of himself, "Last of all, He was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time." Newman. 1. HEAR my voice, O God, in my complaint: Preserve my life from fear of the enemy. 2 Hide me from the secret counsel of evildoers; From the tumult of the workers of iniquity: 3 Who have whet their tongue like a sword, And have aimed their arrows, even bitter words: 4 That they may shoot in secret places at the perfect: Suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not. 5 They encourage themselves in an evil purpose; They commune of laying snares privily; They say, Who shall see them? 6. They search out iniquities; We have perfected say they, a well-devised scheme, And the inward thought of every one, and the heart, is deep. 7 But God shall shoot at them; With an arrow suddenly shall they be wounded. 8 So they shall be made to stumble, their own tongue being against them: All that see them shall shake the head. 9 And all men shall fear; And they shall declare the work of God, And shall wisely consider of his doing. 10 The righteous shall be glad in the LORD, and shall trust in him; And all the upright in heart shall glory. THIS Psalm contains a stirring and vigorous picture of the plotting by which evil men were aiming at the Psalmist's life. It opens, as is usual in such Psalms, with a cry to God against their machinations; it describes at length the methods they take to accomplish their purposes; and it concludes with a confident prediction of their sudden and utter overthrow. We have already observed a similar strain of feeling in other Psalms, such as the fifty-second, fifty-seventh, fifty-eighth, and fifty-ninth. In all these we find allusions to the mischief done by the tongue of the wicked; in the last three the same figures are employed, the tongue and its words being compared to arrows and swords. P. In this Psalm the central theme is the counsellings of his enemies against him; the secrecy and malignity of their plots; their exultation in the assurance of success, coupled with God's swift and terrible retribution under which their schemes recoiled fatally upon themselves—from which result the nation learned something more of God, and the righteous rejoiced with great joy. C.—It is a cry of God's elect, when persecuted for righteousness' sake, to their Deliverer and sure Avenger. The general principle stated is very clear. The Psalm will adjust itself, as an experimental utterance, to the lips of Christian faith whenever brought into contact with the evil forces of the prince of this world, so as to suffer affliction for the Gospel's sake; for it expresses the condition and the hope of one actually imperilled for the truth. Arthur Pridham. 3. Their arrows, even bitter words. They dart their calumnies as archers shoot their poisoned arrows. To sting, to inflict anguish, to destroy, is their one design. Insult, sarcasm, taunting defiance, all these were practised among Orientals as a kind of art; and if in these western regions, with more refined manners, we are less addicted to the use of rough abuse, it is yet to be feared that the less apparent venom of the tongue inflicts none the less poignant pain. David had but the one resource of prayer against the twofold weapons of the wicked; for defence against sword or arrow he used the one defence of faith in God. S. 5,6. These verses carry on the picture of the plots of these evil men, and especially describe their resolute persistence in their schemes, their confidence of success, and the depth and subtlety of their designs. P. 6. They search out iniquities; (they say) We are ready—a consummate plan! and the inward thought and heart of (every) man (is) deep. They rack their invention and ransack their memory for modes of doing mischief. We are ready, literally, finished, just as we might say in English, we are done. The last clause is added to enhance the danger, by representing the device as springing not from shallow, superficial, but profound contrivance. Inward thought, literally, inside, an equivalent to heart often used by David. A. 7. The Divine judgment is now painted as if actually fulfilling itself before the very eyes of the Psalmist. Hence the verbs are in the past tense, by which a certain dramatic effect is produced, which is lost when they are rendered in the future. So vividly is the Divine judgment anticipated, that it is as if already accomplished. P. — But God has shot them—with an arrow—suddenly—the wounds are theirs. By an abrupt but beautiful transition he describes the tables as completely turned upon the enemy, as they are about to shoot an arrow suddenly at the righteous, God shoots an arrow suddenly at them. The wounds which they intended to inflict on others have become their own. When they thought to strike others they were struck themselves. A. 8. Their own tongue against them. It is written that “every idle word shall be brought into judgment.” Light words weigh heavy in God’s balances. They are punished; “their own tongue shall be against them.” Better a mountain should fall on us than our own guilty tongue in the day of judgment! Do we boast—do we revile—do we insult—do we jeer at holy things or godly people with an unbridled tongue? Then God will make it a rod to scourge us with. The tongue is called the glory of man in the Psalms, “Awake my glory.” It was the glory of his tongue to praise his God. But when the tongue is debased to vile uses and purposes, then it becomes our shame and disgrace, and not our glory. T. M. 9. Shall wisely consider of his doing. The judgments of God are frequently so clear and manifest that men cannot misread them, and if they have any thought at all, they must extract the true teaching from them. S. 10. The Divine deed, patent to all, of judicial retribution, becomes a blessing to humanity. Passed on from mouth to mouth it becomes a warning. For the righteous in particular it becomes a consoling and joyous confirmation of faith. The righteous rejoices in his God, who by judging and redeeming in this fashion makes history the history of redemption; with so much the more confidence he hides himself in Him; and all the upright glory in God, who looks into the heart, and in deeds acknowledges those whose heart is conformed to Him. D. 1. PRAISE waiteth for thee, O God, in Zion: And unto thee shall the vow be performed. 2 O thou that hearest prayer, Unto thee shall all flesh come. 3 Iniquities prevail against me: As for our transgressions, thou shalt purge them away [forgive them. Am. Com.]. 4 Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and causest to approach unto thee, That he may dwell in thy courts: We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, The holy place of thy temple. 5 By terrible things thou wilt answer us in righteousness, O God of our salvation; Thou that art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, And of them that are afar off upon the sea: 6 Which by his strength setteth fast the moun- tains; Being girded about with might. 7 Which stilleth the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, And the tumult of the peoples. 8 They also that dwell in the uttermost parts are afraid at thy tokens: Thou makest the outgoings of the morning and evening to rejoice. 9 Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it, Thou greatly enrichest it; The river of God is full of water: Thou providest them corn, when thou hast so prepared the earth. 10 Thou waterest her furrows abundantly Thou settlest the ridges thereof : Thou makest it soft with showers ; Thou blessest the springing thereof. 11 Thou crownest the year with thy goodness ; WE can hardly doubt that this Psalm was composed on the occasion of an abundant harvest, and was intended to be sung as a hymn of thanksgiving by the whole congregation gathered before God in Zion. From the allusions in vs. 7, 8 it would seem that the time was one of great political convulsions, of a shaking of nations and kingdoms, in the midst of which God had manifested His goodness to His people. The Psalm connects together these two great concurrent instances of God's protecting care and love. He had given peace to Zion when her enemies were raging around her. He had crowned her with the year of His goodness when drought and famine seemed to threaten. "The Hearer of prayer" had heard the petitions of His people, when they met to confess their sins and to make known their need before Him; and now it was but fitting that they should gather again within His courts, there to thank Him for His mercy, and to show forth all His praise. This twofold character of the Psalm is best explained by referring it to the time immediately subsequent to the destruction of the Assyrian army before Jerusalem. An abundant harvest, it had been promised (Isa. 37: 30), should follow that event; and the fields so lately trampled beneath the feet of the invader seemed now, with their waving crops, to sing and shout for joy. The title of the Psalm assigns it to David; but it is impossible to read it, and not to feel that it bears every evidence of a later date. So strong indeed is this evidence that even Delitzsch, who is usually a strenuous supporter of the inscriptions, abandons the tradition here, and, with Ewald, thinks that the Psalm was written about the time of Sennacherib's overthrow (i.e., about 712 n.c.). The Psalm consists of three strophes: The opening is an expression of the thoughts and feelings with which the congregation may fitly approach God, now that they come to thank Him for His goodness (vs. 1-4). Then follows the celebration of the mighty acts of Jehovah, both in the world of nature and also among the nations, so that His name is known and acknowledged to the ends of the earth (vs. 5-8). And thy paths drop fatness. 12 They drop upon the pastures of the wilderness : And the hills are girded with joy. 13 The pastures are clothed with flocks ; The valleys also are covered over with corn ; They shout for joy, they also sing. Lastly, the special thanksgiving which is called forth by the refreshing rain which God has sent, and the rich and glorious harvest which is already waving and ripening before their eyes (vs. 9-13). The difference between the first and last strophe in the mode of expression is striking. In the first, there is a certain abruptness. The thoughts follow one another, not indeed altogether without order, but without anything like formal cohesion. In the last, on the other hand, the language flows with the thoughts. The bright harvest-scene is before the eyes of the inspired singer. He stands looking on the fields white already to the harvest, and his soul within him rejoices in their glorious promise. The poet and the world without him are at one accord. The fulness of joy in his heart, as he sees how his God has poured blessing upon the land, passes as it were by a contagion of sunny gladness into the inanimate creation, and the very corn-fields seem to him to shout together, yea to sing for joy. P. The Psalm loses none of its rare beauty by reason of our uncertainty as to its original adaptation. We may take its sweet words and apply them to very many of the varied scenes of ever shifting human life; for when is God other or less than the Infinite Fountain of all blessings! C. 1-4. In these verses, while the meaning of the separate sentences is clear, it is not equally easy to trace the line of thought. I believe it to be this: In Zion God is known, there He is praised and worshipped. He is the hearer of prayer; that is His very character, and therefore all flesh comes to Him. All who feel their weakness, all who need help and grace, seek it at His hand. It is true that they who thus come come with the burden of sin upon them; their iniquities rise up in all their strength and might, and would thrust them away from the presence of the Holy One. But He Himself, in the plenitude of His mercy, covers those iniquities, will not look upon them, and so suffers sinners to approach Him. And how blessed are they who, reconciled and pardoned, are thus suffered to draw nigh. Of that blessedness may we ourselves be partakers, may we be filled and satisfied therewith. P. 1. According to our Hebrew text, the word translated "waiteth" is a noun, used often in the sense of silence; here, of silent trust. "To Thee, O God, belong silent trust and grateful praise; these become Thee and Thou art worthy to receive them from Thy worshippers in Zion." "To Thee let the vow be performed." C.—This is a song of joyful thank giving for great prosperity, and the vow the singers are performing is that bringing an offering from the fruits of the earth with loud and cheerful praise. De Witt. 2. Hearer of prayer, up to Thee shall all flesh come. Thou who habitually hearest prayer. This is mentioned as one of the Divine characters or attributes. Up to Thee, even to Thee, implying actual arrival, and therefore a stronger expression than unto Thee. All flesh is here used in its narrower sense of all mankind. To Thee they shall come, i.e., must come, for the supply of their necessities, the forgiveness of their sins, and, in short, for every good and perfect gift, both temporal and spiritual. A. Thou that hearest prayer. This is Thy name, Thy nature, Thy glory. God not only has heard, but is now hearing prayer, and always must hear prayer, since He is an immutable being, and never changes in His attributes. Every right and sincere prayer is as surely heard as it is offered. S.—He never rejects any that deserves the name of prayer, how weak, how unworthy soever the petitioner be. "Thou art plentious in mercy to all that call upon Thee;" "A rewarder of them that diligently seek Him." This must be believed as certainly as we believe that God is. As sure as God is the true God, so sure is it that none who sought Him diligently departed from Him without a reward. You may as well doubt that He is God, as doubt that He will hear prayer. Clarkson. If God be not merely an infinite Intelligence, but a moral Being, a mighty Heart, so that justice and mercy and tenderness are attributes of His character, then to appeal to Him in virtue of these attributes is assuredly to appeal to Him to some purpose. If an omnipresent Intelligence is a sufficient guarantee of His being able to hear us; an interest such as justice and mercy imply toward creatures dependent upon Him for life and its continuance, is a guarantee of His willingness to do so. It is on this ground that God is said to hear prayer in Holy Scripture. That He should do so follows from the reality of His nature as God. H. P. L. Therefore, because Thou art a God hearing prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh come; justly does every man's praise wait for Thee, because every man's prayer waits on Thee, when he is in want or distress, whatever he does at other times. H.—Unto God, so well known as the Hearer of prayer, let all the needy come! And their prayer having been answered, let them come yet again with their grateful thank-offering! C. Prayer is a term of great latitude, involving the whole compass of our intercourse with God. Paul represents it to include our adoration of His perfections; our acknowledgment of the wisdom of His dispensations, and of our obligations for His benefits, providential and spiritual; the avowal of our entire dependence on Him, and of our absolute subjection to Him; the declaration of our faith in Him; the expression of our devotedness to Him; the confession of our own unworthiness, infirmities, and sins; the petition for the supply of our wants, and for the pardon of our offences, for success in our distress, for a blessing on our undertakings, for the direction of our conduct and the success of our affairs. H. More. An argument for the reasonableness of prayer is based on the unchangeable character of God. It is precisely because God's character is unchangeable that His purposes are flexible. It is because He is a just God that He is a Saviour—i.e., that He adapts His providence to the changing characters with which it has to deal. He treats differently those who treat Him differently, and this precisely because He is in Himself the same and changes not. If God does not grant every prayer, it is because He knows what is good for us far too well to do so. We must offer all our prayers for temporal blessings with due submission to God's better wisdom. "Not my will, but Thine, be done." Only one prayer needs no such qualification; the prayer for that Holy Spirit which, in the Christian doctrine, is the direct influence of the Deity on the spirits He has created, bestowing on them the highest wisdom, purifying them even as He, the fountain of purity, is pure. C. P. Reichel. 3. Words of iniquities are too strong for me; (as for) our transgressions, Thou wilt expiate them, or forgive them for the sake of an atonement. A.—Iniquities prevail. "Are too strong for me." It is the remembrance of this which brings up before the mind the one great obstacle to approach to God; the next line telling us how that obstacle is removed. Calvin well explains: "Although our iniquities, as they deserve repulse, would cast us far from Thy sight, yet because Thou showest Thyself ready to be reconciled, they will not prevent the course of our prayers." P. Despair of self is the mother of confidence in God; and no man has learned the blessedness and the sweetness of God's power to cleanse who has not learned the impotence of his own feeble attempts to overcome his transgression. So here we have the hopelessness and misery of man's vain struggles, and side by side the joyful confidence in the Divine victory. We have the problem and the solution, the barrier and the overleaping of it; man's impotence and the omnipotence of God's mercy. A. M. As for our transgressions, Thou shalt purge them away. In the Hebrew it is, Thou shalt hide them. It alludes to the mercy-seat, which was covered with the wings of the cherubim; so are the sins of the godly, when repented of, covered with the wings of mercy and favor. Thomas Watson.—The pronoun is emphatic, as though to express the conviction that God and God alone could do this. P. 4. Happy (he whom) Thou wilt choose and bring (him) near, i.e., admit him to Thy presence and to intimate communion with Thee (so that) he shall inhabit Thy courts; we shall be sated, satisfied or filled, with the good, i.e., the pleasure, the enjoyment, of Thy house, the holy (place) Thy temple, or Thy holy temple, Thy sanctuary, an expression used both of the tabernacle and the temple properly so called. The privilege described is not merely that of public worship at the place of God's appointment, but of residence in His family and participation in the privileges of His household. A. He satisfied. For all that God's grace offers us we can give no better thanks than that we hunger and thirst after it, and that the poor empty soul be satisfied therewith. D.—What can be wanting in the house of Him who made everything, who is the master of everything, who will be all unto all, in whom is an inexhaustible treasure of good. Of Him is said "Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things." Bellarmine. We are chosen of God, and this alone is blessedness. Then He works graciously in us and attracts us powerfully; this also is blessedness. Furthermore, we by His Divine drawings are made nigh by the blood of His Son, and brought near by His Spirit into intimate fellowship; so that we have access with boldness; here also is unrivalled blessedness. To crown all, we approach as chosen and accepted ones, to become dwellers in the Divine household; this is heaped-up blessedness, vast beyond conception. Such is the portion of every man whom God has chosen and caused to approach unto Him, though once his iniquities prevailed against him. S. 5. The Psalmist now approaches more nearly to his main subject; and first, he declares God's wonders on behalf of His people. P. Beautifully is He said to be "the confidence of all the ends of the earth"—worthy to be trusted by people of every nation, every clime under the whole heavens! C.—The meaning is that God is the most certain help and defence of men, whether He be acknowledged by them and trusted in or not. Venema.—Here, as in v. 2, it is the claim of God to be thus recognized and trusted in which is asserted. God is the hearer of the prayers of all. He is the only object of trust, even though all do not pray to Him or trust in Him. As Luther well says: "One may run over the wide world, even to its utmost extremity, yet Thou art the only foundation on which the trust of a man's heart can rest." P. 6,7. In the world of nature and of men He proves Himself to be the one girt about with power, to whom everything must be submissive. He, the Creator, Preserver, and Ruler of the world, He it is that establishes the mountains and stills the roaring of the ocean. D.—Is not the evidence of ease on the very front of all the greatest works in existence? Do they not say plainly to us, not "There has been a great effort here," but "There has been a great power here"? It is not the weariness of mortality, but the strength of Divinity, which we have to recognize in all mighty things. Ruskin. It is true, in the strict sense, that God stills the raging of the seas; but it is also true that He subdues the commotion of human societies and states, of which the sea is a natural and common emblem. Hence he adds in express terms, the tumult of nations. A.—Human society owes its preservation to the continued power of God; evil passions would secure its instant dissolution; envy, ambition, and cruelty would create anarchy to morrow, if God did not prevent Glory be unto God who maintains the fabric of social order, and checks the wicked, who would fain overthrow all things. S. 8. Outgoings of morning and evening rejoice. Outgoings, the places where morning and evening have their birth, the east and west; the meaning being that all created things break forth into songs of joy before God. P.—As God scatters the light of the morning and draws the curtains of the evening, so He does both in favor to man and gives occasion to us to rejoice in both; so that, how contrary soever light and darkness are to each other, and how inviolable soever the partition between them, both are equally welcome to the world in their season; it is hard to say which is more welcome to us, the light of the morning which befriends the business of the day, or the shadows of the evening which befriend the repose of the night. H. God has given a peculiar beauty and brightness to the lights of evening and morning. We never feel so deeply as at these times the beauty of the world which He has made our home. The softened lights, the longer shadows, heighten all the colors of nature, make all distances vaster, and all outlines less sharp and distinct, and so beget a sense of freedom in which we feel true pleasure. And it is the daily life and care of God in the world that makes the joy. He is the sun whose beams of blessing enlighten and warm our hearts. His great, infinite presence behind and below all created life comes up into it and mingles, unseen and often unrecognized, with the life of nature and the experience of our souls. To the child of God, faithful to his duties, believing in God's love, hoping for heaven, the outgoings of the morning and evening rejoice—of the morning because it opens with new tokens of his Father's love; of the evening, if for no other reason, because "a day's march nearer home" is done. W. R. Brooks. There is, indeed, a softening, gentle, meditative mood to which the sights and sounds of nature win the thoughtful mind; and how grateful, how healing, how redeeming, from fretfulness and care, how preparatory for better things, are the sweet natural influences of a morning or evening landscape even on our mortal frame! It is a power prelusive to the great harmony, and awakening attention; many analogies will be suggested, many thoughts excited, many fancies and feelings stirred. But the grand meaning, the utterance of Deity, the inward sense of His eternal power and Godhead, the perception of the Omnipresent, yet personal Intelligence, the sight and sense of all that God unquestionably means His creatures to behold in nature! the soul must be awake, indeed, for that, alive to God for that, and then how blessed! For when this grandeur of sensibility to Him, and this power of communion with Him, is carried, as the habit of the soul, into the forms of nature, then the walls of our world are as the gates of heaven. Earth is no more a prison, but a province of freedom, loveliness, and light, as one of the mansions of our Father's house, where we may walk with God, and prepare to be translated. How near we are to Him, in every part of His creation, when alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord! G. B. C. The happiness of life is the happiness of its separate days. We too often pray and care for our whole life, earnestly intending and desiring that as a whole it may be good and true, but overlook each single day, as if one life had to be lived at once and not by days. It should be our study and care to make each day, this day, a perfect day. A day is a life, and the record of this day and every other is preserved in the book of God. And life is a day; of it the evening cometh and also the morning. If the evening of life is to rejoice, the day must be spent in the faithful service of God. Then after the evening the morning of the next life shall open with a brightness and beauty such as never shone on earth, and with song such as this world never heard. W. R. Brooks. 9. With this verse begins the special subject of thanksgiving, the thanksgiving for the harvest. P.—God is represented in this and the following verses as actively engaged in tilling the soil for the sustenance of His great family. In this the supply of water is the first consideration, and the clouds are mentioned here by a term familiar in Oriental cultivation. The whole conception of a most successful process of agriculture on a vast scale, carried on methodically by the wisdom and power of God, is very grand. De Witt. Spring follows winter, and ushers in summer, according to an appointed order. This fact teaches the continuous control and government of God. God seems to come with the coming in of each of the seasons. As Maker, and Life-giver, and Father, "Thou visitest the earth and waterest it." S. Martin.—The Holy Spirit makes use of a homely word when, in describing the fertilizing, genial rain, He terms it a visiting of the earth. When a visit is made by rich and affectionate friends, they do not come empty, but bring with them a blessing or good gift to testify their favor and love. Thus, although God is over all, and fills heaven and earth, He does not at all times leave traces or marks of His presence. But when in time of drought He gives a gracious, fertilizing shower, it is as if He paid us a visit, and brought along with Him a great blessing, that we might mark His love and goodness. Arndt. He who created us had to contrive for our support, and to contrive variety of foods and flavors; and so He bade the earth bring forth the vast varieties of its products in vegetable and animal life. Man's life could have been maintained with corn alone, had the earth produced nothing else; but certainly man's life would have been a very different and a very dreary thing had it been so. He who created us had also to provide for the support of our thinking, our intellectual and spiritual life, and to contrive to give us variety of thought, variety of moods and feelings. One thought eternally repeated might keep a man's mind alive. One mood, one feeling, prolonged, might keep the soul from annihilation. But surely life thus prolonged through years and centuries would be a dreary life. One of the Divine contrivances to give us variety of thought, a continual succession of new thoughts and frequent changes, of our moods of feeling, is in the influence God has given to the outer world upon our minds and hearts. God created this great nature around us, filled it with His own presence and power and wisdom, set it in perpetual motion and busy change, that our spirits might be set thinking and studying by it, that our feelings might be awakened, our sentiments touched, and our souls instructed by the influence of the world upon us. W. R. Brooks. River of God. Fountain of God is here His inexhaustible storehouse of blessing, and more especially the fulness of the heavenly waters, out of which He sends down the fructifying rain. D.—The brook of God, not as the Chaldean and others "the clouds," but rather "the rain." It is the heavenly stream as opposed to earthly streams; called a brook or channel with reference to the irrigation of the land by means of such. It is full of water, whereas the wells which men dig, the channels which they cut, dry up and cease to flow. P. Thou providest corn. The corn-plants are utterly unknown throughout all the geological periods. Not the slightest trace or vestige of them occurs in any of the strata of the earth until we come to the most recent formations, contemporaneous with man. The testimony of geology, therefore, confirms unequivocally the testimony of Revelation, and shows that corn was not only specially created for man's use, but also got ready specially for the appointed hour of his appearance on earth. Macmillan. God, by providing rain for the earth, prepares corn for man. As for the earth, out of it comes bread (Job 28: 5), for out of it comes corn; but every grain of corn that comes out of it God Himself prepared; and therefore He provides rain for the earth that thereby He may prepare corn for man, under whose feet He has put the rest of the creatures, and for whose use He has fitted them. When we consider that the yearly produce of the corn is not only an operation of the same power that raises the dead, but an instance of that power not much unlike it, and that the constant benefit we have from it is an instance of that goodness which endures forever, we have reason to think that it is no less than a God that prepares corn for us. Corn and cattle are the two staple commodities with which the husbandman, who deals immediately in the fruits of the earth, is enriched; and both are owing to the Divine goodness in watering the earth. To this it is owing that the pastures are clothed with flocks (v. 13). H.—Blessed be the Great Householder; He does not suffer the harvest to fail, He supplies the teeming myriads of earth with bread enough from year to year. Even thus does He vouchsafe heavenly food to His redeemed ones: "He hath given meat unto them that fear Him; He is ever mindful of His covenant." S. 9-11. Our harvest-homes are times of rejoicing too. Would that our tillers and reapers of the soil were wont to refer all to God as the Psalmist did. "Thou waterest the earth, Thou greatly enrichest it, Thou preparest the corn, Thou waterest the ridges, Thou settlest the furrows, Thou makest it soft with showers, Thou blessest the springing thereof, Thou crownest the year with Thy goodness." Not one word of man, of man's skill or of man's labor, not one thought of self. Bouchier.—The farmer does nothing more to it than break up the ground, and plough, and sow, and then lets it lie. But God must be always attending to it with rain and heat, and must do everything to make it grow and prosper, while the farmer lies at home and sleeps. Luther. 11. Thou crownest the year. A full and plentiful harvest is the crown of the year; and this springs from the unmerited goodness of God. This is the diadem of the earth. "Thou encirclet," as with a diadem. A most elegant expression to show the progress of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac, producing the seasons, and giving a sufficiency of light and heat alternately, to all places on the surface of the globe, by its north and south declination (amounting to 23° 28' at the solstices) on each side of the equator. A more beautiful image could not have been chosen: and the very appearance of the space, termed the zodiac on a celestial globe, shows with what propriety the idea of a circle or diadem was conceived by this inimitable poet. A. Clarke. — Thy paths drop fatness.** The obvious meaning of this strong but beautiful figure is, that wherever He appears His movements are attended by a rich and fertilizing influence. Fatness is as usual a figure for rich food, and that for general abundance. A. The wilderness does not mean a bare desert, as the word “pastures” shows; it is merely contrasted with the cultivated arable land. P. — It was in part the land that was fit for pasture but not for cultivation. Such was the greater part of the Sinaitic peninsula, and of the country between the Jordan and the Phrat. M. 12,13. At the overflowing goodness of God nothing was mute. The dumb flocks broke forth in grateful melody, and even the green herbage on which they revelled itself had a tongue in praise of Him whose pencil gave it its color, and whose breath imparted to it its perfume. It was not enough for God to furnish the fruits necessary for the support of man. He adorned the earth with flowers of every form and hue and fragrance. It is full of His gratuitous love, of superadded grace. The lines of beauty and of utility intermingle and run into each other. B. B. E. God reveals Himself as omnipotent at the return of every spring, and uses His might for the bestowal of blessings. The goodness of God crowns the year as a diadem does the brow. Men find out His goings by the blessings of His paths. The jocund flocks clothe the pastures; the very hills are girded with joy and gladness. Shall these rejoicings of nature find no echo in the human heart? Let men vie with nature in thanksgivings; let their rejoicings swell into praise and happy harvest-songs. Tholuck. High above the poetic beauty of this exquisite Psalm is the moral beauty of the sentiment which sees God Himself and not Nature only, nor her so-called “laws,” in the rains, the green pastures, and the valleys covered over with corn. It is God who visits the earth; it is the river of God which bears along the copious waters: “Thou makest it soft with showers;” Thou blessest the springing up of its vegetable growths; it is Thy paths—Thine own very footsteps over our fields—that distil fatness and abundance; it is unto Thee most appropriately that pastures and valleys shout the chorus of praise and sing for joy! Everything is full of God; His hand and His footsteps everywhere. There is no chill of a heartless and godless philosophy, falsely so-called, on the heart of this inspired poet; his glowing soul is warmed by the felt presence of an active, energizing God whose handiwork and whose blessed footsteps he sees in everything that grows and in every agency that makes growth and beauty and fruitfulness on the face of this fair world. By a very interesting but logical process Isaac Taylor infers from this Psalm the general culture, the tastes, and the piety of the Hebrew people of David’s time. The data given are the Psalm itself; the fact that it was sung in the public worship of the sanctuary before and by the assembled thousands of Israel—sung manifestly with spirit and enthusiasm; with intelligence therefore, and with some adequate conception of its sentiments. Now, could a people in whose national literature such a Psalm has a prominent place—nay more, in whose liturgy, in whose stated worship it has its cherished place; on whose annual thanksgiving festival, the great feast of the tabernacles, we may suppose it formed the centre and culminating point of their enthusiasm—could a people so trained, capable of being charmed by the poetry of such a song and of being lifted heavenward and Godward by its Divine sympathies and its recognition of an ever-present God, be only a “horde of rude and ignorant barbarians?” C. Worship of God will never be healthy and many-sided if it excludes the view of the outer world. Look at the Book of Psalms. Deep, manifold, and awful is the tragedy of human life there, and glorious are the bursts of melody and hope that sweep across it; but through all struggle, and agony, and shouts of triumph, there come the scent of flowers, and of pines, and of mown grass, the singing of birds, the lowing of cattle, the roar of the sea, and the murmur of the stream. So in the house of God and in worship heaven and earth are brought together. J. Leckie. In the season of freshness and growth, and of exuberant life, we are impressed by the profusion and affluence of those provisions which the God of Nature has made for the well-being of His creatures. Bread enough and to spare is inscribed all over our Father’s house. What an infinity of blossoms, above all that are needed! what an infinity of fruits, above all that ever will be used! Light is not meted out like an artificial illumination, so much consumption for so many who use it; it is poured all over the earth with illimitable profusion—over the rocks and woods, where no man liveth; all over the sea, where no man roameth. Who can measure the waters? There is no fear that man ever will exhaust their abundance. The springs are full and flowing among the rocks; the brooks running through the meadows; the large rivers rolling their magnificence to the sea; the great lakes lifting up their reservoirs of abundance; and the dew and the rain defying and baffling all powers of computation. The concave of the skies, how vast!—large enough for a canopy over all the earth. And the air which is treasured within it, for the sustenance of life, is not barely sufficient for so many, and for so long; it seems to laugh at the idea of stint or measurement. With wings laden with perfume, it flies away to kiss the hills, fan the tree-tops, and play with the ocean—encircling the globe, and coming back, as if it could not possibly exhaust its exuberant strength and life. The works of God are distinguished by this abundance, this immense profusion, this infinity. William Adams. For nearly three thousand years, since the royal poet looked over the plains of Judea covered with the bounty of God, and broke forth into his magnificent hymn of praise, has the earth rolled on in her course, and the hand of God has blessed her, and all her children, with seed-time and harvest, with joy and abundance. The very steadfastness of the Almighty's liberality, flowing like a mighty ocean through the infinite vast of the universe, makes His creatures forget to wonder at its wonderfulness, to feel true thankfulness at its immeasurable goodness. The sun rises and sets so surely; the seasons run on amid all their changes with such inimitable truth, that we take as a matter of course that, which is amazing beyond all stretch of imagination, and good beyond the widest expansion of the noblest human heart. God feeds His family of countless myriads swarming over the surface of all countless worlds, and none know need but through the follies of themselves, or the cruelty of their fellows. God pours His light from innumerable suns on innumerable rejoicing planets; He waters them everywhere in the fittest moment; He ripens the food of globes and of nations, and gives them fair weather to garner it. And from age to age, amid His endless creatures of endless forms and powers, in the beauty and the sunshine, and the magnificence of nature, He seems to sing throughout creation the glorious song of His own Divine joy, in the immortality of His youth, in the omnipotence of His nature, in the eternity of His patience, and the abounding boundlessness of His love. W. Howitt. 1. MAKE a joyful noise unto God, all the earth : 2 Sing forth the glory of his name : Make his praise glorious. 3 Say unto God, How terrible are thy works ! Through the greatness of thy power shall thine enemies yield feigned obedience unto thee. 4 All the earth shall worship thee, And shall sing unto thee ; They shall sing to thy name. [Selah 5 Come, and see the works of God ; He is terrible in his doing toward the chil- dren of men. 6 He turned the sea into dry land : They went through the river on foot : There did we rejoice in him. 7 He ruleth by his might for ever ; His eyes observe the nations : Let not the rebellious exalt themselves. [Selah 8 O bless our God, ye peoples, And make the voice of his praise to be heard : 9 Which holdeth our soul in life, And suffereth not our feet to be moved. 10 For thou, O God, hast proved us : Thou hast tried us, as silver is tried. 11 Thou broughtest us into the net ; Thou layedst a sore burden upon our loins. 12 Thou hast caused men to ride over our heads ; We went through fire and through water ; But thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place. 13 I will come into thy house with burnt offer- ings, I will pay thee my vows, 14 Which my lips have uttered, And my mouth hath spoken, when I was in distress. 15 I will offer unto thee burnt offerings of fat- lings, With the incense of rams ; I will offer bullocks with goats. [Selah 16 Come, and hear, all ye that fear God, And I will declare what he hath done for my soul. 17 I cried unto him with my mouth, And he was extolled with my tongue. 18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear : 19 But verily God hath heard ; He hath attended to the voice of my prayer. 20 Blessed be God, Which hath not turned away my prayer, nor his mercy from me. THE poet celebrates God's great deeds on be- half of His people, and calls upon all nations to join in thanksgiving to Him. From the lan- guage of vs. 8-12, the Psalm would seem to have been composed on the occasion of some special deliverance, but the expressions used are too general to lead to any certain conclusion as to the time when it was written. But not a single critic of any name has ventured to place this Psalm earlier than the times of Hezekiah. As the Psalm was clearly intended for the pub- lic worship of the Temple, the former part was probably designed to be sung by the whole choir of Levites and the latter by a single voice. Ewald thinks that vs 13-20 formed originally a distinct poem ; but the similar turn of expres- sion in v. 5 and v. 16, and the abruptness of v. 13, considered as the beginning of a Psalm, are against this view, which otherwise is plausible. The Psalm consists of five strophes, three of them being distinguished by the Selah at the close : 1. The exhortation addressed to the whole world to give glory to God (vs. 1-4). 2. The recounting of God's great acts on behalf of His people in times past (vs. 5-7). 3. The won- derful deliverance recently vouchsafed (vs. 8-12). 4. The Psalmist himself promises to bring large offerings to God in grateful ac- knowledgment of His goodness (vs. 13-15). 5. He calls upon all to hear the story of God's mercy to himself (vs. 16-20). P. 1. 2. It is not commonly thought of as being in itself a privilege to worship, but it is consid- ered to be only a good much commended because a prescribed part of our duty in religion. On the contrary, as we are constituted, there is nothing to be thought of, or desired, or done at all comparable to the exercise of worship itself. In it we rise highest, think the noblest things, burn with the divinest fires our nature can support. We discover what joy we are made for, in having our finite mind exalted by the contemplations, and kindled by the glow of worship. And it is a joy of the finite and created only. The Infinite Being has of course no right or possibility of worship; for there is nothing above Him to move His homage or set Him in the beatitude of praise. The glorious Amen, the awful joy of worship, is permitted creature minds alone. Bushnell. 3. Lie to Thee, make false professions of allegiance, yield a feigned obedience, through the influence of fear. A.—“Yield feigned obedience,” is doubtless the true rendering. There is, perhaps, a tacit comparison implied. If even His enemies must render a forced and tardy and hypocritical submission, what should they do to whom He has manifested Himself in love? P. 4. God finds satisfaction and delight in human worship.** Apart from this conviction, our praises and our adoration must lose their life and reality. If I speak, it is because I believe He listens. If I rejoice in looking up into His face, it is because I see Him looking back upon me with ineffable love and delight. In the act of worship we draw near to God, and God draws near to us. How it is, we know not, but through secret avenues He enters our spirits, and we become mysteriously one with Him. To discharge this duty of worship aright, our religious thought should not incessantly revolve about our personal conflicts with sin and our own immortal safety. We think too much of ourselves, too little of God. We ask Him too constantly for help; we too seldom thank Him with throbbing gratitude for the blessings which are ours already, and for the infinite grace which prompted Him to give us Christ and to promise us heaven. More deep and devout thought on what God is would change all this, and bring our life in this world into nearer harmony with what we hope it will be in the next. R. W. Dale. #### 5. Come and see the works of God. Such glorious events as the cleaving of the Red Sea and the overthrow of Pharaoh, are standing wonders, and throughout all time a voice sounds forth concerning them—“Come and see.” Even till the close of all things, the marvellous works of God at the Red Sea will be the subject of meditation and praise; for, standing on the sea of glass mingled with fire, the triumphal armies of heaven sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. It has always been the favorite subject of the inspired bards. S. 6. He turned the sea into the dry (land); through the river they shall pass on foot; there will we rejoice in Him. There is an obvious allusion to the crossing of the Red Sea and the Jordan, not as mere historical events, but as types or samples of God’s extraordinary interpositions on behalf of Israel, such as might be realized again in their experience. Hence the promiscuous use of preterite and future forms, as if to say, the God of Israel will again turn the Red Sea into dry land for the passage of His people; if need be, they shall again cross the Jordan dry shod; there, on the scene of these miraculous events shall we again rejoice in Him. A. The Psalmist refers to the passage through the Red Sea and the Jordan, not as to transactions which took place and were concluded at a given period of time, but as happening really in every age. God’s guidance of His people is a constant drying up of the sea and of the Jordan, and the joy over His mighty deeds is always receiving new materials. Hengstenberg, —Those miracles of the past recur in the present. That ancient story is not the record merely of a bygone age, but is daily new, daily repeats itself to those who have eyes open to see and hearts open to perceive. P. 7. Those deeds of the Red Sea and the Jordan were no transient outbursts of power, but indicate a rule and sway that are indeed eternal, abiding, evermore sustained, and never waning. His eyes look into the nations, piercing, scanning perfectly. Let rebels never lift up themselves against Him! C.** 8. Again he calls upon all nations to bless God for His wonderful deliverance vouchsafed to His people. Then he describes their oppression. P.** 10. For Thou, O God, hast proved us.** He proved His Israel with sore trials. All the saints must go to the proving house; God had one Son without sin, but He never had a son without trial. Why ought we to complain if we are subjected to the rule which is common to all the family, and from which so much benefit has flowed to them? S.—Thou, O God, hast proved us and tried us. Then we are likely to get good by our afflictions when we look upon them under this notion, for then we may see God’s grace and love at the bottom of them, and our own honor and benefit in the end of them. By afflictions we are proved as silver in the fire, that our graces by being exercised may be made more strong and active; and so we may be improved, as silver when it is refined by the fire and made more clear from its dross; for thus we are made partakers of God's holiness (Heb. 12 : 10). H. If anything, so to speak, is providential, affliction is. If in anything whatever we are bound to trust God with all the completeness of our judgment, with all the strength of our understanding, with all the adoration of our heart, it is when He is taking us apart to make us perfect through suffering. Therefore it is that God sends sorrow to one man, and not to another; at one time in this way, at another time in that. The sorrow that might cure us to-day might not cure us to-morrow; the sorrow that might be good for me, might not be good for you. Each man has his own sorrows, different from any one else's in all the world, since he himself is different from any one else. Each individual believer is led his own way into the wilderness; each has Jesus with him there. Bishop Thorold.—The Spirit of Christ calms the soul of a suffering believer, not by taking away all sense of pain, but by overcoming it with a sense of His love. Gurnall. 11. God will not use His rod upon strangers, but upon His own children, because He loves them; and such afflictions, though distressing, are good visitants. And nothing is gained by striving with the Almighty, for He will either break the heart or break the neck of those that contend with Him—will bring them either to repentance or to ruin. H. 12. Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place.** Thou hast proved, and Thou hast brought. Thou laidst the trouble, and Thou tookest it off; yea, and hast made us an ample recompense, for Thou hast brought us to a pleasant, lovely, fertile, rich place, a happy condition, a flourishing condition of things, so that Thou hast made us to forget all our trouble. W. Nicholson.—“A wealthy place.” The Hebrew word occurs elsewhere only in Psalm 23 : 5; “My cup runneth over”—is abundance itself. It indicates prosperity and plenty, with allusion to abundant moisture—so essential in the climate of Palestine. C.—Thou broughtest us out into a wealthy place, into a well-watered place, for the word is, like the gardens of the Lord, and therefore fruitful. God brings His people into trouble that their comforts afterward may be the sweeter, and that their affliction may thus yield the peaceable fruit of righteousness, which will make the poorest place in the world a wealthy place. H. 13. We have now the personal acknowledgment of God's mercy; first, in the announcement on the part of the Psalmist of the offerings which he is about to bring, and which he had vowed in his trouble; and then, in the record of God's dealing with his soul, which had called forth his thankfulness. P. Come with burnt-offerings. Let this be our burnt-offering, a sanctified body and a heart given up to the Lord. “Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's.” When the eyes abhor lustful objects, the ear slanders, the foot erring paths, the hands wrong and violence, the tongue flattery and blasphemy, the heart pride and hypocrisy; this is thy whole burnt-offering. T. Adams. Pay Thee my vows. Vows incautiously made may prove a snare to the soul; and therefore it is that the Hebrew ritual—which, as a grand collection of symbols, descended into the details of religious life—undertook carefully to regulate this matter of vows. All statutes concerning them were designed to be restrictive and cautionary; showing even under that imperfect dispensation how careful we must be as to our vows in the presence of Almighty God. On the other hand, there are vows which are right vows, and which ought to be made—vows that engage us to do things that were originally binding upon us; vows made under a sense of the Divine presence and the Divine authority. And so the Psalmist, under inspiration of the Holy Ghost, again and again declares his purpose to pay unto the Lord the vows which he has made. B. M. Palmer. 15. Of all we have we should give the Lord His portion, and that should be the choicest we can select. It was no waste to burn the fat upon Jehovah's altar, nor to pour the precious ointment upon Jesus' head; neither are large gifts and bountiful offerings to the Church of God any diminution to a man's estate. S. 16. I will declare what He hath done.** The beginning of all friendship between Christ and men lies with Him. I suppose that every man who has felt Christ's love will say, whatever his theological standpoint, “I was apprehended of Christ.” It is because He lays His seeking hand upon us that we come to Him, and His choice of us precedes ours of Him. This is how men come to be His friends, because, when they were enemies, He gave Himself for them, and has ever since been sending the rays of His love to draw us to Himself. The personal relation and obligation of each soul to Christ, when fully admitted, has great power to give individuality and strength of character to piety. Instead of making us exclusive or solitary in our religious feelings, it is sure to expand our love for all men when one feels how Christ has loved him and died for him, and then that every other human being is as truly the object of the Saviour's sufferings and death as he. Toward every one for whom Christ has done all which he has done for him, a Christian feels, at times, great love and desire, and has no rest till every one knows and feels the love which Christ has for him. N. Adams. Loyalty to Christ leads us to witness for Him. If we are true to our Lord we shall feel that we cannot but speak up and out for Him, and that all the more where His name is unloved and unhonored. He is a doubtfully loyal subject who, if he lives among rebels, is afraid to show his colors. He is already a coward, and is on his way to be a traitor. A. M. As long as we were without Christ and Christ's peace, we did not know the value of them, and so could not be expected heartily to recommend them to others—just as the blind man cannot be expected to speak of the beauty of colors, or the deaf man of the loveliness of music. But when we have "tasted that the Lord is good;" when Christ has "become precious to us, as He is to all them that believe," then we can enlarge upon our own experience—"Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth will speak." M'Gosh. All have not the gifts which would fit for public speech, but all who have tasted that the Lord is gracious can tell somehow how gracious He is. The first Christian sermon was very short, and it was very efficacious, for it "brought to Jesus" the whole congregation. Here it is: "He first findeth his brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias." Surely we can all say that, if we have found Him. Surely we shall all long to say it, if we are glad that we have found Him, and if we love our Brother. We have to carry a message—no refinement of words is needed for that—arguments are not needed. We have to tell it simply, faithfully, and confidently, as having proved it true. We have to tell it beseechingly, as loving the souls to whom they bring it. Surely we can all do that if we ourselves are living on Christ and have drunk into His Spirit. A. M. 17. I cried unto Him, He was extolled.** That God has given us leave to pray, a command to pray, encouragements to pray, and (to crown all) a heart to pray, is what we have reason to mention with thankfulness to His praise; and the more, if, when we cried to Him with our mouth, He was extolled with our tongue, if we were enabled by faith and hope to give glory to Him then, when we were seeking for mercy and grace from Him, and to praise Him for mercy in prospect, though it be not yet in possession. By crying to Him we do indeed extol Him. He is pleased to reckon Himself honored by the humble, believing prayers of the upright, and this is a great thing which he has done for our souls, that He has been pleased so far to unite interests with us, that in seeking our own welfare we seek His glory. His exaltation was under my tongue, so it may be read; I was considering in my mind how I might exalt and magnify His name. When prayers are in our mouths praises must be in our hearts. H. 18. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.** The very supposition that "if he regarded iniquity in his heart, the Lord would not hear him," implies the possibility that such may be the state even of believers; and there is abundant reason to fear that it is in this way their prayers are so often hindered, and their supplications so frequently remain unanswered. R. Gordon. When our end and aim in prayer is not right, our prayers are not successful. We miss the blessing when we ask amiss. God never undertook to satisfy mere selfish, worldly, covetous, or fleshly desires. He will own no other voice in prayer but that of His own Spirit: "He that searcheth the heart knoweth the mind of the Spirit." A spiritual breathing—a spiritual sigh is heard. Holy desires have a sure answer. Manton. Possibly our hearts are shockingly deceitful in such iniquity. Are we strangers to an experience like this—that when we mourn over our cold prayers as a misfortune, we evade a search of that disputed territory for the cause of them, through fear that we shall find it there, and we struggle to satisfy ourselves with an increase of spiritual duties which shall cost us no sacrifice? Are we never sensible of resisting the hints which the Holy Spirit gives us in parables, by refusing to look that way for the secret of our deadness—saying, "Not that! Oh no, not that! But let us pray more"? Many a doubtful principle in a Christian mind, if once set in the focus of a conscience illumined by the Holy Spirit, would resolve itself into a sin, for which that Christian would turn and look up guiltily to the Master, and then go out and weep bitterly. A. Phelps. None trifle with God and make a sport of sin so much as those whose way of living interferes with their prayers; who pray for such or such a virtue, and then put themselves under circumstances which render the practice of it next to impossible. But the spirit of prayer is a spirit of prudence, a spirit of caution and conduct, and never pursues the thing it prays for in a way contrary to the nature of the thing itself. South.—The mournful thought is suggested, How many there are who seem to be doing what they can to make it useless for them to pray! A man who tells lies over the counter cannot pray. A man who bribes or who accepts a bribe cannot pray. A man who forgives not, asks uselessly for forgiveness. The possibility that any secret sin may be shutting off any answer to our prayers should make us cry fervently, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” It is not where there is a distressing consciousness of falling in execution below our desires and yearnings that prayer is blocked out. Far from this. But the desire to cherish sin, or the refusal to do the whole will of God, makes prayer itself useless and sinful, because the heart does not submit entirely to God. C. C. The very fact of our weakness and insufficiency is of itself an argument and a cord that draws Him to our help. An honest cry of any heart to Jesus will bring Him instantly without thought on His part either on our merit or demerit. He only asks this much, that it be from the heart; iniquity covered up, one face for Him and one for the devil, does not bring Him. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” But the faintest effort of the heart enslaved in sin, to free itself from its chains, is sure of the strong arm which the prophet said should “break every chain, and set the captive free.” Anon. Verses 18, 19, 20. I find David making a syllogism, in mood and figure, two propositions he perfected. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me; but verily God hath heard me; He hath attended to the voice of my prayer.” Now I expected that David should have concluded thus: “Therefore I regard not wickedness in my heart;” but far otherwise he concludes: “Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me.” I looked that he should have put the crown on his own, and he puts it on God’s head. I will learn this excellent logic, that whatsoever the premises be, I make God’s glory the conclusion. He who reasons according to David’s logic, will be bent on influencing men to give God the glory in all things. T. Fuller.—God’s glory must always be the conclusion. God has heard me, and therefore blessed be God. What we win by prayer we must wear with praise. Mercies in answer to prayer do, in a special manner, oblige us to be thankful. He has not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy. Lest it should be thought that the deliverance was granted for the sake of some worthiness in his prayer, he ascribes it to God’s mercy. II. 20. Blessed be God.** It is God’s due that we remember all His kindness. No view of His providence is complete or correct without it, no estimate of His character, no measure of our deep indebtedness and heightened obligation. It were a great violence to the thankful spirit to deny it the privilege of returning often along the track of its mercies, to weep tears of penitence over its own poor returns, and to tune to sweeter music its notes of praise. Let them still shine upon us from the full round of the year—all its sunny hours, its bright pages of rescues, healings, preventions, interpositions, every endowment for soul and body ministered by that Fatherly hand! All these we may, we must, we shall remember! A. L. Stone.—If we wish the perpetual feast of a contented spirit, and the perpetual ornament of a praising one, combat natural fault-finding, and no less natural foreboding. Rejoice in the present, and trust for the future. And in the fulfilment of any wish and the disappointment of any fear—in the kindness of any friend, and in the answer to any prayer—in every gracious providence, and in every spiritual mercy bestowed on ourselves or others dear—in all these let us recognize the merciful kindness of the Lord, and let us acknowledge what we recognize. Hamilton. As far back as I can remember, I had the habit of thanking God for everything I received, and of asking Him for everything I wanted. If I lost a book or any one of my playthings, I prayed that I might find it. I prayed walking along the streets, in school or out of school, whether playing or studying. I did not do this in obedience to any prescribed rule—it seemed natural. I thought of God as an everywhere-present being, full of kindness and love, who would not be offended if children talked to Him. Charles Hodge. Which hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me. He has neither withdrawn His love nor my liberty to pray. He has neither cast out my prayer nor me. His mercy and my cries still meet each other. S.—So long as we are here let us ask this of God, that He will not “remove from us our prayer, and His own mercy”—that is, that we may perseveringly pray, and He may perseveringly pity. For many grow languid in praying; and in the freshness of their conversion they pray fervently, afterward languidly, afterward coldly, afterward negligently; they become careless. The enemy is awake; you are sleeping. Our Lord Himself, in the Gospel, gave us the precept, “that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;” and He gives us an illustration from the unjust judge. Therefore let us not faint in prayer. Although He delays that which He is going to grant, He does not take it from us; since we may be confident of His promise, let us not faint in praying; and even this not fainting comes of His own bounty. Therefore when you see that your prayer is not removed from you be of good heart, for His mercy is not removed from you. Augustine. I have known devout persons to stand year after year, in utter wonder that their prayers, so reasonable in appearance, brought no visible return; yet the faith that came at last out of that trial finally justified such patience by its splendor. For even while we wait, through all the breathings of our aspiration, from the first hesitating, stammering whisper of entreaty, on to the last strong syllable of praise when faith triumphs over the failing flesh—prayer is ever, moment by moment, its own suffacing recompense. Its words react on the soul like a benediction. Its every struggle is a consolation, and every sigh is peace. It puts the world under your feet. It makes all things yours, while ye are Christ’s and Christ is God’s. The spirit comes back from its seasons of converse with God into the strife of the world, its interior face radiant with a veil of glory like that Moses wore when he came down from the mount. And this mutual interacting of prayer and fulfilment ever stimulates the soul and rewards the understanding, while a far profounder and holier satisfaction descends into, illumines, and inspires the heart. F. D. H. Prayer is the expression of a faith, obscure or clear, wavering or steadfast, in the existence, the presence, the power, and the sympathy of the Being to whom prayer is addressed. Without a certain measure of faith and trust in God prayer would not burst forth, or would suddendely be dried up in the soul. If faith everywhere resists and outlives all the denials, all the doubts and darkness which oppress mankind, it is that man bears within himself an imperishable consciousness of the enduring bond which connects him with God and God with him. And he who believes in God cannot but have recourse to Him and pray to Him. Guizot. God has so arranged His providence that He provides an answer to prayer. He sends an answer to prayer in precisely the same way as He compasses all His other moral designs, in the same manner as He conveys His blessings and inflicts His judgments. He does not require to interfere with His own arrangements in order to answer prayer, for there is an answer provided in the arrangement which He has made from all eternity. How is it that God sends us the bounties of His providence and supplies the many wants of His creatures? that He encourages industry, arrests the plots of wickedness, and punishes in this life notorious offenders against His law? The answer is, by the skilful pre-arrangements of His providence, whereby the needful events fall out at the very time and in the very way required. When the question is asked, How does God answer prayer? we give the very same reply—it is by the pre-ordained appointment of God, when He settled the constitution of the world, and set all its parts in order. There appears to us to be a beautiful congruity in this method of answering prayer. Prayer is effectually answered, and yet there is no room for, or encouragement to any possible evils, such as pride, self-confidence, and indolent self-complacency and inactivity. If prayer and its answers were connected as cause and effect, there might be a risk that when the person had prayed he would rashly conclude that exertion could not be necessary. But in the system now developed, while there is assuredly a connection between prayer and its answers, it is not a connection in the mechanical laws of nature, but in the counsels of God; and the man who has prayed, as he looks for the answer, feels that he must fall in with the Divine procedure. There is a wholesome discipline exercised by the very uncertainty (humanly speaking) of the means which God employs for sending the answer, and the man who has prayed is kept humble and dependent, and in the exercise of a spirit of waiting and watchfulness. He feels that he dare be proud and presumptuous only at the risk of defeating all the purposes served by his acts of devotion. He sees that on ceasing to be active God may probably punish him for his folly by laying an arrest on the expected answer to his petitions. McCosh. Prayer rests on the fact of our dependence on God, on the belief of our intimate connection with the invisible world, and on the deep longing for spiritual communion which springs from the conviction that God is to us the most real and the most near of all beings. Prayer is not an instrument for altering the purposes or moving the heart of God, or for procuring the suspension of the ordinary course of nature; but it is one of the natural modes in which piety utters itself—in which it wants, for its own sake, to utter itself. Young. In prayer the mean is more valuable than the end. The spirit of prayer, and the frequent exercise of it, is a greater blessing than the attainment of any other object short of heaven itself. It is the key to the treasury of heaven, and the promise and pledge of every other attainment. There is but one higher exercise than that of prayer—the returning of thanks for the granting of our requests; but each have their fitting seasons—prayer is the service of time; praise the employment of eternity. Douglas. Every prayer for specific blessings in a Christian soul is tacitly conditioned. Three conditions, always understood, are given at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer: "Hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done." In effect these conditions are one. If any blessing be prayed for a Christian petitioner deliberately wills that his prayer be refused, if to grant it should in any way obscure God's glory or hinder the advance of His kingdom, and so contravene what must be His will. Every Christian tacitly adds to every prayer, "nevertheless not my will, but Thine be done." H. P. L. When thou prayest for spiritual graces, let thy prayer be absolute; when for temporal blessings, add a clause of God's pleasure; in both, with faith and humility. So shalt thou receive what thou desirest, or more or better; never prayer rightly made was made unheard, or heard, ungranted. Quarles.—No man ever yet asked to be, as the days pass by, more and more noble, and sweet, and pure, and heavenly-minded; no man ever yet prayed that the evil spirits of hatred, and pride, and passion, and worldliness might be cast out of his soul, without his petition being granted, and granted to the letter. Farrar. As holiness fits to prayer, so prayer befriends holiness, increases it much. Nothing so refines and purifies the soul as frequent prayer. If the often conversing with wise men doth so teach and advance the soul in wisdom, what then will the converse of God? This makes the soul to despise the things of the world, and in a manner makes it Divine; winds up the soul from the earth, acquainting it with delights that are infinitely sweeter. Leighton.—It is well to learn the lesson that peace comes after grace, that for tranquillity of soul we must go to God, and that He gives it by giving us His love and its gifts, of which, and of which only, peace is the result. There must be first of all, peace with God, that there may be peace from God. Then, when we have been won from our alienation and enmity by the power of the cross, and have learned to know that God is our Lover, Friend, and Father, we shall possess the peace of those whose hearts have found their home, the peace of spirits no longer at war within—conscience and choice tearing them asunder in their strife, the peace of obedience which banishes the disturbance of self-will, the peace of security shaken by no fears, the peace of a sure future across the brightness of which no shadows of sorrow nor mists of uncertainty can fall, the peace of a heart in amity with all mankind. So living in peace, we shall lay ourselves down and die in peace, and enter into "that country, afar beyond the stars," where "grows the flower of peace." A. M. 1. God be merciful unto us, and bless us, And cause his face to shine upon us; [Selah 2 That thy way may be known upon earth, Thy saving health [salvation] among all nations. 3 Let the peoples praise thee, O God; Let all the peoples praise thee. 4 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy: For thou shalt judge the peoples with equity, And govern [lead] the nations upon earth. [Selah 5. Let the peoples praise thee, O God; Let all the peoples praise thee. 6 The earth hath yielded her increase: God, even our own God, shall bless us. 7 God shall bless us; And all the ends of the earth shall fear him. THIS Psalm, like the sixty-fifth, seems to have special reference to the manifestation of God's goodness in the gift of fruitful seasons and abundant harvests. But from this the Psalmist, or the Church, of which he is the spokesman, takes occasion to anticipate the extension of God's covenanted gifts, both temporal and spiritual, to all the nations of the earth. This expectation is indeed the burden of the Psalm. A. This Psalm is the joyful outpouring of a heart that longs to see the God and King of Israel acknowledged and worshipped as the God and King of the world. The Psalm, which may have been written at the time of the gathering in of the harvest (see v. 6), opens with words borrowed from the blessing of the high-priest in Num. 6: 24-26. P. The great thought is longing for the conversion of the world, as a result of peculiar manifestations of Divine goodness to Israel; when God's face shines fully upon His people all nations will be attracted and won, and the reign of righteousness will be established. This is, therefore, in the most spiritual sense a Messianic Psalm; not indeed, strictly speaking, predictive, but expressing hopes and anticipations completely fulfilled by the manifestation of God in Christ. Cook. How admirably balanced are the parts of this missionary song! The people of God long to see all the nations participating in their privileges, "visited with God's salvation, and gladdened with the gladness of His nation." They long for the general diffusion of the knowledge of God's way, the spreading abroad of the truth regarding the way of salvation. With a view to that, they cry for a time of quickening from the presence of the Lord, and take encouragement in this prayer from the terms of the divinely-appointed benediction. As if they had said, "Remember that sure Word of Thine. God be gracious unto us and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon us. Let us be thus blessed, and we shall in our turn become a blessing. All the families of the earth shall through us become acquainted with Thy salvation." Such is the Church's expectation. And who shall say it is unreasonable? If the little company of a hundred and twenty disciples who met in the upper chamber at Jerusalem, all of them persons of humble station and unconspicuous talents, were endued with such power by the baptism of the Holy Ghost, that within three hundred years the paganism of the empire was overthrown, one need not fear to affirm that, in order to the evangelization of the world, nothing more is required than that the churches of Christendom be baptized with a fresh effusion of the same Spirit of power. William Binnie. 1. God be merciful unto us, and bless us. God forgives, then He gives; till He be merciful to pardon our sins through Christ, He cannot bless or look kindly on us sinners. All our enjoyments are but blessings in bullion, till Gospel grace and pardoning mercy stamp and make them current. Gurnall. Our happiness comes from God's mercy and takes rise in that: and therefore the first thing prayed for is, God be merciful to us, to us sinners and pardon our sins, to us miserable sinners and help us out of our miseries. God bless us is a comprehensive prayer; it is pity such excellent words should ever be used slightly and carelessly and as a by-word. God cause His face to shine upon us, God by His grace qualify us for His favor, and then give us the tokens of His favor. We need desire no more to make us happy than to have God's face shine upon us, to have God love us, and let us know that He loves us. To shine with us; so the margin reads it; with us doing our endeavor, and let it crown that endeavor with success. If we by faith walk with God, we may hope that His face will shine with us. H. 2. The phrase, saving health, retained in the Authorized Version from an older one, has nothing corresponding to it in the Hebrew but the single word which always means salvation. A.—It can mean nothing more or other than that here. What the translators of our version meant beyond or different from this does not appear. The prayer is that all the nations may become acquainted with the salvation which God has provided for them. As noticed repeatedly, the religion of Israel was no narrow, exclusive thing. Though the centre of its worship was Jerusalem, its circumference embraced all the nations of the earth. C. Thy way—that is, Thy will, Thy Word, Thy works. God's will must be known on earth, that it may be done on earth as it is in heaven. Except we know our Master's will, how shall we do it? God's will is revealed in His Word, and His Word is His way wherein we must walk, turning neither to the right hand nor to the left. Boys. Two things he desires might be known among all nations, and not to the nation of the Jews only. God's way, the rule of duty. "Let them all know, as well as we do, what is good, and what the Lord our God requires of them; let them be blessed and honored with the same righteous statutes and judgments which are so much the praise of our nation and the envy of all its neighbors." His saving health, or His salvation; the former is wrapped up in His law, this in His Gospel. If God makes known His way to us and we walk in it, He will show us His saving health. They that have themselves experimentally known the pleasantness of God's ways and the comforts of His salvation, cannot but desire and pray that they may be known to others, even among all nations. All upon earth are bound to walk in God's way, all need His salvation, and there is in it enough for all; and therefore we should pray that both the one and the other may be made known to all. H.—The blessing of the Most High comes upon the world through the Church. We are blessed for the sake of others as well as ourselves. God deals in a way of mercy with His saints, and then they make that way known far and wide, and the Lord's name is made famous in the earth. S. 3. Let the peoples praise Thee.** Mark the sweet order of the blessed Spirit: First, mercy; then, knowledge; last of all, praising of God. We cannot see His countenance except He be merciful to us; and we cannot praise Him except His way be known upon earth. His mercy breeds knowledge; His knowledge, praise. John Boys. Time begins and time ends with praise; and though during its course there may seem to be many an interval of dreary silence, yet God never wants praise. He inhabiteth the praises of eternity, and even here on earth praise waiteth for Him among His people. The whole of the course of God's saints is full of praise. And is there not ample reason? What though sin seem to have marred the Creator's glorious work? Is it not a glorious work still? The heavens, with all their wonders of brightness, glorify Him; the earth, with her ten thousand processes of life and organization is full of His power, and wisdom, and love; and man is the noblest proof of all these combined. If God's ordinary and creation mercies should warm our hearts and find utterance of praise from our lips, how should those hearts glow with fire, and those lips burst forth in songs of joy, when we remember that all our choicest blessings are not His ordinary creation gifts, but special bestowals of undeserved mercy and inconceivable love. "Let all the peoples praise Thee." What though to some be denied the gift of praising Him with the lips? There is a more abiding and a worthier praise than this. A thousand secret strains of melody are uttered in His ear by the consistency and devotion of holy lives, more grateful than all the offerings of the voice; and these praises all can sing. "Let all the peoples praise Thee," not only in the church, nor on the Lord's Day only, but through all the vicissitudes of daily life. Some in their families; others in the mean and humble dwellings of the poor; others, again, in the busy haunts of commerce and amid the crowding and crushing of the selfish world—these all may praise Him, these and many more. Remember His own solemn words, think of them in the light of Christ's redemption, and ponder them at the foot of His Cross, "Whoso offereth praise, he honoreth Me; and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God." Alford. 4. Govern.** Lead. The verb is the same as in 23 : 3, God being the great Shepherd of all nations. The object of the verb is repeated by the pronoun ; literally, " the nations upon earth Thou leadest them." P.—Well may they all rejoice and sing with exceeding joy because this great and righteous God rules so perfectly, evermore judging righteously. The word for " govern" is primarily lead, i.e., to take charge of them as a shepherd of his flock, to guide their steps, shape their welfare, control their destinies. C. 5. The nations shall acknowledge Thee, O God, the nations shall acknowledge Thee—all of them. This repetition shows the anticipation here expressed to be the principal though not the primary subject of the Psalm. The position of the universal terms, at the close of this verse and v. 3, is highly emphatic, and precludes, in the most explicit manner, all restriction. A. Let all the peoples praise Thee. These words are no vain repetition, but are a chorus worthy to be sung again and again. The great theme of the Psalm is the participation of the Gentiles in the worship of Jehovah ; the Psalmist is full of it ; he hardly knows how to contain or express his joy. S.—Not the mailed hand of earthly power, nor the crowned head of worldly glory, nor the brain of human philosophy ; but the heart of those who sing praises to God at midnight holds the secret which can solve the great problem of human life and turn its sorrow into joy. So it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. The anthems of the Church triumphant are but the prolonged echoes of the songs of the Church militant. " Let the peoples praise Thee, O God, let all the peoples praise Thee." H. J. V. Bring her increase. We have comforts increased, the more we praise God for what we have already received. The more we praise Him, the more our blessings come down ; and the more His blessings come down, the more we praise Him again ; so that we do not so much bless God as bless ourselves. Manton. 6. Our own God.** How unexpressible was the inward pleasure wherewith we may suppose those words to have been uttered. How delightful an appropriation ! as if it were intended to be said, the blessing itself were less significant, it could not have that savor with it if it were not from our own God. Not only allow but urge your spirits thus to look toward God, that you may both delight in Him as being in Himself, the most excellent one, and also as being yours ; for you are not permitted only but obliged to eye, accept, and rejoice in Him as such. Howe. 7. As he regarded the knowledge of God as the only remedy of the world's misery, so he appears to have taken it for granted that the prosperity of the Church would be marked by the diffusion of that knowledge, and that such diffusion would be attended with the most happy results. "God shall bless us," he adds, " and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him ;" the leaven of His grace shall work from His Church outward, till the entire mass of humanity be leavened ; His kingdom shall extend on every side till it embraces the world. J. Harris. God shall bless us. The prayer of the first verse is the song of the last. We have the same phrase twice, and truly the Lord's blessing is manifold ; He blesses and blesses and blesses again. How many are His beatitudes ! How choice His benedictions ! They are the peculiar heritage of His chosen. God shall bless us is our assured confidence ; He may smite us, or strip us, or even slay us, but He must bless us. " And all the ends of the earth shall fear Him." The ends of the earth shall adore their God. Ignorance shall be removed, insolence subdued, injustice banished, idolatry abhorred, and the Lord's love, light, life, and liberty shall be over all, the Lord Himself being King of kings and Lord of lords. Amen, and Amen. S. 1. Let God arise, let his enemies be scattered; Let them also that hate him flee before him. 2 As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: As wax melteth before the fire, So let the wicked perish at the presence of God. 3 But let the righteous be glad; let them ex- ult before God: Yea, let them rejoice with gladness. 4 Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: Cast up a high way for him that rideth through the deserts; His name is JAH; and exult ye before him. 5 A father of the fatherless, and a judge of the widows, Is God in his holy habitation. 6 God setteth the solitary in families: He bringeth out the prisoners into prosperity: But the rebellious dwell in a parched land. 7 O God, when thou wentest forth before thy people, When thou didst march through the wilder- ness; 8 The earth trembled, [Selah The heavens also dropped at the presence of God: Ecen yon Sinai trembled at the presence of God, the God of Israel. 9 Thou, O God, didst send a plentiful rain, Thou didst confirm thine inheritance, when it was weary. 10 Thy congregation dwelt therein: Thou, O God, didst prepare of thy goodness for the poor. 11 The Lord giveth the word: The women that publish the tidings are a great host. 12 Kings of armies flee, they flee: And she that tarrieth at home divideth the spoil. 13 Will ye lie among the sheepfolds, As the wings of a dove covered with silver, And her pinions with yellow gold? 14 When the Almighty scattered kings therein, It was as when it snoweth in Zalmon. 15 A mountain of God is the mountain of Ba- shan; An high mountain is the mountain of Ba- shan. 16 Why look ye askance, ye high mountains, At the mountain which God hath desired for his abode? Yea, the LORD will dwell in it for ever. 17 The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands upon thousands: The Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the sanctuary. 18 Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led thy captivity captive: Thou hast received gifts among men, Yea, among the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell with them. 19 Blessed be the Lord, who daily beareth our burden, Even the God who is our salvation. [Selah 20 God is unto us a God of deliverances; And unto JEROVAN the Lord belong the is- sues from death. 21 But God shall smite through the head of his enemies, The hairy scalp of such an one as goeth on still in his guiltiness. 22 The Lord said, I will bring again from Bashan, I will bring them again from the depths of the sea: 23 That thou mayest dip thy foot in blood, That the tongue of thy dogs may have its portion from thine enemies. 24 They have seen thy goings, O God, Even the goings of my God, my King, into the sanctuary. 25 The singers went before, the minstrels fol- lowed after, In the midst of the damsels playing with timbrels. 26 Bless ye God in the congregations, Even the Lord, ye that are of the fountain of Israel. 27 There is little Benjamin their ruler, The princes of Judah and their council, The princes of Zebulun, the princes of Naphtali. 28. Thy God hath commanded thy strength : Strengthen, O God, that which thou hast wrought for us.29 Because of thy temple at Jerusalem Kings shall bring presents unto thee.30 Rebuke the wild beasts of the reeds, The multitude of the bulls, with the calves of the peoples, Trampling under foot the pieces of silver ; He hath scattered the peoples that delight in war.31 Princes shall come out of Egypt ; Ethiopia shall haste to stretch out her hands unto God. 32. Sing unto God, ye kingdoms of the earth ; O sing praises unto the Lord ; [Selah33 To him that rideth upon the heaven of heav- ens, which are of old ; Lo, he uttereth his voice, and that a mighty voice.34 Ascribe ye strength unto God : His excellency is over Israel, And his strength is in the skies.35 O God, thou art terrible out of thy holy places : The God of Israel, he giveth strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God. THE subject of this grand hymn is the entry of God into His sanctuary on Zion. This is described under figures borrowed from the triumph of an earthly conqueror, who, after having vanquished his enemies, and taken possession of their country, marches in solemn procession at the head of his troops to occupy the city which he has selected as his capital and the seat of empire. God is represented first as advancing at the head of the Israelites through the desert ; then as leading them victoriously into Canaan ; and finally as fixing His royal abode on Zion, whence He reigns in the majesty of universal dominion, acknowledged and feared by all the nations of the earth. Such is, briefly, an outline of the Psalm. The methods of interpreting it, however, are various. The Fathers, and most of the older theologians, hold the Psalm to be Messianic. By many of them the Psalm is regarded as a direct prophecy of Christ and His kingdom, and devoid altogether of any reference to events occurring at the time it was written. Others more reasonably maintain a first reference to the historical circumstances of the time, and then apply the Psalm, either in whole or in part, typically to Christ. But even among those who contend that the Psalm is to be explained in the first instance by a reference to the circumstances under which it was composed, there is the greatest difference of opinion both as to the occasion for which, and the period at which, the Psalm was written. One set of critics sees in it every evidence of antiquity and originality ; another sees in it every mark of a late age, and a great absence of originality. All, however, combine in praising its vigor, its life, its splendor ; all recognize in it the work of a poet of no ordinary genius. P. There is a wide difference of opinion among critics as to the time and occasion of the sixty-eighth Psalm. But all agree that it is the grandest of these sacred odes. In its description of the wonderful achievements of Jehovah, as King and Protector of Israel, there is an intermingling of epic stateliness and grandeur with lyric simplicity and elegance. It is greatly enriched by frequent allusion to more ancient songs commemorative of signal deliverances. It is the most elaborate and artistic of the Psalms, but incomparably bold, rugged and abrupt in its style and transitions. The last mentioned features are decidedly in favor of assigning it to a very early date. In its extensive sweep it covers the whole history of Israel, from its birth as a nation under the sovereign rule of Jehovah, till His final triumph over all the kingdoms of the earth in the reign of the Messiah. "The fundamental thought is as clear as the arrangement and rhythmical organization—namely, the celebration of an entrance of God into His sanctuary after a victory, and His rule over the earth, extending itself from thence." (Moll.) The central historic fact with which the song of triumph is connected is probably the close of the wars recorded in 2 Sam. 10, 11 against the Ammonites, and the immense gathering of mercenary Syrian soldiers from beyond the Euphrates, whose aid they had purchased against the armies of David. (See v. 30 and 2 Sam. 10 : 6, 15-19.) The ark, representing the Divine Majesty (Psalm 78 : 61), had been carried before the host of Israel, and after a decisive victory is now borne back to Zion in a festal procession. De Witt. This Psalm is usually considered the most glowing and powerful in the whole collection. It is remarkable for its boldness and energy, its wealth of historic allusion, its rapid movement, its brilliant imagery, its sustained elevation, its far-reaching outlook, its lofty devotion and triumphant faith. It is a triumphal song upon the occasion of some brilliant victory. Its salient points are the entrance of God as conqueror into His sanctuary on Zion, and the extension of His dominion thence over all the earth. T. W. C. It is a Psalm in the style of Deborah, stalking along upon the highest summit of hymnic feeling and delineation; Binnie characterizes it beautifully as "a magnificent triumphal anthem sparkling with gems from the earlier Scriptures"—all that is most glorious in the literature of the days of old is concentrated in it: the signal words of Moses, his blessing, the prophecies of Balaam, the Book of Deuteronomy, Hannah's song, re-echo here; but in addition to this the language is so bold and so peculiar, that we meet with no fewer than thirteen words that do not occur anywhere else. D. It has been observed that almost all the remarkable titles of the Deity are employed in describing and praising the person addressed here. He is called "Elohim" in v. 2; "Adonai," v. 12; "Shaddai," v. 15; "Jehovah," v. 17; "Jah," v. 19; and "Al," v. 20. The Hebrew names of God have, each of them, a distinct and peculiar meaning. No one word will suffice for them all. The vague use of the terms "God" and "Lord" in our translation can never convey to the reader's mind the ideas which the original expressions, if properly translated, would bear. R. H. Ryland. The general structure of the Psalm, notwithstanding the difficulties which beset many portions of it, is clear and well defined. It consists of the following divisions: 1. An introduction which, with true lyric animation, sets before us the victorious march of God, the deliverances He has accomplished for His people, and the loud exultation to which they are called in consequence (vs. 1-6). 2. Then follows a glance at the former history—the journey of Israel through the wilderness, under the immediate guidance and care of God (vs. 7-10); the triumphant occupation of the land of Canaan, and the flight of the hostile kings (vs. 11-14); the choice of Zion as the abode of God, and His solemn entry into it (vs. 15-18). 3. The Psalmist, contemplating the glorious results of this abode of God in Zion, calls upon all Israel to praise Him, chiefly because He will punish all the enemies of His people (vs. 19-23). 4. The next strophe reverts to a description of the triumphal procession (vs. 24-27). 5. The hope is expressed that all the nations of the world shall acknowledge and submit themselves to Jehovah who dwelleth in Zion (vs. 28-31). 6. The Psalm closes with a summons to all the kingdoms of the earth to praise God (vs. 32-35). 1. The Psalm opens with a reference to the watchword (Num. 10: 35), with which the ark was wont to set forward during the journeys in the wilderness. "Rise up, O Jehovah, and let Thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate Thee flee before Thy face." "I cannot doubt," says Calvin, "that Moses dictated this form of prayer for all ages, in order that the faithful, relying on the ark of the covenant as the visible symbol of God's presence, might rest sure that they would be safe." P.—The first verse is copied from the watchword of Israel when on the march through the wilderness (Num. 10: 35), but with a significant change. What was there expressed as a wish is here stated as a fact of certain occurrence. This is in condensed form the theme of the whole Psalm, as it is a fact verified in all human history. T. W. C. 2. The figures here employed occur elsewhere. They describe forcibly the real weakness, the easy and instantaneous overthrow, of the strongest earthly power when arrayed against God. P. 2,3. The truth is emphasized by the familiar Scripture figures of smoke driven by the wind (Hos. 13: 3), and wax melted by the fire (Psalm 97: 5; Micah 1: 4). But the presence of God before which the wicked flee in dismay and confusion is just that which kindles the exultant joy of the righteous. T. W. C. The righteous. Here, Israel as a nation regarded in its ideal character, and as placed in contrast with its heathen oppressors, "the wicked." 4. Cast up a highway; the figure being borrowed from the custom of Eastern monarchs, who sent heralds and pioneers before them to make all the necessary preparations—to remove obstructions, etc., along the route which they intended to follow. Great military roads were mostly the work of the Romans, and were almost unknown before the Persian and Grecian periods. P.—The God of Israel is thought of as marching at the head of His people through the Arabian desert; before whom, therefore, as before other kings in like circumstances, a highway should be cast up; mountains levelled; valleys filled; the crooked made straight and the rough smooth—for His march. C. "Sing unto God, sing praises to His name; cast up a way for Him that is riding through the wilderness." Who is He that is riding through the wilderness, that we should pay Him this respect? "He," says the Psalmist, "who cannot be described." "His name is Jah." His name and His nature are involved in the name and nature of the Godhead. Jehovah, the Self-existent One. He who led the armies of Israel through the wilderness, when they first came up from Egypt was Christ. He who brought the captives home from Babylon was Christ. Christ, therefore, is intended here, under the image of one riding through the wilderness, not upon the heavens, at the head of the returning captives. "His name is Jah;" Christ's name is Jehovah. Horsley.—He that is marching along has the salvation of His people as His aim; "Jah is His name, therefore exult ye before Him." His essential name is Jah, the attestation of Himself whereby He makes Himself knowable and namable, consists in this, that He is the God of salvation who in the might of free grace pervades and overrules all history. This name is for His people a fountain of exultation. D. By the attribution and performance of praise unto Him, doth He account His name, His power, His wisdom, and justice, and Himself to be exalted thereby. What else do these expressions in Scripture imply wherein it is asserted, that by this high duty of praise the high Jehovah is exalted, His sublime perfection is extolled and lifted up? How high must be that duty that adds height to the high God, that magnifies the great God, and glorifies the God of glory! S. Fairclough. 5. The lofty One who is enthroned in the heaven of glory, rules in history here below and takes an interest in the most lowly, following His own with rich help in all the circumstances and relationships of their life. He takes the place of a father to the orphans. He successfully advocates the cause of the widow. D.—The character and attributes of God, and His gracious dealings with His people, are now alleged as the reason why He should be praised. The "fatherless" and the "widows" are mentioned as examples of those who most need succor and protection. As Arndt says: "The meaning of the Holy Ghost is, that God the Lord is a gracious, friendly God and King, whose first, highest, and principal work it is to give most attention to those persons who ought to be most pitied, because they are helpless and comfortless. Great potentates in the world do not act thus; they respect the noblest and richest in the land, the men who may adorn their court, and strengthen their power and authority. But the highest glory of God is to compassionate the miserable." God is both the loving Father and the righteous Judge; and the several classes of the lonely, the destitute, the oppressed, the captives, are mentioned as so many instances of those who have experienced both His care and His righteousness, in order that from these the conclusion may be drawn in all similar cases. P. It is a beautiful view of the character of the eternal Parent of all His creatures that He fills all the parental relations. "A Father of the fatherless." And His beloved Son well caught in this, as in everything, His Father's mind: "I will not leave you orphans." There are fatherless ones much worse than the fatherless, and there are widows of a far deeper sorrow than the bereaved. There is the man that walks this earth and yet has no relationship with heaven. There are women who are widows even in their own inner life. J. V. 6. Elohim is one who brings solitary or isolated ones to dwell in the house. House, i.e., family-bond, domestic circle, is the antithesis of solitary or recluse. D.—In setting the family at the fountain-head of human history, God only insured a representation of Himself which should be perpetual and indestructible. The familiar walls of home made with hands might fall away, but the work of the Divine Builder still remained. The best work of that Builder was silent and invisible, and it was through the homes that God was leading us to Him. These Divine ingredients were the chief things about home, and without the experience of relations with God a person was homeless, even in a palace. S. E. Herrick. Home, that briefest word of our good old Saxon tongue—there lies in it the wealth of all language, of all affection, of all virtuous joy, of all pure memories, of all innocent hopes; the prattle of the infant, the gleeful laugh of childhood, the song of the maiden, the cheerful labor, the merry pastime, the sweet repose of evening when toil is ended, the united meal, the household stories, music, and diversions, the various ages, interests, and plans revolving about one centre, and that centre love. Whose eye does not moisten with unbidden tears at the thought of home? These four letters are the chord of human happiness for every gamut; whenever the scale of life begins, these letters are its perfect consonance. "God setteth the solitary in families." This was His institution at the beginning, and He ordained it to be perpetual. J. P. T. The home is the instrument of a double education. Its function is to develop the Divine image in parent and in child. As the first step to the fulfilment of His purpose in restoring man to His own image, God set "the solitary in families," He laid the foundation of the home as the fundamental human institution, the foundation of all true order, the spring of all true development in human society. Out of the home State and Church were to grow; by the home they were both to be established. And so God took the dual head of the first human home, the father and mother, and made them as gods to their children, and He set them there to study the pain and the burden of the godhead as well as the power and the joy. This was the only way by which man could gain the knowledge of the mind and heart of God. J. B. Brown. Measure what home love is worth to society. Estimate the healing, comforting, purifying, elevating influence which is ever flowing forth from this fountain, and you will understand the sacred ministry of the home to the higher culture of mankind. It is a mighty restraint of evil passions. It is the centrifugal force which continually widens the orbit of life, and bears us into the light of distant suns. In the home every unselfish endeavor to lift and bear the burdens of the dear ones around fills the very atmosphere with music of light and joy. Ibid. It is at home that the blessedness of the parental relationship is learned, and the mind is turned to the great Father. It is at home that love is cultivated, and the heart is opened to Him whose name is Love. It is at home that self-restraint is practised, and that those passions which excite to rebellion against God are held in check. It is at home that intense desires for the welfare of those dependent on us are awakened, and that the need of Divine help is so strongly felt as to demand expression in prayer. In a word, home is the very nursery of religion. J. C. Harrison. If we desire a model home we must be willing to work for it—with brain and heart as well as hands. Children should receive their first lessons in usefulness around the family hearth. If more time and labor were expended to make homes—homes worthy of the name—the wrong-doings of sons and daughters would not so often plant unhappiness and discontent in their parents' declining years. The mother of a family should always be found at home to welcome husband and children when they return from the cares and lessons of the day. Everything seems dreary and cheerless when mother is away. There are no smiles and loving words of welcome; no one to inquire about the successes and failures of the work undertaken. The remembrance of a loving word or smile will often gladden the whole day. A mother's tact will do much toward inventing ways and means to interest the little flock growing up around her, but to have a real home the father must contribute his part toward making the house in which his family dwells more than a mere shelter from the summer's heat and the winter's cold. His leisure hours belong to his wife and children, and no matter how monotonous the home life may be, it is his duty to help and share the burdens and cares of the one he has promised to love, cherish, and protect. Young people must have recreation of some kind. It is natural and necessary, and needs much thought and care in the selection thereof on behalf of their elders. Anon. The most effective religious influence you exert upon your sons and daughters comes from the example you set before them. Your character streams into your children; it enters through their eyes and through their ears every hour. How quick they are to imitate! No photographic plate is more sensitive to the images which lodge there. Your irritations irritate them; your dissimulations make them tricky and deceitful; your malicious gossip sets "their teeth on edge." If you talk "money-money," they will conclude that the chief end of life is to get rich. If you prefer the playhouse to prayer-meeting, they will become lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God. If you set a decanter on your table, your boys will sip their first wine glasses there. If you give your child a dollar for the place of amusement, and only a dime for the contribution-box, you teach them that self-indulgence is ten times more important than Christian benevolence. If you live for the world, your children may die in worldliness and be lost forever. Not more surely do you provide the clothes for their bodies, than you weave the habits of their lives and the mind-garments that they will be wearing after you are dead. As clothes are made stitch by stitch, so you weave their character by numberless little things and by your unconscious influence. The Christian or unchristian atmosphere of every house is created by the parents. T. L. Cuyler. Friendships in the family require most gentle care and cultivation. We must win each other's love within home-doors just as we win the love of those outside—by the sweet ministries and graces of affection. We must prove ourselves worthy of being loved by those who are nearest; they will not truly love us unless we do, merely because we are of the same household. We must show ourselves unselfish, thoughtful, gentle, helpful. Home friendships must be formed as all friendships are formed—by the patient knitting of soul to soul and the slow growing of life into life. Then we must retain home-friends after winning just as we retain other friends—by a thousand little winning expressions in all our intercourse. We cannot depend upon relationship to keep us loved and loving. We must live for each other. We must give as well as receive. We must be watchful of our acts and words. . . . The sweetest, best, happiest, and most perfect earthly home is but a dim picture of the love and gladness of the home in heaven. Heaven is like a holy home, only infinitely sweeter, truer, and better. Home has been called “heaven’s fallen sister.” If in the imperfect homes of this world we find so much gladness in the ties that bind heart to heart and knit life to life, may we not be confident that in the perfect home of our heavenly Father all this gladness will be infinitely deepened and enriched? Love will not be different in heaven; it will be wondrously purified and exalted, but earthly love will live on through death into eternity. J. R. M. No two words have a more vital importance than Christianity and Home. Underneath the foundations of both Church and State lies the household; it is older also than either of them. There is no such school of Bible-religion in the land as a happy, God-fearing home. No church is effective for restraint from evil and for growth in all Christian graces as “the church in the house.” There stands the domestic altar. There is felt the influence that moulds character from the cradle to the judgment-seat; such a home on earth is the surest preparation for the home eternal in the heavens. Of this “church in the house” the parents are the God-ordained pastors. T. L. C. The Church has always been the strength of the home. The Jews, among ancients, and the Christians since, have been the home-makers; their civilization the outgrowth of the domestic relation. Under pagan Rome the family was so broken up that special laws were passed offering favors to those who reared families. The Socialistic Congress at Geneva, in 1869, enacted “the abolition of marriage, so far as it is a political, religious, judicial, or civil institution.” The ultimate proposition of atheism is that all children shall be cared for by the State. On the other hand, religion nurses all the domestic affections. Belief in the Fatherhood of God strengthens and sanctifies the filial regard. The love of God, the higher agape, deepens the affection of husband and wife, of brother and sister. The eternal hope tightens the grasp with which we hold one another in the deathless embrace, for such “love can never lose its own.” And the family is the feeder of the Church. Most converts are from Christian homes. The parent the best pastor, as originally the father was the household priest. Anon. (Read Psalms 127, 128) 7. O God, in Thy going out before Thy people, in Thy marching through the wilderness, Selah. The sentence is completed in the next verse, being here divided by a pause of solemn and admiring recollection. The general description of the foregoing verses is now confirmed and illustrated by a reference to the exodus from Egypt and the journey through the wilderness. Before Thy people, in the pillar of cloud, as their guide and their commander, Thy marching, literally, Thy stepping, treading, or more exactly still, Thy step or tread. 8. The earth shook, nay, the heavens dropped, this Sinai, at the presence of God, the God of Israel. Dropped, discharged drops, rained.** The first clause is descriptive of the grand and terrible phenomena attending the theophany at Sinai. (See Ex. 19: 16-18.) A.—The Scripture alone can supply ideas answerable to the majesty of this subject. In the Scripture, wherever God is represented as appearing or speaking, everything terrible in nature is called up to heighten the awe and solemnity of the Divine presence. The Psalms and the prophetic books are crowded with instances of this kind. “The earth shook” (says the Psalmist), “the heavens also dropped at the presence of the Lord.” Burke. The proper theme of the Psalm now opens with allusions to the great triumphal march of God at the head of His people through the wilderness, and in their occupation of Canaan. The reference is first to the terrors of the theophany on Sinai, and the glorious majesty of God as there seen. P.—The description fixes upon Sinai as the central point of all the revelations of God during the Mosaic time of redemption, as the place most glorious of them all. The grand phenomena which declared the nearness of God were distributed over the whole journey through the wilderness; they concentrated themselves most gloriously at the giving of the law on Sinai. The earth trembled throughout the wide circuit of the vast granite mountain range, and the heavens dropped, inasmuch as dark thunder-clouds, pierced by incessant lightnings, rested upon Sinai. There, as the primary passages describe it, Jehovah met His people; He came from the east, His people from the west; there they met, and causing the earth to quake, and breaking through the heavens, He gave them a pledge of the omnipotence which was henceforth to defend and guide them. D. 9. A rain of free gifts Thou pourest down, O God; Thine inheritance, and (that) exhausted, Thou dost confirm (or strengthen) it. The first clause probably refers to the abundant and refreshing gifts (of which rain is a natural and common emblem) bestowed upon the people in the wilderness, including manna, quails, and water. A.—“Thou didst confirm Thine inheritance, when it was weary.” As at the end of each stage, when they halted, weary with the march, they found such showers of good things awaiting them that they were speedily refreshed. When they were exhausted, God was not. When they were weary, He was not. They were His chosen heritage, and, therefore, although for their good He allowed them to be weary, yet He watchfully tended them and tenderly considered their distresses. In like manner, to this day, the elect of God in this wilderness state are apt to become tired and faint, but their ever-loving Jehovah comes in with timely succors, cheers the faint, strengthens the weak, and refreshes the hungry. By this faithfulness the faith of God’s people is confirmed and their hearts established; if fatigue and want make them waver, the timely supply of grace stays them again upon the eternal foundations. S. 10. Prepare of Thy goodness for the poor. The industrious poor man is assured that God will bless his honest endeavors; and while he is sure of God’s benediction, he thinks his poor estate rich. No man is so happy as to have all things; and none so miserable as not to have some. He knows he hath some, and that of the best riches; therefore resolveth to enjoy them, and want the rest with content. He that hath this contentation of heart, be he never so poor, is very rich. T. Adams. 11. The sacred poet now passes to the actual occupation of the Holy Land. The Lord (Adonai) giveth (the) word. The noun “word” (which is found only in poetry) is used in 77 : 8, of the “word of promise;” in Hab. 3 : 9, apparently of the “word of power,” or “word of victory.” Perhaps both meanings may be combined here. It is in virtue of God’s word of promise that Israel takes possession of Canaan; it is by His word of power that the enemies of Israel are discomfited. “God speaks—and the victory is won.” P.—Singing women celebrated the deliverance of Israel from Pharaoh’s host, their emancipation from Jabin’s power by the overthrow of Sisera, the victory of Jephthah over the Ammonites, and the victorious duel of David with Goliath; on this occasion also God’s decisive word will go forth, and of the women that tell the good tidings, like Miriam and Deborah, there will be a great host. V. 12 describes the theme of the triumphant exultation. D. The Lord did give His Word at His ascension, and there were a multitude of them that published it, and by this means kings of armies were put to flight; they conquered by the Word; there is not such another way to rout kings and their armies. W. Strong.—The Bible is our constitution and our bill of rights, as well as the code of moral and spiritual law. The man who imbibes its principles will never be a slave to superstition, to ecclesiastical pretenders, to civil tyrants, to his own evil passions. The Bible makes a man a free man physically, spiritually, mentally, morally and in his civil status. The intolerance, uncharity, persecution, and other evil traits which crop out of ecclesiastical organizations are all directly contrary to the teaching, example, and spirit of our Lord and Master. . . . The Bible is chiefly valued for spiritual guidance, and for the knowledge it gives us of our future destiny and condition. But it has a lower, which is yet the highest earthly value. The Bible is a great political factor. It is the armory in which men equip themselves for the defence of their civil and religious liberties. Its standard of human rights and of manhood is higher than men ever wrought out for themselves. It sets aside all claim to dominance over man by any authority less than his Creator. The Bible does this as the Word of God. Try to tear that book to pieces and you are trying to destroy the eternal charter of human liberty. . . . Yes, this Bible has been blessed by God Almighty. It carries a blessing, like the ark of the covenant, to the home and heart, where it is reverently received. It promotes intelligence, higher education, freedom of thought, good citizenship, everything desirable in the heart, the home, the nation. It works, not as a charm, signed and sealed by some earthly official; but with the blessing of the Almighty Spirit it enlarges, purifies, enriches and guides through the earthly life to the everlasting habitations. Interior. The marvellous unity, the infinite variety, the matchless sublimity, the inimitable pathos, the power over souls, of this unique and incomparable book; its holy law, against which fight men's subtlest and most inveterate lusts, its attractiveness for all classes, for all centuries, in all lands; the magnificent ideals presented by it; the invisible but unwasting power which goes everywhere with it to uplift society, to ennoble civilization, as well as to bless persons and households—all these things and others leave us no more in doubt as to whether the Bible came from God through man, or from man himself in his uncertain inquiring wit, than we are in doubt whether light was braided in human workshops, or the ocean was poured from a million tin-cups. The Bible silently, by its progress on the earth, defies the world to make another equal or superior to it. R. S. S. Admissions of Leading Sceptics of France, England and America. It was not with art and apparatus that the Gospel extended itself throughout the world, and that its ravishing beauty impenetrated men's hearts. This Divine book, the only book indispensable for the Christian, only needs to be meditated upon to carry into the soul the love of its Author, and the desire to fulfil His precepts. Never has virtue spoken a language so delightful. Never has the profoundest wisdom expressed itself at once with so much of energy, and with so much of simplicity. One cannot quit the reading without feeling himself better than before. I confess to you that the majesty of the Scriptures amazes me, the holiness of the Gospel speaks to my heart! See the books of the philosophers, with all their pomp, how petty they are beside this! Can it be that a book at once so sublime and so simple has been the work of man? Can it be that He whose history it presents was Himself only a man? Rousseau. The pagan moralists lack life and color, and even the noble Stoic, Marcus Antoninus, is too high and refined for an ordinary child. Take the Bible as a whole; make the severest deductions which fair criticism can dictate for shortcomings and positive errors; eliminate all that it is not desirable for children to occupy themselves with; and there still remains in this old literature a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur. And then consider the great historical fact that for three centuries this book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere literary form; and that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the existence of other countries and other civilizations, and of a great past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations in the world. By the study of what other book could children be so much humanized, and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between two eternities, and earns the blessings or the curses of all time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil, even as they also are earning their payment for their work? Huxley. View it in what light we may, the Bible is a very surprising phenomenon. This collection of books has taken such a hold on the world as has no other. In all the temples of Christendom is its voice lifted up, week by week. The sun never sets on its gleaming page. It goes equally to the cottage of the plain man and the palace of the king. It is woven into the literature of the scholar, and it colors the talk of the street. It blesses us when we are born; gives names to half Christendom; rejoices with us; has sympathy for our mourning; tempers our grief to finer issues. It lifts man above himself; our best of uttered prayers are in its storied speech, wherewith our fathers and the patriarchs prayed. The timid man, about awaking from this dream of life, looks through the glass of Scripture, and his eye grows bright; he does not fear to stand alone, to tread the way unknown and distant, to take the death-angel by the hand, and bid farewell to wife, and babes, and home. Some thousand famous writers come up in this century, to be forgotten in the next. But the silver cord of the Bible is not loosed, nor its golden bowl broken, as Time chronicles his tens of centuries passed by. It is only a heart that can speak, deep and true, to a heart; a mind to a mind; a soul to a soul; wisdom to the wise, and religion to the pious. There must then be in the Bible mind, heart, and soul, wisdom and religion. Were it otherwise, how could millions find it their lawgiver, friend, and prophet? Some of the greatest of human institutions seem built on the Bible; such things will not stand on heaps of chaff, but on mountains of rock. Theodore Parker. 12. This and the next two verses wear the air of being a fragment of one of those ancient battle-songs, sung by the women after the defeat of the foe. The fact that they have thus been torn from their original context accounts for the great obscurity which hangs over them. It is, indeed, almost hopeless now to understand the allusions. She that tarrieth at home; the mistress of the household, so called as keeping house, while her husband goes forth to battle; an expression peculiarly in conformity with Eastern customs. Divideth the spoil, "distributes among her daughters and handmaidens the share of the spoil" which her husband has brought home. Hence the mother of Sisera is represented as anticipating the share of the spoil which would fall to her lot (Jud. 5 : 30). P 13. The lying between the sheepfolds is an emblem of prosperous peace, which points back to the song of Deborah (Jud. 5 : 16). Such a time is now also before Israel, a time of peaceful prosperity increased by rich spoil. Everything shall gleam and glitter with silver and gold. Israel is God's turtle-dove (74 : 19). Therefore the new condition of prosperity is compared with the play of colors of a dove basking in the rays of the sun. Its wings are then as if overlaid with silver. D.—Nearly all see, in the dove and the glittering of her wings in the sunshine, an emblem of prosperity and peace, though some suppose that the allusion is to the bright armor of the warriors, glittering in the sunshine. According to Hengstenberg, the Israelites, to whom the address is directed, are described figuratively as the wings of the doves, or they are like doves whose wings glitter with silver and gold. The allusion is to the play of colors on the wings of the dove in sunshine. This denotes the peaceful, and, at the same time, splendid condition enjoyed by Israel, in the lap of prosperity. The same idea is carried out in the second figure (v. 14), that of the snow, an image of the bright gleam of heaven which fell on the darkened land on the prosperous termination of the war; when the Lord scatters kings, the light of prosperity illuminates the darkness of the land, just as dark Zalmon becomes white when covered with snow. Zalmon is a hill mentioned in Jud. 9 : 48, situated in the neighborhood of Shechem, and covered with a thick wood, so that, as Luther says, "it might be called in German a Schwartzwald, or dark forest, the dark or black mountain." This, on the whole, is preferable to any of the other interpretations. It has the merit of simplicity, and it yields a fairly satisfactory sense. P. 15. A mount of God (is) Mount Bashan, a mount of peaks (or ridges) is Mount Bashan. The first phrase means a mountain showing forth the creative power of God by its vastness. Mount Bashan, not a single eminence, but the lofty range of Antilibanus, also called Hermon, and by other races, Sion and Sirion. The last two names would be apt to suggest, by a fortuitous resemblance, that of the holy hill of Zion. A mount of peaks or ridges, i.e., not a detached mountain, but a chain with many lofty summits, forming the northern boundary of Bashan. At the same time, the expressions of this verse would necessarily suggest the idea of great states or kingdoms, of which mountains are the standing symbols. A. The immediate reference to the mountain range of Bashan confirms the conjecture that the poem is to be connected with the war between Israel and the various Syrian nations from beyond the Euphrates, recorded in 2 Sam. 10 : 15, 19. The battle was fought at Helam, near the Euphrates, belonging to the half tribe of Manasseh, to which Bashan had been assigned as part of its territory. The lofty mountain range of Bashan was therefore in sight of the army on its homeward march. It is called "a mountain of God," as conspicuous among the works of God. The personification of these great mountains as full of envy, when the triumphant host passed them by, and went by preference to the little hill of Zion, is superb. De Witt.—He makes the mountains of Bashan an emblem of the hostile powers east of the Jordan. These stand over against the people of God as the mighty mountains of Bashan, which rise in precipitous and at the top only slightly flattened peaks, stand over against lowly undulating Zion. D. Bashan is the high snow-summit of Hermon, the extreme limit of Bashan. The world's physical greatness must yield to the Church's spiritual grandeur. The "mountain of God" is here an emblem of the world-kingdoms, which are great only by the grace of God. A great hill reminds us of the creative power of God. Hence, "the hill of Elohim" (the general name of God as the Creator) stands in contrast to the hill which (v. 16) "the Lord" (Jehovah) will dwell in forever. Fausse. 16. The end of all this manifestation of God's power on behalf of His chosen, of all these splendid victories, is the occupation of the Holy Land. He has given it to His people, that He may abide and reign in the midst of them. He has chosen, not the lofty range of Bashan, but the more lowly Zion for His seat; and to this new sanctuary He comes from Sinai, attended by "an innumerable company of angels." P.—Not only Elohim has chosen it as His seat, but it will also continue to be so forever; Jehovah will continue to dwell in it forever. Grace is superior to nature and the Church to the world, however powerful and majestic this seems; Zion maintains its honor over against the mountains of Bashan. D. 17. In solemn triumph, like a victor who leads trains of captives and spoils in long array, God enters His sanctuary in Zion. P.—The last words of the verse are obscure, but seem most probably to mean that the same glorious theophany which once took place on Sinai is now renewed on Zion, with particular reference, as some imagine, to the presence of the ark and the tables of stone in the one case as a perpetual memorial, and even a perpetual renewal, of the legislation in the other. This fine poetical identification of the two mountains hallowed by God's presence may have been in the mind of the apostle when he drew that sublime contrast or parallel between them (Heb. 12 : 18-24). Under the law, Sinai was renewed in Zion. Under the Gospel, Zion superseded Sinai. A. The chariots of God are twenty thousand. Other countries, which in the former verse were symbolically referred to as "high hills," gloried in their chariots of war; but Zion, though far more lowly, was stronger than they, for the omnipotence of God was to her as myriads of chariots. The Lord of hosts could summon more forces into the field than all who boasted in their armies; His horses of fire and chariots of fire would be more than a match for their fiery steeds and flashing cars. The original is grandly expressive: "The war chariots of Elohim are myriads, a thousand thousands." S. 18. Thou hast gone up to the high place; Thou hast captured a captivity; Thou hast taken gifts among mankind, and (even among) rebels, (so as) to dwell (here), Lord, God! In order to establish Zion as His earthly dwelling-place, God has encountered all opposing powers, vanquished them, and forced them to pay tribute, even the stoutest and most stubborn. The sign of the conquest being finished is the conqueror's return to his throne, whether upon earth or in heaven. Captured a captivity, i.e., taken captive a multitude of enemies. The gifts meant are the forced gifts of the conquered. Among men, i.e., while present among them as their conqueror, and by implication from them. Even rebels, even the most rebellious, are compelled to submit. In other words, the conquest is complete. According to the military figures here used, it would seem to be implied that the gifts thus extorted by the conqueror are distributed among his followers. To receive gifts, on the one hand, and bestow gifts, on the other, are correlative ideas and expressions, so that Paul, in applying this description of a theocratic triumph to the conquests of our Saviour, substitutes one of these expressions for the other (Eph. 4 : 9). He also, in his comment on the passage, justly represents the ascension there described as necessarily implying a previous descent. In other words, victory presupposes conflict. A. This Psalm typifies the conquests of the Church under her Divine Leader, Christ. He, indeed, "who was with the Church in the wilderness" (Acts 7 : 38), is the Lord described in this ideal ascension. Hence Paul (Eph. 4 : 8) applies this language to describe His real ascension, when, having conquered sin, death, and hell, the Lord of glory triumphantly entered heaven, attended by throngs of adoring angels, to sit on the throne and wield the sceptre of an eternal dominion. The phrase, received gifts for (or literally, among men, is by Paul, "gave gifts to men." Both describe the acts of a conqueror who receives and distributes spoils. The Psalmist uses "receiving," as evincing the success; Paul, "gave," as the act of the conqueror who, having subdued his enemies, proceeds to reward his friends. The special application of the passage by Paul was in proof of Christ's exaltation. What the Old Testament represents of His descending and ascending corresponds with His history. He who descended is the same who has ascended. As then ascension was an element of His triumph, so is it now; and He who in His humiliation must be recognized as our vicarious sacrifice and the High-priest of our profession, must also be adored as Head of His Church and Author of all her spiritual benefits. Fauset. Paul interprets in the light and in the sense of the historical fulfilment. For the ascension of Elohim is in historical fulfilment none other than the ascension of Christ; this latter was, as the Psalm describes it, a triumphal procession (Col. 2 : 15); and what the Victor has gained over the powers of darkness and of death, He has gained not for His own enrichment, but for behoof of men; they are gifts which He now distributes among men, and which turn out to the advantage even of those who have gone astray. So the apostle takes the words, turning "received" into "gave." The gifts are the charismata coming down from the Exalted One upon the Church—a bestowal of blessing which stands in a causal connection with His victory; for as Victor He is also the possessor of the blessing, His gifts are, as it were, the spoils of the victory gained by Him over sin, death, and Satan. The apostle is all the more justified in giving this interpretation, as Elohim is celebrated in what follows as the Lord, who brings forth even from death. In the historical fulfilment this praise belongs to Him who, as Theodoret remarks, has opened the prison-house of death, which for us had no exit, and burst the brazen gates and crushed the iron bolts—viz., to Jesus Christ, who now has the keys of death and of Hades. D. The resurrection of Christ is the basis of all that we have and hope and love in Christ, but especially have we in it the surety of the hope of eternal life, because thereby all fear of death has been banished, and future blessedness and life have become a reality in Christ Jesus. He is our Head, and we through faith are members of His body. And since our Head has overcome sin and death and Satan, we partake of the triumph and the victory. For He has conquered our enemies for us and not for Himself. The victory is ours, as is also the triumph. When a ruler or a general conquers the enemies of a kingdom, he indeed triumphs, but the fruits and glories of the victory belong to the whole country and to all the citizens. Therefore all Christians triumph with Christ in His glorious resurrection. Gossner. Thou hast led captivity captive. The ancient prophecy of David is fulfilled on the foot of Mount Olivet. There Christ conquered the allied principalities and powers, the devil, sin, death, and hell, and deprived them of the instruments wherewith they enslaved men. C. Evans.—He led those captive who had led us captives, and who if He had not interposed would have held us captive forever. Nay, He led captivity itself captive, having quite broken the power of sin and Satan. As He was the Death of death, so He was the Captivity of captivity (Hos. 13 : 14). This speaks the complete victory which Jesus Christ obtained over our spiritual enemies; it was such, that through Him we also are more than conquerors—that is, triumphers. H.—What a representation for well-assured belief! all my spiritual foes overcome, disarmed, exposed, so that I have no more to do than to set forth the victory of Christ and share in its joy! Van O. Thou hast received gifts for men; He gave gifts to men, so the apostle reads it (Eph. 4 : 8). For He received that He might give; on His head the anointing of the Spirit was poured, that from Him it might descend to the skirts of His garments. And He gave what He had received; having received power to give eternal life, He bestows it upon as many as were given Him (John 17 : 2). H.—No sooner is Christ inaugurated in His throne, but He scatters His gifts. He gives the gift of gifts, the gift of the Holy Ghost. “If thou knewest the gift of God,” said Christ to the Samaritan woman. That gift was the water of life, and that water of life was the Spirit, as John, who knew best His mind, gave the interpretation, “This spake He of the Spirit.” Such a gift was never before but when God gave His Son. “God so loved the world that He gave His Son;” and Christ so loved the world that He gave His Spirit. But consider especially to whom this Spirit was given. “Unto us a Son is given,” said the prophet (Isa. 9 : 6); and “unto us the Holy Ghost is given,” said the apostle (Rom. 5 : 5); and yet above all consider the reasons of this gift in reference to thyself. Was it not to make thee a temple and receptacle of the Holy Ghost? Admire the condescending, glorious, unspeakable love of Christ in this! It was infinite love to come down into our nature when He was incarnate; but this is more, to come down into thy heart by His Holy Spirit; He came near to us then, but as if that were not near enough, He comes nearer now, for now He unites Himself unto thy person, now He comes and dwells in thy soul by His Holy Spirit. Isaac Ambrose. Of itself the departure of our risen Lord would neither have permanently illuminated the reflections of the Church nor quickened the graces of its separate members. But He left this earth in His bodily form, to return as a Quickening Spirit, in force and virtue, before He comes to judgment. He ascended up on high to obtain gifts for men; and having received of the Father, as the bounteous firstfruits of His opening and omnipotent intercession, the promise of the Holy Ghost, He shed upon the earth those wondrous gifts which the first Christians saw and heard. H. P. L.—The work of men’s deliverance, which Christ began while He was on earth, He carries on and completes from heaven. He “received gifts for men”—the manifold gifts of the Holy Ghost. He who gave once gives always. These are gifts for men; and as long as there are men needing these gifts, they will not cease. And that will be always, even to the end of the world. In a world of sorrow such as ours, when will the office of a Comforter cease? In a world of sin such as ours, when will the office of a Sanctifier be out of date? Trench. Who can adequately describe the magnificence of the benefits dealt out by the exalted Saviour, and the munificence with which He distributes these to all who approach His throne of grace with empty hands but earnest hearts? With all spiritual blessings from heaven we are blessed in Christ, and what has already rejoiced millions is still in the future appointed for millions more; yea, the greater the necessity, the richer the fulfilment here promised. Van O.—He came from the infinite to the finite that He might conduct God's children up through the finite into the infinite forever. He leads them up with the voice of mercy on His lips, with the memory of suffering in His heart; and the front ranks of His innumerable army raise their song, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood, be glory forever." Ker. The rebellious. This completes the picture of the triumph. All—even those nations which hold out the longest in their stubborn resistance, and refuse to submit themselves to the Great Victor—must finally acknowledge His sway. All shall be united in one kingdom, and God the Lord shall reign in the midst of them. This is the great prophetic idea which recurs so often in the writings of Psalmists and prophets. God is the King of all the earth; and, in spite of all opposition, His kingdom shall be set up, and on the throne of that kingdom His Son, His Anointed (the Messiah, the Christ), shall reign. Hence it is that Paul (Eph. 4: 9) applies this verse to the resurrection and triumphant ascension of Christ. The apostle sees in the literal Old Testament fact a higher spiritual significance. The ascent of the ark, in which God was present, into Zion, prefigured the ascent of Christ into heaven. As God came down to fight for His people, so Christ had descended to this earth for the salvation of men. As on the return of the ark the captives and the spoil appeared in the procession, so on the return of Christ in triumph to heaven (Col. 2: 15) He led captive sin, and death, and hell, and all evil powers. As God had taken tribute among men, which He, however, as the victorious monarch of Israel, had given to Israel, so Christ also had taken gifts among men (in His human nature and through His work on earth) which He now, as ascended Lord, gave to men. The apostle sees that when a king takes, he takes to give, and therefore substitutes the one word for the other, without at all putting the one word as the translation of the other. He seizes the idea, and represents it in its true fulfilment. P. Among the rebellious, that the Lord God might dwell among them; that He might set up a church in a rebellious world, in which He would dwell by His Word and ordinances, as of old in the sanctuary; that He might set up His throne and Christ might dwell in the hearts of particular persons that had been rebellious, The gracious intention of Christ's undertaking was to rear up the tabernacle of God among men, that He might dwell with them, and they might themselves be living temples to His praise (Ezek. 37: 27). H. "And it came to pass, while He blessed them, He was parted from them, and carried up into heaven." His last appearance was with hands extended in benediction. His last words were blessings. He came from heaven bringing gifts to men. His entire life ministry was a constant benefaction. And now, as He leaves the world that scorned the gifts and crucified the Giver, His parting words are intoned with love—His hands extended in benediction. Shall we not believe that from His home in the heavens our ascended Lord is still sending His priceless gifts to men, and over our lives His hands are still extended in blessing? And shall not this faith move us to deeper love to Him, and firmer loyalty to His cause? E. K. Young. The innermost chamber of the Divine Presence is open now, and sinful men have access, with confidence by the faith of Him, wherever He has gone before. Right into the secret of God's pavilion we can go, now and here, knowledge and faith treading the path which Jesus has opened, and coming to the Father by Him. Right into the blaze of the glory we shall go hereafter; for He has gone to prepare a place for us, and when He overcame the sharpness of death, He opened the gate of heaven to all believers. A. M.—Every believer may say, Christ did not only die and rise again, but He ascended into heaven to take possession thereof for me, to prepare a place for me. He standeth there in the second part of His suretyship to bring me safe thither, and to present me in a glorious manner, "not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." He is therefore exercising His priestly office for me, pleading the perfection of His own righteousness and the virtue of His blood. He is there ready to answer the accusations of the law, the devil, and sin for me. Bunyan. Christ's consolation to His disciples in the parting hour was, "I go to prepare a place for you." How much was included in these words we shall never know till we, like Him, see of the travail of His soul, and like Him are satisfied. But we can dimly see that, on the one hand, His death, and, on the other hand, His entrance into that holiest of all, make ready for us the many mansions of the Father's house. He was crucified for our offences, He was raised again for our justification. He is passed through the heavens to stand our forerunner in the presence of God; and by all these mighty acts He prepares the heavenly places for us. As the sun behind a cloud, which hides it from us, is still pouring out its rays on far-off lands, so He, veiled in dark sunset clouds of Calvary, sent the energy of His passion and cross into the unseen world and made it possible that we should enter there. "When Thou didst overcome the sharpness of death, Thou didst open the gates of the kingdom of heaven to all believers." As one who precedes a mighty host, provides and prepares rest for their weariness, and food for their hunger, in some city on their line of march, and having made all things ready, is at the gates to welcome their travel-stained ranks when they arrive, and guide them to their repose; so He has gone before, our forerunner, to order all things for us there. It may be that unless Christ were in heaven, our Brother as well as our Lord, it were no place for mortals. Be that as it may, this we know, that the Father prepares a place for us by the eternal counsel of His love, and by the all-sufficient work of Christ, by whom we have access to the Father. A. M. Let us not lose out of our conception of the glorified Christ this truth, that He is actually human still. His body is changed, glorified, as our bodies shall be changed, glorified in our resurrection; yet it is still the same body which He had on the earth. His humanity was carried up to heaven. As he never for a moment ceased to be God while here on the earth in lowly flesh, so He has never for a moment ceased to be man since ascending into the heavenly places. The Godhead and the humanity are forever inseparable. The tender compassion of the Jesus of the Gospels was not lost when He went up out of our sight and was exalted to the throne. Our King has a human heart, with human affections, sympathies, and feelings. Our Lord, to whom we pray, on whose arm we lean in weakness, to whose mercy we flee when we have sinned, to whom we turn for help in weakness and comfort in sorrow, is our Brother, with a nature like ours. How near it brings Him to us to think of Him as really human still, in His eternal glory! How it exalts our thought of the dignity of humanity to remember that one of our race is on the throne of thrones! J. R. M. The ascension is the completion of the resurrection. It corresponds to the supernatural birth, and the evangelist whose record of the nativity is the fullest is also he who principally tells us of the humanity, which had been born in Bethlehem, being taken up to the throne of God. The ascension witnesses to the completeness of His sacrifice, to its acceptance by the Father, to the presence within the veil of our all-powerful intercessor, to the elevation to supreme authority of the Man who is our Brother. The eternal Word ascended where He had been from before the beginning, but the manhood is new to the throne of the universe. Where He is, there shall also His servants be; and as He is, so shall they too become. Even now we may, in a very real sense, live with Christ in heavenly places; and if we believe that He has gone up on high, we too should "set our affections" and thoughts "on things above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God." For where our "treasure" is, there should and shall our "hearts" be also. The disciples showed us how we should think of the ascension when they worshipped Him, thus declared Him to be the Son of God, and then turned all the more joyfully to their homely tasks, and drowned the pain of parting in the flood of joy which poured over their spirits. They made all life worship, every place a temple, and every act and word adoration. Thus joyfully, and with unceasing thankfulness and praise making music in life and lip, should those pass the brief hours of earthly sojourning, whose lives are hid with Christ in God. Where He is, is their home. It becomes them to live here as pilgrims and sojourners. A. M. 19. The description of the great triumphal procession is here suddenly broken off with an ascription of praise to God as the protector and avenger of His people, and is not again resumed till v. 24. Beareth our burden. The majesty of God and the tenderness of God are thus ever associated in Holy Scripture. The same God who came once in awful glory to Sinai, and who now, accompanied by myriads of angels, enters into His sanctuary in Zion, is the God who bears the burden which is too heavy for us; or, perhaps, "who bears us," i.e., carries us, as a shepherd when he finds the lost sheep lays it upon his shoulder. P. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 1. SAVE me, O God; For the waters are come in unto my soul. 2 I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. 3 I am weary with my crying; my throat is dried: Mine eyes fall while I wait for my God. 4 They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of mine head: They that would cut me off, being mine enemies wrongfully, are mighty: Then I restored that which I took not away. 5 O God, thou knowest my foolishness; And my sins are not hid from thee. 6 Let not them that wait on thee be ashamed through me, O Lord God of hosts: Let not those that seek thee be brought to dishonour through me, O God of Israel. 7 Because for thy sake I have borne reproach; Shame hath covered my face. 8 I am become a stranger unto my brethren, And an alien unto my mother's children. 9 For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; And the reproaches of them that reproach thee are fallen upon me. 10 When I wept, and chastened my soul with fasting, That was to my reproach. 11 When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a proverb unto them. 12 They that sit in the gate talk of me; And I am the song of the drunkards. 13 But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O LORD, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercy, Answer me in the truth of thy salvation. 14 Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: Let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. 15 Let not the waterflood overwhelm me, Neither let the deep swallow me up; And let not the pit shut her mouth upon me. 16 Answer me, O LORD; for thy lovingkindness is good: According to the multitude of thy tender mercies turn thou unto me. 17 And hide not thy face from thy servant; For I am in distress; answer me speedily. 18 Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it: Ransom me because of mine enemies. 19 Thou knowest my reproach, and my shame, and my dishonour: Mine adversaries are all before thee. 20 Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: And I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; And for comforters, but I found none. 21 They gave me also gall for my meat; And in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. 22 Let their table before them become a snare; And when they are in peace, let it become a trap. 23 Let their eyes be darkened, that they see not; And make their loins continually to shake. 24 Pour out thine indignation upon them, And let the fierceness of thine anger overtake them. 25 Let their habitation be desolate; Let none dwell in their tents. 26 For they persecute him whom thou hast smitten; And they tell of the sorrow of those whom thou hast wounded. 27 Add iniquity unto their iniquity. And let them not come into thy righteousness. 28 Let them be blotted out of the book of life, And not be written with the righteous. 29 But I am poor and sorrowful: Let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high. 30 I will praise the name of God with a song, And will magnify him with thanksgiving. 31 And it shall please the LORD better than an ox, Or a bullock that hath horns and hoofs. 32 The meek have seen it, and are glad: Ye that seek after God, let your heart live. 33 For the LORD heareth the needy, And despisceth not his prisoners. 34 Let Heaven and earth praise him, The seas, and every thing that moveth therein. WHEN and by whom this Psalm was written we have no very certain clew to guide us. All that is certain from the general tenor of the Psalm is, that it was written under circumstances of great and unmerited suffering, by one who was persecuted for righteousness' sake. The zeal which he had shown for the service and honor of God had provoked the hostility of bad men against him, and made him the object of their unholy mockery. In the former part of the Psalm we have the fact of this persecution detailed, in the form of a humble complaint to God, together with an earnest prayer for deliverance. In the latter part there is a marked change of feeling. The sad, humble, subdued, entreating tone in which he had spoken, turns suddenly into a strong outburst of indignant execration. In some of its features this Psalm bears much resemblance to Psalms 35 and 109. In all three Psalms there is the same deep sense of grievous wrong, of innocence unjustly persecuted, and in all alike the same burning indignation is poured in a hot lava-stream of anathemas upon the persecutors. P. The subject of the Psalm is an ideal person, representing the whole class of righteous sufferers. The only individual in whom the various traits meet is Christ. That He is not, however, the exclusive or even the immediate subject is clear from the confession in v. 5. There is no Psalm, except the twenty-second, more distinctly applied to Him in the New Testament. A.—The whole Psalm is typico-prophetic, so far as it is the account of the history of a life and suffering, whether it be the history of a king or a prophet, fashioned by God into a prophecy in fact of Jesus the Christ, and so far as the Spirit of prophecy has even fashioned the account itself into a word of prophecy concerning the Coming One. D. This has usually been regarded as a Messianic Psalm. No portion of the Old Testament Scriptures is more frequently quoted in the New, with the exception of Psalm 22. When Jesus drives the buyers and sellers from the Temple (John 2 : 17), His disciples are reminded 35. For God will save Zion, and build the cities of Judah; And they shall abide there, and have it in possession. 36 The seed also of his servants shall inherit it; And they that love his name shall dwell therein. of the words of v. 9. When it is said (John 15 : 25) that the enemies of Jesus hated Him without a cause, and this is looked upon as a fulfilment of Scripture, the reference is probably to v. 4 (though it may be also to 35 : 19). To Him, and the reproach which He endured for the sake of God, Paul (Rom. 15 : 3) refers the words of this Psalm (v. 9), "The reproaches of them that reproached Thee are fallen upon me." In v. 12 we have a foreshadowing of the mockery of our Lord by the soldiers in the preterium; in v. 21, the giving of the vinegar and the gall found their counterpart in the scenes of the crucifixion (Matt. 27 : 34). In John 19 : 28 there is an allusion, probably, to v. 21 of this Psalm (and to 22 : 15). The imprecation in v. 25 is said, in Acts 1 : 20, to have been fulfilled in the case of Judas Iscariot, though, as the words of the Psalm are plural, the citation is evidently made with some freedom. According to Rom. 11 : 9, 10, the rejection of Israel may best be described in the words of vs. 22, 23. It will be observed that many of these quotations are made generally, by way of illustration and application, rather than as prophecies which have received fulfilment. Enough, however, remains to justify the Messianic sense of the Psalm, provided our interpretation be fair and sober. The broad principle laid down in the introduction to the twenty-second Psalm applies here. The history of prophets and holy men of old is a typical history. They were, it may be said, representative men, suffering and hoping, not for themselves only, but for the nation whom they represented. In their sufferings they were feeble and transient images of the Great Sufferer who by His sufferings accomplished man's redemption; their hopes could never be fully realized but in the issue of His work, nor their aspirations be truly uttered save by His mouth. But confessions of sinfulness and imprecations of vengeance, mingling with these better hopes and aspirations, are a beacon to guide us in our interpretation. They teach us that the Psalm is not a prediction; that the Psalmist does not put himself in the place of the Messiah to come. They show us that here, as indeed in all Scripture, two streams, the human and the Divine, flow on in the same channel. They seem destined to remind us that if prophets and minstrels of old were types of the Great Teacher of the Church, yet that they were so only in some respects, and not altogether. They bear witness to the imperfection of those by whom God spake in time past unto the fathers, in many portions and in many ways, even while they point to Him who is the living Word, the perfect revelation of the Father. 1-4. These contain the cry for help, and the description of the Psalmist's miserable condition. 4. Without cause,** as in 35 : 19 ; 38 : 19. To this passage, probably, allusion is made by our Lord (John 15 : 25). The manner of citation plainly shows how we are to understand the words "that it might be fulfilled." What was true, in some sense, even of the suffering Israelite under the law, was still more true of Him in whom was no sin, and whom, therefore, His enemies did indeed hate without cause. 5. Then follows the appeal to God from the unrighteousness of men. The manner in which this appeal is made is, however, unusual. Generally speaking, under such circumstances, we find a strong assertion of the integrity and innocence of the sufferer, and a complaint that he suffers unjustly; here, on the contrary, we find him appealing to God's knowledge of his foolishness and his sins. He does not attempt to assert that he is innocent, but only that his enemies are unjust and malicious in their attacks. And then he urges his appeal for mercy on the ground that others who trust in God will be put to shame, if His servant is left to perish. P. When we feel that we have been foolish we are not, therefore, to cease from prayer, but rather to be more eager and fervent in it. They who have seen their sins in the light of God's omniscience are able to appeal to that omniscience in proof of their piety. He who can say, "Thou knowest my foolishness," is the only man who can add, "But Thou knowest that I love thee." S. God is full of compassion to the sinner, whose worst of sin He knows. It is not pity merely that comes from Him, but sympathy; and how wide the difference between these the struggling heart understands. Our comfort does not begin in forgetting our sins, but in remembering them, and in bringing them all under the view of His mercy, which is as wide and wakeful as His omniscience. "O God! Thou knowest my foolishness, and my sins are not hid from Thee." Our confidence is sustained by thinking that as His knowledge of us is far larger than our own, as He is greater than our hearts, and sees secret sins we overlook, and past sins we forget, so His mercy is exalted above our conception, "as high as heaven is above the earth," and ready to put our sins away "as far as east is from the west." Ker. 6. The heaped-up Divine names are so many appeals to God's honor, to the truth of His covenant relationship. The one praying here is indeed a sinner; but what men are doing to him is not justified thereby; he suffers it for the Lord's sake, it is the Lord Himself that is reviled in his person. Upon this he in v. 7 bases his prayer. D. 9. Hath consumed,** literally, "eaten." Similar expressions with respect to the prophets will be found (Jer. 6 : 11 ; 15 : 17 ; Ezek. 3 : 14). This, which was true in various imperfect degrees of these servants of God of old, was in a far higher sense true of the only begotten Son, who could say, I seek not Mine own glory. Hence, when He purged the Temple, the disciples could not help thinking of these words of the Psalm, as finding their best application in Him (John 2 : 17). P. 16. For Thy lovingkindness is good.** By the greatness of Thy love have pity upon Thine afflicted. It is always a stay to the soul to dwell upon the pre-eminence and excellence of the Lord's mercy. It has furnished sad souls much good cheer to take to pieces that grand old Saxon word, which is here used in our version, "lovingkindness." Its composition is of two most sweet and fragrant things, fitted to inspire strength into the fainting, and make desolate hearts sing for joy. S. 19. The second principal division of the Psalm opens with a renewed appeal to God. (Compare vs. 5 and 13.) There is a repetition of what had been said already (vs. 4, 7, 9, etc.), together with the additional aggravation mentioned in v. 21. Thou knowest. In the certainty that all his sorrows, fears, sicknesses, reproach, sufferings, are known to God, the Psalmist again finds his consolation. P. 20. Broken my heart.** If ever human heart was riven and ruptured by the mere amount of mental agony that was endured, it would surely be that of our Redeemer, when, during those dark and dreadful hours on the cross, He, "being made a curse for us," "bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows," and suffered for sin the malediction of God and man, “full of anguish,” and now “exceeding sorrowful even unto death.” There are theological as well as medical arguments in favor of the opinion that Christ, in reality, died from a ruptured or broken heart. If the various wondrous prophecies and minute predictions in Psalms 22 and 69, regarding the circumstances connected with Christ’s death, be justly held as literally true, such as, “They pierced My hands and My feet,” “They part My garments among them, and cast lots upon My vesture,” etc., why should we regard as merely metaphorical and not as literally true also this declaration, “Reproach hath broken my heart.” Sir J. Y. Simpson. 21. Vinegar**, or, “sour wine.” Matthew, who never forgets the foreshadowings of the Old Testament, alludes, there can be no doubt, to this verse of the Psalm, when he mentions, in his narrative of the crucifixion, that the Roman soldiers offered our Lord “vinegar mingled with gall.” P. 22. The imprecations in this verse and those following it are revolting only when considered as the expression of malignant selfishness. If uttered by God they shock no reader’s sensibilities, nor should they when considered as the language of an ideal person representing the whole class of righteous sufferers, and particularly Him who, though He prayed for His murderers while dying, had before applied the words of this very passage to the unbelieving Jews (Matt. 23:38), as Paul did afterward (Rom. 11:9, 10). The general doctrine of providential retribution, far from being confined to the Old Testament, is distinctly taught in many of our Saviour’s parables. (See Matt. 21:41; 22:7; 24:51.) A. We are familiar with the comments that are often made on inspired words like these. “What a spirit,” men say, “is here! How unlike the mild, tender, charitable spirit of our Master, Christ! How unfit to be repeated by Christians who have been taught in the school of Christ!” This, and the like of this, is what is said, and it proceeds upon two leading mistakes. The first is that the New Testament was meant somehow to abrogate the Old. The second is that God’s love is in some kind of way the antagonist of His justice; that He cannot be really just without ceasing to love; that He cannot love without trifling with His instinct of justice. Let us remember that, in the verse before us, we are listening, not to David, but to the perfectly righteous Being in whose person David sings. Here we have a sentence which has nothing to do with human passion, which is based on the most certain laws which govern the moral world. The sentence is a penal judgment uttered against those who have been sinners against the light vouchsafed to them. God does under certain circumstances make the very blessings which He bestows instruments of punishment. A time comes when long unfaithfulness provokes this sentence on a nation, a Church, a soul. By the figure of “a table” is meant a supply of necessary nourishment, whether of soul or body. The table which God prepared before David in the presence of his enemies was the food which sustained his physical life, the grace which sustained the life of his spirit. The table which is spread out before associations of men—before nations, before churches—is the sum total of material, moral, mental, and spiritual nourishment which God sets before them in the course of their history. The table becomes a snare when the blessings which God gives become sources of corruption and of demoralization, when that which was intended to raise and to invigorate does really, through the faithlessness or perverseness of the man or the society, serve only to weaken or depress. This is exactly what happened to the great majority of the Jewish people in the days of our Lord and His apostles. One by one the spiritual senses which should have led Israel to recognize the Christ were numbed or destroyed. A perverse insensibility to the voice of God made God’s best gifts the instruments of Israel’s ruin. H. P. L. 24. Pour out Thine indignation upon them.** What can be too severe a penalty for those who reject the incarnate God, and refuse to obey the commands of His mercy? God’s indignation is no trifle; the anger of a holy, just, omnipotent, and infinite Being is above all things to be dreaded; even a drop of it consumes, but to have it poured upon us is inconceivably dreadful. He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy, but what shall be the “sorer punishment” reserved for those who have trodden under foot the Son of God? 25. What occurs on a large scale to families and nations is often fulfilled in individuals, as was conspicuously the case with Judas, to whom Peter referred this prophecy (Acts 1:20), “For it is written in the Book of Psalms, let this habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein.” S. 26. The reason for the imprecation is given, because of the unpitying cruelty which delighted in adding to the pain and affliction of one whom God had already brought low. His very suffering might have moved them to compassion. P.—These curses are strictly and exactly retributive, and as such inevitable consequences of Divine justice. The wicked are to suffer above all things for their unpitying cruelty. It is observable that sufferings which are inflicted by God, and indications of His displeasure, are here represented by the Psalmist as calling for compassion and tender sympathy on the part of man. Thus 2 Chr. 28 : 9 ; Job 19 : 21 ; Isa. 53 : 4. 27. The Psalmist does not pray that they should remain in a state of unconversion, not becoming righteous, but that, being unconverted, they should not be dealt with as righteous, suffered to prosper and to escape punishment. Cook. 28. Book of life,** or, “of the living,” called in Ex. 32 : 32, “the Book of God.” The figure is borrowed from the civil lists or register in which the names of citizens were enrolled. To be blotted out of this denotes exclusion from all the blessings and privileges of the theocracy, and therefore from all hope of salvation, as is evident from the next clause : “Let them not be written with the righteous ;” the righteous being the true Israelites, as in Hab. 2 : 4. This is the most terrible imprecation of all, though but the necessary consequence of that obstinate impenitence before supposed. P.—The book of life, in the human point of view, has names written in it who have a name to live, but are dead, being in it only by external call, or in their own estimation, and in that of others. But, in the Divine point of view, it contains only those who are elected finally to life. The former may be blotted out, as was Judas ; but the latter never. Fausset. 29. The Psalm closes with joyful hopes and vows of thanksgiving for God’s mercy, in this respect resembling Psalm 22. In this joy and thanksgiving all other righteous sufferers shall share. And finally Zion and the cities of Judah shall be rebuilt, amid the universal jubilee of all creation. But as for me, placing himself emphatically in contrast to those who had been the object of his imprecation. P. “But I am poor and sorrowful, that is the worst of my case ; under outward afflictions, yet written among the righteous, and not under God’s indignation, as they are.” It is better to be poor and sorrowful, with the blessing of God, than rich and jovial and under His curse. For they who come into God’s righteousness shall soon see an end of their poverty and sorrow, and His salvation shall set them up on high. H. 30. “Offer unto God thanksgiving” is the everlasting rubric of the true directory of worship. The depths of grief into which the suppliant had been plunged gave him all the richer an experience of Divine power and grace in his salvation, and so qualified him to sing more sweetly “the song of loves.” Such music is ever most acceptable to the infinite Jehovah. S.—From David learn to give thanks in everything. Every furrow in the Book of Psalms is sown with seeds of thanksgiving. Jeremy Taylor.—The crown of all the elements of the Christian character is thankfulness. This is the summit of all, and is to be diffused through all. All our progressive fruitfulness and insight, as well as our perseverance and unruffled meekness in suffering, should have a breath of thankfulness breathed through them. A. M. 33. This joyful certainty of his own deliverance, this joyful hope that others afflicted like himself will rejoice together with him, rests upon the known character of God, upon the universal experience of His goodness. 34. In remembrance of this he calls upon the universe to praise God. P. 35. For God will save Zion, and will build the cities of Judah, and they shall dwell in them and possess them. He who is thus faithful to the individual believer must be faithful to the whole Church. It is characteristic of the ancient saints to regard every personal mercy as a pledge of greater favors to the body of God’s people. This is peculiarly appropriate in such a case as this, where the words are those of an ideal person representing a whole class, and that a class including, as its most conspicuous member, the Messiah Himself. 36. As temporal and spiritual blessings were inseparably blended in the old dispensation, the promise of perpetual possession and abode in Palestine is merely the costume in which that of everlasting favor to the Church is clothed in the Old Testament. A. 1. Make haste, O God, to deliver me; Make haste to help me, O LORD. 2 Let them be ashamed and confounded That seek after my soul: Let them be turned backward and brought to dishonour That delight in my hurt. 3 Let them be turned back by reason of their shame That say, Aha, Aha. 4. Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee; And let such as love thy salvation say con- tinually, Let God be magnified. 5 But I am poor and needy; Make haste unto me, O God: Thou art my help and my deliverer; O LORD, make no tarrying. THIS Psalm is a repetition, with some varia- tions, of the last five verses of Psalm 40. It would seem that it formed originally a part of that Psalm, and was subsequently detached and altered for a special occasion. P.—The re- semblance of Psalm 40 to Psalm 69 has already been noticed. This fragment stands in similar relation to both Psalms. Yet it is complete in itself, and therefore suitable for separate use. De Witt. 1-5. The title tells us that this Psalm was designed to bring to remembrance, to put God in remembrance of His mercy and promises; for so we are said to do when we pray to Him and plead with Him (Isa. 43: 26)—Put Me in remembrance. Not that the Eternal Mind needs a remembrancer, but this honor He is pleased to put upon the prayer of faith. It was rather to put Himself and others in remembrance of former afflictions, that we may never be secure, but always in expectation of troubles, and of former devotions, that when the clouds return after the rain, we may have recourse to the same means which we have formerly found effectual for fetching in comfort and relief. 4. He prays that all those who seek God and love His salvation, who desire it, delight in it, and depend upon it, may have continual matter for joy and praise, and hearts for both. To make the service of God our great business, and the favor of God our great delight and pleas- ure, that is seeking Him and loving His salva- tion. H.—They that love Christ, love to think of Him, love to hear of Him, and love to read of Him. They love to speak of Him, for Him, to Him. They love His presence, His yoke, His name. His will is their law, His dishonor is their affliction, His cause is their care, His people are their companions, His day is their delight, His Word is their guide, His glory is their end. They had rather ten thousand times suffer for Christ than that He should suf- fer by them. J. Mason. This is not such a world that we can afford to live in it without great nearness to Him who, having died once, liveth evermore. This is not such a life as we should dare to try to live any further without offering the whole of it— its gold, its incense, and its myrrh—possessions, prayers, and praises at the feet of its spiritual King. Light the lamps of faith, then, and watch. Kindle the fire of incense and wait—not sleeping, but watching unto prayer F. D. H. 5. Men forget the poor and needy and sel- dom think of them, but God's thoughts toward them are their support and comfort. They may assure themselves that God is their Help under their troubles, and will be in due time their Deliverer out of their troubles, and will make no long tarrying; for the vision is for an appointed time, and therefore, though it tarry, we may wait for it, for it shall come; it will come, it will not tarry. H. I am poor and needy. I do not regard my lot either with weariness or compulsion; I continue in the same sentiment fixed and im- movable. I do not think my God displeased with me; neither is He displeased; on the con- trary, I experience and thankfully acknowledge His paternal clemency and benignity toward me in everything that is of the greater moment, especially in this, that He is Himself consoling and encouraging my spirit. I acquiesce with- out a murmur in His sacred dispensations; it is through His grace that I find my friends, even more than before, kind and affectionate toward me; nor is it an occasion of anguish to me, though you count it miserable, that I am fallen in vulgar estimation into the class of the blind, the unfortunate, the wretched, and the helpless, since my hope is that I am thus brought nearer to the mercy and protection of the universal Father. Milton. Thou art my help and my deliverer. Our Lord's manner toward the multitude of men in the Gospels assures us how He will look on us. Almighty as He is, He could display a tender interest in all who approached Him. So God beholds thee individually, whoever thou art. He calls thee by thy name. Thou wast one of those for whom Christ offered up His last prayer, and sealed it with His precious blood. What a thought is this!—a thought almost too great for our faith. What am I, that God the Holy Ghost should enter into me and draw up my thoughts and affections heavenward? Newman. The inmost essence of the Christian life is union to Christ, and abiding in Him. If we are Christians we are in Him in yet profounder sense than creation lives and moves and has its being in God. We are in Him as the earth with all its living things is in the atmosphere, as the branch is in the vine, as the members are in the body. We are in Him as inhabitants in a house, as hearts that love in hearts that love, as parts in the whole. If we are Christians, He is in us, as life in every vein, as the fruit-producing sap and energy of the vine is in every branch, as the air in every lung, as the sunlight in every planet. This is the deepest mystery of the Christian life. To be "in Him" is to be complete. "In Him" we are "blessed with all spiritual blessings." "In Him" we are "chosen." "In Him" God "freely bestows His grace upon us." "In Him" we "have redemption through His blood." "In Him" "all things in heaven and earth are gathered." "In Him we have obtained an inheritance." In Him is the better life of all who live. In Him we have peace, though the world be seething with change and storm. In Him we conquer, though earth and our own evil be all in arms against us. If we live in Him, we live in purity and joy. If we die in Him, we die in tranquil trust. If our gravestones may truly carry the sweet old inscription carved on so many a nameless slab in the catacombs, "In Christo," they will also bear the other, "In pace" (In peace) If we sleep in Him, our glory is assured, for them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. A. M 1. Is thee, O LORD, do I put my trust : Let me never be ashamed. 2 Deliver me in thy righteousness, and rescue me : Bow down thine ear unto me, and save me. 3 Be thou to me a rock of habitation, whereunto I may continually resort : Thou hast given commandment to save me ; For thou art my rock and my fortress. 4 Rescue me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, Out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. 5 For thou art my hope, O Lord God : Thou art my trust from my youth. 6 By thee have I been holden up from the womb : Thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels : My praise shall be continually of thee. 7 I am as a wonder unto many ; But thou art my strong refuge. 8 My mouth shall be filled with thy praise, And with thy honour all the day. 9 Cast me not off in the time of old age ; Forsake me not when my strength faileth. 10 For mine enemies speak concerning me ; And they that watch for my soul take counsel together, 11 Saying, God hath forsaken him : Pursue and take him ; for there is none to deliver. 12 O God, be not far from me : O my God, make haste to help me. 13. Let them be ashamed and consumed that are adversaries to my soul ; Let them be covered with reproach and dishonour that seek my hurt.14 But I will hope continually, And will praise thee yet more and more.15 My mouth shall tell of thy righteousness, And of thy salvation all the day ; For I know not the numbers thereof.16 I will come with the mighty acts of the Lord God : I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only.17 O God, thou hast taught me from my youth ; And hitherto have I declared thy wondrous works.18 Yea, even when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not ; Until I have declared thy strength unto the next generation, Thy might to every one that is to come. 19. Thy righteousness also, O God, is very high ; Thou who hast done great things, O God, who is like unto thee ?20 Thou, who hast shewed us many and sore troubles, Shalt quicken us again, And shalt bring us up again from the depths of the earth.21 Increase thou my greatness, And turn again and comfort me.22 I will also praise thee with the psaltery, Even thy truth, O my God : Unto thee will I sing praises with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel.23 My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing praises unto thee ; And my soul, which thou hast redeemed.24 My tongue also shall talk of thy righteousness all the day long : For they are ashamed, for they are confounded, that seek my hurt. # The Prayer of Old Age for Divine Aid to the End. THE whole Psalm is an echo of expressions found in older Psalms, that have become a mental possession of the author and have been revived in him by similar experiences. We look upon it as having been written by Jeremiah. D.—It is evident that it was written by one already past the meridian of life, and verging upon old age. And it borrows so largely from other Psalms—the twenty-second, thirty-first, thirty-fifth, and fortieth, some of them, probably, Psalms written long after the time of David—that it must be regarded as one of the later specimens of Hebrew poetry. Other evidence of an internal kind renders it not improbable that the Psalm was written by Jeremiah. It would apply obviously to his circumstances. His life had been a life of extraordinary perils and extraordinary deliverances. He had been consecrated from his birth, and even before his birth, to his office (Jer. 1 : 5, compared with v. 6 of the Psalm). He had discharged that office for more than thirty years, and might, therefore, be verging on old age in the reign of Zedekiah. The prominent position which he occupied for so long a period before princes and people harmonizes well with the language of the Psalm in vs. 7 and 21. Finally, the style and general character of the poetry are not unlike those of Jeremiah. There is the same plaintive elegiac strain which we find in his writings, and the same disposition to borrow from earlier poets. P. 1. Not only on God must we rest, as a man stands on a rock, but in Him must we trust, as a man hides in a cave. The more intimate we are with the Lord, the firmer will our trust be. God knows our faith, and yet He loves to hear us avow it ; hence the Psalmist not only trusts in the Lord, but tells Him that he is so trusting. 3-5. God is my rock, my fortress, my God, my hope, my trust. All mine shall be His, all His shall be mine. This was the reason why the Psalmist was persuaded that God had commanded his salvation—namely, because He had enabled him to exercise a calm and appropriating faith. S. Faith is not the passive assent to a list of propositions, but the active devotion to an unrealized ideal. It is that which in the hour of weakness and weariness, in moments of discouragement and depression, enables the Christian to fix his eyes upon Christ, and to do the things that his devotion to Christ calls for, whether he feels like it or not ; whether it is easy or hard ; whether others appreciate and approve, or criticise and condemn. Faith is the grace of conflict as love is the grace of victory. It is the crowning athletic virtue. W. D. Hyde 3. Be Thou to me for a rock of habitation, a rock where I may safely dwell and make my home, (whither I may be able) to come always, i.e., whenever it is necessary; Thou hast commanded to save me, my deliverance is decreed already; for my rock, my hiding-place, and my fortress art Thou. The images presented and the terms used are similar to those in Psalm 18: 2. A.—Be Thou to me a rock of repose, where to I may continually resort. They that are at home in God, that live a life of communion with Him and confidence in Him, that continually resort unto Him by faith and prayer, having their eyes ever toward Him, may promise themselves a strong habitation in Him, such as will never fall of itself nor can ever be broken through by any invading power; and they shall be welcome to resort to Him continually upon all occasions, and not be upbraided as coming too often. H. 5. For Thou (art) my hope, O Lord, Jehovah, my confidence, the object of my trust, from my youth. A.—Not only is our hope in Him, but He Himself is our hope. “God our Saviour, and Lord Jesus Christ,” saith Paul, “our hope.” Yea, there is a deeper, nearer depth: “The glory of the mystery of the Gospel,” says Paul, “is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Christ Himself is our hope, as the only Author of it; Christ is our hope, as the End of it; and Christ, who is the Beginning and the End, is our hope also by the way; for He saith, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Each yearning of our hearts, each ray of hope which gleams upon us, each touch which thrills us, each voice which whispers in our inmost hearts of the good things laid up in store for us, if we will love God, are the light of Christ enlightening us, the touch of Christ raising us to new life, drawing us up by His Spirit, who dwelleth in us, unto Himself, our hope. For our hope is not the glory of heaven, not joy, not peace, not rest from labor, not fulness of our wishes, nor sweet contentment of the whole soul, nor understanding of all mysteries and all knowledge, not only a torrent of delight; it is “Christ our God,” “the hope of glory.” Nothing which God could create is what we hope for; nothing which God could give us out of Himself, no created glory, or bliss, or beauty, or majesty, or riches. What we hope for is our Redeeming God Himself, His love, His bliss, the joy of our Lord Himself, who hath so loved us, to be our joy and our portion forever. Pusey. 6. Upon Thee I leaned, or by Thee was held up, sustained, from the womb; from the bowels of my mother, a synonymous expression, Thou (art) my bringing out, the one that brought me out. A. Have I been holden up. An expression wonderfully descriptive of what faith is, and of what God is to those who trust in Him. He is a Father who bears them in His arms and carries them in His bosom; they are as children who lean all their weight upon Him, and find their sweetest rest in His supporting hand. This is the very idea of faith, according to its Hebrew signification. When it is said in Gen. 15: 6 that “Abraham believed God,” it means literally, “he leaned upon God.” But the Psalmist speaks here not mainly of his own trust in God, but rather of his experience of God’s loving care and protection. From the womb. Calvin sees here a reference to God’s goodness even before his birth, and has some admirable remarks on our forgetfulness of God’s wonders to us both before and at our birth. In the mouth of Jeremiah, if, as we have conjectured, the Psalm was written by him, such words have a peculiar interest, for they refer, no doubt, to that Word of Jehovah which came unto him saying, “Before thou camest forth from the womb I sanctified thee” (Jer. 1: 5). P. The consideration of the gracious care which the Divine providence took of us in our birth and infancy should engage us to an early piety and constant devotedness to His honor. He that was our Help from our birth, ought to be our Hope from our youth. If we received so much mercy from God before we are capable of doing Him any service, we should lose no time when we are capable. H. 8. It not the reason of our finding so little to praise to be sought in our having no eyes for His daily miracles? The Psalmist has eyes for the daily miracles of the Lord; and, therefore, his mouth is daily full of the praise of the Lord. Tholuck.—Many favors which God giveth us ravel out for want of hemming, through our own unthankfulness; for though prayer purchaseth blessing, giving praise doth keep quiet possession of them. T. Fuller. 9. He prays for grace both now and for the time to come: now that my vital power is vanishing away, forsake me not! So he prays because he, who has already been frequently wondrously delivered, is even now threatened by enemies. D.—The Psalmist says, “Thou madest me hope in my earliest years; and now, when gray hairs are on me, Thou wilt not forsake me.” As if he said, Wilt Thou lose me at last, when Thou hast had so much care of me hitherto? Learn, then, from God’s care of thee in creation to expect His care in providence; and seeing He has had a care to bring thee up from a child, from that expect yet more good. The more thou can prove God has been good to thee, thou may prove by that that He shall yet do more good. Therefore father kindness upon Him from bygones, that thou may find kindness for time to come. It is a very evil argument to prevail with man, because He has given much to crave yet more; but a good argument to prevail with God. For thou may say to Him, Thou hast been gracious to me, and must be gracious to me. To tell Him what good He has done is a band to urge Him to do more; yea, it is a point of wisdom in thee and a point of thankfulness to Him. Dickson. Cast me not off. Though a prayer, it is also a promise. For when God dictates a petition, it assures us that what He thus prompts us to ask, He is ready to bestow. These words may therefore be considered as revealing the basis of comfort and support offered to an aged Christian. It is as though he said, Man may cast me off; society may cast me off; friends, helpers, even children may abandon me; but, O my God, cast not Thou me off, in the time of old age! It is a lawful, an urgent, a comprehensive prayer. The old disciple is not forbidden to ask, under submission to God's holy will, that he may be exempted from wasting languors and decrepitude. But submission has here a large part to perform. As we resign to the decision of our faithful Creator the time and manner of our death, so must we leave ourselves implicitly in His hands, as to the whole color of our latter days. And if any may appropriate the cheering words, the aged may surely so do: "Be content with such things as ye have, for He hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee;" words which seem written to be a heavenly answer to this very petition of the Psalmist. J. W. A. There is a peculiar simplicity of heart and a touching singleness of purpose in Christian old age, which has ripened gradually and not fitfully. It is then that to the firmness of manhood is joined almost the gentleness of womanhood; it is then that the somewhat austere character of growing strength, moral and intellectual, mellows into the rich ripeness of an old age made sweet and tolerant by experience; it is then that man returns to first principles. There comes a love more pure and deep than the boy could ever feel; there comes a conviction, with a strength beyond that which the boy could never know, that the earliest lesson of life is infinite, Christ is all. F. W. R. 14,15. I will never cease to hope, and I will even heighten my praises of Thee; more and more will I praise Thee for Thine ever-growing mercies. "I know not the numbers thereof;" I cannot express all Thou has done that is worthy of praise; there is more than I can tell. The word for "numbers" has the sense of recounting, enumerating. I know not how to count them up. C. 15. My mouth shall recount Thy righteousness, all the day (long) Thy salvation, for I know not numbers (to express them), I cannot number them, they are innumerable. The righteousness or rectitude of God, including His veracity or faithfulness, is here referred to as the cause of his salvation, the salvation of which He is the source and author. A. Thy righteousness. The attribute on which all hope of salvation depends. God's righteousness is the pledge not only of His accepting the righteous, but of His adherence to His promises of mercy and forgiveness to penitents. Cook.—God's salvation stands to His righteousness in the relation of effect to cause. God has pledged Himself to save those who put their trust in Him, and as a righteous God He cannot deny Himself. This seems to be the connection between the two words in this Psalm. No numbers (the Hebrew word occurs only here). God's righteousness and God's salvation are infinitely beyond all man's power to calculate or to repeat. P. We are to bear testimony as experience enables us, and not withhold from others that which we have tasted and handled. The faithfulness of God in saving us, in delivering us out of the hand of our enemies, and in fulfilling His promises, is to be everywhere proclaimed by those who have proved it in their own history. How gloriously conspicuous is righteousness in the Divine plan of redemption! It should be the theme of constant discourse. S. 16. Will come.** The ellipsis here may be supplied from Psalms 5:7 and 66:13, in both which places the same verb denotes the act of coming to God's house for the purpose of solemn praise, and in the second passage cited is followed by the same preposition, I will come into Thy house with burnt-offerings, i.e., I will bring them thither. This sense agrees well with the vow to praise God in the two preceding verses, and with the promise of commemoration in the other clause of this verse. A. 17. Taught me.** Be assured, you that are under the Lord's teaching, there is nothing in your lives but He can teach you by it; by comforts and crosses, by what He gives and by what He takes away. He unteaches His child that He may teach him; shows him his folly that he may make him wise; strips him of his vain confidence that He may give him strength; makes him know that he is nothing that He may show him that he has all in the Lord—in Jesus his Beloved One. J. H. Evans. 18. Now that he is old, frail, physically almost powerless, he needs the upholding hand of his God more than ever, and he longs to fill out the same course of testimony for God to the very end of life. “Forsake me not;” uphold me still, until I have testified in behalf of Thy sustaining arm to all future generations. C.—Those that have been taught of God from their youth, and have made it the business of their lives to honor Him, may be sure that He will not leave them when they are old and gray-headed, will not leave them helpless and comfortless, but will make the evil days of old age their best days, and such as they shall have occasion to say they have pleasure in. H. One of the greatest consolations of old age is to spend what remains of life in honoring God. Ecclesiastical history relates of the Apostle John, that when for very age he was unable any longer to preach the Word, he used to be carried into the Christian assembly, where the most he could utter was, “Little children, love one another!” The modern Church affords numerous instances of ancient believers, who “still bring forth fruit in old age.” Younger disciples may look up to them as advisers, and endeavor to profit by their long experience. Their very patience and tranquillity, while they wait for their Lord, is edifying to the Church. For these reasons, aged Christians are not lightly to suppose that their work is done because they are shut out from public service. It may be that God is more glorified by the quiet graces of their eventide than by their most strenuous exertions while bearing the burden and heat of the day. J. W. A. 19-24. The thought of this proclamation carries away the poet so completely that he even now passes over into the strain of it; and seeing that to his faith the deliverance already lies behind him, the uncomplaining, supplicating, tender song dies away in a loud song of praise, in which he brings all God’s gracious dealings in the future before his mind. D. 19. O God, who is like unto Thee?** Either for greatness or goodness, for power or for mercy, for justice, truth, and faithfulness; for the perfections of His nature, or the works of His hands; and to be praised, reverenced, and adored, as He is. Gill.—God is alone; who can resemble Him? He is eternal; He can have none before, and there can be none after; for, in the infinite unity of trinity, He is that eternal, unlimited, impartible, incomprehensible, and uncompounded, ineffable Being, whose essence is hidden from all created intelligences, and whose counsels cannot be fathomed by any creature that even His own hand can form. “Who is like unto Thee!” will excite the wonder, amazement, praise, and adoration of angels and men to all eternity. A. Clarke. 20. “Thou, which hast shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again.” Here is faith’s inference from the infinite greatness of the Lord. He has been strong to smite; He will be also strong to save. He has shown me many heavy and severe trials, and He will also show me many and precious mercies. S.—Quarrel not rashly with adversities not yet understood, and overlook not the mercies often bound up in them; for we consider not sufficiently the good of evils, nor fairly compute the mercies of Providence in things afflictive at first hand. Sir Thomas Browne. There is no easy way to glory. There is so much evil in us, even after we are born again, that nothing less than a discipline of pain can cleanse our nature. Tribulation is God’s threshing, not to harm us or to destroy us, but to separate what is heavenly and spiritual in us from what is earthly and fleshly. Nothing less than blows of pain will do this. The evil clings so to the holy, the golden wheat of goodness is so wrapped up in the strong chaff of the old life, that only the heavy flail of suffering can produce the separation. Perfection of character never can be attained save through suffering. It is God’s design, in all the pain He sends, to make us better. His fires mean purification until His own image shines reflected in the gold. His prunings mean greater fruitfulness. In whatever form the suffering comes—whether as bereavement, as sin or shame in a friend, or as penitence over one’s own faults and stumblings and grieving of the Spirit—the purpose of the pain is merciful. In all our life in this world, God is saving us; and suffering is one of the chief agents He employs. Said our Lord, as one of His beatitudes, “Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be comforted.” The blessing is not in the mourning, but in the comfort—that is, in the strengthening of the heart to endure the pain victoriously, and get help and better life out of it. Said Paul: “Let us also rejoice in our tribulations; knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, probation; and probation, hope; and hope putteth not to shame.” Suffering works out in us qualities of Christian character which cannot be developed in human gladness. "All chastening seemeth for the present to be not joyous, but grievous; yet afterward it yieldeth peaceable fruit unto them that have been exercised thereby, even the fruit of righteousness." A. M. It is mainly through suffering that the soul is constrained to self-inspection and the knowledge of itself, its native character, its relations and its duty to God, its neglects and failures, its follies and sins, its ruin and its peril, its way of forgiveness, deliverance, and safety. This self-knowledge is the purpose of trial, and this its effect. Equally indispensable is it as a means of self-conquest. Through the invaluable ministry of suffering, under the directing energy of the Divine Spirit, the soul's dormant powers are aroused, an inward strife is awakened, and the will is strengthened for protracted conflict with the strong passions that have held the mastery, until self-conquest is achieved. And this strife with self in order to victory over self is another purpose, use and effect of disappointment, pain and bereavement. Through the warfare and the victory, too, every Divine grace is quickened and augmented in its power over the heart, so that the soul is qualified for the more efficient discharge of duty, for the better improvement of its varied allotments and experiences, and for successful resistance to all spiritual foes. B. 22. Holy One of Israel. This name of God occurs in the Psalms only in two other places, 78 : 41 ; 89 : 18 ; these last two being, according to Delitzsch, older Psalms than this. In Isaiah, this name of God occurs thirty times ; in Habakkuk once ; in Jeremiah (who may have adopted it from Isaiah) twice. P. 23. The essence of song lies in the holy joy of the singer. Soul-singing is the soul of singing. Till men are redeemed, they are like instruments out of tune ; but when once the precious blood has set them at liberty, then are they fitted to magnify the Lord who bought them. Our being bought with a price is a more than sufficient reason for our dedicating ourselves to the earnest worship of God our Saviour. S. 1. GIVE the king thy judgments, O God, And thy righteousness unto the king's son. 2 He shall judge thy people with righteousness, And thy poor with judgment. 3 The mountains shall bring peace to the people, And the hills, in righteousness. 4 He shall judge the poor of the people, He shall save the children of the needy, And shall break in pieces the oppressor. 5 They shall fear thee while the sun endureth, And so long as the moon, throughout all generations 6 He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass : As showers that water the earth. 7 In his days shall the righteous flourish ; And abundance of peace, till the moon be no more. 8 He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, And from the River unto the ends of the earth. 9 They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him ; And his enemies shall lick the dust. 10 The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents : The kings of Sheba and Seba shall offer gifts. 11 Yea, all kings shall fall down before him : All nations shall serve him. 12 For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth ; And the poor, that hath no helper. 13 He shall have pity on the poor and needy, And the souls of the needy he shall save. 14 He shall redeem their soul from oppression and violence ; And precious shall their blood be in his sight : and they shall live ; 15. And to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba : And men shall pray for him continually ; They shall bless him all the day long. 16. There shall be abundance of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains ; The fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon : And they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth. 17. His name shall endure for ever ; His name shall be continued as long as the sun : And men shall be blessed in him ; All nations shall call him happy. 20. The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended. Prayer for the Peaceful, Prosperous, Universal, and Everlasting Dominion of God's Anointed One. EVERYTHING here indicates the pen of Solomon, rather than of David. It is a grand prophetic prayer. It relates to himself and his own administration, but upon the basis of the promise to David in 2 Sam. 7 : 12-16, which included the whole royal race descended from Solomon in its typical unity, and so culminates in the Messiah and His eternal reign of blessing over the whole race. The apocopate form of the verbs in their succession indicate supplication, and that he was not to his full consciousness a prophet. But nevertheless he was an inspired suppliant, and his utterances are a glorious prophecy of the coming and kingdom of a greater than Solomon. De Witt. This Psalm is attributed in the inscription to Solomon, and it bears strong indications of his authorship ; the style resembles that of the Proverbs, and is different from the Davidic Psalms ; the allusions to distant lands, to an extended and peaceful dominion, and a certain air of calm and cheerful reflection, are characteristic of the son of David. It was probably composed early in the king's reign for liturgical recitation, a form in which the people might give expression to loyal and devout aspirations, connected with the head of the Theocratic kingdom. Hence the Messianic tone which pervades the whole ; the author felt himself to be the representative of the ideal and future Messiah ; his prayers and hopes reach far beyond his own sphere ; they are fulfilled only in Christ. This Psalm is thus the culminating point of that portion of Messianic prophecy which sets forth the kingly office of the Saviour. Cook. Two Psalms only in the entire compass of the Psalter, this and the one hundred and twenty-seventh, bear the name of Solomon. The inscription, beyond all doubt, means to say that the Psalm is Solomon's. Nor do I see any reason for rejecting the tradition thus conveyed to us. Delitzsch contends that we find here the marks both of Solomon's style and of Solomon's time ; that the expressions are arranged for the most part in distichs, like the Proverbs ; that the character of the poetry is reflective ; that it is rich in images borrowed from the world of nature. Besides this, the allusion to Sheba and to Tarshish, and even the extent of dominion which it is hoped would be given to the king, all harmonize with the reign of Solomon better than of any other Jewish monarch. Delitzsch admits, as all the soundest expositors have done, that the hopes and aspirations here expressed—so grand and so far-reaching that they are little less than prophecies—find their fulfilment in one greater than Solomon. "These promises were realized in Solomon, but only typically. They expect, therefore, after Solomon their final realization, and that in the Son of David, whom the prophets of the later kingdom foretell." We have here another instance of the way in which prophecy rooted itself in the Jewish soil, how it looked first to the present and then to the future, first to the type and then to the antitype. Calvin observes most justly, and the observation bears upon the interpretation of all the Messianic Psalms : "They who will have this to be simply a prediction of the kingdom of Christ seem to twist the words very violently." P. The Psalm, in highly wrought figurative style, describes the reign of a king as "righteous, universal, beneficent, and perpetual." By the older Jewish and most modern Christian interpreters it has been referred to Christ, whose reign, present and prospective, alone corresponds with its statements. As the imagery of the second Psalm was drawn from the martial character of David's reign, that of this is from the peaceful and prosperous state of Solomon's. Fausset.—A greater than Solomon is here. Solomon may be said to stand in the foreground, in the sense that the imagery is borrowed from him and from his reign, but the glory of this personage is far above that of Solomon; the extent of His dominion is greater; its duration indefinitely longer; its blessedness to His subjects far more deep, rich, abiding. The voice of the most remote antiquity assigns this Psalm to the Messiah. Jarchi says: "The ancient doctors explained these words of the times of the Messiah, and indeed the whole Psalm concerning King Messiah." And all Christian expositors concur with the Jewish doctors. C. The successive sentences of this familiar Psalm are really so many petitions; not, as their English form would seem to imply, so many predictions. Prayer is a form of prophecy; it lives and moves in the region of aspiration and hope, and only on the levels of "inspired thought" does it wield an arm of power. The prophetic or Messianic outlook of this Psalm is not therefore surrendered or questioned when it is read as a royal prayer. It deals with an ideal reign, a vision of hope fully and permanently embodied only in the rule of Jesus Christ. The sovereignty constituting the burden of these earnest supplications is one that is grounded on righteousness, securing peace, guarding the weak and the needy against all forms of tyranny, promoting universal prosperity, covering all lands, and enduring with the present course of nature; a lofty ideal for any government, but one whose sublime aims are realized only in the kingdom of God. The prayer is, therefore, in its inmost heart a prophecy of Jesus Christ. Behrends. The seventy-second Psalm contains a description of an exalted king, and of the blessings of his reign. These blessings are of such a nature as to prove that the subject of the Psalm must be a Divine person. His kingdom is to be everlasting and universal. It secures perfect peace with God and good-will among men. All men are to be brought to submit to Him through love. In Him all the nations of the earth are to be blessed; i.e., as we are distinctly taught in Gal. 3: 16, it is in Him that all the blessings of redemption are to come upon the world. The subject of this Psalm is, therefore, the Redeemer of the world. C. Hodge.—A glowing description of the reign of the Messiah, as righteous (vs. 1-7), universal (vs. 8-11), beneficent (vs. 12-14), perpetual, (vs. 15-17), to which are added a doxology (vs. 18, 19), and a postscript (v. 20). 1. By Solomon. O God, Thy judgments to the king give, and Thy righteousness to the king's son.** The form of expression in the title is precisely the same as in the phrase so often rendered, by David. That it designates the author may be argued not only from this usage, but from the fact that the imagery of the Psalm is as evidently borrowed from the peaceful and brilliant reign of Solomon, as that of the second from the martial and triumphant reign of David. The prayer in this verse is virtually a prediction, as the Psalmist only asks what he knows that God will give. The judicial power, under the theocracy, was exercised in God's name and by His representatives. The Messiah was therefore expected to exhibit this peculiar character in its perfection. By the king and the king's son we are not to understand the descendants and successors of David indefinitely, but the last and greatest of them in particular. 2. This is stated as the necessary consequence of the granting of the prayer in the preceding verse. "Give him Thy righteousness, and then he shall judge," etc. A. 3. The mountains shall bring peace.** The mountains seem to have been built for the human race, as at once their schools and their cathedrals; full of treasures of illuminated manuscript for the scholar, kindly in simple lessons to the worker, quiet in pale cloisters for the thinker, glorious in holiness for the worshipper. The cathedrals of the earth indeed, with their gates of rock, pavements of clouds, choirs of stream and stone, altars of snow, and vaults of purple traversed by the continual stars. Ruskin.—The mountains suggest power and fixedness and duration, rather than love and gentleness. When associated with God, they are used to suggest His might and His eternity. Yet the mountains are used, as here, to set forth the loving-kindness of God. "The mountains bring peace." V. The "mountains" and "hills" are not named as the most unfruitful places of the land, which they really were not in Palestine, nor even because what is on them can be seen everywhere, and from all sides, but as being the most prominent points and ornaments of the country, and therefore as representing it, well fitted to express the thought that the country shall be everywhere filled with peace. Hengstenberg.— In righteousness. The mountains and hills represent the whole land, of which they are the most prominent objects. The whole country will overflow with the peace which is the result of righteousness. Cook. Peace. This is ever represented in Scripture as the fruit of righteousness, and as the great blessing of the times of the Messiah. The King of Righteousness is also King of Peace. (Compare Isa. 2 : 4 ; 9 : 5, 6 ; 11 : 9 ; 65 : 25 ; Micah 4 : 3 ; Zech. 9 : 10.) P. 5. "They," men in general, the masses of the people throughout his wide realm, "shall fear Thee," in reverence and submission, long as the sun shines; literally with the sun—all along continuously with the shining of His sun upon the face of the earth; also before the face of the moon, long as the moon shall wax and wane. So long shall Messiah reign. Inasmuch as the entire scope of this Psalm witnesses that this reign of King Messiah here portrayed is His kingdom on this earth in its present state and constitution, and is neither its future era in heaven itself nor any supposed era of peace upon some new earth, reconstructed both materially and spiritually, therefore we are most plainly taught here that Messiah's reign in the triumphs of truth and love upon this very world of ours and under its present constitution shall be indefinitely long, stretching on and on through untold, unnumbered ages. Beginning with the most positive, vigorous conflict of light against darkness, love against hate, peace against war, righteousness against all oppression, he shall wrest the sceptre of rule from the grasp of Satan, god and prince of this world, and then Himself rule on in the triumphs of truth and love over the very world which Satan had cursed so long. C. "Throughout all generations" shall the throne of the Redeemer stand. Humanity shall not wear out the religion of the Incarnate God. No infidelity shall wither it away, nor superstition smother it. As long as there are men on earth Christ shall have a throne among them. Instead of the fathers shall be the children. Each generation shall have a regeneration in its midst. Even at this hour we have before us the tokens of His eternal power; since He ascended to His throne, eighteen hundred years ago, His dominion has not been overturned, though the mightiest of empires have gone like visions of the night. We see on the shore of time the wrecks of the Cæsars, the relics of the Moguls, and the last remnants of the Ottomans. Charlemagne, Maximilian, Napoleon, how they flit like shadows before us! They were and are not, but Jesus forever is; the Son of David has all hours and ages as His own. S. 6. He shall come down like rain upon mown (grass), like showers, the watering of the earth (or land). This beautiful comparison suggests the idea of a gentle yet refreshing and fertilizing influence, to be exerted by the King, whose reign is here foretold. The word translated showers, by its etymological affinities, suggests the idea of abundance or copiousness. A.—The gracious influence of the monarch and of His righteous sway is strikingly compared to the bountiful shower which freshens the withered herbage, and changes the brown, bare, parched, dusty surface, as by a touch of magic, into one mass of verdure and bloom. We have the same figure in Deut. 32 : 2 ; Job 29 : 22, 23, and Prov. 16 : 15. But the most striking parallel is in the last words of David (2 Sam. 23 : 4), where it is said of one who ruleth righteously and in the fear of God among men, that He is Like the light of the morning when the sun ariseth, A morning without clouds;— From the sunshine, from the rain, the green grass (sprouts) from the earth. P. There cannot be a more lively image of a flourishing condition than is conveyed in these words. The grass which is forced by the heat of the sun before the ground is well prepared by rains is weak and languid, and of a faint complexion; but when clear shining succeeds the gentle showers of spring, the field puts forth its best strength, and is more beautifully arrayed than ever Solomon in all his glory. T. Sherlock. "The mown grass;" literally, "that which is shorn," whether fleece or meadow. In the latter sense the word is found (Amos 7 : 1); and this is indisputably its meaning here, as the parallel shows. The mown meadow is particularly mentioned, because the roots of the grass would be most exposed to the summer heat after the crop had been gathered in, and the effect would be most striking in the shooting of the young green blade after the shower. P. The greatest powers of nature work most calmly and noiselessly. What so gentle as the day-dawn rising mutely in the brightening east, and pouring its light upon the eye so softly that, swift as are those rays, the tenderest texture of the eye endures no wrong? And what more soft than the spring's falling rain? It may come preceded by the thunder, but it is gentle itself, and when most efficacious descends almost as a spiritual presence, "as small rain on the tender herb, and as showers that water the earth." And like to these in their operations are the Gospel and Spirit of Christ. When our Saviour came into the world it was silently and alone. All heaven was moved, and followed Him down to the threshold, but few on earth knew it. One solitary star pointed to the humble birthplace, and hymns sang of it, heard only at night by the watching shepherds. He walked our world through years softly in the bitterness of His soul; He left where the common eye beheld but an ignominious sufferer; and men became aware that the Son of God had come and gone only when the clear light began to break in the eastern sky from that great work of His, and when the open gate of mercy was thrown back, with a cross before it to call the lost and wandering home. And as it was with His descent into the world, so it is with His entrance by the Spirit into the heart. There may be the thunder and the mighty rushing wind before it, the providences may be loud and violent, but the Spirit itself is like the rain. It moves from soul to soul among the rising generations, and there is no outward crisis to tell of the birth of souls. It is like the dew that falls at night, and in the morning it is there, and man cannot tell when it formed itself, like a celestial guest, within the flower-cup. The kingdom of heaven cometh not with observation. And, even in times of revival more marked, for such times are promised and should be expected; yet even in such times, the Spirit's great work is not in the earthquake or the mighty rushing wind, but is in the still small voice. Unless it meet us there, in the secrecy of the soul, in the privacy of the closet, in the rising to seek Christ at His grave in the quiet resurrection morn when the busy world and all the guards are fast asleep, unless it bring the soul into close and secret communion with Christ Himself, it meets us not at all. In His Gospel and His Spirit, Christ is moving through the great inner world which men too much neglect, the world of souls, and there in the solitude of the heart, alone with Him, it must be ours to seek and find. Ker. The Church, without the manifestations of Christ's presence and grace, is, like the mown grass, languishing for heaven's moisture. Favored with these manifestations, it is like a field which the Lord hath blessed. And we are warranted to look for gracious visitations to the Church. The text is not to be regarded as a prophecy pertaining merely to the future, but as a statement which has been verified already in the history of the Church, and which may be verified in like manner at the present day. When Christ is to come down for the refreshment of His people, like rain upon the mown grass, it will generally be found that they have been stirred up earnestly to desire and long for His manifestations; that they have been excited to the exercises of deep repentance and prayer; that they have set themselves to walk before Him according to all the appointments of His Word; that they have been brought to give greater honor to the Spirit and His work than they were accustomed to do before, and to feel more deeply their absolute dependence upon His gracious operations. A. B. Davidson. 7. In His days shall the righteous flourish;** righteousness shall be practised, and those that practise righteousness shall be preferred. Righteousness shall abound and be in reputation, shall command and be in power. The law of Christ written in the heart disposes men to be honest and just and to render to all their due; it likewise disposes men to live in love; and so it produces abundance of peace and beats swords into ploughshares. Both holiness and love shall be perpetual in Christ's kingdom and shall never go to decay, for the subjects of it shall fear God as long as the sun and moon endure. Christianity, having got footing in the world, shall keep its ground till the end of time, and having got footing in the heart, it will continue there till by death the sun and the moon and the stars—that is, the bodily senses, are darkened. Through all the changes of the world and all the changes of life Christ's kingdom will support itself; and if the fear of God continues as long as the sun and moon, abundance of peace will. The peace of the Church, the peace of the soul, shall run parallel with its purity and piety, and last as long as these last. H. Abundance of peace, literally, "multitude of peace"—that is, the things which produce peace, or which indicate peace, they will abound everywhere. They will be found in towns and villages and private dwellings; in the calm and just administration of the affairs of the State; in abundant harvests; in intelligence, in education, and undisturbed industry; in the protection of the rights of all. Barnes. 8. The desire for the uninterrupted felicity of the righteous under this king is followed by the desire for the unlimited expansion of his dominion. The sea (the Mediterranean) and the river are geographically defined starting points, whence the determination of the boundaries stretches away into the unlimited. Even upon his accession to the throne Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the Euphrates to the confines of Egypt; but the desires expressed here transcend these limits. 9,10. The nomadic tribes right and left of the Arabian Gulf reverently bend the knee before Him; and they that oppose Him must ultimately hide their face before Him in the dust. The most distant west and south become subject and tributary to Him; the kings of Tarshish in the south of Spain, which was rich in silver, and of the islands of the Mediterranean and of the countries on its coasts, the kings also of the South Arabian and of the Cushite. D. 10. The proper names in this verse are mere specimens or samples of the nations generally. Tarshish is mentioned, both as a well-known mart or source of wealth, and as a representative of the extreme west. The islands, agreeably to Hebrew usage, include all distant sea-coasts, but particularly those of the Mediterranean. The distant south is represented, in like manner, by Sheba, a province of Arabia Felix, and Seba, now commonly supposed to be Meroe, a part of ancient Ethiopia, both famous for their wealth and commerce. The obvious allusion to the Queen of Sheba's visit to Jerusalem is another stroke in this prophetic picture evidently borrowed from the times of Solomon. A.—Tarshish, in all probability the same as the Greek Tartessus, a great naval mart, and, according to Arrian, a colony of the Phoenicians, in the south of Spain. It traded with Tyre in silver, iron, tin, and lead (Ezek. 27 : 12). Tarshish and the isles, "the empires on the shores of the Mediterranean," are here mentioned as representatives of all the great maritime and commercial countries of the world. "Seba," first mentioned as among the sons of Cush (Gen. 10 : 7), and joined with Egypt and Cush (Ethiopia) in Isa. 43 : 3, "a nation of Africa, bordering on or included in Cush, and in Solomon's time independent, and of political importance." P. "The kings of Tarshish and of the isles shall bring presents." Trade shall be made subservient to the purposes of mediatorial rule; merchant princes, both far and near, shall joyfully contribute of their wealth to his throne. Seafaring places are good centres from which to spread the Gospel; and seafaring men often make earnest heralds of the cross. Tarshish of old was so far away, that to the Eastern mind it was lost in its remoteness, and seemed to be upon the verge of the universe; even so far as imagination itself can travel shall the Son of David rule. S. 11. And to Him shall all kings bow (or pros- trate themselves), all nations shall serve Him. The act described in the first clause is one expressive both of civil homage and religious worship. The same thing is true of the verb in the last clause, which may be applied either to the civil service of a sovereign by his subjects, or to the religious service of a deity by his worshippers. In this case, as in v. 10, both were meant to be included. A.—The extent of the mediatorial rule is set forth by the two far-reaching alls, all kings and all nations; we see not as yet all things put under Him, but since we see Jesus crowned with glory and honor in heaven, we are altogether without doubt as to His universal monarchy on earth. "Every knee shall bow to Him, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Hasten it, O Lord, in Thine own time. S. 12-14. The reason is given why all kings and nations should thus do homage to Him who sits on David's throne. He has merited such submission by the exercise of every royal virtue, by the justice and the mercy of His sway, by His deep sympathy with and compassion for the poor, by the protection which He extends to them against the ministers of fraud and violence. It is not that He merely covers with the shadow of His throne all neighboring nations, and is acknowledged as their political head, but that the bright example which He sets, the majesty of righteousness enthroned in His person, compels all to bow before Him. P.—It is because He fills the Divine and most perfect idea of a moral sovereign, administering justice with faultless impartiality, and forevermore befriending the oppressed as against His oppressor. Under His reign each needy one, crying for help, is heard and saved. Their blood is precious in His eyes. No harm done to them or attempted can escape His swift retribution. The strong, it is assumed, can take care of themselves; the weak, defenceless ones are objects of His care; He rules for their protection and salvation. To right the wrongs of this long time sin-cursed earth is His special mission. Be His name praised forever for all this! So the Psalmist proceeds to say. C. 15. Prayer also shall be made for Him continually; and daily shall He be praised.** It might have been rendered, "Prayer also shall be made through Him continually, and daily shall He be blessed." The word is rendered "blessed," when speaking of an act of worship toward God; and the word translated "for" is sometimes used for "through." Edwards. Who, with the Word of God in his hand, but must feel that an era of enlarged Christian liberality is hastening on? Prophecy is full of it. As often almost as she opens her lips on the subject of Messiah's reign, the consecration of the world's wealth forms part of her song. "To Him shall be given of the gold of Sheba." "The merchandise of Tyre shall be holiness to the Lord; it shall not be treasured nor laid up." "Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God." Wealth, which for so many ages had robbed Him of His glory, and which in so many idolatrous forms had been erected in His stead, shall be brought to His altar, and employed as the fuel of a sacrifice in which the heart shall ascend as incense before Him. It will then be felt that the highest use to which wealth can be applied is to employ it for God; that this is the only way to dignify that which is intrinsically mean; to turn that which is perishing into unfading crowns and imperishable wealth. J. Harris. 16. According to the more ancient view, the verse contains a beautiful antithesis between the small beginnings and the vast results of the Messiah's kingdom, not unlike that suggested by our Saviour's parable of the grain of mustard seed. This exegetical analogy, together with the striking character imparted to the verse by this interpretation, are sufficient to entitle it to the preference, even without regard to its antiquity and traditional authority. A. The idea is that the whole country should be one bright sunny picture of gladness and fertility, the corn-fields being seen not only in the valleys, but rising, terrace above terrace, along the mountain-sides, till they reach their summits. The rustling of the corn-fields in the wind is compared to the rustling of the cedars of Lebanon, so thick shall the corn stand, so rich shall be the harvest. P. Under His government there shall be a wonderful increase both of meat and mouths, both of the fruits of the earth in the country, and of the people inhabiting the cities. Even upon the tops of the mountains the earth shall bring forth by handfuls; that is an expression of great plenty (Gen. 41: 47); as the grass upon the housetop is said to be that wherewith the mower fills not his hand. This is applicable to the wonderful productions of the seed of the Gospel in the days of the Messiah. A handful of that seed, sown in the mountainous and barren soil of the Gentile world, produced a wonderful harvest gathered into Christ, fruit that shook like Lebanon. The fields were white to the harvest (John 4: 35). The grain of mustard-seed grew up to a great tree. The towns shall grow populous. They of the city shall flourish like grass, for number, for verdure. The Gospel Church, the city of God among men, shall have all the marks of prosperity, many shall be added to it, and those that are shall be happy in it. H. "Shall flourish like grass." The peculiar characters of the grass, which adapt it especially for the service of man, are its apparent humility and cheerfulness. Its humility, in that it seems created only for lowest service—appointed to be trodden on and fed upon. Its cheerfulness, in that it seems to exult under all kinds of violence and suffering. You roll it, and it is stronger next day; you mow it, and it multiplies its shoots, as if it were grateful; you tread upon it, and it only sends up richer perfume. Spring comes, and it rejoices with all the earth—glowing with variegated flame of flowers—waving in soft depth of fruitful strength. Ruskin. 17. The Redeemer of the world is Jehovah. The coming of Jehovah is the centre of the Old Testament proclamation of salvation. A parable may be illustrative of the manner in which the Old Testament proclamation of salvation is gradually developed. In relation to the day of the New Testament the Old Testament is night. During this night there mount up two stars of promise in opposite directions. The one describes its path from above downward; it is the promise of Jehovah who is about to come. The other describes its path from below upward; it is the hope which is reposed in the seed of David, the prophecy of the Son of David, which is at first altogether human and only earthly. These two stars meet at last, they blend together into one constellation; the night vanishes and it is day. This one constellation is Jesus Christ, Jehovah and David's Son in one person, the King of Israel and at the same time the Redeemer of the world; in one word, the God-man. D. 18, 19. Blessed (be) Jehovah, God, the God of Israel, doing wonders alone, and blessed (be) His glorious name to eternity, and filled with His glory be the whole earth. Amen and Amen. This is commonly explained as a doxology belonging, not to this Psalm, but to the second book, of which it marks the close. But as the Psalm would end somewhat abruptly with the foregoing verse, and as this addition carries out the idea there expressed, by giving, as it were, the very words in which the nations shall pronounce Him blessed, we have reason to believe that the doxology was added by the author, and that this conclusion of the Psalm was not the effect but the occasion of its being placed at the close of one of the traditional divisions of the psalter. The wish in the second clause of v. 19 is borrowed from the promise in Num. 14 : 21, of which this whole Psalm is in fact a prolonged echo. A. To the Lord Jehovah, the covenant God of Israel, be all the glory of this kingdom, all the honor for giving to Israel and to the wide world this munificent and perfect Sovereign! He only and He alone performs such wondrous works. Let His glorious name be blessed forever, and the whole earth be vocal with His praises, full of His glory! This rich doxology rounds out to its fit completion this magnificent Psalm, and also fitly closes the second Book of Psalms as originally compiled. C. "Amen" is a short word, but marvellously full of sense, full of spirit. It is a word that seals all the truths of God, that seals every particular promise of God. Sibbes. 20. Ended are the prayers of David, Son of Jesse. The position of this sentence after the doxology, and its prosaic form, show that it forms no part of the Psalm, but relates to the whole series preceding. It does not, therefore, prove, as some suppose, that Solomon was not the author of the seventy-second Psalm, since this exception and a very few others could not prevent the collection being called the prayers of David. In like manner, the whole Psalter is still called the Psalms of David by many who believe it to contain some Psalms by other writers. On the whole, it is most probable that these words were added to the first great subdivision of the whole collection, as entirely composed of Psalms by David and his contemporaries, with a few added to them on account of some marked similarity in form or substance. A. Two Psalms bear Solomon's name in their titles. One of these is the hundred and twenty-seventh, the other is the seventy-second; and here the traces of his pen are unequivocal. A mistaken interpretation of the note appended to it, "The prayers of David the Son of Jesse are ended," led most of the old commentators to attribute the Psalm to David, and to suppose that it is a prayer offered in his old age "for Solomon," as the peaceful prince who was to succeed him on the throne. However, it has long been known that the note in question refers to the whole of the preceding portion of the Psalter, much of which was written by Asaph and the sons of Korah; and there can be no doubt that the title can only be translated, "of Solomon." Binnie. The title "prayers" is not borrowed from the inscriptions of the Psalms, for only one in this collection, the seventeenth, is expressly styled "a prayer." In the later books a few other Psalms are entitled "Prayers." But here the title, as a general title, is justified by the contents of most of the Psalms. Psalms, it is true, like the first, the second, the thirty-third, the thirty-seventh, contain no address to God, and many others, which contain petitions and supplications, are not throughout in the form of prayers. And yet, if prayer be the eye of the heart turned toward God, then each Psalm is a prayer, just as Hannah's song of praise is styled a prayer. Thus the very names of the Psalms, "Praises and Prayers," not only tell us what they are, but remind us in the language of the apostle, "In everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, to make known our requests unto God." P. Jean Paul Richter says of the Christ: "The holiest among the mighty and the mightiest among the holy! With His pierced hand He lifted empires off their hinges and turned the stream of centuries out of its channel; and He still governs the ages." How beautifully and how faithfully does this Psalm picture the characteristics of the Redeemer's kingdom—peace, righteousness, justice, compassion, the relief of suffering, the redress of wrongs, the overthrow of evil! Where the principles of Christ prevail in society and government, there is peace, plenty, prosperity; oppression is broken; violence and deceit are banished; the poor are cared for, the needy succored; industry and commerce flourish; the hills are clothed with corn, the cities thrive as with the verdure of spring. Blessed be God that this kingdom of Christ is yet to prevail in all the earth! "The most uncivilized, the most distant, and the most opulent nations shall pay their homage to Him; the barbarous inhabitants of the desert, the remote isles of the west, and the kings of rich Arabia (Sheba) and Ethiopia (Seba), shall lie prostrate in homage at His feet." J. P. T. The biblical conception of the heavenly kingdom cannot fail to provoke to patience, liberality, and hope. The task to whose execution we are summoned is exceptionally vast, and the movement is correspondingly slow. The birth of the millennium is not the work of a day. Two thousand years of Christian endeavor, centuries of patience and suffering, are behind every church and school in Christendom, underneath every Christian home; and yet some men look doubtfully on modern missions, with its half a million communicants gathered in half a century, because forsooth, civilizations that have in them the fibre of thousands of years, the spirit of long and proud ancestries, the inspiration of great names and great literatures, have not been forced to surrender in a picket warfare of only fifty years. We have as yet only sent out the advanced scouts and the single riflemen; Christendom must yet move in solid and serried columns for the conquest of the East. There is coming a clash of civilizations, taxing all the energies and resources of the Church of God. As in the early summer there comes a time when the young buds, rocked through all the long winter in their tiny cradles, lifeless to all appearance, burst their frail enclosures and transfigure in one short week the whole face of nature, so may God be stirring in the preparatory measures of the present, until the world's summer shall rise, a nation be born in a day, the frail hindrances all give way and the whole earth be rapidly transfigured into newness of life. For the Divine preparations, both in nature and history, are always varied and hidden and slow; the culminations are always rapid and startling. Yet are the latter only the outcome of forces that were repressed but regnant, until the clock of time had proclaimed the hour of noon. Victory is coming; slowly perhaps—as men count slackness—but none the less surely and solidly. Open your souls to the inspiration of this thought! Let this breath from heaven swell every purpose, and fling out for its welcome every inch of canvas you can command! There is a great future for the Church and the world. We quarry and hew and chisel, under the Divine direction, for a building that is silently rising to be an holy temple unto the Lord, covering the earth with its ample dimensions, filling the highest heavens with its imperishable glory, gathering and garnering within its broad spaces the wealth of all the generations. Who would not be a citizen of this kingkingdom! Who will not take an active part in so great, so blessed, so imperishable a work! Behrends. No portion of the Hebrew Scriptures has transfused its spirit into the Christian Church more completely than the Book of Psalms. The first Christians seem to have found in it an adequate expression of their deepest feelings. Eliciting its spiritual meanings and interpreting its doctrinal teaching under the light of a perfect revelation, they adopted the Psalter as the foundation and the model of their devotions. The Fathers saw in every Psalm distinct utterances of the Spirit of Christ. They did not, indeed, hold that the individuality of the Psalmist, of David especially, was altogether suppressed; or that the words uttered by him did not give true expression to the movements of his own spirit; but they believed that they were overruled so as to become at the same time true utterances of the Spirit of Christ. . . . The Psalter emptied of Christ would still be a collection of lyric poems of admirable beauty, breathing a pure and lofty devotion, representing in vivid colors the events and persons of the most remarkable people in the world's history. It would retain its position among the noblest and most interesting products of human genius. But to the Christian, as such, it would have no voice, no meaning; losing its highest and most distinctive characteristic, it would forfeit its claims upon his reverence and love. Cook. If one wished that the best of all saintly legends, the finest of all exemplars and histories should be called out, set in order, and presented in the best way, it could be none other than our present Psalter. For we find here, not what one or two saints have done, but what the chief of saints himself has done, and what all the saints still do; how they stand toward God, toward friends and enemies; how they act in all dangers and suffering; and we find, besides, all kinds of wholesome doctrines and commands. And the Psalter should be dear and cherished because it so clearly foretells Christ's death and resurrection, His kingdom and the whole estate and nature of Christianity. So that we may well call it a little Bible. Luther. # Date Due | S 11 '39 | | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | My 16 '45 | | | | | | | | | | D 3 '46 | | | | | DE 13 '48 | | | | | AG 21 '53 | | | | | MAY 20 '54 | | | | | JUN 15 '55 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | THE THE REVISED TEXT; WITH COMMENTS SELECTED FROM THE CHOICEST, MOST ILLUMINATING AND HELPFUL THOUGHT OF THE CHRISTIAN CENTURIES, TAKEN FROM EIGHT HUNDRED DEVOUT SCHOLARS. "What the heart is in man, that the Psalter is in the Bible." Arndt.—"The Psalms may well be the heart, they are so full of sweet affections and passions. In other Scriptures God speaks to us, but in the Psalms men speak to God and to their own hearts." Gibbes.—"We cannot pray the Psalms without having our hearts opened, our affections enlarged, our thoughts drawn heavenward. He who can pray them best is nearest to God, knows most of the Spirit of Christ, is ripest for heaven."—Bishop Perowne. 1892. | Psalm | LXXIII., | PAGE | | --- | --- | --- | | “ | LXXIV., | 5 | | “ | LXXV., | 19 | | “ | LXXVI., | 25 | | “ | LXXVII., | 28 | | “ | LXXVIII., | 32 | | “ | LXXIX., | 40 | | “ | LXXX., | 47 | | “ | LXXX., | 50 | | “ | LXXXI., | 53 | | “ | LXXXII., | 59 | | “ | LXXXIII., | 63 | | “ | LXXXIV., | 66 | | “ | LXXXV., | 74 | | “ | LXXXVI., | 79 | | “ | LXXXVII., | 85 | | “ | LXXXVIII., | 91 | | “ | LXXXIX., | 93 | | Psalm | XC., | 103 | | --- | --- | --- | | “ | XCI., | 118 | | “ | XCH., | 125 | | “ | XCHI., | 131 | | “ | XCIV., | 134 | | “ | XCV., | 140 | | “ | XCVI., | 148 | | “ | XCVII., | 154 | | “ | XCVIII., | 160 | | “ | XCIX., | 162 | | “ | C., | 167 | | “ | CI., | 169 | | “ | CII., | 173 | | “ | CIII., | 179 | | “ | CIV., | 189 | | “ | CV., | 205 | | “ | CVI., | 210 | | Psalm | CVII., | 215 | | --- | --- | --- | | “ | CVIII., | 224 | | “ | CIX., | 225 | | “ | CX., | 231 | iv | | | PAGE | | --- | --- | --- | | Psalm | CXI., | 242 | | “ | CXII., | 248 | | “ | CXIII., | 255 | | “ | CXIV., | 257 | | “ | CXV., | 259 | | “ | CXVI., | 263 | | “ | CXVII., | 276 | | “ | CXVIII., | 277 | | “ | CXIX., 1-16, | 284 | | “ | “ 17-32, | 294 | | “ | “ 33-48, | 301 | | “ | “ 49-64, | 309 | | “ | “ 65-80, | 315 | | “ | “ 81-96, | 322 | | “ | “ 97-112, | 329 | | “ | “ 113-128, | 336 | | “ | “ 129-144, | 341 | | “ | “ 145-160, | 349 | | “ | “ 161-176. | 352 | | “ | CXX., | 360 | | “ | CXXI., | 363 | | “ | CXXII., | 368 | | “ | CXXIII., | 372 | | “ | CXXIV., | 374 | | “ | CXXV., | 377 | | “ | CXXVI., | 380 | | “ | CXXVII., | 386 | | “ | CXXVIII., | 391 | | “ | CXXIX., | 396 | | “ | CXXX., | 399 | | “ | CXXXI., | 406 | | “ | CXXXII., | 410 | | “ | CXXXIII., | 415 | | “ | CXXXIV., | 420 | | “ | CXXXV., | 422 | | “ | CXXXVI., | 425 | | “ | CXXXVII., | 430 | | “ | CXXXVIII., | 435 | | “ | CXXXIX., | 440 | | “ | CXL., | 453 | | “ | CXLI., | 454 | | “ | CXLII., | 459 | | “ | CXLIII., | 461 | | “ | CXLIV., | 467 | | “ | CXLV., | 470 | | “ | CXLVI., | 479 | | “ | CXLVII., | 484 | | “ | CXLVIII., | 491 | | “ | CXLIX., | 496 | | “ | CL., | 500 | NOTE.—A few changes have been made in the Revised Text, mainly in accordance with the rendering preferred by the American Committee; and some variant readings have been added in parenthesis. B. 1. SURELY God is good to Israel, Even to such as are pure in heart. 2. But as for me, my feet were almost gone; My steps had well nigh slipped. 3. For I was envious at the arrogant, When I saw the prosperity of the wicked. 4. For there are no bands [pangs] in their death: But their strength is firm. 5. They are not in trouble as other men; Neither are they plagued like other men. 6. Therefore pride is as a chain about their neck; Violence covereth them as a garment. 7. Their eyes stand out with fatness: They have more than heart could wish. 8. They scoff, and in wickedness utter oppression: They speak loftily. 9. They have set their mouth in the heavens, And their tongue walketh through the earth. 10. Therefore his people return hither: And waters of a full cup are wrung out by them. 11. And they say, How doth God know? And is there knowledge in the Most High? 12. Behold, these are the wicked; And, being alway at ease, they increase in riches. 13. Surely in vain have I cleansed my heart, And washed my hands in innocency; 14. For all the day long have I been plagued And chastened every morning. 15. If I had said, I will speak thus; Behold, I had dealt treacherously with the generation of thy children. 16. When I thought how I might know this, It was too painful for me; 17. Until I went into the sanctuary of God, And considered their latter end. 18. Surely thou settest them in slippery places: Thou castest them down to destruction. 19. How are they become a desolation in a moment! They are utterly consumed with terrors. 20. As a dream when one awaketh; So, O Lord, when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. 21. For my heart was grieved, And I was pricked in my reins: 22. So brutish was I, and ignorant; I was as a beast before thee. 23. Nevertheless I am continually with thee: Thou hast holden my right hand. 24. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, And afterward receive me to glory. 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. 26. My flesh and my heart faileth: But God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever. 27. For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: Thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee. 28. But it is good for me to draw near unto God: I have made the Lord God my refuge, That I may tell of all thy works. THE Psalms in the Third Book differ in some important points from the preceding. Eleven are attributed to Asaph, four to the sons of Korah, one to Ethan, and one only to David. Their character is for the most part didactic, grave, solemn, and sententious. They are pervaded by a deep feeling of melancholy, relieved, however, by flashes of spiritual hope; containing at once the most harrowing descriptions of national calamities, and the clearest anticipations of a futurity of blessedness. It is observable that from the forty-second to the eighty-fourth Psalms the name Elohim is used almost exclusively. This is conclusive against the assumption that such an usage indicates an early date, for these Psalms, with very few exceptions, belong to the post-Davidic period, and are even assigned in part by some critics to a far later age. Psalm 73. This Psalm may have been composed by Asaph, the contemporary of David, but the name appears to have been borne by some of his descendants. The indications of date are uncertain. The progress or triumph of ungodliness is a feature common to every age, nor are the complaints stronger than those found in the Psalms of David. The apostasy of which the Psalmist speaks is rather moral than ceremonial; the unbelief rather of practical atheism than of heathenish superstition. The sanctuary is still standing (v. 17), the Psalmist goes there for instruction and comfort. The belief in a future retribution is definite (v. 24), not like that of Job, a strong aspiration, or even subjective conviction, but based on the Divine promise. The language is archaic, and the style somewhat obscure, resembling to some extent the Book of Job, with which the author was evidently familiar. Upon the whole it appears most probable that we have here a product of the Solomonian age, written at a season when a turbulent and corrupt nobility had the upper hand, and vicious habits were taking deep root in the nation. A few years before the death of Solomon, or the period immediately following the accession of his son, would supply abundant materials for such reflections. Cook. The same problems that are discussed in Psalms 37, 49, and in the Book of Job, are treated here, and with similar solution. But the vindication of God's ways by Asaph is more satisfactory, and the confidence and joy in God are more explicit than we find in Job. Indeed the veil that conceals the heavenly world was lifted before him. Everything seemed bright and clear for the future to one who could say, "Thou wilt guide me by Thy counsel, and thereafter receive me into glory." De Witt. Perhaps no man ever looked thoughtfully on the world as it is, without seeing much that was hard to reconcile with a belief in the love and wisdom of God. One form of this moral difficulty pressed heavily upon the pious Jew under the old dispensation. It was this: Why should good men suffer, and bad men prosper? The law told him that God was a righteous Judge, meting out to men in this world the due recompense of their deeds. The course of the world, where those who had cast off the fear of God were rich and powerful, made him ready to question this truth, and was a serious stumbling-block to his faith. This is the perplexity which appears in this Psalm, as it does in the thirty-seventh, and also in the Book of Job. Substantially it is the same problem; but it is met differently. In the thirty-seventh Psalm the advice given is to wait, to trust in Jehovah, and to rest assured that in the end the seeming disorder will be set right even in this world. The wicked will perish, the enemies of Jehovah be cut off, and the righteous will be preserved from evil, and inherit the land. Thus God suffers wickedness for a time, only the more signally to manifest His righteousness in overthrowing it. That is the first, the simplest, the most obvious solution of the difficulty. In this Psalm the conclusion is in part the same as that in Psalm 37, in part it is far higher. The Psalmist here is not content merely with visible retribution in this world. He sees it, indeed, in the case of the ungodly. When he was tempted to envy their lot, when he had all but yielded to the sophistry of those who would have persuaded him to be even as they, the temptation was subdued by the reflection that such prosperity came to an end as sudden as it was terrible. But he does not place over against this, on the other side, an earthly portion of honor and happiness for the just. Their portion is in God. He is the stay and the satisfaction of their hearts now. He will take them to Himself and to glory hereafter. This conviction it is which finally chases away the shadows of doubt, and brings light and peace into his soul. And this conviction is the more remarkable, because it is reached in spite of the distinct promise made of temporal recompense to piety, and in the absence of a full and definite revelation with regard to the life to come. In the clear light of another world and its certain recompenses, such perplexities either vanish or lose much of their sharpness. When we confess that God's righteousness has a larger theatre for its display than this world and the years of man, we need not draw hasty conclusions from "the slight whisper" of His ways which reaches us here. P. Psalm 73 might have been written at any point from David to Ezra. The writer had seen the wicked prosper apparently more than the righteous, and he was sorely troubled. He sets before us their ungodly pride; their unaccountable prosperity; and his own perplexity and distress over this strange problem, until he went into God's sanctuary and there saw their fearful end portrayed. This relieves his mind of its difficulty, and suggests the far different end of the righteous—amid the glories of which his song closes. The difficulty which troubled Asaph has troubled other minds in every age. The facts which he saw in the open world before him may be seen anywhere, in every age. It is, however, only the first or surface view of things which makes the trouble. Asaph at first tacitly assumed not only that retribution from God for the sins of men ought to be finished and made perfect in this present life, laying over nothing to be evened up in the world to come, but also that it ought to be kept good and perfect all along, step by step, day by day, so that an observer, dropping his eyes upon God's ways toward men at any point would see justice meted out promptly with no delay and with unvarying perfection. But this assumption is without foundation. Such retribution, immediate and perfect, is not God's way. His ways take time for their complete unfolding. Manifestly He proposes to bear long with the wicked in order to make full proof of the power of forbearance and love upon human hearts to bring them to repentance. And if, as we see here, this system of forbearance and delay of retribution involves some moral trial to the righteous as well as to the wicked, God does not for that reason reject it, but finds use for it in a system wisely constructed for the largest discipline of moral probation. In this line lie the moral lessons of the Psalm before us. C. The seventy-third Psalm is a very striking record of the mental struggle which an eminently pious Jew underwent, when he contemplated the respective conditions of the righteous and the wicked. Fresh from the conflict, he somewhat abruptly opens the Psalm with the confident enunciation of the truth of which victory over doubt had now made him more and more intelligently sure than ever, that "God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart." And then he relates the most fatal shock which his faith had received, when he contrasted the prosperity of the wicked, who, though they proudly condemned God and man, prospered in the world and increased in riches, with his own lot, who, though he had cleansed his heart and washed his hands in innocency, had been "plagued all the day long and chastened every morning." The place where his doubts were removed and his tottering faith re-established, was "the sanctuary of God." God Himself was the Teacher. The true estimate at which he afterward arrived is found in vs. 18-20. T. T. Perowne. For awhile the Psalmist's faith is staggered, is almost overthrown; but in the house of God, having acquired that clear sight and serene gaze usual when a soul in its sorrow betakes itself to trustful and submissive communion with God, he obtains a glimpse of God's higher and grander purposes. He sees that the great possession of the righteous, and the high reward bestowed on them, is the favor of God and communion with Him—an inheritance reaching up to a future life, and there only unfolding the fulness of its treasures. At length, therefore, peace returns to him, and he looks hopefully forward to that glorious, eternal future. B. and F. Evangelical Review. 1. Remarkably the Psalm opens by affirming the conclusion which he reaches at the end. It is as if he would say: Though, as I am about to show you, my mind has labored long and most painfully over this perplexing problem, yet I have come at last most fully to this conclusion, God is surely good to His true Israel. He would have us remember that by "Israel" He means only the pure in heart. C. 4. No bands in their death. We must remember that the Psalmist is describing here not the fact, but what seemed to him to be the fact, in a state of mind which he confesses to have been unhealthy. No fetters are, so to speak, laid upon their limbs, so that they should be delivered over bound to their great enemy. They are not beset with sorrows, sufferings, miseries, which by impairing health and strength bring them to death. P.—They are of those who die in their full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet. Nay, they are not bound by the terrors of conscience in their dying moments, they are not frightened either with remembrance of their sins or the prospect of their misery, but die securely. We cannot judge of men's state on the other side death, either by the manner of their death, or the frame of their spirits in dying. H. The notion is still prevalent that a quiet death means a happy hereafter. The Psalmist had observed that the very reverse is true. Careless persons become hardened, and continue presumptuously secure even to the last. S. —Moral character, and not the uncertain and perhaps involuntary experience in dying, is the one factor that decides our state and destiny in the coming world. Character is the resultant of living, not the upshot of a dying hour. Faith, repentance, consecration, service, discipline, love, and prayer, enter largely into it, and mould and give it expression and vital force. Death simply completes life's work, and puts upon our matured character, be it good or evil, the impress of eternity. What we sow in time, and that only, we shall reap in eternity. Sherwood. These men seem exempt not only from the frailties and infirmities of men, but even from the common lot of men. P.—The prosperous wicked escape the killing toils which afflict the mass of mankind; their bread comes to them without care, their wine without stint. Ordinary domestic and personal troubles do not appear to molest them. While many saints are both poor and afflicted, the prosperous sinner is neither. He is worse than other men, and yet he is better off. S. 6. Pride ties on their chain, or necklace. It is no harm to wear a chain or necklace; but when pride ties it on, when it is worn to gratify a vain mind, it ceases to be an ornament. It is not so much what the dress or apparel is, as what principle ties it on and with what spirit it is worn. H. 7. In the last clause the marginal version, "They pass the thoughts of the heart," comes nearer to the true sense. The imaginations of their heart, in the sense of their wicked devices, overflow from their very abundance. The original words seem to demand this construction. C.—There is no felicity in what the world adores; that wherein God Himself is happy, and the holy angels are happy, and in whose defect the devils are unhappy, that dare I call happiness; whatsoever the world terms happiness is to me an apparition or neat delusion, wherein there is no more of happiness than the name. Browne. 10. Therefore He brings back His people hither, and waters of fulness are wrung out to them (or drained by them). This obscure verse admits of several interpretations, the most natural of which understands the sense to be, that God still suffers or requires His people to survey the painful spectacle and drain the bitter draught presented by the undisturbed prosperity of wicked men. A.—Though beloved of God, they have to drain the bitter cup; their sorrows are as full as the wicked man's prosperity. It grieves them greatly to see the enemies of God so high and themselves so low, yet the Lord does not alter His dispensations, but continues still to chasten His children and indulge His foes. The medicine cup is not for rebels, but for those whom Jehovah Rophi loves. S. 11. This must express the misgivings of God's people, with respect to the providential inequalities in question. When still brought back to the sight of these, they are constrained to ask how they can possibly be reconciled with the hypothesis of God's omniscience. Nothing can be more appropriate in the mouth of a perplexed and tempted believer than the question, How can God know this and yet suffer it? 12. Lo, these are wicked (men), and (yet they are) secure forever, they increase strength (or substance). These are still the words of the perplexed believer, expressing his surprise at the prosperity of sinners. A.—Here is the standing enigma! The stumbling-block of faith? Here are the unjust rewarded and indulged, and that not for a day or an hour, but in perpetuity. Money runs to money, gold pieces fly in flocks; the rich grow richer, the proud grow prouder. Lord, how is this? Thy poor servants, who become yet poorer, and groan under their burdens, are made to wonder at Thy mysterious ways. S. 13. Only (in) vain have I cleansed my heart, and in innocence have washed my hands. These may be taken either indefinitely as the words of any person in the painful situation just described, or more specifically as the words of the Psalmist, by whom the whole class was in fact represented. They contain the inference which would be naturally drawn in such a situation, even by a true believer, but one tempted to repine and doubt by the sight of providential enigmas. "Since the wicked enjoy God's favor, all my endeavors to avoid sin are fruitless." 14. The Psalmist here contrasts his own afflictions with the undisturbed enjoyments of his wicked neighbors. "While they, though wicked, still increase in wealth and seem secure forever, I, who have faithfully endeavored to avoid sin and to do the will of God, am subjected, every day and all day, to privation and distress." A.—That I have made my heart pure and washed my hands morally clean is altogether in vain, bringing me no adequate reward. For I have been vexed and scourged all the day long and chastened every morning. I see no such hard lot befalling the wicked. His heart-troubles and perplexities have reached their maximum. C.—His afflictions were great, he was chastened and plagued; the returns of them were constant, every morning with the morning, and they continued without intermission all the day long. This he thought was very hard, that when those who blasphemed God were in prosperity, he that worshipped God was under such great affliction. He spake feelingly when he spake of his own troubles; there is no disputing against sense, except by faith. 15-20. We have seen what a strong temptation the Psalmist was in to envy prospering profaneness; now here we are told how he kept his footing and got the victory. H. 15. Speak thus. Thus declare, i.e., publicly express my doubts and sceptical misgivings. This, as it has been well observed, the true believer never does until he is able to announce his conflict and his victory together. The generation of Thy sons, the contemporary race of true believers, called the sons of God, not only as the objects of His love, but as partakers of His nature. Treated perfidiously, proved false to them, by weakening the foundation of their hope, instead of strengthening their faith and allaying their misgivings. A.—I do God's Church a great deal of injury, which hath always been under afflictions, if I think or say that all her piety hath been without hope, or her hope without effect. Diodati. 15-17. God does not judge men in the hasty way in which we judge them. His counsel takes in other ends than merely to make the righteous happy and the unrighteous unhappy. He has a purpose in His forbearance with the guilty. He endures with much long-suffering and does them good continually that He may bring them to Himself. He has a purpose in the painful discipline He often appoints the godly; to make them purer, holier, stronger men. A. Mackennal. Asaph was embarrassed by the difficulties which the prosperity of the ungodly presents at first sight to every earnest student of the laws of the Divine government of the world. The phenomenon had almost driven him into scepticism: "My feet had almost swerved," he says, "my treadings had well-nigh slipped" (v. 2). Thus for a time it seemed to the Psalmist, who had been "punished" through the long day of life, and chastened morning by morning, that "he had cleansed his heart in vain, and washed his hands in innocency" (v. 13). Yet to speak thus, he felt, was to offend against the generation of God's children. It was to abandon their cause to the despair of unbelief. This conviction held him in suspense till he "went into the sanctuary of God, and thought on the latter end of the ungodly." H. P. L. 16. And I meditated to know this; a trouble (was) it in my eyes. Although he abstained from openly expressing what he thought, he still did think, he pondered the whole matter, with a view to understand it, to discover some solution of the mystery, which not only puzzled but distressed him. The apparent inequality of God's providential dealings was a toil, a trouble, an unhappiness, in his esteem. A.—A trouble or a weariness, as of a great burden laid upon me. Thought could not solve the problem. The brain grew wearier and the heart heavier. Light and peace come to us, not by thinking, but by faith. "In Thy light we shall see light." God Himself was the teacher. P. 17. Then understood I their end. This does not exactly mean the termination of their life, but as the word literally signifies, their after destiny, their ultimate portion. Up to the end of their life, as he points out in the first place (v. 4), they are supposed to be prosperous. (Compare Prov. 23: 17, 18.) The retribution must therefore be after death, or not at all. In the three following verses five points are enumerated, in which the Psalmist finds a proof of Divine judgment. Cook. He was sorely troubled until he went into God's sanctuary and studied their latter end in the light of the revelations of God made there. It is implied (not expressed) that he then found relief. If the question be asked, By what means did the Psalmist obtain at the sanctuary such light respecting the final doom of the wicked? the answer is: From the public reading of the written Word of God there and from the rehearsal of inspired songs in the worship of the sanctuary. The Pentateuch, certainly in their hands then, was full of demonstrations of the sudden and fearful end of the wicked. C. 18. The conclusion is remarkable. That which dispels the Psalmist's doubts and restores his faith is the end of the ungodly in this world—their sudden reverses, their terrible overthrow in the very bosom of their prosperity. Hitherto he has not taken notice of this fact as he ought; he has been so dazzled with the prosperity of the wicked, that he has forgotten by what appalling judgments God vindicates His righteousness. He does not follow them into the next world. His eye cannot see beyond the grave. P.—We must judge of persons and things as they appear by the light of Divine revelation, and then we shall judge righteous judgment; particularly we must judge by the end; all is well that ends well, everlastingly well; but nothing well that ends ill, everlastingly ill. The righteous man's afflictions end in peace, and therefore he is happy; the wicked man's enjoyments end in destruction, and therefore he is miserable. H. 18,19. The word for "surely" has usually the somewhat stronger sense of only. Only in slippery places, never on any solid foundation, Thou hast set and evermore wilt set them. Thou hast hurled them down into destruction. Suddenly, as in the twinkling of an eye, are they in desolation! C.—The prosperity of the wicked is short and uncertain; the high places in which Providence sets them are slippery places, where they cannot long keep footing; but when they offer to climb higher, that very attempt will be the occasion of their sliding and falling. Their prosperity has no firm ground, it is not built upon God's favor or His promise; and they have not the satisfaction of feeling that it rests on firm ground. Their destruction is sudden and very great. They flourish for a time, but are undone forever. Their ruin is sure and inevitable; he speaks of it as a thing done. They are cast down; for their destruction is as certain as if it were already accomplished. He speaks of it as God's doing, and therefore it cannot be resisted. Thou castest them down. It is destruction from the Almighty, from the glory of His power (2 Thess. 1: 9). 20. What their prosperity now is; it is but an image, a vain show, a fashion of the world that passes away: it is not real, but imaginary, and it is only a corrupt imagination that makes it a happiness; it is not substance, but a mere shadow; it is not what it seems to be, nor will it prove what we promise ourselves from it; it is as a dream which may please us a little while we are asleep, yet even then it disturbs our repose; but how pleasing soever it is, it is all but a cheat, all false; when we awake we find it so. A hungry man dreams that he eats, but he wakes, and his soul is empty (Isa. 29: 8). H. Their image. A fine expression, denoting the unsubstantial character of that outward show which had disturbed the Psalmist; the word is especially applied to idols, and probably means a shadowy form. Strictly speaking, all these points describe simply the destruction, death and ruin of the guilty; but they involve the thought that there is an absolute difference between their fate and that of the righteous; and inasmuch as that difference cannot consist merely in the termination of existence, however sudden and terrible, since it is but the common fate of all, and in evil times most frequently that of the patriot and martyr, it must needs refer to the state after death. Cook. Thou awakest. The metaphor is not infrequent in the Old Testament, and, like many others applying to the Divine nature, is saved from any possibility of misapprehension by the very boldness of its materialism. It has a well-marked and uniform meaning. God "awakes" when He ends an epoch of probation and long-suffering mercy by an act or period of judgment. So far, then, as the mere expression is concerned, there may be nothing more meant here than the termination by a judicial act in this life, of the transient "prosperity of the wicked." But the emphatic context seems to require that they should be referred to that final crash which irrevocably separates him who has "his portion in this life," from all which he calls his "goods." If so, then the whole period of earthly existence is regarded as the time of God's gracious forbearance and mercy; and the time of death is set forth as the instant when sterner elements of the Divine dealings start into greater prominence. A. M. 21. For.** This explains the whole of the previous struggle. I was tempted to think thus, for I brooded over these difficulties till I became no better than the dumb cattle. So it ever is. Man does not show wisdom when he wearies himself to no purpose with the moral and speculative problems which beset him. His highest wisdom is to stay himself upon God. P. 23,24. The state of the righteous in its contrast. He is with God continually, and therefore in no real danger; God holds him up, so that he cannot slip; through life he is guided and then received into glory. This last expression involves far more than temporal prosperity, which it is scarcely probable that the Psalmist expected, and which certainly would be no adequate compensation for undeserved affliction; the glory must be the manifestation of that abiding Presence, which even here sustains, preserves, and guides the faithful. Cook. It is the future only that can give him complete relief from the perplexities of the present; he escapes from time into the thought of eternity. God has thus "laid hold on his right hand;" God had saved him from the abyss of doubt: God would still guide His servant with His counsel, and after that receive him to glory. H. P. L. The words that follow, in their exquisite beauty, need not comment or interpretation, but a heart in unison with them. They lift us up above the world, above doubts, and fears, and perplexities, into a higher and holier atmos- phere; we breathe the air of heaven. The great difference, though with essential points of contact, between the hope of the life to come, as portrayed even in such a passage as this, and what we read in the New Testa- ment, will best be understood by comparing the language here with Paul's language in the fourth and fifth chapters of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, and the first chapter of the Epistle to the Philippians (vs. 21-23). P. 23. And (yet) I (am) still with Thee; Thou has held (me) by my right hand. Notwithstand- ing his ungrateful and irrational conduct in God's presence, he had not been driven from it, as he justly might have been. The word trans- lated still properly means always, and denotes that there had been no change or interruption in the previous relation of the parties. In the last clause he seems to return to the metaphor with which he set out. As the fatal error which he had escaped is in v. 2 represented as a fall, so here his preservation from it is ascribed to God's having held him up by his right hand. A. "Though God has chastened me, He has not cast me off; notwithstanding all the crosses of my life I have been continually with Thee, I have had Thy presence with me and Thou hast been nigh unto me in all that which I have called upon Thee for; and therefore though perplexed yet not in despair. Though God has sometimes written bitter things against me, yet He has still holden me by my right hand, both to keep me that I should not desert Him or fly off from Him, and to prevent my sinking and faint- ing under my burdens, or losing my way in the wildernesses through which I have walked." H. 24. Thou shalt guide me with Thy counsel. Nothing is so emphatic as Scrip- ture in setting forth the eternal hope and rich promise which attaches to man, and the pecul- iar and high place which he holds in the eye of God. This Bible centres in him. It is made for him with its wealth of instruction and prom- ise and consolation. There is an eye from heaven ever directed upon him; a hand stretched forth from heaven to guide and to uphold him. God takes upon Himself the conduct of His child's life. He leaves to no one inferior to Himself the regulation of his ways. V.— Those who commit themselves to God shall be guided with His counsel, with the counsel both of His Word and of His Spirit, the best Coun- sellors. Those who are guided and led by the counsel of God in this world, shall be received to His glory in another world. If we make God's glory in us the end we aim at, He will make our glory with Him the end we shall for- ever be happy in. Upon this consideration let us never envy sinners, but rather bless our- selves in our own blessedness. If God direct us in the way of our duty and prevent our turn- ing aside out of it, He will afterward, when our state of trial and preparation is over, re- ceive us to His kingdom and glory, the believ- ing hopes and prospects of which will reconcile us to all the dark providences that now puzzle and perplex us, and ease us of the pain we have been put into by some threatening tempta- tions. H. He says, "He is continually with me; He holds me; He will guide me; He will receive me." The man saw, and felt, and rejoiced in his own personal interest in God's care and love. And he did this (mark), in the very midst of affliction, with "flesh and heart failing;" and in spite, too, of many wrong, and opposite, and sinful feelings, that had just passed away; un- der a conviction of his own sinfulness and folly, and, as he calls it, even "brutishness." It is a blessed thing to have a faith like this. C. Brad- ley. Afterward. After all our toil in labor and duty, after all our crosses and afflictions, after all our doubts and fears that we should never receive it; after all the hidings of His face, and clouds and darkness that have passed over us; and after all our battles and fightings for it, oh, then how seasonably will the reception of this reward come in: "Afterward receive me to glory." Oh blessed afterward; when all your work is done, when all your doubts and fears are over, and when all your battles are fought; then, oh, then, ye shall receive the reward. John Spalding. There is no long slumber between the race and the crown. The passage is short. To be dismissed from earth, from temptation, from passion, from the body, and from sin, is to be admitted into that greater but invisible world, upon the verge of which we are continually living. It is to emerge from time into eternity. It is to close the outward eye as needless, to lose sight of all its objects, and to open the inward eye upon the world of spirits. It is to say fare- well to a group of weeping friends, and bid welcome to the multitude of ransomed souls. It is to leave all care, and pain, and uncertainty, and sin forever behind us. It is also a passing into glory. God is there! He who is everywhere present, unseen, is there present to the lively apprehension of the redeemed. Christ is there! And the longing soul finds itself in His embrace. J. W. A. What a contrast that is—the conscious blessedness rushing in close upon the heels of the momentary darkness of death. The spirit released from all its sin and its sore agony, struggling up at once into such strange Divine enlargement, a new star swimming into the firmament of heaven, a new face before the throne of God, another sinner redeemed from earth! The conscious, immediate blessedness of the departed—be he what he may, be his life whatsoever it may have been—who at last, standing with one foot on the verge of eternity, and poising himself for the flight, flings himself into the arms of Christ—the everlasting blessedness, the Christ-presence and the Christ-gladness. The flaming cherubim, and the sword that turneth every way, are gone, and the broad road into the city, the Paradise of God, with all its beauties and all its peaceful joy—a better Paradise, “a statelier Eden,” than that which we have lost, is flung open to us forever. A. M. 25. The heaven of blessedness and of glory is indeed nothing apart from God; but he who in love can call God his has heaven upon earth; and he who cannot call God his would have hell even in the midst of heaven. In this sense the Psalmist says, Whom have I in heaven? i.e., Who there without Thee would be the object of my desire, the stilling of my longing? without Thee heaven, with all its glory, is a great waste and void; and with Thee to call Thee mine infinitely surpasses every possession and every desire of earth. D.—It pleases all the saints more that God is their salvation, whether temporal or eternal, than that He saves them. The saints look more at God than at all that is God’s. They say, We desire not Thine, but Thee, or nothing of Thine like Thee. Caryl. Heaven may be beautiful, but there is no beauty there like that of God; nay more, comparatively speaking, no beauty there save what is in God. Heaven may be social, full of created beings of lofty powers and most genial nature; but what are they all compared with God! This is the spontaneous utterance of all true love to God. The blessedness of His favor and friendship surpasses all other joy immeasurably. Nothing else should be once named or thought of in the comparison. “Were I in heaven without my God, So also, earth, with its utmost attractions, affords nothing to be loved and enjoyed compared with God. C. All the blessings of that future life are of a spiritual character. It is not the golden harps, not the cessation from work, not the still composure and changeless indwelling, not the society even, that makes the Heaven of heaven. All these are but the embodiments and rendering visible of the inward thing, a soul at peace with God in the depths of its being, an eye which gazes upon the Father, and a heart which wraps itself in His arms. Heaven is no heaven except in so far as it is the possession of God. That saying of the Psalmist is not an exaggeration, nor even a forgetting of the other elements of future blessedness, but it is a simple statement of the literal fact of the case, “I have none in Heaven but Thee!” God is the heritage of His people. To dwell in His love, and to be filled with His light, and to walk forever in the glory of His sunlit face, to do His will, and to bear His character stamped upon our foreheads—that is the glory and the perfectness to which we are aspiring. A. M. The New Testament idea of heaven is not that of a jewelled world far away, but of a kingdom of God in the heart of every Christian—a joy and glory now begun, which are the morning twilight of the eternal day. Yes, heaven is not far off; it glows and shines and blooms around us whenever we are in true sympathy and communion with Him who is its Light and its Lord. Interior.—It is given us to own even Jesus Himself; to say, “O Christ Thou art mine,” “My Lord and my God,” “Whom have I in heaven but Thee?” Having Thee, I can easily renounce, or lose, all things beside. I would not care to possess, even if I could, Thy stars. Enough that I shall possess the internal contents and the bosom furniture of Thy Divine excellence; all Thy goodness and beauty, all Thy plans and dispositions; and shall I not be so established forever—let me humbly dare to speak it—in the dear blessed ownership of Christ and His kingdom? Bushnell. 26. Spent is my flesh and my heart; the rock of my heart and my portion (is) God to eternity. Flesh and heart, body and soul, the whole man, or the whole life, outward and inward, bodily and mental. The rock of my heart, the support of my life, that on which it rests as on a solid basis. The idea is not simply that of strength, but of a strong foundation. My portion, the source of my subsistence and my happiness. A.—“My flesh and my heart”—body and soul—languish, lose their vital force, sink under the pressure of weakness and the strain of toil; but God is the rock of my heart and my everlasting portion. Oh how true to the experience of the child of God! And how full of blessedness is this truth! All enduring life, all abiding joy, are in God alone. C. This verse contains a strong assertion of personal immortality; given the destruction of the flesh, even of the heart, the body with all its powers, the heart with all its faculties and endowments, yet the destruction is but seeming, at the most temporary, for God will preserve or restore that nature in which personality and perpetuity of consciousness consist, and He will be the portion of the believer forever. All after-revelations could but confirm and justify this clear anticipation. Annihilation of consciousness was a thought inconceivable to him who held it. Cook. My portion forever. My portion containeth Him whom the heavens, and heaven of heavens, can never contain. God is the strength of my heart, and my portion “forever;” not for a year, or an age, or a million of ages, but for eternity. Without alteration, this God will be my God forever and ever, my guide and aid unto death; nay, death, which dissolveth so many bonds, and untieth such close knots, shall never part me and my portion, but give me a perfect and everlasting possession of it. Swinnock.—The contrast is too perfect to be evaded. On one side is the perishing body that will presently be laid in the grave; on the other, the undying soul triumphantly realizing its full sense of immortality, as it clings in love and thankfulness to the unchangeable God. To be thus one with the Eternal Being was already to have a certain pledge of endless life. And it is the vision of this endless future—“my portion forever”—thus presented to the eye of the Psalmist in his retreat within the sanctuary, that completes the removal of his original difficulty with respect to the ways of God. Had this world been all, that difficulty must have proved insuperable. It melts away altogether beneath the rays of light which stream from one cardinal truth; it is solved by the doctrine of the immortality of the soul of man. H. P. L. Union with the Lord—what else is the ground of hope for immortality and eternal life under the new economy? “Because I live,” said the Master, “ye shall live also” (John 14:9). Union with the Lord Himself, that is also the final ground of hope for life and happiness beyond the grave under the old economy. E. C. B. Nothing in life has any meaning, except as it draws us farther into God, and presses us more closely to Him. The world is no better than a complication of awkward riddles, or a gloomy storehouse of disquieting mysteries, unless we look at it by the light of this simple truth, that the eternal God is blessedly the last and only end of every soul of man. Faber.—It needs not only a living but an Infinite Person to enchain in everlasting love and exercise with ever-varying delight all the heart and strength and mind and soul of man. In the living God alone can the creature find its all sufficiency. In the Creator discovered and reconciled, in Jehovah enthroned as a Sovereign and accepted as a portion, the problem of highest happiness is solved. The intellect expands, the soul is glad, and the life rises to its most blissful level from the happy day that you enter into a personal relation to the all-sufficient Jehovah, and realize in its full significance “God is Love.” Hamilton. Love desires to please God, and therefore to be freed from all that is displeasing to Him. It desires all suitable nearness, acquaintance, union, and communion. It is weary of distance and alienation. It takes advantage of every notice of God, to renew and exercise these desires. Every message and mercy from God is fuel for love, and while we are short of perfection, stirs up our desires after more of God. The soul is where it loves. God and Christ, heaven and holiness, dwell in the heart which loves them fervently. And if heaven dwell in my heart, shall I not desire to dwell in heaven? When love becomes our fixed nature, we shall be no more weary of loving than the sun of shining. God Himself will be the full and everlasting object of love. Perfect, joyful complacency in God is the heaven which I desire and hope for. He has all in Himself that I need or can desire. There is nothing for love to cleave to, either above Him, beyond Him, or without Him. Baxter. When flesh and heart fail, His strength is near. Yes, we have seen the dying visage lighted up with the angelic smile of triumph, and have heard the song of rejoicing from lips already cold. A preternatural glimpse of worlds beyond has been granted even here. Hear the eminent theologian, Andrew Rivet, just before his departure: “I shall shortly no more know the difference between day and night. I am come to the eve of that great and eternal day, and am going to that place where the sun shall no more give light. The sense of Divine favor increaseth in me every moment. My pains are tolerable, and my joys inestimable!" Hear the dying Halyburton: "For those fourteen or fifteen years I have been studying the promises; but I have seen more of the book of God this night than in all that time." Hear good President Finley: "I am full of triumph—I triumph through Christ." J. W. A. Bunsen's last words: "'In spite of all my failings and my imperfections, I have desired, I have sought, what is noble here below. But my richest experience is the having known Jesus Christ. Oh, how good it is to contemplate life from this elevation! Now we see how obscure a thing our existence on earth has been. Up, up—it does not become darker, but ever brighter, brighter! I am now in the kingdom of God. Hitherto it has only been a presentiment. O my God, how beautiful are Thy tabernacles!' "As his attention was directed to a brilliant sunset, 'Yes,' said he, in English, 'that is beautiful, the love of God is in everything.' 'God is life and love, the love that wills, the will that loves.' There is no death in God. I see Christ, and I see God through Christ. Christ sees us, He creates us, He must become all in all. Those who live in Christ, who live loving Him, they are His. Those who do not live His life do not belong to Him, whatever may be the name by which they are called, or the confession of faith which they sign. I see clearly that we are all sinners. We have only Christ in God. We exist only in proportion as we are in God; we are all sinners, but we live in God and we have eternal life. We have lived this eternal life in proportion as we have lived in God. All the rest is nothing. Christ is the Son of God, and we are His children only when the spirit of love that was in Christ is in us." 27. All that depart from God are doomed to chase shadows; to wander on in vain agitation and desire, without any real advance toward the object in view; like a person in a dream, that imagines himself always going forward, though he never moves. The Divine Being will abandon the creature that forsakes Himself to barrenness, disappointment, and remorse; He will darken the heaven above him, and seal up the springs of life and peace from his taste: "All that are far from Thee shall perish." R. Hall. The union between God and His people being often represented by the figure of a conjugal relation, their violation of the covenant is spoken of as spiritual whoredom or adultery. In the same sense our Saviour calls the unfaithful Israel of His day a wicked and adulterous generation. The persons threatened with destruction here are not merely sinners in general, but the wicked members of the ancient Church or chosen people in particular. A. 28. It is good for me to draw near to God.** When he saith 'tis good, his meaning is 'tis best. This positive is superlative. It is more than good for us to draw nigh to God at all times, it is best for us to do so, and it is at our utmost peril not to do so; "For, lo," said the Psalmist, "they that are far from Thee shall perish!" Caryl. Religion commences with the commencement of direct personal relations with God, and continues so long as those personal relations continue. Prayer and communion are as much a part of religion as converse and communion are a part of friendship. Our very love to God will needs draw all sorts of hearty address to Him and spiritual fellowship with Him in its wake. And Scripture is loaded with multiplied affirmations and diversified implications of this. Its pages are saturated with the spirit of devoutness. Prayer and communion, all that combine to compose spirituality of life, are involved by statement or by inference in almost every chapter. Parkhurst. Devout meditation and fervent prayer include the fundamental elements and duties of spiritual life; meditation, the opening of the heart to and the appropriation by the heart of heavenly truth and promise, so that the kindled flame of devout feeling is kept aglow, and prayer, the heart's expression to God under the force of this stirred feeling, expression in whatever form the heart's quickened desires and sense of need may prompt. Out of this twofold action of the heart, out of devout thought and prayerful expression are born, by this continued action are maintained in healthful vigor, all the spiritual forces and experiences of the soul's Divine life, all the forces that give energy for duty and strength for trial, all the experiences that give vitality to hope and happiness. Therefore affirms the Psalmist, "It is good for me to draw near to God!" B. He that knows how to pray has the secret of safety in prosperity and of support in trouble. He has the art of overruling every enemy, and of turning every loss into a gain. He has the power of soothing every care, of subduing every passion, and of adding a relish to every enjoyment. Many things are good for me, but none so good as to draw nigh to God. Jay.—In the very moment when thou prayest, a treasure is laid up for thee in heaven. No Christian's prayer falls back from the closed gates of heaven; each enters there like a messenger-dove; some bring back immediate visible answers; but all enrich our store of blessings there, and all return to the heart with the fragrance of peace on them, from the holy place where they have been. The Christian, even when he is walking for recreation, in his converse with others, in silence, in reading, in all rational pursuits, finds opportunity for prayer. And although he is only thinking on God in the little chamber of his soul, and calling on his Father with silent aspiration, God is near him, and with him, for He is still speaking to him. Gregory. He walks in the presence of God that converses with Him in frequent prayer and communion; that runs to Him with all his necessities; that asks counsel of Him in all his doublings; that opens all his wants to Him; that weeps before Him for all his sins; and that asks remedy and support for his weakness; that fears Him as a Judge, reverences Him as a Lord, and obeys him as a Father. Jeremy Taylor. Be alone with God, that your soul may be free to speak to Him, and to hear Him. But be alone in your inmost hearts, shutting out busy, anxious thoughts, that they throng not in with the prayers, and cloud not the sight and thought of God. Practise in life whatever thou prayest for, and God will give it thee more abundantly. Pusey.—If you long to bring forth all the fruit of the Spirit, strike your roots deep and wide in private prayer. That faith and support, that strength and grace, which you seek of God in secret, that they may be exercised in the hour of need God will in that hour give you before men. Anon. Christ being more completely formed within, the believer's seasons of communion with the Father spread themselves more widely through his days and nights. He passes very frequently, almost unconsciously, and by imperceptible gradations of feeling, from his ordinary existence among the things of this world into direct converse with that Friend who is ever nearest, while also most high and most mighty. The current of adoring thought flows on in joyous, satisfying concord with the Eternal Will. We do not stop, perhaps, to shape every aspiration into articulate speech but we yield to the Divine breath, and move whithersoever the Spirit that maketh intercession moves. A larger and larger share of devotion will consist in thanksgiving and praise—a sure mark of spiritual growth. Some new blessing—a victory of faith, a fresh beam of light falling from heaven on the path—will as often stir the soul to its heavenly conversation as a trial, loss, or throb of pain. There will be no anxious concern about answers, for the felt blessedness of the act is itself an answer. There is no doubt that God will hear, because it is known that He listened before His child called. May not something like this be the meaning of the prayer that is "without ceasing?" F. D. H. We cannot too keenly feel, each one for himself, that a still and secret life with God must energize all holy duty, as vigor in every fibre of the body must come from the strong, calm, faithful beat of the heart. To one who is conscious of defect in his own piety, respecting the friendship of the soul with God, there will be great aptness and beauty in the appeal of a foreign preacher: "Why fleest thou from solitude? Why dost thou shun the lonely hour? Why is it, that to many of you there cometh not, through the whole course of the week, a single hour for self-meditation? You go through life like dreaming men. Ever among mankind, and never with yourselves. You have torn down the cloister, but why have you not erected it within your own hearts? Lo, my brother, if thou wouldst seek out the still hour, only a single one every day, and if thou wouldst meditate on the love which called thee into being, which hath overshadowed thee all the days of thy life with blessing, or else by mournful experiences hath admonished and corrected thee; this would be to draw near to thy God! Thus wouldst thou take Him by the hand. But whenever, in ceaseless dissipation of heart, thou goest astray, the sea of the Divine blessing shall surround thee on all sides, and yet thy soul shall be athirst. Wilt thou draw near to God? Then seek the still hour." (Tholuck.) Phelps. In the still hour of personal communion with God the soul is best and most prepared for all its duties to man and God. Then and there the best knowledge, the deepest conviction, of duty is gotten, or more clearly, deeply impressed. There the judgment and conscience receive most light upon questions of practical difficulty. There the will is most effectually disciplined against wilfulness, trained for practice in self-denial, for the putting forth of energy in the true work of life. There also, through the present working of Divine grace, the repulsive propensities to evil of flesh and spirit are more and more brought into subjection, the adorning graces of simplicity, meekness, truthfulness, and purity are maintained and augmented in their power. There the heart is made peaceful and happy in its toil, by the daily deepening of its responsive trust and love. From habitual solitary communion with God, too, we get all needful preparation for trials, light or grievous, preparation for the emergencies of temptation or affliction, emergencies belonging to almost every day. And through the faithful use of the still hour, the Christian makes the most of himself and of his life in this world. He makes the most of himself and for himself. In the wrestle of that hour, he gets through Divine power that evenness of temper which keeps down alike rash judgments and excited passions. In the triumphant testing of God's truth and promise by a wrestling spirit, he receives such conviction of their reality as brings his soul more and more under their actuating power. All his spiritual energies are kept aroused and active. His faith is made more vital, active, fruitful. He develops in breadth and symmetry of character, grows daily unto the stature of a perfect manhood in Christ Jesus. And making most of himself, he makes most for himself here. It may not be in perishable treasure or enviously acknowledged fame. It is in something better far, in that peace of the soul that leans always and closely upon Jesus the Christ, in the calmness of hope, the assurance of expectant joy that looks all round the forward horizon and up into a cloudless heaven as he songfully journeys on. Thus, too, he makes the most of his life here, the most of what can be achieved for others. Christ's most eminent because successful toilers, in every age, have been those who have lived in the closest communion with Him. Holy men and women in every age, coming from the mount of the Divine dwelling have come burning as well as shining lights, clothed with His power in their heartfelt utterances. As their fellowship was with God, as they abode and walked in His light, so they ever brought God with them and kept His Spirit in their hearts, and thus were their toils directed, their words inspired, their yearning desires satisfied. B. The characteristic of the wicked is separation from God, which can have but one result, absolute destruction; that of the faithful is union with Him, which secures all good in time and eternity; imposing one permanent duty, that of declaring His works. The sum-total amounts to this: the prosperity of the wicked may, or may not, last till death, but it is a mere phantom, ending here in nothingness, and followed by everlasting shame; the life of the righteous is a journey under sure guidance, lighted by God's presence, and issuing in glory, with an entire fruition of blessedness forever. Cook. As is plain from this Psalm, doubt may spring from the very depth and earnestness of a man's faith. In the case of the Psalmist, as in the case of Job, that which lay at the bottom of the doubt, that which made it a thing so full of anguish, was the deep-rooted conviction of the righteousness of God. Unbelief does not doubt, faith doubts. And God permits the doubt in His truest and noblest servants, as our Lord did in the case of Thomas, that he may thereby plant their feet the more firmly on the rock of His own everlasting truth. There is perhaps no Psalm in which faith asserts itself so triumphantly, cleaves to God with such words of lofty hope and affection, and that precisely because in no other instance has the fire been so searching, the test of faith so severe. It may be well to remember this when we see a noble soul compassed about with darkness, yet struggling to the light, lest we "vex one whom God has smitten, and tell of the pain of His wounded ones." P. Doubts are in many cases the birth-pangs of clearer light. They are means by which we grow in knowledge, even in knowledge of heavenly things. Better far, no doubt, to grow in knowledge by quiet, steady increase of light, without these intervals of darkness and difficulty. But that is not granted to all. Many men have to grow by often doubting and by having their doubts cleared up. In that way only is the chaff separated from the grain, and the pure truth at last presented to their minds. In that way are prejudices, false notions, frivolities shaken off from the substantial truth, and they are blessed with the fulness of the knowledge of God. These doubts are often the fiery trial which burns up any wood, hay, or stubble which we may have erected in our souls, and leaves space for us to build gold, silver, precious stones. They are, in fact, as much the messengers of God's providence as any other voices that reach us. They may distress us, but they cannot destroy us, for we are in the hands of God. They may hide God's face from us, but they cannot stop the flow of His love; for He is our Father, and Christ hath redeemed us. To trust is in your power. To resign yourself lovingly to God in the full confidence that His love will do all that you can need, and that out of darkness He will be sure to bring light; to walk to the uttermost of your power by the light that you already have; to hold fast by God's hand, and to trust the promises that He whispers in your conscience; that you can do, and that you ought to do. Bishop Temple. We pronounce too soon upon the apparent inequalities of fame and recompense around us; while we fail to take in the future as well as the present, and attempt to solve the mysteries of time without including in the field of our survey the retributions of that eternity which forms the selvage and hem of all the webs of earth. And we pronounce not only too soon but very superficially upon the inequalities of happiness in the lot of those who fear and those who scorn God; while we look mainly or merely to the outward circumstances of home and station and bodily well-being, but take no note of the inner and more enduring elements of felicity supplied to the sufferer for Christ by the blended powers of conscience and of hope—the one of them purified and pacified by the blood of the great Sacrifice on Calvary; the other of them steadily and cheerfully soaring to the glories and rest of the Mount Zion above. Faithful, in His cage, bearing the gibes and flouts of the rabble who thirsted for His blood, was one of the happiest men in all Vanity Fair, even ere the hour when His spirit mounted the fiery chariot that hurried Him to His celestial home. W. R. Williams. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 1. O God, why hast thou cast us off for ever? Why doth thine anger smoke against the sheep of thy pasture? 2. Remember thy congregation, which thou hast purchased of old, Which thou hast redeemed to be the tribe of thine inheritance; And mount Zion, wherein thou hast dwelt. 3. Lift up thy feet unto the perpetual ruins, All evil the enemy hath done in the sanctuary. 4. Thine adversaries have roared in the midst of thine assembly; They have set up their ensigns for signs. 5. They seemed as men that lifted up Axes upon a thicket of trees. 6. And now all the carved work thereof They break down with hatchet and hammers. 7. They have set thy sanctuary on fire; They have profaned the dwelling place of thy name even to the ground. 8. They said in their heart, Let us make havoc of them altogether: They have burned up all the synagogues of God in the land. 9. We see not our signs: There is no more any prophet; Neither is there among us any that knoweth how long. 10. How long, O God, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever? 11. Why drawest thou back thy hand, even thy right hand? Pluck it out of thy bosom and consume them. 12. Yet God is my King of old, Working salvation in the midst of the earth. 13. Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: Thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. 14. Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, Thou gavest him to be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. 15. Thou didst cleave fountain and flood: Thou driedst up ever-flowing rivers. 16. The day is thine, the night also is thine: Thou hast prepared the light and the sun. 17. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth: Thou hast made summer and winter. 18. Remember this, that the enemy hath reproached the LORD, And that a foolish people have blasphemed thy name. 19. O deliver not the soul of thy turtledove unto the wild beast: Forget not the life of thy poor for ever. 20. Have respect unto the covenant: For the dark places of the earth are full of the habitations of violence. 21. O let not the oppressed return ashamed: Let the poor and needy praise thy name. 22. Arise, O God, plead thine own cause: Remember how the foolish man reproacheth thee all the day. 23. Forget not the voice of thine adversaries: The tumult of those that rise up against thee ascendeth continually. THE title mentions Asaph as the author. But it cannot be the elder Asaph, who was contemporary with David. For the description here given cannot apply to any event earlier than the destruction of the temple by the Chaldeans, recorded in 2 Chron. 36: 19. To this period it is assigned by De Wette, Hengstenberg, Hupfeld, Moll. But in several important particulars it does not correspond with the historic details of the Chaldean invasion, especially in vs. 3, 4, 8, 9. Olshausen, Hitzig, and Delitzsch connect it with the atrocities of the Syrian invasion under Antiochus Epiphanes, B.C. 167. The only objection lies in v. 7, which is taken to mean that the temple was utterly destroyed, which is not in accordance with the historic statement in the Books of the Maccabees. Yet the porch of the temple was burned 2 Macc. 1: 8), and the whole interior so thoroughly stripped and desecrated (1 Macc. 1: 21- 24) that they cried to God in their misery, "Behold, our sanctuary and our beauty and our glory are laid waste, and the heathen have profaned them!" (1 Macc. 2 : 12). It is one of the most spirited and graphically descriptive Psalms in the Psalter, and its appeals to God, referring to past interventions of His Almighty power in behalf of Israel, are magnificent. De Witt. This Psalm and the seventy-ninth both refer to the same calamity, and were, it may reasonably be conjectured, written by the same author. Both Psalms deplore the rejection of the nation, the occupation of Jerusalem by a foreign army, and the profanation of the sanctuary; but the seventy-fourth dwells chiefly on the destruction of the temple; the seventy-ninth on the terrible slaughter of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Assuming that both Psalms refer to the same event, we have to choose between two periods of Jewish history and only two, to which the language of the sacred poet could reasonably refer. The description might apply either to the invasion of Nebuchadnezzar, or to the insolent oppression of Antiochus Epiphanes; and with one or other of these two occasions it has been usually connected. No presumption can be raised against the latter of these dates from the history of the canon; and there are, more particularly in this Psalm, some expressions which are most readily explained on the supposition that it was composed in the time of the Maccabees. On the whole, I incline to think that this Psalm may be most naturally explained by events that took place at that time. P.—Since nearly everything in both Psalms fits in with the Maccabean period, we base both Psalms upon the situation of the Jewish people under Antiochus and Demetrius. Their purport coincides with the prayer of Judas Maccabeus in 2 Macc. 8 : 1-4. D. There is one singularity in this Psalm which reminds one strongly of Psalm 44; there is not one mention of national or personal sin throughout, no allusion to the Lord's righteous dealing in their punishment, no supplication for pardon and forgiveness; and yet one can hardly doubt that the writer of the Psalm, be he who he may, must have felt as keenly as Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, or any other prophet of the captivity, the sins and iniquities which had brought all this sore evil upon them. But still, though there be expostulation, there is no complaint; though there be mourning, there is no murmuring; there is far more the cry of a smitten child, wondering and grieving that his father's face is so turned away from him in displeasure, and a father's hand so heavy on the child of his love. Or, as we might almost say, it is like the cry of one of those martyred ones beneath the altar, wondering at the Lord's continued endurance of His heritage thus trampled under foot of the marauder and oppressor, and exclaiming, "How long, O Lord, how long?" Bouchier. 1. Sheep of Thy pasture.** A favorite figure in those Psalms which are ascribed to Asaph. The name contains in itself an appeal to the compassion and tender care of the shepherd. Can the shepherd slay his sheep? P. 2. "Remember Thy congregation, which Thou hast purchased of old." What a mighty plea is redemption. O God, canst Thou see the blood-mark on Thine own sheep, and yet allow grievous wolves to devour them? The Church is no new purchase of the Lord; from before the world's foundation the chosen were regarded as redeemed by the Lamb slain; shall ancient love die out, and the eternal purpose become frustrate? The Lord would have His people remember the Paschal Lamb, the bloodstained lintel, and the overthrow of Egypt; and will He forget all this Himself? Let us put Him in remembrance, let us plead together. Can He desert His blood-bought and forsake His redeemed? S. 3-7. This is his greatest grief. His country has been laid waste with fire and sword, his friends slain or carried into captivity, but there is no thought so full of pain as this, that the holy and beautiful house wherein his fathers worshipped has been plundered and desecrated by a heathen soldiery. Instead of the Psalms, and hymns, and sacred anthems which once echoed within those walls, has been heard the brutal shout of the fierce invaders, roaring like lions (such is the meaning of the word in the next verse) over their prey. Heathen emblems, military and religious, have displaced the emblems of Jehovah. The magnificent carved work of the temple, such as the cherubims, and the palms, and the pillars, with pomegranates and lily-work which adorned it, have been hewed down as remorselessly as a man would cut down so much wood in the forest. And then that splendid pile, so full of sacred memories, so dear to the heart of every true Israelite, has been set on fire, and left to perish in the flames. Such is the scene as it passes again before the eyes of his mind. P. Their cities had been laid waste, their provinces, their farms, their vineyards, their olive-yards. They themselves had been everywhere cut down without striking a blow in defence, and their means of life had been snatched away without resistance. Yet they speak not of these things, because those things which threatened the extinction of religion and the worship of God, overtopped the feeling of all these other misfortunes with an intolerable sorrow. Musculus. 4. The word signs does not necessarily denote either military or religious ensigns, but rather signifies in general the insignia of sovereignty. For all that once marked the presence and authority of God the impious enemy had substituted the signs or tokens of their own ascendancy. In other words, they had usurped God's place in His very sanctuary, the spot which He had chosen for His earthly residence. A. 5. This verse does not describe the preparation once made for building the temple, by hewing down cedars in the forest of Lebanon, but it compares the scene of ruin in the interior, the destruction of the carved work, etc., to the wide gap made in some stately forest by the blows of the woodman's axe. (See the use of the same figure, Jer. 46 : 22.) 8. All the houses of God in the land; literally, "all the assemblies," which must here mean "places of assembly," as in v. 4. The work of devastation does not stop short with the temple. The plain meaning of the words is, that there were many other places for religious worship in the land beside the temple, and that these, as well as the temple, were destroyed. Even before the exile there must have been buildings where it was customary to meet, especially on the Sabbath, and to pray, turning toward Jerusalem. There must surely have been some public worship beyond the limits of the family, and if so, places, houses, for its celebration. If, however, the Psalm be of the age of the Maccabees, there is no difficulty, for before that time there can be little doubt synagogues were established. P. —The words point to places for religious assemblies, to houses of God, i.e., to synagogues—a weighty argument in favor of the Maccabean origin of the Psalm. D. The existence of such places before the Babylonish captivity has been much disputed; and most writers, arguing from the silence of the Old Testament, incline to the opinion that they originated in Babylon, and that after the restoration similar oratories were opened in the land of Israel; and hence some infer that the seventy-fourth Psalm, which says in the eighth verse, "They have burned up all the synagogues in the land," was written in the post-Babylonian times. The argument from silence is, however, far from conclusive. The translation synagogues, might fairly lead to a similar translation in some other passages which were confessedly written before the captivity; and the circumstances, character, and necessities of the Israelites, the great body of whom were far removed from the temple, prove indisputably that in their towns and villages they must have had some locality where they assembled on their Sabbaths, new moons, and other solemn days, for the purpose of receiving instruction in the law, and for public prayer. That locality, however different from subsequent arrangements, was the origin of the synagogue. How such assemblies were conducted before the captivity it is now impossible to say. M'Caui. 10. "How long, O Lord, how long!" was heard daily during the two centuries of African slavery and the slave trade. The feudal system, the corn laws, Russian serfdom, religious persecution, barbarous laws and penalties, and a score of systems of traditional savagery, all in the midst of Christian peoples, have survived for centuries, and then were only thrown off by the most determined and violent efforts. Every kind of transformation is slow, as measured by human time—but rapid enough when put in the measure of endless duration. Religion and reform are no exceptions. They are of slow growth and slow to decay—but each new manifestation of the living principle, which never grows weary or infirm or death-stricken, is higher and nobler than that which went before. From our dead ashes another generation will draw greater strength and refinement and purity. Nothing that we do for righteousness' sake is lost either to us personally, or to our race. Nothing is lost. God knows what He is doing, and how all things work to the consummation of His splendid designs. Interior. 11. How bold is the suppliant! Does he err? Nay, verily, we who are so chill and distant, and listless in prayer are the erring ones. The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and he who learns the art shall surely prevail with God by its means. It is fit that we should inquire why the work of grace goes on so slowly. When God seems to fold His arms we must not folds ours, but rather renew our entreaties that He would again put His hand to the work. We have here a model of pleading; humble, but very bold, eager, fervent, and effectual. The heart of God is always moved by such entreaties. When we bring forth our strong reasons, then will He bring forth His choice mercies. S. 12-17. The pleader now draws comfort by looking back into the time when God as Israel's King unfolded in saving deeds the rich fulness of His salvation everywhere upon the earth, where Israel's existence was imperilled; not only within the compass of the Holy Land, but also, e.g., within that of Egypt. It is really Egypt that he has present to his mind, for there now follows first of all a glance at the historical (vs. 13-15) and then at the natural (vs. 16, 17) exhibitions of God's power. D. 13-15. Appropriately the song reverts to the glorious works of God at the Red Sea, through the Arabian desert, and at the passage of the Jordan. "By Thy power Thou didst cleave the sea asunder; Thou didst shiver to atoms the heads of the great sea-monsters—said apparently to celebrate God's absolute dominion over the sea and its mighty populations." "Leviathan;" literally, a crooked serpent, but used like "dragon" for the largest class of sea animals. The poet represents the mighty hand of God at the Red Sea as shattering all the huge sea-monsters, and tossing them up upon the farther shore to become meat for the people dwelling there; but really it would seem with his eye on that proud host—Egypt's horsemen and charioteers—sunk in its mighty waves and their dead carcasses washed upon the desert shore. "Thou didst cleave fountain and flood," with probable allusion to the cleaving of the rocks under the rod of Moses, out of which waters ran as a river. "Thou driedst up mighty rivers," looks to the passage of the Jordan. The word for "mighty" denotes rather a living, perennial stream, never naturally dry. Such was the Jordan, and moreover at the time of this miracle, at high flood, overflowing all its banks. These wonderful achievements of their Almighty King were good to think of in such seasons of sorrow and despondency as that of the writer of this Psalm and of His people. C. 15. (It is) Thou (that) didst cleave fount and flood (that) didst dry up rivers ever-flowing. Fountain and flood is a kind of proverbial expression for smaller and greater bodies of water. The primary historical allusion here is to the passage of the Jordan. The original construction of the last phrase is streams of perpetuity, perennial or unfailing streams, as distinguished from the winter torrents of the Holy Land, which disappear in summer. A. 16,17. From the wonders wrought by God on behalf of His people in their history, the poet rises to the wider view of His ever-continued, ever-displayed power and majesty in the world of nature. The miracle does not lead him to forget God's power and goodness in that which is not miraculous. The one is rather a witness to, and an instance of, the other. P. —The God of Israel, who gave proof of Himself thus marvellously in history, is also the Creator and Lord of every created thing. Day and night and the luminaries of both are His creatures. D. 16. Day. Night.** These changes are according to a fixed law. Day and night are the ordinances of heaven upon earth for the growth of earth's life, and, if we could trace the sunshine and the dark in every follower of God, we should see them arranged with equal wisdom. It is a more complex work, but be sure of this, there is order in it all, and the hand that rules the world in its orbit, and that makes it fulfil its course through light and shade, is governing our lives for a higher than earthly end. It is a law of alternation. It is day and night, and, let us thank God, it is also in due time night and day. Each has its time and use. Ker. He that had power at first to settle, and still to preserve this course of nature by the diurnal and annual motions of the heavenly bodies, has certainly all power both to save and to destroy, and with Him nothing is impossible, nor any difficulties or oppositions insuperable. He that is faithful to His covenant with the day and with the night, and preserves the ordinances of heaven inviolable, will certainly make good His promise to His people, and never cast off those whom He has chosen (Jer. 31 : 35, 36 ; 33 : 20, 21). His covenant with Abraham and his seed is as firm as that with Noah and his sons (Gen. 8 : 21). Day and night, summer and winter, being counterchanged in the course of nature, throughout all the borders of the earth, we can expect no other than that trouble and peace, prosperity and adversity should be, in like manner, counterchanged in all the borders of the Church. We have as much reason to expect affliction as to expect night and winter. But we have then no more reason to despair of the return of comfort than we have to despair of day and summer. H. 17. Thou hast set (or established) all the bounds of earth; summer and winter—Thou hast formed them. This is the seventh emphatic repetition of the pronoun thou. The description of God's power over nature is completed by referring to it the revolution of the seasons as not only appointed but created by Him. He is not only the ordainer of the change itself, but the author of the causes which produce it. A. Thou hast set all the borders of the earth. The actual distribution of sea and land over the surface of the globe is of the highest importance to the present condition of organic life. If the ocean were considerably smaller, or if Asia and America were concentrated within the tropics, the tides, the oceanic currents, and the meteorological phenomenon on which the existence of the vegetable and animal kingdoms depend, would be so profoundly modified, that it is extremely doubtful whether man could have existed, and absolutely certain that he could never have risen to a high degree of civilization. The dependence of human progress upon the existing configuration of the globe necessarily leads us to the conclusion that both must be the harmonious work of the same Almighty power, and that a Divine and immutable plan has from all eternity presided over the destinies of our planet. It is almost superfluous to point out how largely the irregular windings and undulations of the coasts, the numerous islands scattered over the face of the waters, the promontories stretching far away into the domains of the sea, and the gulfs plunging deeply into the bosom of the land, have contributed to the civilization of the human race by multiplying its points of contact with the ocean, the great highway of nations. G. Hartwig. Thou hast made summer. One of the chiefest charms of summer is its fulness. And in this fulness is its peace. Summer has the deep consciousness of fruitfulness. It knows it has done its work; it rejoices in its own fulness and wealth. Man's content is in looking back and seeing that his beginning of things has now been led on to some fulfilment, however small, in having accomplished something of his aspiration, in producing some fruit. The real looking forward we should have, the real aspiration, is that which the summer has; and it is one of content, not of discontent. It is the looking forward to harvest, and it is founded on faith, which has its root in the fact that work has been already done. We believe in a harvest of our life, because the fields we have sown are whitening already for harvest. There is another contentment that summer images: it is the contentment of rest. The earth rests from her labor, and her works do follow her. There is only one way to win something of God's peace. It is to learn the lesson nature gives us of daily self-forgetfulness. Content is its reward. It is the lesson summer gives and the reward she wins. Fruitfulness will follow on faith and love, and with fruitfulness there will be content; the deep content of duties fulfilled, of aspirations growing into fulfilment, of moral power secured. That is the summer life of the soul. Thou hast made winter. Winter, and the snow, which is its universal exponent, is in truth one of the most efficient causes of civilization, and of the advancement of mankind, not only in the arts and comforts of life, and in power over the elements, but in mental and even moral development and progress. It is out of privation, difficulty, and disadvantage that the good, both temporal and spiritual, of our race grows; our progress is gained only by the stimulus of want, the compulsion of necessity. If there had been a genial summer clime the world round, or only the alternation of spring, summer, and autumn, mankind would have remained in a state of comparative indolence and barbarism; we should have been little better than cultivated animals. If we look round the world we see how almost all the true and permanent greatness of States and nations lies within the circle of a wintry zone. We find that those nations and races of the earth that have been nurtured in an indulgent summer clime and spontaneous abundance of nature all the year round, have had to borrow, or are now first receiving all their possessions of science, refinement, high knowledge, and moral and religious culture from the north. The apparent death of winter is the very bosom of the greatness of our life. In commerce, in the arts, in moral, economical, political, and social advancement we owe the greater part of our progress, and the whole world owes it, to the necessities impelling us, and the habitudes formed within us and upon us, by the various influences, immediate and secondary, of this vigorous season. G. B. C. The moral benefit of winter is supereminently great in the contributions it makes to home-life, and the fine moral serenities of a close family state. Home is a northern word, not found in the languages of the tropical nations. It is only at the hearth where the winter fire is kindled and the family is gathered into close companionship, that fatherhood and motherhood, and the other tender relationships, become bonds of unity and consciously felt concern. There is no moral influence, not immediately religious, that is so essential to virtue and religion as this most untropical institution that we call home. H. B. Winter drives us to our home. We make our life warm and bright within our walls. We forget the bitter days, save when we remember to give of our plenty to the poor and sorrowful. There are no times that may be happier than winter, if we will. We see in the frost-bound world the picture of death. Is there nothing but death there? Look beneath the surface of the earth, under the shroud of snow. Beneath the winding-sheet is, not death, but life in preparation, hidden, but in slow activity. The forces are being laid up which will be the green leaves of a thousand woods, the roses and lilies of a thousand gardens, the fountain rush of spring. That is what winter tells the man who knows. It is the story it tells also to the Christian, who has found and known the fatherhood of God. He has an inward life that refuses death. In the patient waiting and repose of a faithful age the spiritual forces which will make the form, and color, and power, and work of his coming life are gathering together into a store that waits but the touch of death to break into immortal energy. He will sleep beneath the snow, but it will be to awaken. S. A. Brooke. The winter should, by the very circumstance of its unproductiveness, remind us of the care and bounty of Divine providence, in that other seasons are granted us which furnish supplies for this, and for the whole year. The winter has a character of inclemency and rigor, has ideas and feelings associated with it of hardship, infelicity, suffering. In this it should excite thoughtful and compassionate sentiments respecting the distress and suffering that are in the world. Winter shows the transitory quality of the beauty, variety, magnificence, and riches which had been spread over the natural world. This consideration easily carries our thoughts to parallel things in human life. There may be a resemblance to winter in the state of the mind in respect to its best interests. And truly the winter in the soul is worse than any season and aspect of external nature. Observe here one striking point of difference: the natural winter will certainly and necessarily, from a regular and absolute cause, pass away after awhile; not so the spiritual winter. It does not belong to the constitution of the human nature that the spiritual warmth and animation must come, must have a season. Note the resemblance of winter to old age. The old age of the wise and good resembles the winter in one of its most favorable circumstances—that the former seasons improved have laid in a valuable store; and they have to bless God that disposed and enabled them to do so. But the most striking point in the comparison is one of unlikeness. Their winter has no spring to follow it—in this world. But the servants of God say, "That is well!" There is eternal spring before them. What will they not be contemplating of beauty and glory while those who have yet many years on earth are seeing returning springs and summers? J. Foster. Winter is not death, but sleep. The white cover of the snow is not a shroud for the dead, but a warm cloak hiding away a life that is to spring up after a time. Death and sleep have some points of likeness. But how unlike are they!—the cold, unmoving rigidity of the one, the softly breathing stillness of the other—the one to wake no more on earth, the other to rise in the dawn of the new day, refreshed for further work. Winter is sleep, not death. The seeds are covered up in the earth, the buds are folded with inimitable art in their russet cases, the streams "are lost amid the splendid blank" of the snow and ice, in whose chains all the world is bound. But, hidden away thus, is all the life of the coming year. J. A. Camden. 18-23. Now that the Psalmist has thus fortified himself by the contemplation of the power of God, which He has manifested as Redeemer in behalf of His own people and as Creator in behalf of the whole human family, he rises anew to prayer, but so much the more confidently and boldly. 19. The Church, which it is a custom of the Asaphic Psalms to designate with emblematical names taken from the animal world, finds itself like sheep among wolves, and seems to itself as if forgotten by God. The cry of prayer is raised out of a situation such as that of the Maccabees was. D. Thy turtledove. God's people are an harmless, innocent people, altogether unable and insufficient to help themselves against their enemies, who are numerous, cruel, and barbarous. Hence they are resembled to sheep, doves; called in the Word, fatherless, orphans, little ones, babes, poor, simple, needy. Langley.—How weak soever the Church be, and how many and strong soever the enemy be, yet cannot they all devour the Church, except the Lord should deliver His Church over into their hands, against which evil the Church hath ground of confidence to pray, "O deliver not the soul of Thy turtledove unto the multitude of the wicked;" for He hath given His Church wings, and a hiding-place too, as the comparison importeth, if He please to give her the use thereof also. Dickson. 20. Look upon the covenant. The appeal lies to that, not to anything in the Psalmist himself, or in his people. "This," says Tholuck, "is the everlasting refuge of the saints of God, even in the greatest dangers. And even if they have broken it, can the unbelief of men make the truth of God of none effect?" The covenant is that made first with Abraham, and then renewed with him and with the fathers. P. —Here is the master-key—heaven's gate must open to this. His covenant He will not break, nor alter the thing that hath gone forth out of His lips. The Lord had promised to bless the seed of Abraham, and make them a blessing; here they plead that ancient word, even as we also may plead the covenant made with the Lord Jesus for all believers. What a grand word it is! S. # Have respect unto the covenant. This presseth the Lord more than the former, for it lays hold on God's faithfulness, and truth, and fatherly goodness. If they be not in covenant with God, it may be charged upon them, "You have violated My holy law, you have incensed My wrath against you by your perverse ways, therefore I will not help you, but give you up;" but now the souls that be in covenant with God will not be put off so (be it spoken with holy reverence), but will cry out, O Lord, though our iniquities testify against us, yet "have respect unto Thy covenant." Yet be sure you walk uprightly before the Lord. Langley. 1. We give thanks unto thee, O God, We give thanks, for thy name is near: Men tell of thy wondrous works. 2 For I will take a set time, I will judge uprightly. 3 The earth and all the inhabitants thereof are dissolved: I have set up the pillars of it. [Selah 4 I said unto the arrogant, Deal not arrogantly: And to the wicked, Lift not up the horn. 5 Lift not up your horn on high; Speak not with a stiff neck. 6 For neither from the east, nor from the west, Nor yet from the south, cometh lifting up. 7 But God is the judge: He putteth down one, and lifteth up another. 8 For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup, and the wine foameth; It is full of mixture, and he poureth out of the same: Surely the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall drain them out, and drink them. 9 But I will declare for ever, I will sing praises to the God of Jacob. 10 All the horns of the wicked also will I cut off; But the horns of the righteous shall be lifted up. THIS Psalm is probably to be referred to the defeat of the Assyrians under Sennacherib before Jerusalem (2 Kings 19). Hengstenberg regards it "as the lyrical accompaniment of Isaiah's prophecies in view of impending destruction by the Assyrians, and as the evidence of the living faith with which God's people received His promise." De Witt. The Psalm celebrates in prophetic strain the righteous judgment of God. The voice of God Himself from heaven declares His righteousness, announces to the world that He is not, as human impatience has ever been wont to deem. regardless of wrong and suffering; but that He only waits for the moment which to His infinite wisdom seems best, that He may chastise the insolence of evil-doers. There are no clearly marked historical allusions in the Psalm. It seems, however, not improbable, as has been conjectured by many commentators (Ewald, Tholuck, Delitzsch, etc.), that it may refer to the time of the Assyrian invasion, either as celebrating, or immediately anticipating, the defeat of Sennacherib. The Psalm opens with the ascription of praise which God's wonders, now and in all past time, have called forth (v. 1). It passes then to the prophetic announcement of the truth which has been uttered from heaven and echoed with triumph upon earth, of God's righteous judgment (vs. 2-8). Finally, it concludes with a determination to publish the praise of Jehovah forever, while the same prophetic strain of triumph is heard as in one last echo repeating itself (vs. 9, 10). P. TITLE. To the chief musician. Al-tashheth. A Psalm by Asaph. A song (of praise). In this Psalm the ancient Church expresses a confident anticipation of Divine assistance and deliverance from the domination of some great hostile power, the catastrophe of which is here foretold. The immediate historical occasion we have no direct means of determining; but the one to which the Psalm itself seems most appropriate is the destruction of the Assyrian host in the reign of Hezekiah. A. 1,2. The connection between these verses is not, at first sight, very obvious. It may, perhaps, be traced as follows: First, the Psalmist blends in one the past and the present. God has been, and is now, the object of Israel's praise; as He has both in the past and in the present displayed His wonders on their behalf. Then He abruptly cites the words of God, words whose fulfilment he had just witnessed, or whose approaching fulfilment he saw in the spirit of prophecy, words that were themselves an exemplification of the truth that God is near despite the madness of men and the disorders of the world. P. 1. The clause, "Thy name is near," is a fine illustration of the Hebrew usage of the word "name" to represent the special manifestations of God to men in the line of His power, wisdom, and love, here expressively grouped under the phrase, "Thy wonderful works." The last part of the verse, more closely translated, might stand: "Thy name is near; Thy wondrous works declare it;" or possibly thus: They (men in general) declare Thy wondrous works. God is so near, manifests Himself so openly and so signally that His glorious works are on every tongue; or those works themselves are both lip and tongue to declare it. Nothing less than this could fitly represent the prevalent feeling of the sons and daughters of Jerusalem when they arose one morning to find one hundred and eighty-five thousand dead corpses where but the night before lay the proud host of Assyria's king—the spoil strown over the country along their retreating path and the survivors of that host gone, never to return! Did they not feel deep in their heart that not their own hand but God's hand had done this? Ah, indeed, His name on that eventful night was near! His wondrous works told it too plainly to be misunderstood. C. 2. For I will take a set time; I will equitably judge. The best interpreters are now in favor of explaining these as the words of God Himself, containing the promise upon which was built the hope expressed in the preceding verse. Take then includes the two ideas of choosing and using for the end proposed. In the word translated set time, the idea of constituted time is predominant. As if he had said, I will appoint a time, and when it comes, I will ascend the judgment-seat. The parties to be tried are the foes and oppressors of God's people. The pronoun is emphatic; I, and no other, will be judge. A. 2,3. The exact thought is better thus: "For I will take a set time; I will judge right-cously. The land and all the dwellers in it are panic-smitten; I have adjusted the pillars thereof." That is, I will assign a time for manifesting My royal prerogative of judging the nations; then I will judge them in right-cousness. C. God is abruptly introduced as the speaker. The oracle is thus given as from the mouth of God Himself, to those who may be in doubt or perplexity because their lot is cast in troublous times. When the set time is come; literally, "When I shall have taken (reached) the set time," i.e., the time appointed in the Divine counsels. The thread of time is ever running, as it were, from the spindle, but at the critical moment God's hand arrests it. God is ever the righteous Judge, but He executes His sentence, not according to man's impatient expectations, but at the exact instant which He has chosen. Such a critical moment is the present. The world itself seems "utterly broken down and clean dissolved," but He who once built it up like a stately palace, still stays its pillars with His hand. The natural framework and the moral framework are here identified. To the poet's eye, the world of nature and the world of man are not two, but one. The words of Hannah's song (1 Sam. 2: 8) furnish an exact parallel: "For the pillars of the earth are Jehovah's, and He hath set the world upon them"—language which, as the context shows, has a moral application. P. 4-7. The course of thought is, Throw not your horn proudly in the air as if your power were supreme, and the destinies of all earth's nations were in your hand; for the decision of destinies comes neither from the east nor west, nor from the glorious old mountains of the region of Sinai, but God only and alone is judge—the sole and Almighty Arbiter of human destiny. C. 6. For. The poet himself speaks, taking up and applying to himself and to others the Divine sentence which he had just been commissioned to deliver. Glory and power come not from any earthly source, though a man should seek it in every quarter of the globe, but only from God, who lifteth up and casteth down, according to His own righteous sentence. From the south, the great wilderness lying in that direction. Thus three quarters are mentioned, the north only being omitted. This may be accounted for, supposing the Psalm to refer to Sennacherth, by the fact that the Assyrian army approached from the north; and therefore it would be natural to look in all directions but that for assistance to repel the invader. Lifting up. The word is evidently an emphatic word in the Psalm; it is the same which occurs in vs. 4 and 5, and again in vs. 7 and 10. "Lifting up," in its Hebrew sense, does not mean "promotion," as we commonly understand it, but deliverance from trouble; safety; victory. The image, in particular, of lifting up the head or the horn (the last, borrowed from wild beasts, in which the horn is the symbol of strength), denotes courage, strength, victory over enemies. P. 7. God is the Judge, the Governor or Umpire; when parties contend for the prize He puts down one and sets up another, as He sees fit, so as to serve His own purposes and bring to pass His own counsels. Herein He acts by prerogative, and is not accountable to us for any of these matters; nor is it any damage, danger, or disgrace that He who is infinitely wise, holy, and good has power to set up and put down whom and when and how He pleases. H. The rise and fall of nations and empires are in this Psalm ascribed to God. He exalts one and puts down another at His pleasure. In this He generally uses instrumentality, but that instrumentality is always rendered effectual by His own agency. When nations or individuals are prosperous and powerful, they usually ascribe all to themselves or to fortune. But it is God who has raised them to eminence. When they boast He can humble them. In these verses God is considered as the governor of the world, punishing the wicked and pouring out judgments on His enemies. The calamities of war, pestilence, and famine are all ministers of providence to execute wrath. A. Carson. 8. The meaning is that they shall have nothing left for it, no resource or alternative, except to drain the cup to the very dregs, i.e., to suffer God's wrath to the uttermost. The position given to the subject of the sentence at its close makes it more emphatic. A.—The dregs of the cup all the wicked of the earth will be compelled to drink out; they may not drink and put down the cup, but they must drink it out with involuntary avidity even to the last drop (Ezek. 23: 34). We have here the primary passage of a figure which is worked out by the prophets in an ever grander manner. D. Here is an eternal truth with which we would not part: God must hate sin and be forever sin's enemy. Because He is the Lord of love, therefore must He be a consuming fire to evil; God is against evil, but for us; if, then, we sin He must be against us; in sinning we identify ourselves with evil, therefore we must endure the consuming fire. Oh, brethren, in this soft age in which we live it is good to fall back on the first principles of everlasting truth. We have come to think that education may be maintained by mere laws of love instead of discipline, and that public punishment may be abolished. We say that these things are contrary to the Gospel; and here, doubtless, there is an underlying truth: it is true that there may be a severity in education which defeats itself, it is true that love and tenderness may do more than severity; but yet under a system of mere love and tenderness no character can acquire manliness or firmness. When you have once got rid of the idea of public punishment, then by degrees you will also get rid of the idea of sin: where is it written in the Word of God that the sword of His minister is to be borne in vain? In this world of groaning and of anguish, tell us where it is that the law which links suffering to sin has ceased to act? F. W. Robertson. 9. But as for me—placing himself and the congregation of Israel in opposition to the proud oppressors—I will be the everlasting herald of this great and memorable act. This is the true Non omnis moriar. 10. Triumphantly in this last verse he claims, for himself and for the Church, a share in the signal act of deliverance. That which God threatens (vs. 4, 5), He accomplishes by the hand of His servants. Every horn of worldly power must fall before Him. Ewald sees an emphasis in the word all, repeated v. 8 and here. The punishment is, as yet, only begun. Some only have drunk of that deadly wine, but the cup is large, and all the wicked must drain it. P. 1. IN Judah is God known : His name is great in Israel. 2 In Salem also is his tabernacle, And his dwelling place in Zion. 3 There he brake the arrows of the bow ; The shield, and the sword, and the battle. [Selah 4 Glorious art thou and excellent, from the mountains of prey. 5 The stouthearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep ; And none of the men of might have found their hands. 6 At thy rebuke, O God of Jacob, Both chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep. THIS Psalm follows Psalm 75 most appropriately. It is the consummation of the judgment there forecast, and throughout bears the impress of the same historic connection. Without this the preceding Psalm disappoints us by its incompleteness. For the self-manifestation of God in the illustration of His glorious Name at important crises in history, when all is lost without the aid of Almighty power, embraces both the announcement and the execution of His righteous judgment. This Psalm follows, as its companion precedes, the destruction of the Assyrian power. De Witt. This is one of several Psalms which were composed in celebration of the miraculous overthrow of Sennacherib's army. From the days of Israel's first occupation of the land, when God went forth with their hosts, giving the victory by signs and wonders from heaven, no deliverance so signal had been witnessed. Hence it roused in an extraordinary degree the religious fervor of the nation, and called forth loud songs of thanksgiving. Like Psalms 46, 47, 48, this is an ode of victory over the Assyrians. It tells of Zion's glory and Zion's safety (to which there may be an allusion in the name Salem), because God has chosen it for His dwelling-place. It tells of the discomfiture of that proud army, whose might was weakness itself when arrayed against the might of Jehovah. It tells how the warriors sank into their last sleep before the walls of the city, not beaten 7. Thou, even thou, art to be feared . And who may stand in thy sight when once thou art angry ? 8 Thou didst cause sentence to be heard from heaven ; The earth feared, and was still, 9 When God arose to judgment, To save all the meek of the earth. [Selah 10 Surely the wrath of man shall praise thee : The residue of wrath shalt thou gird upon thee. 11 Vow, and pay unto the LORD your God : Let all that be round about him bring presents unto him that ought to be feared. 12 He shall cut off the spirit of princes : He is terrible to the kings of the earth. down before a human enemy, not slain by an earthly arm, but at the rebuke of the God of Jacob. And then the poet looks beyond the immediate scene. He beholds in this great deliverance not the power only, but the righteousness of God. It is God's solemn act of judgment. It is His voice speaking from heaven and filling the earth. And the lesson which this act of judgment teaches is the folly of man, who would measure his impotent wrath against the majesty of God ; and the wisdom of submission to Him who is the only worthy object of fear. The Psalm consists of four strophes, each of which is comprised in three verses. The first celebrates Jerusalem and Zion as the abode of God, and the place where He has manifested His power (vs. 1-3). The second describes in a forcible and animated manner the sudden destruction of the beleaguering army (vs. 4-6). The third dwells on that event as a solemn, far-reaching act of judgment, conveying its lesson to the world (vs. 7-9). The last tells what that lesson is, counselling submission to Him whose power and whose righteousness have so wonderfully made themselves known (vs. 10-12). P. 1,2. These opening sentences seem to go back to the first revelations of God's power and grace, by which He became established upon His throne in Zion. From Zion as the centre must go forth every new manifestation of His glorious majesty in behalf of Israel, the latest of which is now celebrated in thankful song. De Witt. His name is great in Israel, inasmuch as He has proved Himself to be a great One and is praised as a great One. In Judah more especially; for there in Jerusalem and indeed upon Zion, the citadel with the gates of old, He has His dwelling-place upon earth within Israel. Salem is the ancient name of Jerusalem; for the Salem of Melchizedek is one and the same city with Jerusalem of Adonizedek in Josh. 10:1. D. 1. Well might it be said then, "In Judah is God known;" known as the hearer of prayer; known as the enduring, unfailing Friend of His covenant people; known as One mighty to save. "His name is great in Israel;" how could it be otherwise after such displays of matchless power and terrible retribution upon the proud Assyrian! C.—In Judah, in His Church, where His Word and ordinances are, where Christ is preached, and the mystery of man's salvation is opened, there God is known truly without error, perspicuously without obscurities, and savingly without uncertainties. And His name is great in Israel; His power, wisdom, truth, love, and goodness is much magnified and very glorious in their apprehensions who know Him in Christ Jesus. A. Grosse. 2. Salem is but another name for Jerusalem—the city of the Great King, the place of God's special abode, where first His tent and afterward His temple was located. Assyria's king had proudly hurled defiance at the God of Israel; in the words of Isaiah (19:33), had "shaken his hand at the mount of the daughter of Zion, the hill of Jerusalem;" but the God who dwelt there sent forth His angel through that Assyrian camp one awful night—it was enough! The dwelling-place of Israel's God was safe! C. 2,3. The care of Salem, or Zion, lies at the bottom of all God's powerful actings and workings among the sons of men. Every mighty work of God throughout the world may be prefaced with these two verses. The whole course of affairs in the world is steered by Providence in reference to the good of Salem. Owen. 3. There, at that point, just as that marshaled host thought themselves within striking distance and ready to smite the city—there Jehovah shivered the lightnings of the bow, the shield, the sword—all his implements of battle. Pause and think of that crash underneath the stroke of the Almighty! C.—Every weapon, offensive and defensive, the Lord dashed in pieces. In the spiritual conflicts of this and every age, the like will be seen; no weapon that is formed against the Church shall prosper, and every tongue that rises against her in judgment, she shall condemn. "Selah." It is meet that we should dwell on so soul-stirring a theme, and give the Lord our grateful adoration, hence a pause is inserted. S. 4. God goes forth victoriously from Zion to crush His foes. "The promise," Tholuck says, "is fulfilled: 'I will break the Assyrian in My land, and upon My mountains tread him under foot' (Isa. 14:25). Yea, upon the mountains of Jerusalem they themselves must become a prey who had hoped there to gather the prey." P. 5. Slept their sleep. The sleep of death, a figure which is peculiarly appropriate to the destruction of the Assyrian army in the dead of night. None have found their hands. This phrase is remarkable; it seems to represent a death which comes suddenly, yet with a momentary interval of consciousness; the sleeper, awakened by a sudden pang, endeavors in vain to put out his hands and grasp his weapons, but falls back overwhelmed by the deep sleep, which in the next verse is said to fall on chariot and horse, i.e., the whole army of the invaders. Cook.—In v. 6 we see them lying in the last throes of death and making the last attempt to raise themselves up. But they do not find the hands, which they lifted up threateningly against Jerusalem; these are paralyzed, motionless, rigid and dead. This field of corpses is the effect of the omnipotent energy of the Word of the God of Jacob. Before His threatening both chariot and horse, equipage and chargers, have sunk into motionlessness and unconsciousness. D. 6. The sleep meant is of course the sleep of death. The application of this figure to the chariot as well as to the horse is less paradoxical in Hebrew, where the noun used is sometimes a collective meaning cavalry. At the same time there is beauty in the figure, as suggesting that the noisy rattle of the wheels is hushed in death like silence. A. 7-9. The description of the effect of God's judgments upon the people is very striking; the tones are grave, solemn, speaking rather of awe than exultation; the only grace which the Psalmist claims for his people is meekness, a consciousness of weakness, and dependence on God's power. Cook. 7. Thou, even Thou, art to be feared. The emphasis in the word "thou," redoubled, implies as much as if he had said, Not principalities, not powers, not hell, not death, nor anything for themselves, but Thou, O Lord, alone art to be feared. Arguments and reasons to confirm it are two, here laid down in the text: the first is drawn from God's anger, who hath decreed and accordingly executes vengeance upon all the proud. The second is drawn from His power; not princes, not armies, not men, not angels are able to endure the breath of His fury; for, "Who may stand in Thy sight when once Thou art angry?" Cragge. 8. As in the last Psalm, God is spoken of as the Judge (this is a peculiar feature in the Psalms ascribed to Asaph); and, as in that, he speaks from heaven, terrifying His enemies with the thunder of His Word. P. 8,9. From out of His high heavens God made the mandate for His judgments to be heard—judgments in the sense of visitations of destruction upon His defiant foes. Earth feared and hushed itself to silence before God's awful voice. It was to save the meek ones—meek in the twofold sense of pious and frail—the poor, dependent ones who cast themselves on their God for help. Pause and contemplate this wonderful interposition! C. 10. The meaning of the first clause appears to be that all the wrath and violence of man do but serve to bring out the attributes of God, and so display His glory; the second clause is more doubtful; our version gives a fair sense, God will put an end to all other outbursts of fury on the part of His enemies. This interpretation is defended by Calvin, Venema, Doederlein, and Dathe (who follow Kimchi), and it is supported by an analogous use of the original word in Arabic, Syriac, and in the Mishna. Cook. For the wrath of man shall praise Thee (or acknowledge Thee); the remainder of wraths Thou shalt gird (about Thee). The very passions which excite men to rebel against God shall be used as instruments and means of coercion. And so complete shall be this process, that even the remnant of such passionate excitement, which might be expected to escape attention, will be nevertheless an instrument or weapon in the hands of God. A.—Man's wrath doth but praise God. With the remainder of man's wrath, his last impotent efforts to assert his own power, God girds Himself, puts it on, so to speak, as an ornament—clothes himself therewith to his own glory. Thus the parallelism of the two clauses is strictly preserved. The word wrath is in the plural, denoting either wrath of every kind, or wrath in its intensity. P. The wrath of wicked men against the people of God puts them upon many devices, in frustrating of which the wisdom of God and His care of His Church is illustrated. The wrath of wicked men impels them to many violent attempts to destroy the people of God, and so gives Him occasion to manifest His power in their defence. It makes them sometimes fit to be His instruments in correcting His people, and so He makes them that hate holiness promote it in His people, and them that intend the greatest hurt to do them the greatest good. So it serves much to adorn God's signal undertakings for His people in the world, and to manifest the glory of God's justice upon His people's enemies. J. Warren. God can use the wrath of man to any extent for His own praise. No matter how fierce, no matter how extreme or desperate, the more the better for His purposes; He can so easily gird it on and make it the very sword of His righteous retribution upon His proud and maddened foes. And did not Jehovah gird about Him the utmost wrath of Assyria's king and use it as His sword for the terrific slaughter of that mighty host? Such examples fill every page of history. C.—God makes use of this great evil, "the wrath of man," to make war on and destroy other great evils in the earth—He lets it go forth with His commission as a gigantic demolisher. One wicked nation has been made His avenger on the greater wickedness of another. Wars of conquest have been directed by Providence to break up a state of ignorance and barbarism, which seemed otherwise to have a principle of perpetuity. Furious invasions, iniquitous in their principle, and intended for no good, have had the effect of destroying monstrous tyrannies and direful superstitions. J. F. This truth has bearings both wide and rich upon the relations of sin under the moral government of God. It shows plainly that God never can be alarmed by the presence of sin, lest it should get any considerable ascendancy in His universe. No matter though it rage and burn and goad itself into furious wrath, God knows His own resources. He understands how He cannot only arrest and curtail this mischief, but how He can even turn it to great and good account. These views of God's relations to sin should inspire a calm and patient trust in God amid the darkest scenes. C. The elements of necessity and free will are reconciled in the higher power of an omnipresent Providence, that predestinates the whole in the moral freedom of the integral parts. Of this the Bible never suffers us to lose sight. The root is never detached from the ground. It is God everywhere; and all creatures conform to His decrees; the righteous by performance of the law, the disobedient by the sufferance of the penalty. Coleridge.—The revelation of God in His Word as the God of providence is everywhere grand and solemn. It is grand beyond expression to behold God, as a sovereign God, ordering all things after the councils of His own will, to work the purposes of His own good pleasure, and to this end, even while leaving His creatures to the exercise of their own freedom as voluntary intelligent agents, yet overruling even the free will of His enemies for the accomplishment of His own will, out of evil itself ever bringing forth good, and causing even the sin and wrath in the hearts of the wicked to praise Him. It is the mighty, incomprehensible, and supreme prerogative of Jehovah alone to do this, and in the exercise of this prerogative all beings and things are made to do His bidding; the believing and the loving by obedience and love, the unbelieving and rebellious by the sufferance of the penalty. But, oh! what a difference it makes to the creature, whether the will of the great Creator be performed out of a loving, obedient, trusting, and praising heart, thus fixed by the very beatings and breathings of the heart, in the heart of heaven, in heaven's essential holiness and blessedness, wherever in all God's universe be the position in time and space; or whether it be accomplished rather than performed by an unwilling, rebellious, distrustful, unloving, suffering heart, compelled, in the endurance of the penalty of God's violated law, to perform the last and only thing that remains whereby God can be glorified; and thus, by the very elements of a transgressing soul, by the very breathings and beatings of a heart of sin and hate and suffering, wherever in all God's universe be the position in time and space occupied. Cheever. Powerful as is the evil will of man, yet more powerful far is the will of the omnipotent God. Great as has been the misery and ruin which depraved man in every generation has wrought on the earth, far greater would these have been had not the might of Jehovah been continually interposed to stay the natural course of the corrupt heart. Had not His energies been ceaselessly put forth to frustrate the purposes of the sinful human soul and bring to nought its destructive counsels and efforts, earth had been a scene of unqualified wickedness and shameless guilt, of unmingled, unmitigated wretchedness, ruin, and woe. As we trace the events of human history, how signally does this appear! B. Thus far through the long, sad history, the glory of God has very much arisen from the display of His power in contest with human iniquity. How the human nature could come into such a state, and why the sovereign Lord of all things suffered it to do so, have been the fruitless inquiries of innumerable speculating minds—inquiries totally in vain. How such an awful fact is to answer ultimately a good end is a matter to be surrendered to the wisdom and power of an Infinite Mind. And methinks it is a glorious thing that there should be a Mind to which all this is no difficulty either to comprehend or to accomplish. For ourselves, all we can say is, that the universe is vast, that eternity is long; and that it is perfectly conceivable that under such a government, acting and combining on such an immensity of space and duration, it is perfectly conceivable (though not the manner how) that so much evil may answer a glorious end. And no doubt the redeemed and holy spirits will hereafter have a revelation in part and by degrees of this great mystery. In the mean time, we clearly see God in opposition to man. And also we most clearly see that He is right. For wherein has He, through all ages, maintained this opposition? What has He declared and acted against in man? the things that we see and know to be in themselves pernicious and hateful—idolatry, disregard of true religion, delusion, all the destructive passions, all crime and vice, all injustice among men, oppression, rapacious selfishness, cruelty, fraud. And therefore it is right that He should gain to Himself glory, or "praise," in this opposition. It is not the praise or glory of a powerful tyrant, but of a most righteous Governor. Should He surrender to itself, let go from His jurisdiction a world that is careless of Him, alienated, irreligious, rebellious? Should He give it up as a province of His dominion from which no tribute of honor can be gained, because it is averse to render Him such tribute? Should He keep it in His great system, under a grand economy of nature and Providence, as a portion entirely waste, as a planet not belonging to His dominion? May He not righteously extort by His power, from the very wickedness of His perverse subjects, a glory which their homage, their love, their obedience, will not yield Him? And the whole spirit and avowal of His declarations is that He will do this. J. F. II. This is the end. God has wrought His terrible act of judgment, but the first of a long series of judgments to be executed on the nations, unless by timely submission they acknowledge Him as their King. P. 1. I WILL cry unto God with my voice; Even unto God with my voice, and he will give ear unto me. 2 In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: My hand was stretched out in the night, and slacked not; My soul refused to be comforted. 3 I remember God, and am disquieted: I complain, and my spirit is overwhelmed. [Selah 4 Thou holdest mine eyes watching: I am so troubled that I cannot speak. 5 I have considered the days of old, The years of ancient times. 6 I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart; And my spirit made diligent search. 7 Will the Lord cast off for ever? And will he be favourable no more? 8 Is his mercy clean gone for ever? Doth his promise fail for evermore? 9 Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? [Selah 10 And I said, This is my infirmity; But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. 11. I will make mention of the deeds of the LORD; For I will remember thy wonders of old. 12 I will meditate also upon all thy work, And muse on thy doings. 13 Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary [in holiness]: Who is a great god like unto God? 14 Thou art the God that doest wonders: Thou hast made known thy strength among the peoples. 15 Thou hast with thine arm redeemed thy people, The sons of Jacob and Joseph. [Selah 16 The waters saw thee, O God; The waters saw thee, they were afraid: The depths also trembled. 17 The clouds poured out water; The skies sent out a sound: Thine arrows also went abroad. 18 The voice of thy thunder was in the whirlwind; The lightnings lightened the world; The earth trembled and shook. 19 Thy way was in the sea, And thy paths in the great waters, And thy footsteps were not known. 20 Thou leddest thy people like a flock, By the hand of Moses and Aaron. THE third chapter of Habakkuk should be read with this Psalm, to which it contains frequent allusions, and of which it is in some sense a continuation. The Psalm can scarcely be an imitation, its purpose and unity forbid such a supposition; but its spirit, and some phrases in it, may have so impressed themselves upon the national memory as to be repeated in later prophecy. The expressions in Habakkuk, which seem imitations of the Psalm, are fuller. G. H. S. J. This Psalm is the record, first, of a sorrow long and painfully questioning with itself, full of doubts and fears, trying in vain to find in itself, or in the past, a light for the present; and then, of the triumph over that sorrow by the recollection of God's love and power, as manifested in the early history of Israel. By whom the Psalm was written, or to what period of the history it is to be referred, it is now impossible to say. But whenever and by whomsoever the Psalm may have been written, it clearly is individual, not national. The allusions to the national history may indeed show that the season was a season of national distress, and that the sweet singer was himself bowed down by the burden of the time, and oppressed by woes which he had no power to alleviate; but it is his own sorrow, not the sorrows of others, under which he sighs, and of which he has left the pathetic record. The Psalm falls naturally into two principal parts; the first (vs. 1-9), containing the expression of the Psalmist's sorrow and disquietude; the second (vs. 10-20), telling how he rose above them. P. The prophet, oppressed with a heavy weight of affliction, pathetically describes the conflicts and internal contests to which he is subjected, before he is enabled to rise from the depths of woe to any degree of hope or confidence. In the character of a suppliant, he first pours forth his earnest prayers to the God of his hope. He next endeavors to mitigate his sorrows by the remembrance of former times; but this, on the contrary, only seems to aggravate his sufferings, by the comparison of his present adversity with his former happiness. Again, recollecting the different methods by which the Almighty seeks the salvation of His people, appearing frequently to frown upon those "in whom He delighteth;" reconsidering also the vast series of mercies which He had bestowed upon His chosen people; the miracles which He had wrought in their favor; in a word, the goodness, the holiness, the power of the great Ruler of the universe; with all the ardor of gratitude and affection, he bursts forth into a strain of praise and exultation (vs. 13-19). In this passage we are at a loss which to admire most, the ease and grace with which the digression is made, the choice of the incidents, the magnificence of the imagery, or the force and elegance of the diction. Bishop Lowth. 2,3. It is no occasional petition hastily put up, but a struggle, like that of Jacob, through the livelong night. It is even a sorer conflict, for he has not found the blessing as Jacob did. He cannot be comforted. He would think of God, but even that thought brings him no strength; he looks within, and his sorrow deepens. V. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord. Days of trouble must be days of prayer; especially when God seems to have withdrawn from us we must seek Him, and seek till we find Him. In the day of his trouble he did not seek for the diversion of business or recreation to shake off his trouble, but he sought God and His favor and grace. My hand was stretched out in the night, and ceased not; as speaking the incessant importunity of his prayers. H.—He was afflicted, but in his affliction he "remembered God." Whatever doubts he entertained as to his own condition and the favor of God toward him, yet of the Being, the power and wisdom of God, he never doubted. This faith, which in his utmost extremity he held fast, proved to be his sheet-anchor, and saved him from the shipwreck which the storms and tempests raised in his own breast seemed to threaten. Bishop Sherlock. There are moments in the life of all believers when God and His ways become unintelligible to them. They get lost in profound meditation, and nothing is left them but a desponding sigh. But we know that the Holy Spirit intercedes for believers with God when they cannot utter their sighs (Rom. 8 : 26). Tholuck.—It is in the experience of the Divine life that doubts melt away or can be held in quiet expectancy of a solution, and that we approach gradually to the calm of those that rest beneath the altar. The thought of God that for a while brings trouble shall be made the source of hope, the pledge that all with you and with His universe shall be ordered to a happy end; and even here, amid the trouble and struggle of earth, He can put into the mouth some notes of the praise of heaven. Ker. "Selah" doth admonish and stir up the reader or hearer to mark what was said before it; for it is a word always put after very notable sentences. John Hooper. 4. When thou canst not sleep with thine eyes, labor to see Him that is invisible; one glimpse of that sight is more worth than all the sleep that thine eyes can be capable of. Give thyself up into His hands, to be disposed of at His will. What is this sweet acquiescence but the rest of the soul? which if thou canst find in thyself thou shalt quietly digest the want of thy bodily sleep. Bishop H. 5,6. The place of audible prayer is taken by quiet soliloquy; thinking over the matter he puts himself back into the days of old, the years of bygone times, which were so rich in proofs of the power and lovingkindness of the God who was then manifest, but who is now hidden; he calls to remembrance the better past of his people and of himself, inasmuch as now in the night he of set purpose calls back into his consciousness the time when joyous thankfulness impelled him to sing songs of praise. D. If there are hours in our life when we know that there is a living God and an eternal world, it is in a crisis when we are compelled to cling to Him in the dark, and feel, as we cling, a strength beneath that lifts us up. It is then that God enters and heaven opens, and that we know what it is to have strength in weakness, and peace in trouble, and to bear a crushing load, and feel One bearing us. This is God's way of help, so good for us, so glorifying to Himself, and whenever it comes, in whatever degree, it is "his song in the night." The song in the night is not only this conscious feeling, it is the expression of it, to ourselves and others. It may not be loud—not even whispered in words—but it is a resignation to the will of God, that is calm and sweet, that speaks often loudest when the lips are dumb. The song tells of a coming end to darkness, for there is prophecy in it, and wherever there is this deepest harmony—the heart at one with God in sorrow—the highest hope is never far away. If you search the history of God's dealings you will find that it has been His manner to give these songs in the deepest night to those who look to Him. In the time of Job He was known as "God our maker, who giveth songs in the night." Asaph remembered his "song in the night, when he communed with his heart;" and what are David's Psalms in trouble, but songs when God made "the very night to be light about him"? Paul and Silas found it in prison, when "they prayed and sang praises at midnight, and the prisoners heard them," for He in whom they trusted made His comforts come gliding like His own angels through the prison bars, till strange sounds of song, such as dungeons had not known before, came floating to the wondering listeners. In privation, in bereavement, in desertion, in death, these utterances of confidence in God are written down for us. In the night of trial He has filled the history of His Church as full of songs beneath as of stars of promise above. They console the hearts of the singers and they rise to join the songs of the morning stars, to announce that a ransomed company is marching through the gloom, anticipating the time when they too "shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Ker. 6. I commune with my own heart; my spirit made diligent search.** Make up your spiritual accounts daily; see how matters stand between God and your souls. Often reckonings keep God and conscience friends. Do with your hearts as you do with your watches, wind them up every morning by prayer, and at night examine whether your hearts have gone true all that day, whether the wheels of your affections have moved swiftly toward heaven. Call yourselves often to account; keep your reckonings even; that is the way to keep your peace. Watson.—The question is, what principle sets a work? If it be an inward principle of life, out of a sincere affection and love to God and His ordinances, it argueth that man hath some life of grace; but if it be some wind that bloweth on him—the wind of State, the wind of law, the wind of danger, of penalty, the wind of fashion or custom—to do as his neighbors do; if these or the like be the things that draw him thither, this is no argument of life at all; it is a dead piece of service. Day. 7-9. He gives himself up to musing "in his heart," i.e., in retirement within his inmost nature, inasmuch as he allows his thoughts to range unceasingly to and fro between the present and the past, and consequently his spirit begins to make scruples, his temptation grows in intensity. There now follow the doubting questions of the tempted one. D. Saints in all ages have experienced fluctuating frames. Doubt and uncertainty take place of knowledge and truth; unbelief seems to prevail against faith, and they are ready to call all in question; not only past sweet experiences of God's love to their souls, but the very existence of God's promises, faithfulness, and truth. And they write many false and bitter things against themselves. "Woe is me, I am undone," saith Isaiah. "Woe is me," saith Jeremiah. "Without were fightings, within were fears," say the apostles. And in this Psalm hope seems to be, as it were, giving up the ghost, and with languid, faint accents breathes, "Will the Lord cast off forever? will He be favorable no more? is His mercy clean gone forever? doth His promise fail forevermore? hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath He, in anger, shut up His tender mercies?" So you see, O tossed, tempted, tried believer, this is the way saints in all ages have gone to glory. Thou hast thy lot with them now; soon thou also shalt be where they are. How comforting, how heart-reviving to know that the Lord, "who sent redemption unto His people, will ever be mindful of His covenant, which standeth fast forever"! W. Mason. 8. God's lovingkindness and God's promise are the two props of his faith. P.—Cast not away your confidence because God defers His performances. Though providences run cross, though they move backward and forward, you have a sure and faithful Word to rely upon. Promises, though they be for a time seemingly delayed, cannot be finally frustrated. Dare not to harbor such a thought within yourselves. The being of God may as well fail as the promise of God. That which does not come in your time will be hastened in His time, which is always the best. Cruso. 9. In anger His tender mercies.** The words are evidently placed with design in juxtaposition, in order to heighten the contrast. Compare Hab. 3:2, "In wrath remember mercy," where there is the same juxtaposition in the Hebrew. P.—Nay, verily, the Lord has not forgotten to be gracious, though He sometimes seems to hide His face; nor does He cease to rule the world, though He delays to interpose. The Father watches and preserves His child amid the fiercest fires of persecution; and although the furnace of the trial through which he comes be heated seven times more than usual, every degree of heat is counted, measured, regulated by the Lord Himself. Though He permits injustice, and even lets it grow to an extraordinary height, He yet employs it for a purpose that may well command our adoration and regard—the purifying and the perfecting of those who are His own. He lets the wickedness of men increase for a brief period, that He may suddenly abase them all the more; His words of comfort are withheld, just that, in His own time, He may speak far more forcibly by deeds. Van O. 10. And I said, this is my affliction, the years of the right hand of the Highest. This may be regarded as the turning-point of the entire composition. After all the repinings and misgivings just described, I said, at length, what I might and should have said before. My affliction, literally, my sickness, that specific form of suffering being put for suffering in general, as inflicted by the hand of God. The use of the word years seems to imply that the trial was one of long continuance. The Divine name or description (Most High) suggests the duty and necessity of yielding to His sovereign pleasure. A. The thought is that the grief of the sufferer is intensified by the contrast between the present withdrawal of God's favor, and His wonderful works of grace and power in the past. Yet he finds his greatest comfort in recalling them, and cherishes the hope that God will be equally gracious in the present sore need. De Witt.—All this that I have been asking myself, and saddening myself with asking, seems impossible, and yet it is this very change which perplexes me. And then (v. 11) he recovers himself, and passes from self-contemplation to record God's wonders for His people. There recurs especially the one great deliverance never to be forgotten, the type and the pledge of all deliverances, whether of the nation or of the individual. On this he lays hold; by this he sustains his sinking faith. P. Despondency of spirit and distrust of God under affliction are too often the infirmities of good people, and as such are to be reflected upon by us with sorrow and shame, as by the Psalmist here, This is my infirmity. When at any time it is working in us, we must thus suppress the rising of it, and not suffer the evil spirit to speak. We must argue down the insurrections of unbelief, as the Psalmist here, But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High. He had been considering the years of ancient times (v. 5), the blessings formerly enjoyed, the remembrance of which did only add to his grief; but now he considered them as the years of the right hand of the Most High. That those blessings of ancient times came from the Ancient of days, from the power and sovereign disposal of His right hand, who is over all, God blessed forever, and this satisfied him; for may not the Most High with His right hand make what changes He pleases? H. To how many of our thoughts, and feelings, and spiritual utterances may we apply these words: "This is my infirmity!" Of hard thoughts of God, of dark views of His providence, of distrustful feelings toward God, and often of corresponding thoughts and feelings toward men, we may say, "This is my infirmity." And weakness of the body, faults in the spirit, and Satanic influence are the fountains and the causes of these utterances. The Psalmist resolves, as an antidote to despondency and fear, to bring the past and the present, recollections and existing consciousness, the day of his trouble and years of joyousness, the right hand of the Most High and his enemies and troubles—he resolves to bring them into comparison, to bring them together. "I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High." S. Martin.—Not the moments, nor the hours, nor days of a few short afflictions, that His left hand hath dealt to me, but the "years of His right hand;" those long, large, and boundless mercies wherewith He hath comforted me. T. Adams. It is the "infirmity" of a believer to be thinking of himself, and drawing false inferences (for all such inferences are necessarily erroneous) from what he sees or feels, as to the light in which he is beheld and estimated on the part of God. It is his strength, on the other hand, to remember the right hand of the Most High—to meditate upon the changeless truth and mercy of that God who has committed Himself in holiness to the believing sinner's sure salvation, by causing the Son of His love to suffer in our stead. A. Pridham.—Each one of us in all the roughnesses of the road which we have to pass over may, after first acknowledging our own infirmity, repose our minds on the thought of God's mercies to us in days gone by. Bishop H. Goodwin. 11. Remember Thy wonders. He does not mean to draw a distinction between the works and the wonders of God; but rather to state that all God's works are wonders. All, whether in providence or grace—all God's works are wonderful. If we take the individual experience of the Christian, it is all wonderful! Wonderful that the Spirit should strive with man; wonderful that God should bear with his backslidings; wonderful that God should love him notwithstanding his pollution; wonderful that God should persist in saving him in spite, as it were, of himself. Those who know anything experimentally of salvation through Christ, well know that the work is wonderful in its commencement, wonderful in its continuance, and they will need no argument to vindicate the transition from "works" to "wonders." Melville. 12. His remembrance of the sublime deeds of Jehovah's power and grace in the days of old will be prolonged and absorbing. He will meditate, will muse on these topics until they take possession of his soul and color all his thoughts and feelings. Chambers.—Meditation on Divine things makes them really profitable to us. In the mere apprehension of truth, whether through reading or hearing, there is little or no profit. The profit begins when that which is apprehended is so pondered as to become part and parcel of the man's inner nature; just as food becomes of advantage to us when it is not only taken into the body but assimilated to it, and mixed with its substance. A man may run through a picture-gallery so as to see every painting it contains, and to derive from the sight a certain amount of pleasure; but he alone profits by such an exhibition who pauses and studies each worthy work of art, and gathers ideas from it which enrich his mind, or learns lessons from it which refine his taste, or which may guide his own efforts after excellence in art. "It is the settling of milk," says an old writer, "that makes it turn to cream, and it is the settling of truth in the mind that makes it turn to spiritual nutriment." W. L. Alexander. By meditation do we ransack our deep and false hearts, find out our secret enemies, buckle with them, expel them, arm ourselves against their re-entrance. By this we make use of all good means, fit ourselves to all good duties; by this we descry all our weaknesses, obtain redress, prevent temptations, cheer up our solitariness, temper our occasions of delight, get more light into our knowledge, more heat to our affections, more life to our devotions. By this we grow to be—as we are—strangers upon earth; and, out of a right estimation of all earthly things, into a sweet fruition of invisible comforts. This alone is the remedy of security and worldliness, the pastime of saints, the ladder of heaven, and the best improvement of Christianity. Bishop H.—To set the crown on the head of the duty of meditation, add one thing over and above—let meditation be carried up to admiration; not only should we be affected, but rapt up with the beauties and transcendencies of heavenly things; act meditation to admiration, endeavor the highest pitch, as here the Psalmist in extolling the greatness and mercy of Jehovah. N. Ranee. 13. O God, in holiness is Thy way. What Mighty (One) is great like God? The common version, in the sanctuary, yields a good sense; but the other is entitled to the preference on account of Ex. 15: 11, to which place there is evident allusion. Holiness here means the Divine perfection, all that distinguishes the Maker from His creatures. Thy way, i.e., Thy mode of dealing with Thy creatures, and particularly with Thy people. The use of the name El is again significant. Who is there like God, even among the mightiest and most exalted beings? A. Is holy; literally, "is in holiness," not as others, "in the sanctuary," for the Psalmist, though speaking generally of God's redeeming love and power, is evidently thinking chiefly of the deliverance from Egypt, on which he afterward dwells. In this and the next verse there is an allusion to Ex. 15: 11: "Who is like unto Thee, O Jehovah, among the gods? Who is like Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?" P.—This manifest allusion demands that the same word here should take the same sense as there. Moreover, it would be difficult to find any pertinent sense for the passage in these words—"Thy way is in the temple"—since the context refers to the glorious miracles wrought of God in the redemption of His covenant people. But nothing could be more pertinent than to say: Thy ways are altogether holy, wrought in pure and perfect holiness, i.e., in supreme justice and benevolence—those great moral qualities which in their perfection distinguish the Infinite God from all the noblest creatures of earth. So also in greatness none can compare with Him. C. 14. Not only Israel, but Egypt, Bashan, Edom, Philistia, and all the nations had seen Jehovah's power. It was no secret in the olden time, and to this day it is published abroad. God's providence and grace are both full of displays of His power; He is in the latter peculiarly conspicuous as "mighty to save." Who will not be strong in faith when there is so strong an arm to lean upon? Shall our trust be doubtful when His power is beyond all question? S. 15. Thou hast redeemed. A word especially applied to the deliverance from Egyptian bondage. "The word 'redemption,' which has now a sense far holier and higher," says Dean Stanley, "first entered into the circle of religious ideas at the time when God 'redeemed His people from the house of bondage.'" 16-20. There follows now a description of the manner in which the redemption (v. 15) was accomplished in the passage of the Red Sea. In vs. 17, 18, the rain, the thunder and lightning, and the earthquake, are features of the scene not mentioned in the history in Exodus. Both Philo and Josephus add this circumstance in their narrative of the event. "The passage, as thus described," says Dean Stanley, "was effected, not in the calmness and clearness of daylight, but in the depth of midnight, amid the roar of the hurricane, which caused the sea to go back—amid a darkness lit up only by the broad glare of the lightning, as the Lord looked out of the thick darkness of the cloud." He then quotes these verses of the Psalm. This is one of those instances in which we obtain valuable incidental additions, by means of the psalmists and prophets, to the earlier narratives. P. The poet describes it as if he were present: the waters convulsed to their very depths, the skies pouring out their streams, the earth quaking, the heavens gleaming and the thunder roaring. Amid such commotions in the world of nature, above and below, Jehovah marched through the sea, making a passage for His redeemed. His person and His working were invisible, but the result was manifest. The passage was accomplished safely. Chambers. 16. The waters saw Thee. The waters of the Red Sea are here beautifully represented as endued with sensibility, as seeing, feeling, and being confounded, even to the lowest depths, at the presence and power of their great Creator, when He commanded them to open a way and to form a wall on each side until His people were passed over. Bishop Horne. 18. The earth feared and became still, says Psalm 76:9; the earth trembled and shook, says Psalm 77:18. This common thought is the string upon which these two Psalms are strung. In general it may be said of this Psalm that the singer flees away from the sorrowful present into the memory of the years of the days of old, and consoles himself more especially with the picture of the deliverance from Egypt, so rich in wonders. D. It was only God marching along the sea and making His pathway in the great waters, when in His pillar of fire and cloud He led the way for the hosts of Israel through the sea. From this conception of God it was but an easy transition of thought to say that His footsteps leave no trace behind. How soon the waters close over those supposed foot-prints of the Almighty! So the majesty and glory of His mighty works, who shall fully comprehend? They are indeed ineffably glorious, and the thought of them lifts us up from our despondency and compels us to feel that if this great God is our Friend, we can have nothing to fear; if He be the God of Zion, then Zion is forever safe under His wing and strong in His power to save. C. God's way is in the "sea." He walks where we cannot always trace His footsteps. God moves mysteriously by times, as we all know. There are ways of God which are purposely to try us. And there we often find ourselves at a loss. If we are occupied with the sea itself, and with trying to scan God's footsteps there, then "they are not known." But confidence in God Himself is always the strength of faith. Anon.—The book of Providence is not so easily read as that of Nature; its wisdom in design and perfection in execution are by no means as plain. Here God's way is often in the sea, His path in the mighty waters, and His footsteps are not known. But that is because the scheme of providence is not, like creation, a finished work. Guthrie. There must be mystery in religion—a religion which lies between the finite and the infinite. Take away mystery, and we should tear out a page of evidence. But there is more hiddenness about the providence of God than' there is about the grace of God. He has revealed much more clearly what He does and what He wills about our souls than about our bodies. As respects God's hidden ways, there are one or two things which we ought to consider. God never meant you to understand them. We are to seek the solution of hard problems, and the quelling of our fears, and the answer to our doubts, not in the events themselves, but in the character of God; not in the book of present history, but in the volume of the Scriptures. Faith has its helps. As we live on, many things which were once fearful, involved, and hard come out kind, simple, and plain; we see, if not all, yet some of the reasons; and we are satisfied where we were once most dissatisfied. The past stands sponsor for the future. J. V. All that is mysterious is not true, but the highest truth, the truth of God's being and action revealed to the finite thought of man, is necessarily mysterious. It comes to us as we can bear it, shrouded beneath symbols and encased in formulae. The true, living, incomprehensible Creator is mysterious even amid His largest and most condescending revelations; and the created mind to which He discovers Himself knows full well that this very note of mystery marks the mighty interval which separates His infinity from its own finiteness. H. P. L. We strive to know God by what He does. We question the import of events as they pass before us. We struggle to know why God does as He does here and now. This wild turmoil of earth, this conflict of good and evil, and this bearing down often of good by the evil, these sufferings which cover the earth as with a pall, these early and sudden deaths, this long delay to answer prayer, this slow advance of the kingdom of God, if it advance at all, these crushing woes that come upon portions of our race, this apparent indifference of God to them all—we stand up before these dark mysteries of God and question them; but they are dumb, "They answer not again." "God's ways are in the sea, and His paths in the great waters, and His footsteps are not known." But whatever may be the cause why we know not now, we shall know hereafter if we trust here. The dark doings in God's providence will all be solved before or at the judgment of the great day. Up to that time neither the progress of the human soul, nor the light of heaven, nor the instruction of angels or of men made perfect, will make all the dark things light. That day will reveal them. We shall see that all that has happened to us has been designed to stimulate or to encourage us; to wean us from earth and to draw us to heaven. The light of heaven itself will show us that God hath led us by a right, and by the best possible way to a city of habitation. Time is the night, eternity is the day of God. Let us trust Him where we cannot know. We shall know when it will be best to know. J. Drummond. 20. This verse stands in beautiful and touching contrast with the last. In that we have portrayed the majesty, the power, the unsearchable mystery of God's ways; in this, His tender and loving care for His people, as that of a shepherd for his flock. P. Thou leddest Thy people. The true philosophy of life is summed up here, in simply following God. Not that we ought not to make plans, nor to try to carry them out. Every earnest man will do that, only there is wisdom in holding our plans loosely, and subject to God's modification. Too often we are fettered by our plans; our minds are bent on carrying out our life along those lines, and when God proceeds to change those lines, they are so rigid that there is a good deal of friction and pain attending the change. A plan assumes a future and involves forecast; and forecast is just the point where we are weakest, and the future the very thing about which we are most uncertain. Therefore, as a matter of ordinary probability, our plans will change; it is not to be supposed that we shall forecast the same things which Infinite Wisdom will forecast for us. It is wisdom to accept this fact, especially since we see it constantly illustrated in experience. V. The closing verse is a sort of finale. Like a flock God led His people by Moses and Aaron to the promised goal. At this favorite figure, which is as it were the monogram of the Psalms of Asaph and his school, the poet stops, losing himself in the history of the redemption wrought in the days of old, a history which affords him great comfort and is to him a prophecy of the future that lies behind the bitter and grievous years of the present. D. He says not, Moses and Aaron led the people of Israel, but, Thou leddest the people, and that Thy people, by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Great was the power of these two men; nevertheless neither of them was the shepherd of the sheep, but each was a servant to the one and only true Shepherd, to whom the sheep exclusively belonged. Nor yet was either the leader of the sheep, but the Shepherd Himself was present and led His own flock, to whom these two acted as servants. There are therefore three things to be learned from this passage: First, the sheep do not belong to the servants, but to the true Shepherd. Secondly, the true Shepherd is the leader of His own sheep. Thirdly, the office of Moses and Aaron was to attend to this duty, that the Lord's sheep should be properly led and pastured. So Christ Himself leads the sheep, His own sheep, and for this work He employs the ministry of His servants. Musculus. The Psalmist has reached the climax of his strain, he has found relief from his sorrow by forcing his thoughts into another channel, by dwelling on all God's mightiest wonders of old; but there he must end. There are seasons when even the holiest faith cannot bear to listen to words of reasoning; though it can still find a support whereon to rest, in the simple contemplation, in all their native grandeur, of the deeds that God hath wrought. Thrupp. So ends the Psalm. The one great example is given, and that is enough. All is included in that; and the troubled, desponding spirit has found peace and rest in the view of God's redemption. "He loses himself, as it were, in the joyful recollection." So may every sorrowful spirit now find peace and rest in looking, not to itself, not even to God's dealings with itself, but to the cross of Christ. P. Now as to the practical application of these inspiring facts, it was but a natural and easy inference that this same God must be still as mighty to save His people as ever—as strong against His enemies in the age of this Psalm, as when He cast Pharaoh and all his host into the depths of the sea as a stone is sunk into the mighty waters. The same great God who never lacked resources to humble the proudest nations of the ages long ago may be trusted to do all He wills in the ages present or future. That wisdom and power which stand out sublimely prominent in the great deeds of the ancient times will always be equal to any demand through all the ages. His troubled and discouraged people may safely banish their fears and give to this great God their humble confidence under whatever calamities, through whatever straits. Is anything too hard for such a God? C. Luther was once in earnest prayer over some matter of great moment, desiring to know the mind of God in it, and it seemed as though he heard God say to him, "I am not to be traced;" and some one, commenting on this, adds, "If God is not to be traced, He is to be trusted." The writer of this Psalm has evidently reached very satisfactory conclusions on this subject. He is in great trouble and darkness; he is tempted to doubt the goodness of the Lord; he asks, "Hath God forgotten to be gracious?" But he reaches into the cloud which veils the Divine dealings, and draws strength and comfort out of it. He says, "This is my infirmity, but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High;" those very years when He veiled Himself in darkness, yet amid thunders and hurricane led His people through the dark and dreadful sea. "Thy way was in the sea, and Thy path in the great waters, and Thy footsteps were not known. Thou leddest Thy people like a flock." And the secret of this confidence is revealed in the thirteenth verse, in the words, "Thy way, O God, is in the sanctuary;" or, as the best interpreters now render it, "Thy way is in holiness." Put these two thoughts together, and one explains the other. Thy way is in the sea, dark, mysterious, dreadful; but Thy way is in holiness; in perfect wisdom inspired by perfect love, and therefore a way of truth, leading up through the darkness into the eternal light. No matter how strange the way, if it be a way of holiness. What kind of a way that is Isaiah tells us. It is a clean way; "the unclean shall not pass over it." It is a plain way for the trusting spirit; "The wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein." It is a safe way: "No ravenous beast shall go up thereon." It is a way for redeemed men, redeemed from the world's economy of sight and sense, and translated into the kingdom and life of faith; they shall walk there, yea, though it lie through the midst of the sea, with songs in the night and with everlasting joy upon their heads. No matter how deep the mystery, provided God's holiness is behind it. If any one less than God invite us to follow him into the dark, we may rightly tremble; but if He leadeth His own people like a flock, what matters it by what ways? So long as holiness leads, Asaph and Paul may unite in saying, "We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose," not their own purpose. V. 1. GIVE ear, O my people, to my law: Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. 2 I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings of old: 3 Which we have heard and known, And our fathers have told us. 4 We will not hide them from their children, Telling to the generation to come the praises of the LORD, And his strength, and his wondrous works that he hath done. 5 For he established a testimony in Jacob, And appointed a law in Israel, Which he commanded our fathers, That they should make them known to their children: 6 That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; Who should arise and tell them to their children: 7 That they might set their hope in God, And not forget the works of God, But keep his commandments: 8 And might not be as their fathers, A stubborn and rebellious generation; A generation that set not their heart aright, And whose spirit was not stedfast with God. 9 The children of Ephraim, being armed and carrying bows, Turned back in the day of battle. 10 They kept not the covenant of God, And refused to walk in his law; 11 And they forget his doings, And his wondrous works that he had shewed them. 12 Marvellous things did he in the sight of their fathers, In the land of Egypt, in the field of Zoan. 13 He clave the sea, and caused them to pass through; And he made the waters to stand as an heap. 14 In the day-time also he led them with a cloud, And all the night with a light of fire. 15. He clave rocks in the wilderness, And gave them drink abundantly as out of the depths. 16 He brought streams also out of the rock, And caused waters to run down like rivers. 17 Yet went they on still to sin against him, To rebel against the Most High in the desert. 18 And they tempted God in their heart By asking meat for their lust. 19 Yea, they spake against God; They said, Can God prepare a table in the wilderness? 20 Behold, he smote the rock, that waters gushed out, And streams overflowed; Can he give bread also? Will he provide flesh for his people? 21 Therefore the LORD heard, and was wroth: And a fire was kindled against Jacob, And anger also went up against Israel; 22 Because they believed not in God, And trusted not in his salvation. 23 Yet he commanded the skies above, And opened the doors of heaven; 24 And he rained down manna upon them to eat, And gave them of the corn of heaven. 25 Man did eat the bread of the mighty: He sent them meat to the full. 26 He caused the east wind to blow in the heaven: And by his power he guided the south wind. 27 He rained flesh also upon them as the dust, And winged fowl as the sand of the seas: 28 And he let it fall in the midst of their camp, Round about their habitations. 29 So they did eat, and were well filled; And he gave them that they lusted after. 30 They were not estranged from their lust, Their meat was yet in their mouths, 31 When the anger of God went up against them, And slew of the fattest of them, And smote down the young men of Israel. 32 For all this they sinned still, And believed not in his wondrous works. 33 Therefore their days did he consume in vanity, And their years in terror. 34. When he slew them, then they inquired after him: And they returned and sought God early [earnestly]. 35. And they remembered that God was their rock, And the Most High God their redeemer. 36. But they flattered him with their mouth, And lied unto him with their tongue. 37. For their heart was not right with him, Neither were they faithful in his covenant. 38. But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not: Yea, many a time turned he his anger away, And did not stir up all his wrath. 39. And he remembered that they were but flesh; A wind that passeth away, and cometh not again. 40. How oft did they rebel against him in the wilderness, And grieve him in the desert! 41. And they turned again and tempted God, And provoked the Holy One of Israel. 42. They remembered not his hand, Nor the day when he redeemed them from the adversary. 43. How he set his signs in Egypt, And his wonders in the field of Zoan; 44. And turned their rivers into blood, And their streams, that they could not drink. 45. He sent among them swarms of flies, which devoured them; And frogs, which destroyed them. 46. He gave also their increase unto the caterpiller, And their labour unto the locust. 47. He destroyed their vines with hail, And their sycamore trees with frost. 48. He gave over their cattle also to the hail, And their flocks to hot thunderbolts. 49. He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, Wrath, and indignation, and trouble, A band of angels of evil. 50. He made a path for his anger; He spared not their soul from death, But gave their life over to the pestilence; 51. And smote all the firstborn in Egypt, The chief of their strength in the tents of Ham: 52. But he led forth his own people like sheep, And guided them in the wilderness like a flock. 53. And he led them safely, so that they feared not: But the sea overwhelmed their enemies. 54. And he brought them to the border of his sanctuary, To this mountain, which his right hand had purchased. 55. He drove out the nations also before them, And allotted them for an inheritance by line, And made the tribes of Israel to dwell in their tents. 56. Yet they tempted and rebelled against the Most High God, And kept not his testimonies; 57. But turned back, and dealt treacherously like their fathers: They were turned aside like a deceitful bow. 58. For they provoked him to anger with their high places, And moved him to jealousy with their graven images. 59. When God heard this, he was wroth, And greatly abhorred Israel: 60. So that he forsook the tabernacle of Shiloh, The tent which he placed among men; 61. And delivered his strength into captivity, And his glory into the adversary's hand. 62. He gave his people over also unto the sword; And was wroth with his inheritance. 63. Fire devoured their young men; And their maidens had no marriage-song. 64. Their priests fell by the sword; And their widows made no lamentation. 65. Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, Like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine. 66. And he smote his adversaries backward: He put them to a perpetual reproach. 67. Moreover he refused the tent of Joseph, And chose not the tribe of Ephraim; 68. But chose the tribe of Judah, The mount Zion which he loved. 69. And he built his sanctuary like the heights, Like the earth which he hath established for ever. 70. He chose David also his servant, And took him from the sheepfolds: 71. From following the ewes that give suck he brought him, To feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance. 72. So he fed them according to the integrity of his heart; And guided them by the skilfulness of his hands. THE history of Israel, from the Exodus to the establishment of the kingdom of David, is reviewed by the Psalmist in this the longest, and probably the earliest, of the historical Psalms, intended for public recitation in the services of the sanctuary. Those services were organized by David, and the chief place among the superintendents was assigned to Asaph, to whom this Psalm is attributed by the inscription. The principal object of the writer is to draw lessons of warning and admonition from the records of national sins and punishments. Special attention is directed to the wrongdoings of one tribe, that of Ephraim; partly, it may be, as having from the time of Joshua throughout the period of the Judges held the post of leader of the whole nation, and as such being in some sense its representative; partly, however, with reference to the transfer of the national sanctuary from Shiloh to Mount Zion (see vs. 67, 68). Cook.—No historic connection can be determined for this Psalm. It sweeps over the whole period from Moses to David, in order to impress upon the hearts of the Israelites their obligations to God and the danger of rebelling against Him. De Witt. In this, the longest of the historical Psalms, the history of Israel is briefly recapitulated, from the time of the Exodus to the final union of the tribes under David, and the establishment of the kingdom in his family. This appeal to the past is made evidently with a purpose. The Psalmist comes forward as a prophet to rebuke the sin, the ingratitude, the rebellion of his people. This he does by showing them the present in the light of the past. God had wrought wonders in behalf of their fathers of old; God had redeemed them from Egypt, led them through the wilderness, brought them to His holy mountain. But the history of their nation had been at once a history of wonders and a history of rebellions. Miracle had followed on miracle to win them; chastisement had succeeded to chastisement to deter them; but the miracle was forgotten, the chastisement produced but a temporary reformation. They had ever been “a faithless and stubborn generation.” It is evident, from his opening words, that the Psalmist was anxious to bring out sharply and clearly the lessons with which the past teemed. He saw that his people were in danger of forgetting those lessons. He saw in that history instruction, warning, reproof, for the age in which he lived. It is, however, remarkable that another and more special purpose appears in the Psalm. If the whole nation is rebuked, the rebuke falls heaviest upon Ephraim. Ephraim is singled out as the leader in the earlier apostasy of the people, as the very type of a faithless and recreant spirit (v. 12). The rejection of Ephraim and the choice of Judah are dwelt upon at the close in a tone of satisfaction and triumph, as the fulfilment of the purpose of God. It is scarcely possible, therefore, to resist the conclusion that the Psalm was written after the defection of the Ten Tribes, and that it was designed either to curb the pride of the northern kingdom, or to address a warning to Judah, based on the example of Ephraim. Various conjectures have been hazarded as to the time when the Psalm was written. P. The intention of the (seventeen) national and historical poems, and their tone and spirit, are well seen in this Psalm. The intention was the religious education of the people from the earliest childhood upward; the tone and spirit are such as could not fail to form the Hebrew mind to greatness, to depth and soberness of feeling, and to a profound consciousness of that providential government which fitted the people for other and higher purposes than national aggrandizement. This metrical summary of the people’s history, majestic in its imagery and musical in any translation, would, in its own Hebrew and to the Hebrew ear, commend itself at once as poetry, as music, and as devout sentiment. Such was its purpose. The wonders of the Divine government from the remotest times were to be fixed in the memory of children’s children to the end of time. I. T. 1. Maschil. By Asaph. Listen, my people, to my law; incline your ear to the sayings of my mouth. This is eminently a didactic Psalm, because it teaches the true meaning of events in the history of Israel which might otherwise seem to be mere matters of curiosity. For the same reason it was necessary that it should be so designated in the title or inscription. A. 1-4. The introduction, announcing the Psalmist’s purpose. He will recall the past, that it may act as a warning for the present, and that the wholesome lessons which it teaches may be perpetuated in the future. In the following four verses he declares that such commemoration of God’s wonders is the very destiny of Israel. For this end did he give them his law, and the lively oracles of his mouth. P. 2. The poet does not mean to say that he will literally utter apothegms and propound riddles, but that he will set forth the history of the fathers after the manner of an apothegm and riddle, so that it may become a parable, i.e., a didactic history, and its events marks of interrogation and nota-benes for the present generation. D.—Analogies are intended by God to be traced between the story of Israel and the lives of believers. The tribes and their marchings are living allegories traced by the hand of an all-wise Providence. Paul said, “which things are an allegory,” and Asaph spake to the point when he called his narrative “a parable.” 3. Told us.** Dr. Doddridge owed much to the Dutch tiles and his mother’s explanations of the Bible narratives. The more of parental teaching the better; ministers and Sabbath-school teachers were never meant to be substitutes for mothers’ tears and fathers’ prayers. S. 4. Children are their parents’ heirs; it were unnatural for a father, before he dies, to bury up his treasure in the earth, where his children should not find or enjoy it; now the mercies of God are not the least part of a good man’s treasure, nor the least of His children’s inheritance, being both helps to their faith, matter for their praise, and spurs to their obedience. “Our fathers have told us what works Thou didst in their days, how Thou didst drive out the heathen,” etc. (Psalm 44: 1, 2); from this they ground their confidence (v. 4). Gurnall. 5-8. All these points are plain—that God gave their fathers a code of civil law quite complete, and also a system of religious services, to be enjoined carefully upon their children after them, and by them upon their children onward through future ages—all for the high purpose of leading them to set their hope in God and abide in true-hearted obedience. C.—The Church on earth, though mortal in its members, as a community is undying. The Christian Church is to exhibit the sublime spectacle of an unearthly government, embarked in an enterprise of mercy for all time. Its members are “commanded to make it known to their children, that the generation to come might know it, even the children who should be born; who should arise and declare it to their children.” And as time rolls on, the only change which this spiritual government is to exhibit is that which necessarily arises under God from persevering fidelity to its original design—extended domains and a nearer approach to universal conquest. “For the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High.” J. Harris. 9. The sons of Ephraim, armed bowmen, turned (back) in the day of battle. The people, during the ascendancy of Ephraim, proved false to their great mission of subduing Canaan and destroying its inhabitants. This neglect is represented in the history itself as the source of all the national calamities that followed. As the bow among the ancients was one of the chief weapons of war, the description armed bowmen is equivalent to well-armed soldiers, and is added to enhance the guilt and shame of those who thus betrayed their trust, in spite of every external advantage. A.—Ephraim had been, after the settlement in Canaan, the most numerous and the most powerful of the tribes. Shiloh, the religious capital of the nation, and Shechem, the gathering-place of the tribes, were both within its borders. During the time of the judges it seems to have asserted a kind of supremacy over the rest. Possibly the Psalmist is thinking of this. Having their rejection in view, he remembers their ancient position, and regards them as leaders of the people, and, morally, leaders in their sin. P. The Psalm accuses “the children of Ephraim” because, “being armed and carrying bows, they turned back in the day of battle.” That saying deduces obligation from equipment, and preaches a stringent code of duty to those who are in any direction largely gifted. Power to its last particle is duty, and not small is the crime of those who, with great capacities, have small desire to use them, and leave the brunt of the battle to half-trained soldiers badly armed. A. M. 13-20. Now follows the exemplification, in certain detailed instances, of the faithlessness and disobedience and forgetfulness of their fathers in the wilderness. First (in vs. 13-16), some of God’s wonders wrought on their behalf are mentioned, and then (vs. 17-20) the thankless and perverse spirit in which these wonders were regarded. P. 14. In the daytime also He led them with a cloud. He did it all. He alone. He brought them into the wilderness, and He led them through it. The cloud both led and shadowed the tribes. It was by day a vast sun-screen, rendering the fierce heat of the sun and the glare of the desert sand bearable. And all the night with a light of fire. So constant was the care of the Great Shepherd that all night and every night the token of His presence was with His people. That cloud which was a shade by day was as a sun by night. Even thus the grace which cools and calms our joys soothes and solaces our sorrows. What a mercy to have light with us amid the wilderness of affliction! We have felt our God to be both shade and light, according as our changing circumstances have required. S. 17. And they continued still to sin against Him, to rebel against the Highest in the desert.** What ought to have been the effect of these Divine interpositions is clearly implied in this description of the actual effect. The very means which should have made them more obedient made them more rebellious. The last word in Hebrew means a desert, properly so called, a dry land, and may here be used to suggest the idea that they foolishly and wickedly provoked God in the very situation where they were most dependent on Him for protection and supplies. The extent of this dependence is implied in the use of a Divine name signifying sovereignty, supremacy. A. 18. They tempted God, i.e.,** demanded, in their unbelief, signs and wonders, to put His power to the proof, instead of waiting in faith and prayer for its exercise (repeated vs. 41, 36, as a kind of refrain). P. 22. They believed not in God, and trusted not in His salvation.** This is the master sin, the crying sin; it is in itself evil and the parent of evils. It was this sin which shut Israel out of Canaan, and it shuts myriads out of heaven. God is ready to save, combining power with willingness, but rebellious man will not trust his Saviour, and therefore is condemned already. In the text it appears as if all Israel's other sins were as nothing compared with this. S. 32. They did believe the history of His works—namely, that such things as are there recorded were done; but yet they did not believe the prophecy or promise which was virtually in those works—namely, that God would do more wonders for them till He had finished and accomplished their deliverance. That history of bringing through the Red Sea had this prophecy in it, that they should be brought safe to Canaan; but they did not believe the voice of this prophecy. When God gave them water out of the rock, this work promised that He would give them meat out of the clouds, if they needed it; but this they believed not. Caryl. 33. And (therefore) He wasted in vanity their days and their years in terror.** As the preceding verse relates to the refusal of the people to go up against the Canaanites in the first year of the exodus, so this relates to the forty years of error in the wilderness, by which that refusal was at once indulged and punished. The fruitless monotony of their existence during this long period, and their constant apprehension of some outbreak of Divine wrath, are expressed here by the words translated vanity and terror. The meaning of the verb is that He suffered or caused their years to be thus unprofitably and miserably spent. A. Their persistent unbelief despite of the presence of perpetual miracles, and the somewhat frequent recurrence of those which were new and fresh, are the strong points made in this Psalm. Similar depravity is a fearful fact in the human life of every age. It stands here a suggestive rebuke to the men of all time that in the very presence of most impressive testimonies of God's love and power they are still so slow of heart to believe in His love and to trust His power to save. The Hebrew nation, doomed to wander forty years up and down, back and forth, in that waste, dreary wilderness, consuming their days in vanity and their years in trouble, are God's witnesses to the guilt of such sin, suggesting how the unbelief of professed Christians dooms them to barrenness and desolation during the many years of their earthly pilgrimage; while in their Father's house is bread enough and to spare, and their earthly life might just as well be spent in the land of promise, flowing with milk and honey. C. 34-39. The passage is a most striking and affecting picture of man's heart and God's gracious forbearance in all ages; man's sin calling for chastisement, the chastisement producing only temporary amendment, God's goodness forgotten, and yet God's great love never wearied, and God's infinite compassion ever moved afresh by man's weakness and misery. P. 34. When He slew them, then they returned.** What does God send forth His arrows for, and shoot this man with sickness, another with poverty, and a third with shame, but to reclaim and to recover them? For God makes not the miseries of men His recreation; yet He goes on with His work, for He designs nothing but cure to the person whom He afflicts. South.—Our lives are full of afflictions; and it is as great a part of a Christian's skill to know afflictions as to know mercies; to know when God smites, as to know when He girds us; and it is our sin to overlook afflictions as well as to overlook mercies. Caryl. The greatness of the pain we experience in the crossing of our desires and in parting with cherished objects shows that we needed the trial; that our affections were too strongly setting toward the world. The things that are taken from us and for which we grieve so much are the good gifts of God, and if we cannot enjoy them still loving Him more, He may not continue them to us without permitting us to lose the best good He can confer. He offers us a good in comparison with which all others are as nothing, but it is a good which we can obtain only on condition of prizing it more than all. He must either take off our affections from inferior objects, and make them as steps for our ascending to Him, or let us perish in our choice. H. Hooker. 38. He, full of compassion, forgave.** The Lord will not cast away weak saints for their great unbelief, because there is a little faith in them. He will not throw them away for that hypocrisy that is in them, because of that little sincerity that is in them. A wise man will not throw away a little gold, because of a great deal of dross that cleaves to it; and will God? T. Brooks. 39. And he remembered that they** (were but) flesh, a breath departing and returning not. Here as elsewhere the frailty and infirmity of man is assigned as a ground of the Divine forbearance. The idea of fragility and brief duration is expressed still more strongly by the exquisite figure in the last clause. A. 38,39. Those historic events afford a lively illustration of the Divine qualities suggested here—deep compassion in view of human guilt; infinite readiness to forgive the penitent; turning away His anger and giving it but little scope compared with the ill-desert which He must notice and rebuke; and finally, making large account of human frailty, remembering that man is but flesh, encompassed with temptations that are mighty and having but feeble power to withstand them. Such have always been God's marvellous ways of mercy toward our sinning race! C. 40. After thus celebrating God's tender compassion in striking contrast with the perpetual rebellion and ingratitude of the people, the Psalmist resumes the sad tale afresh. But instead of mentioning other instances of rebellion in the wilderness (v. 40), he passes from that topic to dwell on the wonders wrought in Egypt, the lively recollection of which ought to have kept the people from these repeated provocations. Thus he takes up again the thread dropped at v. 12. The second principal portion of the Psalm begins with this verse. It is occupied, first, with the narrative of the plagues in Egypt, the exodus, and Israel's entrance into the promised land (vs. 40-55). It then touches briefly on the history under the judges, the Philistine invasion in the time of Eli, which was God's chastisement for transgression, the disaster at Shiloh, whereby Ephraim was robbed of his ancient honors, and which led to the choice of Zion, the ascendancy of the tribe of Judah, and the union of the kingdom under David (vs. 56-72). P. 52. To a people so familiar with shepherd life, no analogy could be more apt, suggestive, perfect, than this: God leading this nation forth from Egypt and onward through the wilderness as a shepherd does his flock, carefully, lovingly, safely. C. 54. He brought them to the border of His sanctuary**—that is, to the holy land; so called especially because of His sanctuary, the place of His residence; to which He makes all the land to be but as bounds and limits because of the eminency of that place, the holiness whereof did, as it were, spread to all other parts of the land, as if the whole had been a sanctuary and consecrated ground. It is, therefore, to the honor of the whole land as well as of the sanctuary that He calleth it "the holy border," a "border of His sanctuary." Westminster Assembly's Annotations. 56. And they tempted and resisted God. Most High, and His testimonies did not keep. Having brought down the narrative of God's dealings with the older race to the conquest of Canaan, the Psalmist now resumes his charge (against the following generations) of being no better than their fathers. A.—Paul says, with reference to the same transactions, "Neither let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted" (I Cor. 10: 9). These texts relate to the same rebellious acts of the Israelites in the wilderness. In the former, the Person they tempted is called the Most High God; in the latter, He is called Christ; therefore Christ is the Most High God. Jones of Nayland. 58. And made Him angry with their heights, and with their idols made Him jealous. Here, for the first time, idolatry is mentioned as the great national sin of Israel after the death of Joshua and the contemporary elders. This sin is intimately connected with the one described in v. 9, since the failure to exterminate the Canaanites and gain complete possession of the country, with its necessary consequence, the continued residence of gross idolaters in the midst of Israel, could not fail to expose the chosen people to perpetual temptation, and afford occasion to their worst defections. In the last clause, graven images are put for the whole class of idols or created gods, of whom the true God must be jealous as His rivals, as well as indignant at the heights or high places. the hill-tops where these false gods were most usually worshipped. The whole form of expression is Mosaic. A. 60. The tabernacle was at Shiloh during the whole period of the judges. God rejected and forsook it when the ark was given into the hand of the Philistines (1 Sam. 4). The ark was never brought back thither, and the tabernacle was removed first to Nob and afterward to Gibeon. P. 61. And gave up to captivity His strength, and His beauty into the foeman's hand. This is a still more distinct allusion to the capture of the ark by the Philistines (1 Sam. 4 : 17). The pronouns may be referred either to God or Israel. In the former case the ark is called His strength, because it was the symbol of His saving presence and a pledge for the exertion of His power to protect and save His people. It is called His beauty or honor, as it marked the place where God was pleased to manifest His glory. At the same time it was Israel's strength, because it was considered as insuring the Divine protection (1 Sam. 4 : 3), and His glory, because the possession of this symbol was His highest honor (v. 21). Both these senses are so perfectly appropriate, that it is not easy to choose either to the entire exclusion of the other. A. 63,64. The utter desolation of the land strikingly pictured by its silence. Neither the joyous strains of the marriage-song nor the sad wall of the funeral chant fall upon the ear. It was a land of silence, a land of the dead. 65,66. God punishes and then delivers. The reference is to the long series of victories over the Philistines under Samuel, Saul, and David. P. 67. And rejected the tent of Joseph, and the tribe of Ephraim did not choose. This is the completion and specification of the statement in v. 60. Even after the punishment of Israel as a whole had ceased, Ephraim, though still a member of the chosen people, was deprived of the ascendancy, of which he had proved himself unworthy, and by means of which he had betrayed the whole race into grievous sin. The tent or house of Joseph (the progenitor of Ephraim) is particularly mentioned, because the honor taken from that family was the honor of God's dwelling in the midst of them. A. 68. Ephraim lost her pre-eminence among the tribes; Judah arose to this position, and God located the sacred ark on Mount Zion. This fact brings out one of the purposed political lessons of the Psalm, that God chose Judah, David, and Mount Zion before Ephraim and Shiloh, a choice therefore which all the tribes were bound to recognize and accept. 69. God built His sanctuary stable as the mountains, fixed as the earth, which He has founded for the ages. This is in contrast with the ark migratory from place to place, as in the period from Shiloh to its location on the hill of Zion. C. 72. Fed them according to the integrity of his heart.** In spite of his transgressions, which he always bitterly repented of, and which were therefore blotted out of the Book of God, David remains to all princes and rulers of the earth as the noblest pattern. In perfect inward truth he knew and felt himself to be "king by the grace of God." The crown and sceptre he bore merely in trust from the King of all kings; and to his latest breath he endeavored with all earnestness to be found as a genuine theocratic king, who in everything must conduct his earthly government according to the ordinances and directions of God. Therefore the Lord made all that he took in hand prosper, and nothing was clearer to the people than that the Lord was truly with the king. F. W. Krummacher. This ancient and Israelitish unbelief finds continual modern and Gentile illustration. We are ever limiting the Holy One whom we profess to serve. Amid our wilderness of emergency, temptation, trial, our faithless hearts are asking the same question, "Who is the Lord that we should serve Him? How can He deliver us?" God stands there, over against each one of us, with an infinity of blessing in His hands—of deliverance, of present and abiding peace, of the promise of the land beyond; but unbelief is a staggering and blear-eyed creature, who often cannot see what God proffers, and even when she does, reaches forth such palsied hands they cannot reach and hold the blessing. W. Hoyt. These Israelites, who lived encompassed by miracle, had nothing which we have not. They got their bread by direct gift from heaven; we get ours no less from God, though it is eaten in the sweat of our brow. They got their marching orders from the cloud; we get ours no less from God, though we have to use our brains to read them. The form of the direction has altered, the reality has not, and the change of form is advance, not retrogression. The cloud guided only the outward steps; the spirit needs other direction than it afforded. Chili- dren may be led so, but men want another sort of leading. The guidance which God gives the hearts that seek it to-day is every bit as real, and a great deal more noble and thorough than this of a moving pillar. What the world calls "circumstances" we should call "providence," and carefully watch as one element in God's guidance. He guides us by His Word, the largest principles of which are not too large to be applied to our smallest duties, and the teachings of which need but "an honest and good heart" to apply them, in order to yield certain direction. He guides us by His own spirit, speaking through our reason and judgment; and, if we will but keep our noisy inclinations quiet, we shall generally be able to hear His voice saying, "This is the way, walk ye in it." Life has many perplexities, and we are often brought to a stand-still. But only those who have tried it know how much mist is cleared away, and how seldom their perplexities remain insoluble to those who seek simply to know and do as God wishes. But, above all, we have the true pillar of guidance in Jesus Christ, who has left "us an example" that we "should follow His steps." Why, even an unbeliever like John Stuart Mill had to say that there was no better rule for conduct than to do as Jesus would have done if in our place. Few, indeed, will be the knots which cannot be untied by taking God's Word for our law, Christ for our pattern, God's Spirit for our counsellor, and circumstances, which are God's providence, for our instructors. A. M. 1. O GOD, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; Thy holy temple have they defiled; They have laid Jerusalem on heaps.2 The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be meat unto the fowls of the heaven, The flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the earth.3 Their blood have they shed like water round about Jerusalem; And there was none to bury them.4 We are become a reproach to our neighbours, A scorn and derision to them that are round about us.5 How long, O LORD, wilt thou be angry for ever? Shall thy jealousy burn like fire?6 Pour out thy wrath upon the heathen that know thee not, And upon the kingdoms that call not upon thy name.7 For they have devoured Jacob, And laid waste his habitation.8 Remember not against us the iniquities of our forefathers:Let thy tender mercies speedily prevent us For we are brought very low.9 Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: And deliver us, and purge away our sins, for thy name's sake.10 Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is their God? Let the revenging of the blood of thy servants which is shed Be known among the heathen in our sight.11 Let the sighing of the prisoner come before thee; According to the greatness of thy power preserve thou those that are appointed to death;12 And render unto our neighbours sevenfold into their bosom Their reproach, wherewith they have reproached thee, O Lord.13 So we thy people and sheep of thy pasture Will give thee thanks for ever: We will shew forth thy praise to all generations. THIS Psalm is a lamentation over the same great national calamity which, as we have already seen, is bewailed in terms so pathetic in the seventy-fourth. The two Psalms have, indeed, some points of difference, as well as of resemblance. The great features in the scene of misery are presented in the two with a different degree of prominence. In the one, the destruction of the temple occupies the foreground; in the other, the terrible carnage which had made the streets of Jerusalem run with blood is the chief subject of lamentation. In the former, the hope of deliverance and triumph breaks out strongly in the very midst of the sorrow and the wailing; in the latter, the tone of sadness prevails throughout, with the exception of the short verse with which the Psalm concludes. There is also a marked difference in style. The seventy-fourth Psalm is abrupt, and sometimes obscure; the seventy-ninth, on the contrary, flows smoothly and easily throughout. But there is the same deep pathos in both Psalms; in both, the same picturesque force of description; both the one and the other may be called, without exaggeration, the funeral anthem of a nation. There can, therefore, be little doubt that both Psalms, even if not written by the same poet, yet bewail the same calamity. It is equally certain that there are but two periods of the national history to which the language of either could properly apply: the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, or the sack of the city by Antiochus Epiphanes. The Psalm consists, first, of a complaint (vs. 1-4), and then of a prayer that God would visit His people again in mercy, and pour out His vengeance upon their enemies (vs. 5-12); while a closing verse announces the gratitude with which God's mercy will be acknowledged (v. 13). P. 2. Thy servants. Thy saints.** No temporal wrath, no calamities whatsoever can separate the Lord's children from God's love and estimation of them, nor untie the relation between God and them; for here, albeit their flesh be devoured by the fowls of heaven and beasts of the earth, yet remain they the Lord's servants and saints under these sufferings. Dickson. 3. None to bury,** this being, according to the deep-rooted feeling of all ancient nations, a great aggravation of the calamity. P.—These are points of the sorest affliction—the shedding of blood like water round about the holy city; human bodies left unburied to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey, and especially that these slain and unburied men were God's servants, His saints. Surely God will hear such plaints of sorrow from His surviving people. 4. The poets and prophets of Israel, jealous for the honor of God before the world, felt this point most keenly—the reproach brought on God's chosen people, and by implication upon their God, when their heathen enemies were victorious over them. (See Lam. 5:1 and 2:15, 16 and Ezra 9:6, 7.) C. 6. "Pour out," etc. The ground of his prayer is not only that they have not called upon God's name, but that they have devoured Jacob. Hence he asks for a righteous retribution. Precisely in the same spirit Habakkuk long before had said of the Chaldeans, "O Jehovah, for judgment Thou hast ordained them, and, O Thou Rock, for correction Thou hast appointed them." P. 8. As is evident from v. 9, the poet does not mean that the present generation, itself innocent, has to pay the penalty of the guilt of the fathers (on the contrary, Deut. 24:16; 2 Kings 14:6; Ezek. 18:20); he prays as one of those who have turned from the sins of the fathers, and who can now no longer think of themselves as placed under wrath, but under sin-pardoning and redeeming grace. D.—Scripture nowhere teaches that a man is guilty in the sight of God for any sins but his own. Sinning himself, he allows the deeds of his fathers; he is a partaker in their iniquities; he helps to swell the fearful catalogue of guilt which at last brings down God's judgment; but his condemnation, if he be condemned, is for his own transgression, not for those of his fathers. P. 9. God of our salvation.** If human reason were to judge of the many and great blows wherewith God so often smote and wasted His people, it would call God not the Saviour of the people, but the destroyer and oppressor. But the faith of the prophet judges far otherwise of God, and sees even in an angry and pursuing God the salvation of His people. The gods of the nations, though they do not afflict even in temporal things, are gods not of the salvation of their worshippers, but of their perdition. But our God, even when He is most severely angry and smites, is not the God of destruction, but of salvation. Musculus. For Thy name's sake. Twice the appeal is made "for Thy name's sake," that revelation of God which He had made of Himself to Moses when He passed by and proclaimed the name of Jehovah (Ex. 24:6, 7). P.—The choicest mercies God's people have are for His name's sake; they have pardon of sin for His name's sake (Psalm 25 : 11) ; purging of sin for His name's sake (79 : 9) ; leading in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake (23 : 2) ; quickening of their dead and dull hearts for His name's sake (143 : 11). Though His people offend Him, yet He forsakes them not, for His great name's sake. W. Greenhill. 10. This argument in favor of God's interposition, founded on the false conclusions which His enemies would draw from His refusal, is of frequent occurrence in the Pentateuch. Where is their God, the invisible, spiritual being whom they worship, but who cannot save them from external dangers? Or the meaning may be, where is the proof of that almighty power, and that love for His own people, of which they have so often and so loudly boasted? A. 11. If any of you walk in sighs and sorrow before God, He takes these sighs as applications to Him for relief. Your misery, vented even in a sigh, is a declaration of your need. There are times when you cannot enter into long confessions; when the spirit is so weary that you feel that you cannot speak. Much might at such a season be spoken by a sigh; pour it forth, and it will reach the throne. And here it will prove to be not only an unexpressed declaration of your state, but also an unexpressed wish for deliverance therefrom; and it will be heard by God. P. B. Power. Entering the inhabited part of the old city, and winding through some crooked, filthy lanes, I suddenly found myself on turning a sharp corner in a spot of singular interest—the "Jews' place of Wailing." It is a small paved quadrangle; on one side are the backs of low modern houses, without door or window; on the other is the lofty wall of the Haram, of recent date above, but having below five courses of bevelled stones in a perfect state of preservation. Here the Jews are permitted to approach the sacred inclosure, and wail over the fallen temple, whose very dust is dear to them, and in whose stones they still take pleasure (Psalm 102 : 14). It was Friday, and a crowd of miserable devotees had assembled—men and women of all ages and all nations, dressed in the quaint costumes of every country of Europe and Asia. Old men were there—pale, haggard, careworn men, tottering on pilgrim staves; and little girls with white faces and lustrous black eyes, gazing wistfully now at their parents, now at the old wall. Some were on their knees chanting mournfully from a book of Hebrew prayers, swaying their bodies to and fro; some were prostrate on the ground, pressing forehead and lips to the earth; some were close to the wall, burying their faces in the rents and crannies of the old stones; some were kissing them, some had their arms spread out as if they would clasp them to their bosoms, some were bathing them with tears, and all the while sobbing as if their hearts would burst. It was a sad and touching spectacle. Eighteen centuries of exile and woe have not dulled their hearts' affections, or deadened their feelings of devotion. Here we see them assembled from the ends of the earth, poor, despised, down-trodden outcasts—amid the desolations of their fatherland, beside the dishonored ruins of their ancient sanctuary—chanting, now in accents of deep pathos, and now of wild woe, the prophetic words of their own Psalmist, "O God, the heathen are come into Thine inheritance; Thy holy temple have they defiled. We are become a reproach to our neighbors, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us. How long, Lord? wilt Thou be angry forever?" J. L. Porter. 1. GIVE ear, O Shepherd of Israel, Thou that leadest Joseph like a flock; Thou that sittest upon the cherubim, shine forth. 2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up thy might, And come to save us. 3 Turn us again, O God; And cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. 4 O LORD God of hosts, How long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people? 5 Thou hast fed them with the bread of tears, And given them tears to drink in large measure. 6 Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbours: And our enemies laugh among themselves. 7 Turn us again, O God of hosts; And cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. 8 Thou broughtest a vine out of Egypt: Thou didst drive out the nations, and plantedst it. 9 Thou preparedst room before it, And it took deep root, and filled the land. 10 The mountains were covered with the shadow of it, And the boughs thereof were like cedars of God. 11. She sent out her branches unto the sea, And her shoots unto the River. 12 Why hast thou broken down her fences, So that all they which pass by the way do pluck her? 13 The boar out of the wood doth ravage it, And the wild beasts of the field feed on it. 14 Turn again, we beseech thee, O God of hosts: Look' down from heaven, and behold, and visit this vine, 15 And the stock which thy right hand hath planted, And the branch that thou madest strong for thyself. 16 It is burned with fire, it is cut down: They perish at the rebuke of thy countenance. 17 Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand, Upon the son of man whom thou madest strong for thyself. 18 So shall we not go back from thee: Quicken thou us, and we will call upon thy name. 19 Turn us again, O LORD God of hosts; Cause thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. As in the case of most of the historical Psalms, so in the case of this, it is impossible to say with certainty at what period it was written. The allusions are never sufficiently definite to lead to any positive conclusion. All that is certain is, that the time was a time of great disaster, that the nation was trampled down under the foot of foreign invaders. The poet turns to God with the earnest and repeated prayer for deliverance, and bases his appeal on the past. God had brought a vine out of Egypt, and planted it in Canaan. How could He give up that vine to be devastated by the wild beasts? Will he not appear at the head of the armies of Israel, as once He went before her sons in the desert with a pillar of fire? Will He not, as of old, lift up the light of His countenance upon them? The strophical division of the Psalm is marked by the refrain (vs. 3, 7, 19), with a variation of it in v. 14. The strophes are thus of very unequal length. The first has three verses; the second, four; the third, twelve; though this last, again, is partially broken by the imperfect refrain in v. 14. The first two of these strophes are, in fact, introductory, containing the cry for help and the lamentation over disaster. The third constitutes the principal part of the Psalm, where, under the figure of a vine, the history of Israel is portrayed. In the refrain we have even more emphatically repeated the burden of the Psalmist's prayer; the emphasis being each time deepened by the name given to God : First, "God ;" then, "God of hosts ;" lastly, "Jehovah, God of hosts." P. Israel, thought of as a vine, transplanted from Egypt to Canaan and long time prosperous there, has now been sadly damaged; the enclosing, protecting hedge around her broken down; the wild beasts tearing her tendrils, plucking her fruit, and trampling it under foot; the fire has done its fearful work of destruction upon her. The Psalm is a prayer to God for help in this emergency—its thrice-recurring refrain (vs. 3, 7, 19) giving this keynote: "Turn us again; let Thy face shine; so shall we be saved." C. It is an Asaph-prayer again, full of pleas in Israel's behalf. They call to His mind the days of Joseph, when the Lord miraculously fed them in Egypt. And then the tabernacle days, when (first, since the days of Eden) the Lord was known to dwell between the cherubim on the mercy-seat. They call to His mind wilderness times (v. 2), when their march was gladdened by His presence, "Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh" looking on the Pillar of Glory as it rose before them, the guide and partner of their way, "O God, bring us back again! Cause Thy face to shine, and all shall be well again." A. A. Bonar. 1,2. Grand and touching as is this address, taken in its application to the latest decline of the Jewish kingdom, it is still more so, when we see in it the reflected image of the order of the ancient march, when the ark of God went forth, the pillar of fire shining high above it, surrounded by the armed Levites, its rear guarded by the warrior tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, the brother and the sons of Joseph, doubtless intrusted with the embalmed remains of their mighty ancestor. Stanley. Every tribe kept its proper place in its own division, whether in rest or on the march. When the host moved, each tribe struck its tents, raised its banner, and fell in at its appointed station. Places were assigned to the sacred ark, and the parts and furniture of the tabernacle borne by the Levites. The descendants of Joseph, constituting the three tribes of Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh, formed the division that followed the ark. Hence the prayer in vs. 1, 2. D. F.—In motion or at rest, the symbols of God's visible presence were in front of these three tribes—before Ephraim, Benjamin, and Manasseh stood the emblem of Jehovah's strength and glory. The prayer of this verse, therefore, reminds Jehovah of his local as well as spiritual relation to these tribes during the forty years of their wilderness life. C.—Whatever the national disaster here deplored, the prayer is, that these tribes may be restored to their ancient position, united as of old, and as of old led by God Himself, with the visible symbols of His presence. 3. Turn us again, or "restore us," either from the exile, supposing the Psalm to have been written after the captivity of the ten tribes; or in the more general sense of recovery from disaster. Show the light of Thy countenance. Again an allusion to the history of the people in the wilderness. P. Turn us, and cause Thy face to shine. To Thyself convert us, from the earthly to the heavenly; and when we are converted show Thy countenance that we may know Thee; show Thy power that we may fear Thee; show Thy wisdom that we may reverence Thee; show Thy goodness that we may love Thee; show them once, show them always, that through tribulation we may pass with a happy face and be saved. When Thou dost save we shall be saved; when Thou withdrawest Thy hand we cannot be saved. Savonarola.—It is not so much said, "turn our captivity," but turn "us." All will come right if we are right. The best turn is not that of circumstances, but of character. When the Lord turns His people He will soon turn their condition. The word may be read, "restore us;" verily, it is a choice mercy that "He restoreth my soul." And cause Thy face to shine. Be favorable to us, smile upon us. This was the high-priest's blessing upon Israel: what the Lord has already given us by our High-priest and Mediator we may right confidently ask of Him. S. 5. Strong words are these, that Thou givest Thy people their own tears for bread, and tears also for their drinking water, and that in large measure. Will not the God of love take these tears away and feed us with far other bread and water than such as this? C. 7. Turn us again, O God of hosts, and then cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved. It is the burden of the song. They are conscious to themselves that they have gone astray from God and their duty and have turned aside into sinful ways, and that this was it that provoked God to hide His face from them and to give them up into the hand of their enemies; and therefore they desire to begin their work at the right end. "Lord, turn us to Thee in a way of repentance and reformation, and then Thou wilt return to us in a way of mercy and deliverance." Observe: No salvation but from God's favor. "Cause Thy face to shine, let us have Thy love and the light of Thy countenance, and then we shall be saved." No obtaining favor with God unless we be converted to Him. We must turn again to God from the world and the flesh, and then He will cause His face to shine upon us. No conversion to God but by His own grace; we must frame our doings to turn to Him (Hos. 5:4), and then pray earnestly for His grace. Turn Thou me, and I shall be turned, pleading that gracious promise (Prov. 1:23). Turn you at My reproof, behold, I will pour out My Spirit unto you. H. 8. We have here (vs. 8-16) a beautiful parable, or shall we call it an allegory, admirably sustained throughout, in which Israel, brought forth from Egypt, is a vine transplanted from that soil to Canaan, and there under Divine culture for a long time prosperous, but at this present writing sadly desolate. Part of the beauty of the parable consists in the apt choice of the Hebrew words, e.g., the verb "hast brought," i.e., a vine, might suggest the transplanting of a vine, or somewhat more readily, the moving of a nomadic caravan across a desert with allusion to Israel on his way to Canaan. "Thou didst root out the heathen," pulling them out by the roots to make room for this vine in Canaan. Thus room was made all round about for its luxuriant growth till Israel (under David and Solomon) had finally possessed all the land promised to their fathers. C. 10. The spreading nature of the boughs of the cedar-tree is here called in aid of the description of the vine, first made use of to illustrate the rapid growth and luxuriance of Israel, but which seemed not sufficient to the Psalmist to denote the great ascendancy of the moral and political power of God's people, which only this stately tree could adequately represent, by its conspicuous majesty and protecting umbrage. Anon. 10,11. One great vine (this is the conception) covered the hills of Palestine with its shadow; its towering boughs were tall like the cedars of God (Hebrew); her branches stretched out to the great sea on the west and to the great river (Euphrates) on the east. These were the natural boundaries of the land promised originally to the patriarchs. C. 12. Why hast Thou broken down her hedges? There was a good reason for this change in God's way toward them; this noble vine was become the degenerate plant of a strange vine (Jer. 2:21), to the reproach of its great Owner, and then no marvel if He took away its hedge (Isa. 5:5); yet God's former favors to this vine are urged as pleas in prayer to God, and improved as encouragements to faith, that for all this God would not wholly cast them off. H. 13. The boar out of the wood doth waste it. No image of a destructive enemy could be more appropriate than that which is used. We have read of the little foxes that spoil the vines, but the wild boar is a much more destructive enemy, breaking its way through fences, rooting up the ground, tearing down the vines themselves, and treading them under its feet. A single party of these animals will sometimes destroy an entire vineyard in a single night. J. G. Wood. 17. The man of Thy right hand. The Son of man. These striking expressions apply in the fullest and most perfect sense to Christ. If the man of God's right hand be the man placed there, to whom can the title apply but to Him? for, "to which of the angels said God at any time, Sit on My right hand?" (Heb. 1:5); and much less has He said this of any Jewish king. As to the other appellation, The Son of man, it is one of Christ's most definite titles, being given to Him in Scripture no less than seventy-one times; in sixty-seven instances by Himself; once by Daniel; once by the martyr Stephen; and twice by the Apostle John in the Revelation. He it is, too, whom the Father has made strong for the salvation of His Church, and who will yet turn away captivity from the chosen people, and restore them to a place in the Church, so that henceforth they "will not go back from God." Anon.—The perpetuity of the Church, and the perseverance of the saints is founded upon the sufficiency of Christ; and the unfeigned believer may assure himself, as of the continuance of the Church, so of his own perseverance and constant communion with God through Him. "Let Thy hand be upon the man of Thy right hand, so will not we go back from Thee." Dickson. 18. It is in Christ that we abide faithful; because He lives we live also. There is no hope of our perseverance apart from Him. "Quicken us, and we will call upon Thy name." If the Lord gives life out of death, His praise is sure to follow. The Lord Jesus is such a leader that in Him is life, and the life is the light of men. He is our life. S.—If your hearts be cold, prayer is a more likely means to warm them than the omission of it. To ask whether you may pray while your hearts are cold and backward, is to ask whether you may labor or come to the fire before you are warm. God's Spirit is more likely to help you in duty than in the neglect of it. Baxter.—To depend upon feeling in religion is unsafe and dangerous. A man may as well think of holding fast to the clouds, building upon running sand, or relying on the wind. The clouds, the sand, the wind, are no more changeable and uncertain than our feelings. A change in circumstances, or a change in health, or a change in friends, will often produce an equal change in feeling. Our religion should be like the sun, which, cloud or no cloud, goes on in its shining course; like the earth which, wind or no wind, rolls on its orbit. We should "stand by faith," "live by faith," and "hold fast the profession of our faith." Bates. Using the word prayer to comprise all devotional contemplations and ascriptions as well as beseechings, it is the very cleaving of the loving soul to our Saviour, and is the capital means of growth in grace. "Praying will make us leave off sinning, or sinning will make us leave off praying." Such converse with God, especially over the inspired volume, secures against defection and error, procures pardons, sprinkling of the expiatory blood, and the Spirit of adoption; mortifies secret, lurking, insidious sins, quickens the pulse of zeal and the pace of service; arms for battle, lifts the courage, and sweetens the cross. Thus may the new disciple advance day by day, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of his faith; cleaving unto Jesus, the vital heart, from whom all the circulation of holy thought, feeling, choice, and act derives its impulse. J. W. A. 18. Quicken us. Restore us to life, give us renewed life (Psalm 71: 20). The spiritual application of this Psalm reaches the central and most vital truths of religion, the redemption of God's people by the Son of man, and their renovation by His Spirit. 19. O Lord. The name of Jehovah recurs at the close of the Psalm, as though the Psalmist felt that his prayer was accepted in virtue of the covenant which that word represents. Cook. 18,19. Thy right hand being once more upon us in mercy and in power, we will no more apostatize from Thee. Give us life from the dead; put new life, even Thine own life, into us, and we will call upon Thy name. The closing refrain adds the word Lord, i.e., Jehovah, to the form as in v. 7, heightening the strength and endearment of the sacred name by this addition—our covenant-keeping God, the changeless and ever-faithful One. C.—Here we have another advance in the title and the incommunicable name of Jehovah, the I AM is introduced. Faith's day grows brighter as the hours roll on; and her prayers grow more full and mighty. "Cause Thy face to shine, and we shall be saved." No extremity is too great for the power of God. He is able to save at the last point, and that too by simply turning His smiling face upon His afflicted. Oh, to live forever in the light of Jehovah's countenance. S 1. SING aloud unto God our strength: Make a joyful noise unto the God of Jacob. 2 Take up the psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, The pleasant harp with the psaltery. 3 Blow up the trumpet in the new moon, At the full moon, on our solemn feast day. 4 For it is a statute for Israel, An ordinance of the God of Jacob. 5 He appointed it in Joseph for a testimony, When he went out over the land of Egypt: Where I heard a language that I knew not. 6. I removed his shoulder from the burden: His hands were freed from the basket. 7 Thou calledst in trouble, and I delivered thee; I answered thee in the secret place of thunder; I proved thee at the waters of Meribah. [Selah 8 Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wouldest hearken unto me! 9 There shall no strange god be in thee; Neither shalt thou worship any strange god. 10 I am the LORD thy God, Which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt : Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it.11 But my people hearkened not to my voice ; And Israel would none of me.12 So I let them go after the stubbornness of their heart, That they might walk in their own counsels. 13. Oh that my people would hearken unto me, That Israel would walk in my ways !14 I should soon subdue their enemies, And turn my hand against their adversaries.15 The haters of the LORD should submit them- selves unto him : But their time should endure for ever.16 He should feed them also with the finest of the wheat : And with honey out of the rock should I satisfy thee. THIS Psalm was apparently intended to be sung at one or more of the great national festivals. There has, however, been much difference of opinion as to the particular festival or festivals for which it was originally composed. The Psalm consists of two parts : In the first, the Psalmist summons his nation to the festival, bidding them keep it with loud music and song and every utterance of joy, because it was ordained of God, and instituted under circumstances worthy of everlasting remembrance (vs. 1-5). In the next he abruptly drops his own words. What those circumstances were, what the meaning of God's revelation then given, the people had forgotten ; and it is for him, in his character of prophet, as well as poet, to declare. It is for him to show how that voice from the past had its lesson also for the present ; how every festival was God's witness to Himself ; how it repeated afresh, as it were, in clear and audible accents, the great facts of that history, the moral of which was ever old, and yet ever new. But the Psalmist conveys this instruction with the more imposing solemnity, when, suddenly breaking off his exhortation, he leaves God Himself to speak. It is no more the ambassador ; it is the Sovereign, who appears in the midst of His people, to remind them of past benefits, to claim their obedience on the ground of those benefits, and to promise the utmost bounties of grace, on the condition of obedience for the future (vs. 6-16). There could be no grander conception of the true significance of the religious feasts of the nation than this. They are so many memorials of God's love and power, so many monuments set up to testify at once of His goodness, and of Israel's ingratitude and perverseness, so many solemn occasions on which He comes as King and Father to visit them, to rekindle anew their loyalty and their affection, and to scatter among them the treasures of His bounty. To give this interpretation to the festivals, to put in its true light the national joy at their celebration, appears to have been the object of the Psalmist. If so, it is a matter of secondary importance what particular festival or festivals were chiefly before his eye. P. We need not exclude any of the Mosaic festivals. The comprehensive thought is, Come and worship Israel's God with cheerful trust and joyous triumph, in all the ways and times of His appointment. Praise Him exultingly though in the very face of fierce and mighty national foes, for what are they before our own great God ? C. 5. Joseph is here put for Israel, on account of his pre-eminence during the residence in Egypt. He set it, i.e., God instituted or ordained the festival. In his coming, at the time, or in the very act, of his departure. Over the land of Egypt includes the usual expression, from or out of it, but suggests the additional ideas of publicity and triumph. Israel, at the exodus, passed over a considerable tract of the Egyptian territory, and at the same time, as it were, over the heads of the humbled and terrified Egyptians. A. Language knew not. Delitzsch would explain the expression by reference to Ex. 6 : 2, etc. "It was the language of a known and yet unknown God, which Israel heard from Sinai. God now revealed Himself to Israel in a new character, not only as the Redeemer and Saviour of His people from their Egyptian bondage, but also as their King, giving them a law which bound them together as a people, and was the basis of their national existence." The latter interpretation, which regards the language here spoken of as the voice of God, and as virtually given in the following verses, is now that most commonly adopted. It is that of Mendelssohn, Ewald, Delitzsch, and Hupfeld. 6. The words of God follow without any indication of a change of speakers. The prophet identifies himself with, and becomes the organ of, the Divine voice. He reminds Israel of that fact in connection with which the festival was instituted. It is as though, amid all the gladness of the feast, and all the music and the pomp of its celebration, other thoughts arose, not to check, but to guide the current of a holy exultation. The sound of trumpet and timbrel and sacred song must be hushed, while Jehovah speaks to tell His forgetful people the lesson of their past history associated with that festival, the warning and the expostulation suggested by their own perverseness. If they would praise Him aright, it must be with hearts mindful of His goodness, and sensible of their own unworthiness and ingratitude. For the spirit in which all festivals should be kept, see on the offering of the first-fruits (Deut. 26 : 1-11). P. Verse 6 refers to the relief which God gave to the enslaved, hard-tasked people in Egypt. "I removed his shoulder from under the heavy burden; his hands passed out from under the basket," in which they bore brick and mortar for building. C.—The idea is borrowed from Ex. 6 : 6, 7. The specific reference is no doubt to the carrying of bricks and mortar, and the pot or basket of the next clause is the vessel used for that purpose, the form of which has been found delineated in a burial-vault at Thebes. A. 7. Selah; mark that; compare God's goodness and man's badness, and they will serve as foils to each other. Now if they, on their solemn feast-days, were thus to call to mind their redemption out of Egypt, much more ought we on the Christian Sabbath to call to mind a more glorious redemption wrought out for us by Jesus Christ, from worse than Egyptian bondage, and the many gracious answers He has given to us notwithstanding our manifold provocations. H.—The story of Israel is only our own history in another shape. God has heard us, delivered us, liberated us, and too often our unbelief makes the wretched return of mistrust, murmuring, and rebellion. Great is our sin; great is the mercy of our God; let us reflect upon both and pause awhile. "Selah." Hurried reading is of little benefit; to sit down awhile and meditate is very profitable. S. 8,9. How gladly, saith their God, would I testify My love to thee, presenting My appeals and claims, if only thou wilt hearken. "Strange god"—any god other than their own, a heathen, false god. It was their crying, damning sin that they would accept the gods and the worship of the heathen nations round about—Phoenicia and Syria. C. No man can be without his god. If he have not the true God to bless and sustain him, he will have some false god to delude and to betray him. The Psalmist knew this, and therefore he joined so closely, forgetting the name of our God and holding up our hands to some strange god. For every man has something in which he hopes, on which he leans, to which he retreats and retires, with which he fills up his thoughts in empty spaces of time; when he is alone, when he lies sleepless on his bed, when he is not pressed with other thoughts; to which he betakes himself in sorrow or trouble, as that from which he shall draw comfort and strength—his fortress, his citadel, his defence; and has not this good right to be called his god? Man was made to lean on the Creator; but if not on Him, then he leans on the creature in one shape or another. The ivy cannot grow alone; it must twine round some support or other; if not the goodly oak, then the ragged thorn; round any dead stick whatever, rather than have no stay or support at all. It is even so with the heart and affections of man; if they do not twine around God, they must twine around some meaner thing. Trench.—Dost thou love riches more than God? It is the mammon of unrighteousness that is thy god. Is it pleasures thou lovest more than God? Then pleasures are thy god. Is it a husband or wife thou lovest more than God? Then it is thy husband or wife that is thy god. Is it thy children, thy liberty, thy health, thy credit, thy sins, thy life, that thou lovest more than the great God? These are thy gods, these are the deities thou worshippest! Bishop Beveridge. 10. Open thy mouth wide, literally, widen it. The supply of food is here put for that of all necessities. The reason here suggested for adhering to Jehovah is, that He not only had delivered them from Egypt, but was abundantly able to provide for them in Canaan and the wilderness. A. The great promise was, that God Himself, as a God all-sufficient, would be nigh unto them in all that which they called upon Him for (Deut. 4 : 7). That if they would adhere to Him as their powerful Protector and Ruler, they should always find Him their bountiful Benefactor. Open thy mouth wide and I will fill it, as the young ravens that cry open their mouths wide, and the old ones fill them. What is our duty? To raise our expectations from God and enlarge our desires toward Him. We cannot look for too little from the creature, nor too much from the Creator. We are not straitened in Him; why, therefore, should we be straitened in our own bosoms? What is God's promise? I will fill thy mouth with good things (103 : 5). There is enough in God to fill our treasures (Prov. 8 : 21), to replenish every hungry soul (Jer. 31 : 25), to supply all our wants, to answer all our desires, and to make us completely happy. The pleasures of sense will surfeit and never satisfy (Isa. 55 : 2) ; Divine pleasures will satisfy and never surfeit. And we may have enough from God if we pray for it in faith. Ask and it shall be given you ; He gives liberally and upbraids not. God assured His people Israel that it should be their own fault if He did not do as great and kind things for them as He had done for their fathers. Nothing should have been thought too good, too much, to give them, if they would but have kept close to God. H. No words can be more plain than these : "Open thy mouth wide ; I will fill it," but their beauty and pertinence are better seen if we suppose the writer thinks of the little nestlings, late from the egg—eyes still closed, but ears quick to notice any one's approach, and sure to open wide their mouth for the food their instincts look for from the mother bird. So let God's children do, for they are almost as powerless to distinguish good from evil as the eyeless nestlings, and have quite as much reason as they to accept all that God drops into their open mouths as being the best things possible in their case. Moreover, let them enlarge their heart and make broad their requests, remembering that when God's children ask favors of Him, they are never straitened in God, but only in themselves. C.—Surely this teaches us that the greater and more valuable the blessings which we implore from the Divine beneficence, the more sure shall we be to receive them in answer to prayer. Men may cry to God for inferior things, and apply in vain. Even good men may ask for temporal blessings, and not receive them ; because the things we suppose good may not be good, or not good for us, or not good for us at present. But none shall seek God for the best of blessings in vain. If we ask enough, we shall have it. J. Ryland. You may easily over-expect the creature, but you cannot over-expect God. Widen and dilate the desires and expectations of your souls, and God is able to fill every chink to the vastest capacity. This honors God when we greaten our expectation upon Him ; it is a sanctifying of God in our hearts. T. Case.—If the matter and manner of our prayer be right, we cannot be too confident in our expectations from him. Open thy mouth wide then, O Christian ; stretch out thy desires to the uttermost, grasp heaven and earth in thy boundless wishes, and believe there is enough in God to afford thee full satisfaction. Not only come, but come with boldness to the throne of grace ; it is erected for sinners, even the chief of sinners. Come to it then, and wait at it, till you obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. Those who expect most from God are likely to receive the most. The desire of the righteous, let it be ever so extensive, shall be granted. Beddome. Better to believe too much than too little, when God has commanded us to try Him, to prove Him, to open wide our mouths, to ask, seek, and knock. If it be an error to prescribe how and when God shall give, an equally great error is not to believe that He will give, and not to ask for the great things he has said He would give. Potts. The soul is more spiritually affected with its own condition by laying it open before the Lord ; more deeply sensible of sin, and ashamed in his sight, in confessing it before Him ; more dilated and enlarged to receive the mercies sued for ; as the opening wide of the mouth of the soul that it may be filled ; more disposed to observe the Lord in answering ; and to bless Him and trust on Him upon the renewed experiences of His regard to its distresses and desires. Leighton. When we present our requests for a larger measure of His grace we may safely let forth all the ardor and vehemence of our spirits, since our desires are fixed upon what is the very knot and juncture where the honor of God and the interests of His creatures are indissolubly united. Desires after grace are, in fact, desires after God ; and how is it possible they can be too vehement or intense, when directed to such an object ? His gracious presence is not like the limited goods of this life, fitted to a particular crisis, or adapted to a special exigency in a fluctuating scene of things ; it is alike suited to all times and seasons, the food of souls, the proper good of man under every aspect of Providence, and even the exchange of worlds. My soul, said David, panteth after God, yea, for the living God. My soul followeth hard after Thee ; Thy right hand upholdeth me. R. Hall. Christ's mercy, like water in a vase, takes the shape of the vessel that holds it. On the one hand, His grace is infinite, and "is given to every one of us according to the measure of the gift of Christ"—with no limitation but His own unlimited fulness ; on the other hand, the amount which we practically receive from that inexhaustible store is, at each successive moment, determined by the measure and the purity and the intensity of our faith. On His part there is no limit but infinity, on our sides the limit is our capacity, and our capacity is settled by our desires. His word to us ever is, "Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." "Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." A. M. See here, then, what prayer is and what prayer does, its nature and its power. It is a longing after God, which nothing short of the full enjoyment of God can satisfy. And as for its power, it can do all things. It knows no other bounds than the good of the sinner on the one hand, and the omnipotence of Jehovah on the other. "Open thy mouth wide," the Lord says, "and I will fill it." "Ye shall ask what ye will," says Christ, "and it shall be done." The pardon of all our sins, free, complete, and eternal; a victory over every lust; the presence of God with us all through this dark world; His glory passing before our eyes, and shining into our hearts; guidance, protection, strength; heavenly consolations while we live, and heaven itself when we die—all are within the reach of prayer; within our reach; nay, held up, as it were, before our face, with this inscription shining on them all, "Ask, and ye shall have." "Mercies purchased, prepared, waiting for praying man." C. B. Give up yourselves, then, in pure and undivided surrender, with the devotion and trust of your whole heart, to your Lord and God, to your Father in heaven, who promises to give you the kingdom and its righteousness, as the food and raiment of your new and inner man. As He gives us also He expects. Empty yourselves and He will fill you. The fundamental promise, I am the Lord thy God! bears with it the fundamental command, None other shalt thou serve! Neither can this be otherwise, whether in respect to God or to man; the majesty of God, which will not tolerate any rival near Him, demands the whole heart as it is due; and again the need and the desire of the human heart can only find satisfaction in the simplicity and purity of dependence upon the highest, perfect, and only good. Stier. 11. "Would none of me" is scarcely modern English. The Hebrew means: Would not obey me; were not willing as toward me. They were simply perverse, rebellious. Historically, this had a fearfully wide application. It was true of the masses that came out of Egypt; it became painfully apparent during the time of the Judges and in the age after the revolt under Jeroboam. C.—It was not because they might not, they were fairly invited into covenant with God; it was not because they could not, for the word was nigh them, even in their mouth and in their heart; but it was purely because they would not. God calls them His people, for they were bought by Him, bound to Him, His by a thousand ties, and yet even they have not hearkened, have not obeyed; Israel, the seed of Jacob My friend, set Me at nought, and would have none of Me. All the wickedness of the wicked world is owing to the wilfulness of the wicked will. The reason why people are not religious is because they will not be so. H. 12. "So," in the sense of consequently, i.e., because of their perverseness, I sent them forth from Me; I thrust them away for the perverseness of their heart. The centuries of long forbearance came to an end at last, and God gave up first the northern kingdom and then at last the southern also to captivity and desolation. They would not have Jehovah for their God, but would have Baal and Moloch; so God gave them up to their own perverseness, and consequently to national ruin. This is the law of His moral kingdom with individual sinners no less than with nations. C. I gave them up and they walked in their own counsels. That was to give them up to a spirit of division, to a spirit of discontent, to a spirit of envy and jealousy, to a spirit of ambition, of self-seeking and emulation, and so to a spirit of distraction and confusion, and so to ruin and destruction. Such and no better is the issue when God gives a people up to their own counsels; then they soon become a very chaos, and run themselves into a ruinous heap. As good have no counsel from man, as none but man's. Caryl.—They would none of Me, so I gave them up; let them take their course; and see what follows, they walked in their own counsels; in the way of their heart and in the sight of their eye, both in their worship and in their conversation. I left them to do as they would, and then they did all that was ill; they walked in their own counsels, and not according to the counsels of God and His advice. God therefore was not the Author of their sin, He left them to the lusts of their own hearts and the counsels of their own heads; if they do not well the blame must lie upon their own hearts and the blood upon their own heads. H. This life is a course of trial, proof, and preparation for a lasting state of good or evil beyond the grave. God having put it in our power to choose for ourselves, leaves it to ourselves to make the choice, at the same time plainly warning us that if we choose the right path and follow it on, He will help us, but if we choose the wrong path and refuse to listen to His voice, He will, however unwillingly, give us up, leave us to go our own way. Anon.—The same will the Spirit do upon our rejecting or resisting of His leading. He may long strive, but He will “not always strive.” If the person led shall once begin to struggle with Him that leads him, and shall refuse to follow His guidance, what is then to be done but to leave him to himself? Continued, rooted, allowed resistance to the Spirit, makes Him so to cast off a person as to lead him no more. Jacombe. 13. God looks upon them with pity, and shows that it was with reluctance that He thus abandoned them to their folly and fate. How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? (Hos. 11 : 8, 9.) So here, O that My people had hearkened! Thus Christ lamented the obstinacy of Jerusalem, If thou hadst known! H.—God speaks as if He were comforted when He is but heard, or as if we comforted Him when we hear Him. God beseecheth us, and speaks entreaties to us that His counsels and commands may be heard: “O that My people had hearkened unto Me.” The Lord tells them indeed it would have proved their consolation (v. 14): “I should soon have subdued their enemies, and turned My hand against their adversaries.” Yet while He speaks so pathetically He seems to include His own consolation in it as well as theirs. “O that My people had hearkened unto Me;” it would have been good for them, and it would have given high content to myself. Caryl. The tender affection of God in pleading with men to avoid sin is very impressive; but more impressive still are His exclamations of grief when the final step has been taken, and when, for many, recovery is impossible. Thus when Jesus looked down from Olivet upon the guilty metropolis, and knew that the die was cast, He nevertheless wept and said, “How often would I have gathered your children, as a hen her brood; but ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate!” So God here speaks, “O that My people had hearkened unto Me! that Israel had walked in My ways!” The measure of God’s love transcends all known limits; its forms are infinite in their variety! When every remedial measure has been tried in vain love can only weep. D. D. 14. Turned My hand.** God expresseth the utter overthrow of the enemies of His people by the turning of a hand; if God do but turn His hand they are soon subdued. If He do but touch the might, the pomp, the greatness, the riches and the power of all those in the world that are opposers of His Church, presently they fall to the ground; a touch from the hand of God will end our wars. Caryl. 15. If it was only in being governed by God that the people of Israel could escape bondage, be lifted up and be noble and free, then beyond doubt the same is true of ourselves; we, too, shall be slaves as long as we are free, and shall only be free when we become in heart and soul the servants of God. Bishop Goodwin. 16. When once a people or a person are accepted of God, He spares no cost, nor thinks anything too costly for them. “He would have fed them also with the finest of the wheat; and with honey out of the rock should I have satisfied thee.” I would not have fed thee with wheat only, that’s good; but with the finest wheat, that’s the best. Surely God cannot think anything of this world too good for His people, who hath not thought the next world too good for them; certainly God cannot think any of these outward enjoyments too good for His people, who hath not thought His Son too good for His people; that’s the apostle’s argument (Rom. 8 : 32): “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” even the best of outward good things, when He seeth it good for us. Caryl.—When God’s people walk in the light of His countenance and maintain unsullied holiness, the joy and consolation which He yields them are beyond conception. To them the joys of heaven have begun even upon earth. They can sing in the ways of the Lord. The spring of the eternal summer has commenced with them; they are already blest, and they look for brighter things. This shows us by contrast how sad a thing it is for a child of God to bring his soul into a state of famine by following after another god. O Lord, forever bind us to Thyself alone and keep us faithful unto the end! S. 1. God standeth in the congregation of God: He judgeth among the gods. 2 How long will ye judge unjustly, And respect the persons of the wicked? [Selah 3 Judge the poor and fatherless: Do justice to the afflicted and destitute. 4 Rescue the poor and needy: Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked. 5. They know not, neither do they understand; They walk to and fro in darkness: All the foundations of the earth are moved. 6 I said, Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High. 7 Nevertheless ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes. 8 Arise, O God, judge the earth: For thou shalt inherit all the nations. THIS PSALM is a solemn rebuke, addressed in prophetic strain, to those who, pledged by their office to uphold the law, had trampled upon it for their own selfish ends. It is a "vision of judgment," in which no common offenders are arraigned, as it is no earthly tribunal before which they are summoned. God Himself appears, so it seems to the prophet, taking His stand in the midst of that nation whom He had ordained to be the witness of His righteousness, among the rulers and judges of the nation who were destined to reflect, and as it were to embody in visible form, the majesty of that righteousness. He appears now not, as in the fiftieth Psalm, to judge His people, but to judge the judges of that people; not to reprove the congregation at large for their formality and hypocrisy, but to reprove the rulers and magistrates for their open and shameful perversion of justice. As in the presence of God, the Psalmist takes up his parable against these unjust judges: "How long will ye judge a judgment which is iniquity (such is the exact force of the original), and accept the persons of the ungodly?" These men have scandalously desecrated their office. They had been placed in the loftiest position to which any man could aspire. They were sons of the Highest, called by His name, bearing His image, exercising His authority, charged to execute His will, and they ought to have been, in their measure, His living representatives, the very pattern and likeness of His righteousness and wisdom. But instead of righteousness they had loved unrighteousness. They had shown favor to the wicked who were powerful and wealthy. They had crushed the poor, the defenceless, the fatherless, whose only protection lay in the unsullied uprightness and incorruptibility of the judge, and whom God Himself had made their charge. A witness of these wrongs, the Psalmist appeals to them to discharge their duty faithfully and uprightly: "Do justice to the miserable and fatherless," etc. (vs. 3, 4). But the appeal is in vain. They have neither feeling nor conscience. Morally and intellectually, intellectually because morally, they are corrupt. The light that is in them is darkness. And thus, venal, unscrupulous, base, hard-hearted, the judges and magistrates have loosened the bonds of law, and the consequence is that the foundations of social order are shaken, and the whole fabric threatened with dissolution. Such is the terrible picture of a disorganized society, the very fountains of justice defiled and poisoned, suggested to us by the words in which the Psalmist here addresses the judges of Israel. He himself had thought, he tells us, that their high dignity and the representative character of their office, placed them so far above other men that they were like beings of a different race; but he warns them that the tyrannous exercise of their power will not last forever, that, as in the case of other rulers of the world, it may only accelerate their fall. And then, finally, he turns to God, and appeals to Him who is the Judge, not of Israel only, but of the world, to arise and execute judgment in the earth, which they who bore His name had perverted. The language of the Psalm is so general that it might belong to any period of the history; and the history itself and the utterance of the prophets show us that the evil here denounced was not the evil of any one age, but of all. P. Asaph denounces the injustice, corruption, and ignorance of the judges of Israel, and threatens them with destruction. In the first verse he represents the Almighty as sitting in judgment, in the last he calls on Him to judge the earth. The Psalm has bold and remarkable expressions, and the style is pure, compact, and vigorous, but there are no certain indications of date. It may have been written under one of the kings of Judah, either by the elder Asaph at a period of general corruption, as in the reign of Rehoboam; or by a descendant bearing the same name, on the eve of a vigorous reformation, such as that ushered in by Asa, and accomplished by Jehoshaphat (see 2 Chr. 15: 8-19; 19: 4-11). Cook. This Psalm rebukes corrupt judges, putting in strong light their high responsibility as vicegerents of God and therefore held accountable before Him for the faithful administration of justice. True to the nature of the case, this Psalm assumes that laws and tribunals exist for the benefit of those who need them for the protection of their rights, i.e., for the poor, the helpless, the friendless. Let all judges, and indeed legislators also, know and forget it not, that God's sympathies are with these dependent classes, and He will surely hold civil officers to their responsibilities toward these needy ones. If they take the place of God, either in making or in administering civil law, let them take care that they use their high powers in sympathy with their Supreme Master and never in defiance of His throne. C. 1. Earthly rulers and judges are not, as they are too ready to think, supreme, independent, irresponsible. There is one higher than the highest. As Jehoshaphat reminds the judges of Israel, God is with them in the judgment. P. — Among the gods. An allusion to a singular usage of the Pentateuch, according to which the theoretical magistrates, as mere representatives of God's judicial sovereignty, are expressly called Elohim, the plural form of which is peculiarly well suited to this double sense or application. (See Ex. 21: 6; 22: 7, 8, and compare Deut. 1: 17; 10: 17; 2 Chr. 19: 6.) Even reverence to old age seems to be required on this principle (Lev. 19: 32), and obedience to parents in the fifth commandment (Ex. 20: 12), which really applies to all the offices and powers of the patriarchal system, a system founded upon natural relations, and originating in a simple extension of domestic or parental government, in which the human head represents the original and universal parent or progenitor. The remarkable use of the name God in Exodus is concealed from the reader of the English Bible by the arbitrary use of the word judges, as a translation of the Hebrew, which of course it cannot be. He judges, will judge, is about to judge. The idea is, that as the judges were gods to other men, so He would be a judge to them. A. Gods, not merely as having their authority from God, but as His vicegerents, as embodying in themselves the majesty of the law, as those in whom men look to find the most perfect earthly pattern of Divine attributes, of truth and justice and mercy and impartiality. This name "gods" is applied to the judges of Israel in the Pentateuch. It was in connection with the office of judge that the stamp of divinity was most conspicuous. "The judgment is God's" (Deut. 1: 17); whoever comes before it comes before God. So, again, Moses uses the phrase, "When ye come to me, to inquire of God" (Ex. 18: 15). P. It may be said of every magistrate that he sits in God's seat. God has put upon him a portion of His own dominion and authority; and has ordained that He is to be obeyed, not for wrath's sake only, but for conscience' sake. The civil magistrate, in discharging his high function, may justly claim to govern with a Divine right. No one needs to be told that this old doctrine of the Divine right of rulers has been wofully abused. Sycophantic divines have often made of it a flattering unction for the ears of princes; teaching them that they owed no obedience to the laws; that they were responsible to none but God for their administration; that any attempt on the part of the people to curb their tyranny, or to depose them from their seats when milder measures failed, was rebellion against God whose vicegerents they were. Even now, the same doctrine occasionally makes itself heard from the pulpit and the press; and thus men attempt to subject the consciences of the people to the caprice of tyrants. Let it be carefully observed that the harp of Asaph lends no sanction to this "right Divine of kings to govern wrong." If the prophet testifies that princes are gods, he includes in the honor the humblest magistrate. The elders administering justice in the gate of Bethlehem, though their town be little among the thousands of Judah, sit in God's seat as truly as King Solomon on his ivory throne in the porch of judgment at Jerusalem. The common saying that "the Divine right of kings is the Divine right of constables," is a rough way of expressing a Bible truth. Let this be borne in mind, and no one will allege Scripture in defence of royal claims to indefeasible and irresponsible authority, or claim for such authority the sanction of Divine right. But while care ought to be taken to guard the Divine right of civil government from abuse, the right itself is not to be forgotten. The State is an ordinance of God, having, like the family, its foundation in the very constitution of human nature. The officers of the State, whether supreme or subordinate, have a Divine right to administer justice in the community over which Providence has placed them. They who resort to the civil magistrate for judgment, resort to the judgment-seat of God; just as they who resort to the Ministry of the Word resort to the Great Prophet of the Church. Unless the magistrate had received a commission from God, he could not lawfully bear the sword. To take the life of an unarmed fellow-man, without a commission from the Most High warranting the act, would be to commit murder. W. Binnie. 2. This and the rest of the Psalm is addressed by Asaph, in the name of the God of judgment, to the unrighteous judges of Israel. The evils are those denounced by all the prophets. "Accept the persons," a common expression for undue partiality. Cook.—It is usual to consider what follows, to the end of v. 6, as the words of God as He appears, in vision, pleading with the judges of His people. To me it seems preferable to regard the passage as a rebuke addressed, in the true prophetic strain, by the poet himself, to those whose iniquity called for the protest (somewhat in the same strain as in 58 : 1, 2); v. 6 in particular is thus more forcible, and the address to God in v. 8. P. The highest philological authorities are now agreed that the primary idea is that of accepting one man's face or person rather than another's, the precise form of expression being probably derived from the practice of admitting suitors to confer with governors or rulers face to face, a privilege which can sometimes only be obtained by bribes, especially, though not exclusively, in Oriental courts. A.—They not only accepted the persons of the rich, because they were rich, though that is bad enough, but (which is much worse) they accepted the persons of the wicked, because they were wicked; they not only countenanced them in their wickedness, but loved them the better for it, and fell in with their interests. Woe unto thee, O land, when thy judges are such as these! H. 3,4. The touchstone of magistrates' justice is in the causes and cases of the poor, fatherless, afflicted, and needy, who are not able to attend long their suits of law, have no friends nor money to deal for them; to whom, therefore, the judges should be eyes to direct them and a staff to their weakness, to support and help them in their right. Dickson.—Persons such as these most of all need the protection of the judge. Their very existence depends on his integrity. The orphan who has lost his natural protectors, the humble who have no powerful friends, the poor who can purchase no countenance, to whom shall they look but to God's vicegerent? And if he violates his trust, God who is the "God of the widow and the fatherless" (68 : 6), and who in the law declares, "Cursed be he who perverteth the cause of the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow" (Deut. 27 : 19), will not leave him unpunished. 5. It is one strain continued, only that now the infatuation, as before the moral perversion, of the judges is described. The expostulation falls dead without an echo. The men are infatuated by their position, and blinded by their own pride. P. All the foundations of the earth are out of course. When the dispensers of law have dispensed with justice, settlements are unsettled, society is unhinged, the whole fabric of the nation is shaken. When injustice is committed in due course of law the world is indeed out of course. When "justices' justice" becomes a by-word, it is time that justice dealt with justices. S. 6. I have said, gods (are) ye, and sons of the Highest all of you. Their sin did not consist in arrogating to themselves too high a dignity, but in abusing it by malversation, and imagining that it relieved them from responsibility, whereas it really enhanced it. They were God's representatives, but for that very reason they were bound to be pre-eminently just and faithful. A. Our Lord appeals to this verse in His argument with the Jews when they charged Him with blasphemy, "because He, being a man, made Himself God" (John 10).$^{8}$ How could they charge Him with blasphemy in claiming to be the Son of God, when their own judges had been styled gods! They moreover were unrighteous judges, whereas He was one whom the Father had sanctified, and sent into the world, and whose life and works were a witness to His righteousness. By nature they had no right to the name of Elohim, "gods," nor had they proved themselves worthy of it by their character. He was in character as in nature Divine. To them the word of God had come, by which they had been appointed to their office. He was Himself the Word of the Father. Their office was but for a time, they were mortal men, yet wearing, by Divine permission, a Divine name. He had been with the Father before He came into the world, was by Him sealed and set apart and sent to be not a judge, but the Christ; not one of many sons, but emphatically the Son of God, the King of an everlasting kingdom. Both in His office and in His person He has far more right to the title "Son of God," than they have to that of "gods." P. The argument is valid, notwithstanding the different sense of the word God in the two applications, because the difference of sense corresponds to a difference of nature and position in the persons to whom the title is applied. Still this observation should be connected with one general reflection upon the religion of the Old Testament. Biblical monotheism has nothing in common with the cold dead deism which Jewish orthodoxy had extracted from the sacred books. The petrified monotheism which forms the connecting link between actual Judaism, Christian rationalism, and Mohammedanism, is but a gross caricature of scriptural thought. Every theocratic function exercised in the name of Jehovah, who conferred it, placed him to whom it was confided in living relation with the Most High, and made him an organ of His influence. Hence such a man—whether king, judge, or prophet—became the precursor of One who, by His incarnation, was to abolish the separation between God and His creature (Zech. 12: 8). The Old Testament, then, is in full advance toward the incarnation. This is at the root of the argument of our Lord. If this advance has nothing blasphemous, the final point to which it consistently tends can have nothing derogatory to the Divine Majesty. Asaph, addressing himself to the Theocratic Judges (v. 1), describes their sublime function as organs of Divine justice. God Himself sits in the midst of them, and from Him their sentences emanate. Vs. 2, 5, Asaph opposes the sad reality to the ideal grandeur of their functions. At v. 6 he returns to the intimation of v. 1, that of official dignity, and the phrase, "I have said, Ye are gods," refers to Asaph's own expression in v. 1, for clearly the second term, God (v. 1), includes the person of Judges. Vs. 7 and 8 remind judges that one day they will be judged themselves. Jesus draws from the language of the Psalmist a conclusion a minori ad majus (from the less to the greater). The basis of this reasoning is the principle that Scripture cannot blaspheme. By those "to whom the Word of God came," Jesus signifies the Judges, to whom the Holy Spirit addresses Himself in the words which He has just cited. The expression, "The Scripture cannot be broken," shows the boundless confidence which Jesus reposed in Scripture. Godet. 7. Though I have called you "gods" and children of the Most High, yet be not elated; do not dream of being immortal for this earth, or of being above responsibility to the Most High; for ye shall surely die like frail man, made of the ground. And that death will bring you before the dreadful bar of Him whose law you have trampled down; whose heart of love for the poor you have outraged; whose hottest retribution you have brought down on your own guilty heads! C. Ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes. The meditation of death would pull down the plumes of pride; thou art but dust animated; shall dust and ashes be proud? Thou hast a grassy body, and shall shortly be mowed down: "I have said, ye are gods;" but lest they should grow proud, he adds a corrective: "Ye shall die like men;" ye are dying gods. T. Watson.—He tells them their honor, but withal their lot. In power and place they differ from others; in death they differ not from others. They are cold when winter comes, withered with age, weak with sickness, and melt away with death, as the meanest; all to ashes. T. Adams.—To every judge this verse is a memento mori! He must leave the bench to stand at the bar, and on the way must put off the ermine to put on the shroud. S. 8. Arise, O God, judge the earth; for Thou art to possess all nations. This is a petition that, since the representative or delegated judges had proved so unfaithful, God would appear in person and reclaim the powers which had been so wickedly abused. And this He is besought to do, not only in Israel, where the proximate occasion of the prayer was furnished, but throughout the earth, over all whose nations He possessed, and was one day to make good, the same hereditary right, i.e., a right continuing unchanged through all successive generations. A. Thou shalt inherit the nations. This has respect to the kingdom of providence. God governs the world, sets up and puts down whom He pleases, He inherits all nations, has an absolute dominion over them, to dispose of them as a man does of his inheritance; this we are to believe and to comfort ourselves with, that the earth is not given so much into the hands of the wicked, the wicked rulers, as we are tempted to think it is (Job 9 : 24). But God has reserved the power to Himself, and overrules them. In this faith we must pray, "Arise, O God, judge the earth, appear against those that judge unjustly, and set shepherds over Thy people after Thine own heart." There is a righteous God to whom we may have recourse, and on whom we may depend, for the effectual relief of all that find themselves aggrieved by unjust judges. It has respect also to the kingdom of the Messiah. It is a prayer for the hastening of that, that Christ would come, who is to judge the earth, and that promise is pleaded, that God shall give Him the heathen for His inheritance. Thou, O Christ, shalt inherit all nations, and be the Governor over them (2 : 8 ; 22 : 28). Let the second coming of Christ set to rights all these disorders. There are two words with which we may comfort ourselves and one another, in reference to the mismanagements of power among men; one is (Rev. 19 : 6), Hallelujah, the Lord God omnipotent reigneth; the other is (Rev. 22 : 20), Surely, I come quickly. H. The moral lessons of this Psalm for all who have to do with the administration of civil law are too obvious to need remark. Who does not see that if there be a Supreme Being, the doctrine of this Psalm must be true, and being true, is infinitely beneficent in its influence and sublime in its moral grandeur? C. 1. O God, keep not thou silence : Hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God. 2 For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult : And they that hate thee have lifted up the head. 3 They take crafty counsel against thy people, And consult together against thy hidden ones. 4 They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation ; That the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. 5 For they have consulted together with one consent ; Against thee do they make a covenant : 6 The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites ; Moab, and the Hagarenes ; 7 Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek ; Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre : 8 Assyria also is joined with them ; They have holpen the children of Lot. [Selah 9 Do thou unto them as unto Midian ; As to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the river Kishon : 10 Which perished at En-dor ; They became as dung for the earth. 11 Make their nobles like Oreb and Zeeb ; Yea, all their princes like Zebah and Zal-munna : 12 Who said, Let us take to ourselves in possession The habitations of God. 13 O my God, make them like the whirling dust ; As stubble before the wind. 14 As the fire that burneth the forest, And as the flame that setteth the mountains on fire ; 15 So pursue them with thy tempest, And terrify them with thy storm. 16 Fill their faces with confusion ; That they may seek thy name, O LORD. 17 Let them be ashamed and dismayed for ever ; Yea, let them be confounded and perish : 18 That they may know that thou alone, whose name is JEHOVAH, Art the Most High over all the earth. THIS Psalm describes a powerful confederation against the kingdom, of which the principal leaders are Edom, Moab, Ammon, certain Arabian tribes, supported by the Philistines. Tyrians, and Assyrians. The mention of Amalek proves that the Psalm belongs to the period before the captivity, since the Amalekites were destroyed by the Simeonites before that time. Nearly all ancient and many modern commentators (Tholuck, De Wette, Hengstenberg, Delitzsch, Himpel, Kay) hold that the confederacy of the Moabites and Ammonites and others, described in 2 Chr. 20 : 5-12, gave occasion to the Psalm. The great terror of Jehoshaphat and the people, the express mention of Mount Seir, and the result brought about by a division between the incongruous elements, confirm this view ; nor is it at all impossible that the Psalm may have been written by Jahaziel, "a Levite of the sons of Asaph," who was moved by the Spirit of God to promise a complete deliverance (2 Chr. 20 : 14-17). The mention of the Assyrians, not as leaders, but as encouragers, of the confederacy of the Philistines and Tyrians, will be considered in the notes. We find the Edomites, Philistines, and Arabians active in hostility in the reign of Jehoshaphat's successor. Cook. We know of no period in the history of Israel when all the various tribes here enumerated were united together for the extermination of their enemy. But as this Psalm helps us to complete the narrative in Judges of the defeat of the Midianites (v. 11), so it may itself supplement the narrative of the particular event which called it forth. It may describe some event which we read in the history, but which there assumes less formidable proportions, and in so doing it may help us to complete the picture. If so, there can be very little doubt with what portion of the history it best synchronizes. The confederacy must be that which threatened Judah in the reign of Jehoshaphat, the account of which is given in 2 Chr. 20. There, as in the Psalm, Moab and Ammon, "the children of Lot," are the leading powers ; and the Edomites are mentioned as forming a part of the invading army. The poet is fully alive to the danger which threatens his nation. Look where he may, the horizon is black with gathering clouds. Judah is alone, and his enemies are compassing him about. The hosts of invaders are settling like swarms of locusts on the skirts of the land. East, south, and west they are mustering to the battle. The kindred, but ever hostile tribe of Edom on the border, issuing from their mountain fastnesses ; the Arab tribes of the desert ; the old hereditary foes of Israel, Moab and Ammon ; the Philistines, long since humbled and driven back to their narrow strip of territory by the sea, yet still apparently forformidable, even Tyre forgetting her ancient friendship—all are on the march, all, like hunters, are hemming in the lion who holds them at bay. It is against this formidable confederacy that the Psalmist prays. He prays that it may be with them as with the other enemies of Israel, with Jabin and Sisera, in days of old. But he prays for more than deliverance or victory. He prays that the name of Jehovah may be magnified, and that all may seek that name. Two expressions, in fact, give the key to the Psalm—show us the attitude of the poet in presence of the danger : v. 5, "They are confederate against Thee;" v. 18, "Let them know that Thou art most high over all the earth." The Psalm consists of two principal divisions : the first describes the magnitude of the danger, and enumerates the foes who are gathering on all sides, hemming in Judah, and intending by mere force of numbers utterly to crush and destroy it (vs. 1-8). The next contains the prayer for their complete overthrow, with an appeal to God's former mighty acts on behalf of His people when threatened by their enemies (vs. 9-18). P. TITLE. A Song. A Psalm. By Asaph. To the general description (mizmôr), there is here prefixed a more specific one (shûr), which designates the composition as a song of praise or triumph. The same combination occurs above, in the title of Psalm 48, a composition which was probably occasioned by the victory of Jehoshaphat over the Moabites, Ammonites, and their confederates, as described in 2 Chr. 20. This agrees well with the hypothesis, conclusively maintained by Hengstenberg, that the Psalm before us has relation to the same event, and that as the forty-seventh was probably sung upon the field of battle, and the forty-eighth after the triumphant return to Jerusalem, so the eighty-third was composed in confident anticipation of the victory. A.—Our Psalm is a true picture of the state of feeling which prevailed throughout the people during the danger under Jehoshaphat. According to the history of Chronicles, they praised God at that time, in the midst of their danger, with loud voice (v. 19) ; and here in the title the Psalm is called a song of praise ; and it is such in reality, although it bears the form of a prayer—a song of triumph sung before the victory—no contest, no doubt, the distress is simply committed to God. Hengstenberg. 4. That the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance. This desperate scheme and wretched design took not effect ; but, on the contrary, the several nations mentioned in this conspiracy are no more, and have not had a name in the world for many hundreds of years; while the Jews are still a people, and are preserved in order to be called and saved, as all Israel will be in the latter day (Rom. 11: 25). So Diocletian thought to have rooted the Christian name out of the world, but in vain. Gill. 5. Against Thee, as in v. 3 "against Thy people." God and His people are one. So our Lord says to Saul, "Why persecutest thou Me?" 6-8. The enumeration of the confederate tribes. First, those on the south and east. Then, those on the west, Philistia and Tyre. Lastly, the Assyrians in the north, not yet regarded as a formidable power, but merely as allies of Moab and Ammon. P.—The enemies of Israel, as enumerated by the Psalmist, fall into four main divisions: First, those most nearly connected with the Israelites themselves by the ties of blood-relationship, the descendants of Esau and Ishmael; secondly, the two branches of the descendants of Lot, along with their respective Arabian auxiliaries—viz., the Moabites, who had engaged the assistance of the Hagarenes, and the Ammonites, who had gathered round their standard the Giblites and Amalekites; thirdly, the inhabitants of the coast, the Philistines and Tyrians; fourthly, the more distant Assyrians. Thrupp. 8. Assur is also joined with them. It was then a rising power, anxious for growth, and it thus early distinguished itself for evil. What a motley group they were! A league against Israel is always attractive, and gathers whole nations within its bonds. They have holpen the children of Lot. All these have come to the aid of Moab and Ammon, which two nations were among the fiercest in the conspiracy. There were ten to one against Israel, and yet she overcame all her enemies. S. 9. Here is the prayer. The historic allusions to previous victories over these or similar enemies had in themselves an inspiration of hope. Why shouldst not Thou, O God, re-enact those ancient deliverances of Thy people, and again overwhelm Thy foes in judgment? As unto the Midianites by the hand of Gideon (Jud. 7); as to Sisera and Jabin (Jud. 4, 5). C. 11. Oreb and Zeeb, the two "princes," or probably "generals of the army," while Zebah and Zalmunna have the title of "kings" (Jud. 7: 25; 8: 5, 6). The allusions here and in Isa. 10: 26 help us to complete the narrative in Judges. Isaiah implies that the slaughter must have been awful beyond anything that history records, for "he places it in the same rank with the two most tremendous disasters recorded in the whole of the history of Israel—the destruction of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, and of the army of Sennacherib." Here the discomfiture and flight of the Midianites is prominent. "In imagery both obvious and vivid to every native of the gusty hills and plains of Palestine, though to us comparatively unintelligible, the Psalmist describes them as driven over the uplands of Gilead like the clouds of chaff blown from the threshing-floors; chased away like the spherical masses of dry weeds which course over the plains of Esdraelon and Philistia—flying with the dreadful hurry and confusion of the flames, that rush and leap from tree to tree and hill to hill when the wooded mountains of a tropical country are by chance ignited." (Grove.) P. 16-18. The object with which the Psalmist prays for the Divine judgment upon the foes who are gathering to swallow up his people is remarkable. It is "that they may seek the name of Jehovah, that they may know (v. 18) that He is most high over all the earth." This is the nobler aspiration which mingles with the prayer for vengeance. The man who loves and fears Jehovah desires to see others, even his enemies, love and fear Him too. The end of all God's judgments, as of all history, is the same, that all should confess that Jehovah is One, and His name One (Zech. 14: 9). P. That which we should earnestly desire and beg of God for our enemies and persecutors is, that God would bring them to repentance, and we should desire their abasement in order to this; no other confusion to them than what may be a step toward their conversion. H. 1. How amiable [lovely] are thy tabernacles, O LORD of hosts! 2 My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD; My heart and my flesh cry out [sing for joy] unto the living God. 3 Yea, the sparrow hath found her an house, And the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, Even thine altars, O LORD of hosts, My King, and my God. 4 Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: They will be still praising thee. [Selah 5 Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; In whose heart are the high ways to Zion. 6 Passing through the valley of Weeping they make it a place of springs; Yea, the early rain covereth it with blessings. 7. They go from strength to strength, Every one of them appeareth before God in Zion. 8 O LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer: Give ear, O God of Jacob. [Selah 9 Behold, O God our shield, And look upon the face of thine anointed. 10 For a day in thy courts is better than a thou- sand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, Than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. 11 For the LORD God is a sun and a shield: The LORD will give grace and glory: No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly. 12 O LORD of hosts, Blessed is the man that trusteth in thee. IN its general character this Psalm very nearly resembles Psalm 42. Like that, it is the ardent outpouring of a man of no common depth and tenderness of feeling, the expression of a de- voted love for the house and worship of Jeho- vah. Like that, it is written under circum- stances of suffering and depression, at a time when the Psalmist was in exile, or at a distance from the sanctuary. Like that, it touches, and even more fully, on the celebration of the na- tional feast, and pictures the crowd of pilgrims on their way to the holy city. In both Psalms there is the same deep pathos, the same "ex- quisite delicacy and tenderness of thought," in both the same strain of remembrance and of anticipation, half sad, half joyful. Certain turns of expression are the same in both. Compare v. 2 here with 42 : 1, 2; v. 4 here, "they will still (or yet) praise Thee," with 42 : 5, "for I shall yet praise Him;" the name of God as the "living God," v. 2 here, and 42 : 2 (occurring nowhere else in the Psalter); the phrase, "appear before God," v. 7 here, and 42 : 2; "thy dwellings" or "tabernacles," v. 1 here, and 43 : 3. But there is this differ- ence, that here nothing is said to define exactly the locality in which the Psalm was written; nor is there any allusion to the taunts of enemies, to "men of deceit and wrong," such as meet us in Psalm 42. The Psalm dwells on the blessedness of God's service in His house (vs. 1-4), the supreme happiness of those who are permitted to take their part in it (vs. 5-7), and asks that the Psalmist himself, though shut out from access to the sanctuary, may nevertheless find God to be his sun and shield (vs. 8-12). P. It is all through a fervent and tender expres- sion of love for Jehovah's sanctuary; of love which yearns in the distance to return thither, and pronounces all those blessed who have there their true home. D.—The whole tone of this Psalm is that of inviting men to the tab- ernacle of the Lord. It contemplates their journeying thither, but sees no toils, no dis- comforts, but only sweet associations and foun- tains of delight in the very travels up from dis- tant cities to the place of appearing before God in Zion. C. 1. How dear (to me are) Thy dwellings, O Jehovah, (God of) hosts! The adjective is ren- dered by the English versions amiable, in the sense of the French aimable, lovely. But the usage of the Hebrew word requires it to be un- derstood as meaning dear, beloved, which is ex- actly the idea here required by the context. The plural dwellings has reference to the subdivisions and appurtenances of the sanctuary, and is applied to the tabernacle in Psalm 43 : 3. The Divine titles are as usual significant. While one suggests the covenant relation between God and the petitioner, the other makes His sovereignty the ground of a prayer for His protection. The force of this impassioned exclamation is enhanced by the structure of the sentence, which consists of a single clause. With the whole verse compare Psalm 27 : 1-5. A. "How amiable"—words which legitimately mean, how worthy of being loved, how lovable in general; but the Hebrew is more definite and personal: How dear to my heart—oh, how tenderly do I love the place where Thou dwellest, O Lord of hosts! It is rather an utterance of the heart than a judgment of the intelligence, expressing what one feels for himself rather than what he holds as a general, abstract truth. C.—What made the tabernacle lovely was within; here the priests were to be seen in their robes, doing their duty and service, and at certain times the high-priest in his rich apparel; here were seen the sacrifices slain and offered, by which the people were taught the nature of sin, the strictness of justice, and the necessity and efficacy of the sacrifice of Christ; here the Levites were heard singing their songs, and blowing their trumpets. But much more lovely are the Church of God and its ordinances in Gospel times, where Christ, the Great High-priest, is seen in the glories of His person and the fulness of His grace; where Zion's priests, or the ministers of the Gospel, stand clothed, being full fraught with salvation and the tidings of it; where Christ is evidently set forth as crucified and slain, in the ministry of the Word and the administration of ordinances; here the Gospel trumpet is blown and its joyful sound echoed forth, and songs of love and grace are sung by all believers; besides, what makes these tabernacles still more lovely are the presence of God, so that they are no other than the house of God, the gate of heaven; the provisions that are here made and the company that is here enjoyed. Gill. What can be more like heaven upon earth than a company of devout souls met in one place, having God in the midst of them and partaking of His communications, devoting themselves to His service, professing their faith and hope in Christ and their dependence upon Him; and joining hearts and voices with the heavenly hosts of angels, in singing the everlasting praises of their Creator and Redeemer; in declaring His wonderful works of love and mercy, and in adoring His infinite wisdom, power, and goodness, which are conspicuous to all the world? Archbishop Sharp. 2. Soul . . . heart . . . flesh.** Marking the whole man, with every faculty and affection. The verbs are also very expressive. The first, longeth, means literally, "hath grown pale," as with the intensity of the feeling; the second, fainteth, is more exactly, "falleth," or "is consumed." P.—"Longing," "fainting," are strong expressions of intense, languishing desire—a feeling that nothing else can at all satisfy. The Hebrew verb for crieth out is used almost if not quite invariably for the shoutings of exultant joy; not for the imploring cry for help. The distinction is important as bearing upon the tone of feeling that pervades the Psalm. C.—The Psalmist reaches the climax of desire not when he speaks of the sanctuary, but of God Himself. Heart and flesh being both mentioned, we are taught that it is the desire of the whole man. In the original there is expectation, eagerness, desire, all concentrated. It is an intensity that drowns all other desires—"crieth out for God." A. G. Brown. Which one of these hearts is satisfied with what it is? Which of you is content—deeply, thoroughly content—with a decorous and prosperous and cultured career? Is there no crying out, from within, for the living God? Does not the infinite and solemn mystery challenge us from the hours of suffering, and of silence, and even of gladness itself? Does not the very beauty of the earth and the sea and the sky awaken an awful sense of the "light that never was on sea or shore;" and does not society sometimes leave you weary and hungry and cold, and is not the fulness of joy attended by an emptiness that the world with its largest promise cannot fill? Have you not spiritual sensibility enough to feel yet that you are poor and blind and miserable and sinful, before God? These, then, are all inner voices beseeching for the life that is hid with Christ in God. Through all its deepest organs the soul is kept mercifully restless till it tastes of that life. F. D. H. 3. "God fails not," as one has beautifully said, "to find a house for the most worthless, and the nest for the most restless of birds." What confidence this should give us! How we should rest! What repose the soul finds that casts itself on the watchful, tender care of Him who provides so fully for the need of all His creatures! We know what the expression of "nest" conveys, just as well as that of "a house." Is it not a place of security, a shelter from storm, a covert to hide one's self in, from every evil, a protection from all that can harm, "a place to rest in, to nestle in, to joy in"? Anon. The Psalmist feels like a wandering bird, homeless, until he finds a refuge in God's house. The latter half of the verse, "even Thine altars," appears rather to be an exclamation, as though the Psalmist would say, "The birds have their houses; my refuge and home, the place in which my heart finds all its comfort, is the altar of God." Cook. It is evidently the design of this passage to intimate to us that in the house and at the altar of God a faithful soul findeth freedom from care and sorrow, quiet of mind, and gladness of spirit, like a bird that has secured a little mansion for the reception and education of her young. And there is no heart endued with sensibility which does not bear its testimony to the exquisite beauty and propriety of this affecting image. Bishop Horne.—The points in the analogy are home, rest, and liberty. The house of God, the house of the Father and the elder Brother and all the children, is and must be from its nature a home. All needed rest and comfort is to be found in it. And to the soul in God's house, as to the bird in its nest, there is a happy combination of rest and freedom. A nest is not a cage. There is rest in revealed truth in Christ, in a reconciled God, in holiness; but there is the freedom of a spirit which abides in these, because they are ever true and real to it, and which goes forth at liberty to seek and find all that is good or true. W. Morison. 4. The thought of v. 3 is completed. The blessedness of God's house is that there men praise Him. This it was that made that house so precious to the Psalmist. And what Christian man can climb higher than this—to find in the praise of God the greatest joy of his life? P.—If there be a heaven upon earth, it is in praising God, in continually praising Him. Apply this to His house above; blessed are they that dwell there, angels and glorified saints, for they rest not day or night from praising God. Let us therefore spend as much of our time as may be in that blessed work in which we hope to spend a joyful eternity. H. 5-7. But not only blessed are they who dwell in the holy place in God's city, and near to His house; blessed are they who can visit it, with the caravan of pilgrims, at the great national festivals. They cherish the remembrance of such seasons. Every spot of the familiar road, every station at which they have rested, lives in their heart. The path may be dry and dusty, through a lonely and sorrowful valley, but nevertheless they love it. The pilgrim band, rich in hope, forget the trials and difficulties of the way; hope changes the rugged and stony waste into living fountains. The vale blossoms as if the sweet rain of heaven had covered it with blessings. Hope sustains them at every step; from station to station they renew their strength as they draw nearer to the end of their journey, till at last they appear before God, present themselves as His worshippers, in His sanctuary in Zion. No wonder that in all ages men have rejoiced to find in this beautiful picture an image of the Christian life. To what can that so aptly be compared as to a pilgrimage in a vale of tears? Is it not by the hope of appearing before God in the heavenly Jerusalem that the Christian is sustained? Does he not find fountains of refreshment in the wilderness of the world? Does not God's grace visit him like the sweet refreshing shower from heaven? Does he not advance from strength to strength, from grace to grace, from glory to glory, till he reaches his journey's end? P. 5. "Whose strength is in Thee"—not in himself, but in his God alone; who looks to Thee for help at all times, not only in great but in all lesser and all least emergencies. The Gospel writers speak of the same living trust: "I can do all things through Christ, who strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4:13). C.—The latter clause is rather obscure, literally, "ways in their heart;" but the meaning appears to be, Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee, in whose heart are the ways to Jerusalem, blessed are they whose hearts are full of one thought, that they are drawing nearer to God's house. Cook. 6. This is one of the obscurest verses in the book. Interpreters, however, are now commonly agreed as to the first clause. The explanation of Baca, as meaning the valley of mulberry or Baca-trees, is now very commonly abandoned for the one given in the ancient versions, the vale of weeping or of sorrow, a beautiful poetical description of the present life as one of suffering. To the fons lacrymarum is opposed the fountain of salvation or of joy, a figure so familiar in the Scriptures, as to be readily suggested by the one word spring or fountain. The meaning of the clause, as thus explained, is, that the persons pronounced happy in the foregoing verse convert the very vale of tears into a fountain of delight. A.—The words are a figurative expression of the thought that the Divine blessing accompanies them everywhere, and supplies the means by which they are refreshed on their journey, and so strengthened that they become neither faint nor languid, but even stronger as they advance. The valley through which they are advancing becomes green meadows and pastures, and fruitful fields, by springs and rain. Moll. The vale of weeping. The meaning of the word "Baca" is doubtful, but all the ancient versions render it by "weeping," and according to the Masora it is the same as "Bacah," weeping. The meaning of the verse is, that the faith and hope and joy of the pilgrims make the sandy waste a place of fountains, and then (this is the Divine side of the picture) God from heaven sends down the rain of His grace. The word denotes the soft, gentle autumnal rain which fell after the crops were sown. Thus the vale of weeping becomes a vale of joy. P. Deep beneath all the surface agitations of storms and currents there may be the unmoved stillness of the central ocean of peace in our hearts. In the "valley of weeping" we may still be "blessed" if "the ways" are in our hearts, and if we make of the very tears "a well," drawing refreshment from the very trials. With all its sorrows and pains, its fightings and fears, its tribulations in the world, and its chastenings from a father's hand, the life of a Christian is a happy life, and the joy of the Lord remains with His servants. A. M. 6,7. The most gloomy present becomes bright to them; passing through even a terrible wilderness, they turn it into a place of springs, their joyous hope and the infinite beauty of the goal, which is worth any amount of toil and trouble, afford them enlivening comfort, refreshing, strengthening in the midst of the arid steppe. Not only does their faith bring forth water out of the sand and rocks of the desert, but God also on His part lovingly anticipates their love, and rewardingly anticipates their faithfulness; a gentle rain, like that which refreshes the sown fields in the autumn, descends from above and enwraps the valley of Baca in a fulness of blessing, the arid steppe becomes resplendent with a flowery festive garment, not to outward appearance, but to them spiritually in a manner none the less true and real. And whereas under ordinary circumstances the strength of the traveller diminishes in proportion as he has traversed more and more of his toilsome road, with them it is the very reverse; "they go from strength to strength." D. Troubles of the world hinder us not from approaching the presence of God. They are rather helps, for by this means we go from strength to strength, from strength of patience, to strength of hope; from strength of hope, to strength of faith, to strength of vision. R. Baker.—It is familiar how bereavements, which are the storms of the soul, prepare the way for religious tranquillity. The majority of trusting disciples were made so under the rough handling of some kind of pain. They had to march, weeping, blinded, through the dry valley of Baca, to find it at last "a well" of living water, and, going from strength to strength, to appear in Zion before God. Resignation is rest; and, to know it, the heart has to be torn by terrible separations—writhing at the new-made grave, heavy among the ruins of fortune, broken over disappointed plans, or unreturned affections. It is humiliating, but real. Tempests must sweep our sky, before the air is still and the summer sunshine calls up the noiseless energies of life. Ask the ministers, the Church records, the secret thanksgivings that rise around the communion-table. They will tell you, as One greater than they told you long before, that crosses bring calmness, that afflictions yield afterward the peaceable fruits of righteousness, that the rough, sharp mountains, hard to climb, bring peace; and that the Sabbath temple, the Lord's great house of rest, into which the toilsome nations flow to praise, is built upon their top. F. D. H. Many think themselves to be truly God-fearing when they call this world a valley of tears. But I believe they would be more so, if they called it a happy valley. God is more pleased with those who think everything right in the world than with those who think nothing right. With so many thousand joys, is it not black ingratitude to call the world a place of sorrow and torment? Jean Paul. 7. The thought is that every one who with true heart presents himself before God in Zion advances from one stage of spiritual strength to another. It is a way of soul-progress, analogous to the progress made in the journey from one stage to another. C.—God makes everything gradual to us, and by present faith everything leading on gently and without violence to the next duty; like the changes of the seasons, imperceptible in their progress from day to day, yet perfect and complete; impossible to bear if they come suddenly, but healthful and delightful in their quiet approaches, and gliding gradually into one another. So duties grow out of duties gradually and gently, and Christian graces and self-denials glide into one another like the braids of a silken chain; and by this chain of love and duty the soul is bound about and strengthened in and for Christ. Cheever. This is the method of life with all of us. Every acquisition is the ground of future conquest. Every gain is only the hope of future gain. "And thus the righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger." "Till we all come to the stature of the perfect man in Christ Jesus." To this the individual, to this the race, shall come. In that future world to which our life is hastening there will be scope for every development. Thither our footsteps and our best ambitions turn; and surely, even in a "strange land," the going with weariness from strength to strength will be compensated by such a home. E. P. Hood. Appeareth before God. This is a standing phrase to denote the approach of the worshipper to the temple of the Lord. The road to the temple from the distant parts of the country was long and taxing to the strength of the pilgrim. It symbolized the path of life, which terminates in the presence of God. And the refreshment which the pilgrim receives at the various stages of the way recruits and augments his strength, so that he is ever becoming better fitted for advancing to the end of his journey. M. The whole bands are assembled—young and old, weak and strong; all answer to their names, and testify to the goodness of the Lord in bearing them up, and bringing through—in affording them rest, and yielding them pleasure. So shall it ever be with true spiritual pilgrims. The grace of God will always prove sufficient to preserve them, safe and blameless, to His heavenly kingdom and glory; troubles shall not overwhelm them, temptations not wholly overcome them, spiritual enemies shall not destroy them. They are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. Their names are written in the Lamb's book of life, and the Lamb Himself shall see to it that each of them is found in the day of account. Then shall He be able to say, "Those whom thou hast given Me I have kept, and none of them is lost." "They are all here before God." W. Makelvie.—There they shall rest in security, no more danger, no more doubt, no more conflict, because no more sin. Grace triumphant, guilt removed, indwelling evil eradicated, nothing in habit left but good, and the law of a purified and heavenly nature, as well as the law of God's promise and covenant in Christ, securing an eternity and immutability of holiness. The song of triumph begun on earth enters into and becomes one with the hallelujahs of heaven. Cheever. 8. Having reached the goal of their journey, the company of pilgrims pour forth their heart in such expressions of prayer as we find in v. 8. D.—The temple was the place, its seasons of festival worship the time pre-eminently for prayer. This was their glory. Hence the emphasis of the verse before us. The pious worshipper is called on to pour out his soul in prayer to the Lord God of hosts, the God of Jacob; this name of the aged patriarch being specially suggestive of struggling, prevailing prayer. 9. This does not mean, Look, O God, upon our shield; but rather, Do Thou, O God, who art our shield, look on the face of Thine anointed, who is at once our king and thy servant. V. 11 shows that the Lord God is thought of as both "sun" and "shield," the fountain of our light and the arm of our military defence. The prayer is that He would regard with merciful favor the king then on the throne of David, since the prosperity of the whole people hinged upon the Divine mercy toward him. The words are specially pertinent to be applied under the Gospel to Jesus, who fills the full idea of Israel's king as the medium of all blessings to God's people. C. Christ is the way to the Father, and the Father's way to us. His name is not a mere musical cadence to a prayer, or a customary close to a collect; but it is to be the Alpha of our prayer, and its Omega too. He is to be the substance as well as the commencement and end of every prayer; and it is because of what He has done that we can see a channel by which our prayers shall rise to Deity, and the blessing of Deity shall descend into the heart of humanity. Cumming.—We see God in Christ. God sees us in Christ. God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself. We in Christ are reconciled to God. More and more may we learn to take up and urge, with all the energy of a self-ignoring faith, the cry, "Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of Thine anointed." And the evenness of our joy and the stability of our hope depend upon our keeping our gaze fixed immovably upon that one blessed object upon which the Father's gaze is always fixed. A. J. Gordon. 10. Be a door-keeper; literally, "lie on the threshold," or "busy one's self on the threshold;" the lowest place, the meanest office in God's house is a happiness and an honor beyond all that the world has to offer. P.—“Be a door-keeper,” seems to mean precisely, be on the threshold, perhaps waiting for admittance, or having only the privilege of glances at the glories within; yet even this I choose before dwelling in the tents of wickedness, with all their luxuries and surroundings. C. 11. For a sun and a shield is Jehovah, God; grace and glory will Jehovah give; He will not refuse (anything) good to those walking in a perfect (way). The for shows that this verse gives a reason for the preference expressed in that before it. God is here called a sun, as He is called a light in Psalm 27: 1. Both these figures represent Him as a source of happiness; that of a shield describes Him as a source of safety, or a strong protector. Grace and glory (or honor) are related as the cause and the effect. The latter includes all the sensible fruits and manifestations of the Divine favor. A. This is the only instance in which God is directly called a sun in Holy Scripture. He is called a shield, as being the One who so protects men that they cannot be approached, and a sun, as being the One dwelling in inaccessible light, which, proceeding forth from Him in love to men, specializes itself into the mild and condescending grace and glory of the Father of lights. The highest good is self-communicative. The God of salvation does not withhold any good thing from them that walk uprightly. Out of His fulness of what is good He freely bestows upon all susceptible ones, i.e., upon all who are willing to receive and capable of receiving. D. “Sun and shield,” dispelling all darkness; supplying all light, warmth, fertility, beauty, everything we need and love that is better than eternal frost and endless night. Our “shield,” protecting us evermore from all enemies and guaranteeing our perpetual safety. “Will give grace and glory,” grace here and glory hereafter; spiritual aid and power against all earthly want through all life’s struggles; but the glory of heaven in the eternal future. It is everything to say of Him that He will withhold no good thing from those who sincerely labor to please Him, evermore ordering their way uprightly. C. The Lord God is a sun conveys a striking and impressive truth, when we think of the sun only in his obvious character as a source of light and heat. But what new energy is given to this magnificent emblem, when we learn from astronomy that He is a grand centre of attraction, and when we, in addition, take in that sublime generalization that the sun is the ultimate source of every form of power existing in the world! What an emblem of Him in whom we live, and move, and have our being! W. H. G.—“I am God all-sufficient” (as He said to Abraham)—sufficient for Himself and for all others. Like His emblem, the sun, He has a fulness of light in Himself. Were a thousand million more creatures to crowd the earth, that sun has light and heat for them all; and in God there is a fulness of good infinitely greater than the whole creation or the most capacious of His creatures can require. Hamilton. Will give grace. There is grace in the origin and grace in the execution of the plan of substitutionary atonement; and when the atonement has been made, there is grace in the bestowment, on account of it, of all the blessings, commencing with pardon, of everlasting salvation. Beginning, middle, and end, from eternity to eternity, all is grace. Christ Himself is God’s unspeakable gift, and eternal life is the gift of God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Grace provides the atonement, and grace, as free as ever, bestows its results! R. Wardlaw.—In its wider and its narrower sense, Grace is His gift. The whole economy of redemption—the incarnation of the Divine Son, His perfect teaching, His sinless example, His expiatory death, His rising from the grave, His ascension on high, His perpetual pleading in that world beyond the stars—whence is all this but from the free, undeserved bounty of the infinite mercy thus lavished upon us, the children of the Fall? And Grace, in the specific sense of the action of the Holy Spirit, by whom the heart is filled with light and love, and whose work especially it is to knit our frail and perishing nature to the Divine humanity of the Saviour—what is grace in this narrower sense but a free gift from first to last? Assuredly, if there be aught good in us, grace has made us what we are. Liddon. With pardon for sin and the Divine righteousness going with it is the pledge of continuous grace, assured protection, and final victory. God is ever consistent in His purpose, which is to overcome sin in us; and righteous in His character, which never claims anything that we are not reasonably able to perform. Christ died for our sins that we might die unto them. Therefore, we are told to reckon ourselves “dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Be sure that whatever we need for holiness and victory God has for us in Christ. Thorold. The grace we are encouraged to ask is grace for present need, and not present grace for future supposed necessities. Grace to suffer is for a suffering season; grace to die is for dying moments; then, but not before, is the time of need. Grace for present duty or trial ought to be the immediate object of our care; grace proportioned to our present necessity; either to subdue our corruptions, to resist temptations, to support us under the afflictions we feel, or to strengthen us for the duties we are called to perform. R. Walker. Grace doth not lie as a sleepy habit in the soul, but will put forth itself in vigorous and glorious actings. Grace can no more be concealed than fire; like new wine, it will have vent. Grace doth not lie in the heart as a stone in the earth, but as seed in the earth; it will spring up into good works. T. Watson. The Lord will give glory. "Man," says a wise author, "is the glory of this lower world; the soul is the glory of man; grace is the glory of the soul; and heaven is the glory of grace." Heaven, or glory, is grace matured and brought to infinite perfection; there we shall see His face and have His name written in our foreheads; and we shall reign with Him forever and ever. Matthew Wilks.—I know that Christ Jesus hath prepared room for me. Why may I not, then, with boldness in His blood, step into that glory into which my Head and Lord hath gone before me? The greater sinner I have been, the greater glory will be Thy grace to me unto all eternity. John Welsh. When the personal, positive and eternal power and glory of Christ are revealed, Christian experience becomes as normal and spontaneous as is the response of the earth to the vernal sunshine. Prayer and praise become our natural speech, and fruit-bearing our natural condition, just as June brings the bird-song to the air and the flowers to the field. If we yield to the grace and truth of Christ, life becomes beautiful; death, too, beautiful, for it brings us immortality. It will introduce us to the open vision of our Lord. R. S. S. What a solemn and sublime thought it is that a Christian carries through this world in his heart no smaller possession than the productive seed, which only needs its natural climate and its fostering skies to burst into the unfading flower of endless and perfect glory! Ah! brethren, the truths that people nowadays are sometimes flinging in our faces, as if we did not believe them, such as, "Here or nowhere must a man find his heaven; a man's blessedness consists not in where he is, but in what he is; heaven must be within a man, and not merely round about him"—all these half-truths, where did they come from? They come from that truth that the Spirit of God in us is the earnest of heaven for us; and he that begins to love, and trust, and rejoice in God here, carries the essence of heaven wheresoever he goes. A. M. The Lord will give grace and glory. Grace signifies both the good-will of God toward us and the good work of God in us; glory signifies both the honor which He now puts upon us in giving us the adoption of sons, and that which He has prepared for us in the inheritance of sons. God will give them grace in this world as a preparation for glory, and glory in the other world as the perfection of grace; both are God's gift, His free gift. And as, on the one hand, wherever God gives grace He will give glory (for grace is glory begun, and is an earnest of it), so, on the other hand, He will give glory hereafter to none to whom He does not give grace now, or who receive His grace in vain. And if God will give grace and glory, which are the two great things that concur to make us happy in both worlds, we may be sure that no good thing will be withheld from them that walk uprightly. H. Great grace and small gifts are better than great gifts and no grace. The Psalmist does not say, "The Lord gives gifts and glory," but "grace and glory." Grace, not gifts, is a certain forerunner of glory. Bunyan.—Grace is glory militant, and glory is grace triumphant; grace is glory begun, glory is grace made perfect; grace is the first degree of glory, glory is the highest degree of grace. Dyer.—Grace and glory differ, but as the bud and the blossom. What is grace but glory begun? What is glory but grace perfected? J. Mason.—The kingdom of grace is the kingdom of glory in commencement; and the kingdom of glory is the kingdom of grace in full, yet ever-growing perfection. Bishop Jebb. These two kingdoms of grace and glory differ not specifically, but gradually; they differ not in nature, but only in degree. The kingdom of grace is nothing but the inchoation or beginning of the kingdom of glory; the kingdom of grace is glory in the seed, and the kingdom of glory is grace in the flower; the kingdom of grace is glory in the daybreak, and the kingdom of glory is grace in the full meridian; the kingdom of grace is glory militant, and the kingdom of glory is grace triumphant. There is such an inseparable connection between these two kingdoms, grace and glory, that there is no passing into the one kingdom but by the other. At Athens there were two temples, a temple of virtue and a temple of honor; and there was no going into the temple of honor but through the temple of virtue; so the kingdoms of glory and grace are so joined together that we cannot go into the kingdom of glory but through the kingdom of grace. Many people aspire after the kingdom of glory, but never look after grace; but these two, which God hath joined together, may not be put asunder; the kingdom of grace leads to the kingdom of glory. T. Watson. No good will He withhold. Many have lost for God, but none ever lost by God. If they have lost in temporals, they have been eternal gainers. There is a sure rule, God never takes anything from His people, but He gives them something better in the stead of it. J. Mason. God oftentimes withholds riches and honors, and health of body from men, though they walk never so uprightly; we may therefore know that honors and riches and bodily strength are none of God's good things; they are of the number of things indifferent which God bestows promiscuously upon the just and unjust, as the rain to fall and the sun to shine. The good things of God are chiefly peace of conscience and joy in the Holy Ghost in this life; fruition of God's presence and vision of His blessed face in the next, and these good things God never withholds from the godly. R. Baker. Walk uprightly. Among strong, upright and beautiful characters that we have known, none are so strong, so upright, and so beautiful as those where the graces grow on the firm stock of obedience. Goodness is never very good, tenderness is not nobly tender, unless there is conscience under it, principle in it. Fetch back the old Hebrew and Puritanic idea of allegiance and you restore some nobilities that we can ill afford to spare. F. D. H. Whole Verse. The sun denotes all manner of excellency, provision, and prosperity, and the shield represents all manner of protection whatsoever; under the name of grace all spiritual good is wrapped up, and under the name of glory all eternal good is wrapped up; under the last clause of the verse, no good thing will He withhold, is wrapped up all temporal good; and all put together declare God to be indeed an all-sufficient portion. T. Brooks. Such a promise as this is simple and clear as light. It needs not so much exposition as belief and application. It is not the promise of one blessing, but of all. It does not so much say what God will do, as declare that there is nothing which He will not do. The Lord God is a sun and shield; no good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly. Whatever there is in God of help and comfort is herein made over to the believer through Christ Jesus. It contains provision for body and for soul, in life, in death, and in eternity. It covers every instance, addresses itself to every character, and meets every emergency. Resting on the veracity of Jehovah, it needs no proof. Rising beyond all qualification and exception, it requires no elaborate command. J. W. A.—In God's perfections, in His assurances and promises, there is enough to content the most longing soul, and to fill with a joy unspeakable and full of glorying. Hamilton. 12. And the Psalmist rises at last to the joyful conviction, not only that they are blessed who dwell in God's house (v. 4), or they who swell the festai throng on their way to that house (v. 5), but they who, whether they worship in it or not, are one with Him by faith: "Blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee." P. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in Thee. Here is the key of the Psalm. The worship is that of faith, and the blessedness is peculiar to believers. No formal worshipper can enter into this secret. A man must know the Lord by the life of real faith, or he can have no true rejoicing in the Lord's worship, His house, His Son, or His ways. S. Christianity has its specially sacred day, sacred places, and sacred meal; still such is its transforming power that it converts all the days of the week into a Sunday or Sabbath, and every place under the canopy of heaven into a place of worship, and every meal into a sacrament. The whole earth is duly consecrated by the Lord and Bishop of souls. J. H. Jones. He that will meet the king must wait on Him in His walks. Christ's ordinances are Christ's walks; and he that would see the beauty of Christ, and taste of the sweetness of Christ, must wait at wisdom's door, must attend Christ in His own appointments and institutions. When old Barzillai had lost his taste and hearing, he cared not for David's feasts and music; so there are many who, having lost their spiritual taste and hearing, care not for Gospel ordinances. Under a pretence of living above ordinances, they live below ordinances; yea, they scorn, vilify, and contemn Christ's ordinances, that are more worth than heaven and earth. T. Brooks. How many persons go to church who never go to God! How many sing hymns and never praise, hear truths and never heed, touch promises and never pray! H. S. Carpenter.—The man who sees most of God in nature and comes closest to Him among the mountains and out under the stars will be he who has first felt the strange presence of His Spirit at the altar. Esthetic exhilaration must not be confounded with devout communion. Nowhere is the pres- ence and glory of God in earth, sea, and heavens so sublimely celebrated as in the Psalms; and nowhere else are more fervid eulogies pronounced upon the sanctuary of God and the courts of the Lord's house. C. H. P. Thy creatures have been my books, but Thy Scriptures much more. I have sought Thee in the forests, fields and gardens, but I have found Thee in Thy temples. Bacon. 1. LORD, thou hast been favourable unto thy land: Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. 2. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, Thou hast covered all their sin. [Selah 3. Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: Thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger. 4. Turn us, O God of our salvation, And cause thine indignation toward us to cease. 5. Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? 6. Wilt thou not quicken us again: That thy people may rejoice in thee? 7. Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, And grant us thy salvation. 8. I will hear what God the LORD will speak: For he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: But let them not turn again to folly. 9. Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; That glory may dwell in our land. 10. Mercy and truth are met together; Righteousness and peace have kissed each other. 11. Truth springeth out of the earth; And righteousness hath looked down from heaven. 12. Yea, the LORD shall give that which is good; And our land shall yield her increase. 13. Righteousness shall go before him; And shall make his footsteps a way to walk in. THERE seems every reason to conclude that this Psalm was written after the return of the exiles from the Babylonish captivity. It opens with an acknowledgment of God's goodness and mercy in the national restoration, in terms which could hardly apply to any other event. But it passes immediately to earnest entreaty for deliverance from the pressure of existing evils, in language which almost contradicts the previous acknowledgment. First we hear the grateful confession, "Thou hast turned the captivity of Jacob;" and then we have the prayer, "Turn us, O God of our salvation." If the third verse contains the joyful announcement, "Thou hast withdrawn all Thy wrath," etc., the fifth pleads as if no such assurance had been given: "Wilt Thou forever be angry with us? Wilt Thou draw out Thine anger to all generations?" The most probable way of explaining this conflict of opposing feelings is by referring the Psalm to the circumstances mentioned by Nehemiah (1:3). The exiles on their return, he learned, were "in great affliction and reproach." And when he obtained leave to go to Jerusalem himself, it was only in the midst of perpetual opposition and discouragement that he was able to carry on his work of restoration. The bright prospect which was opening before them had been quickly dashed. They had returned, indeed, but it was to a desolate land and a forsaken city, whose walls were cast down, and her gates burned with fire; while jealous and hostile tribes were ever on the watch to assail and vex them. Hence it is that the entreaty for mercy follows so hard upon the acknowledgment that mercy has been vouchsafed. The hundred and twenty-sixth Psalm is conceived in a somewhat similar strain. In the latter portion of this Psalm (from v. 8) the present misery is forgotten in the drawing of a glorious future. The prayer has been uttered; the storm of the soul is hushed; in quietness and resignation the Psalmist sets himself to hear what God will say, and the Divine answer is given, not in form, but in substance, in vs. 9-12. It is a glowing prophecy of Messianic times, most naturally connecting itself with the hopes which the return from Babylon had kindled afresh, and well fitted to enable those who heard it to triumph over the gloom and despondency of the present. Mr. Plumptre, who holds that all the Korahite Psalms belong to the time of Hezekiah, thinks that this Psalm refers to the Assyrian invasion. He reminds us that the language of Isaiah in reference to that invasion is, that "the cities shall be wasted without inhabitant," that "the Lord shall remove men far away" (Isa. 6: 11, 12); that he speaks not only of "the remnant of Israel," "the remnant of Jacob" as returning (10: 29), but in terms hardly less strong, at the very crisis of Sennacherib's invasion, of "the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah" (37: 32). After the overthrow of Sennacherib, and when the alliance of Hezekiah was courted by Babylon, there would be ample opportunities for many of those who had been carried into exile to return to the land of their fathers. "The vision of mercy and truth, righteousness and peace, is the same with the Psalmist as with the prophet." It may be added, he remarks, that the prayer, "Turn us, O God of our salvation" (v. 4), is identical with the ever-recurring burden of Psalm 80, which clearly refers to the captivity of "Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh," i.e., of "Jacob" rather than of "Judah." P. TITLE. To the Chief Musician. To (or by) the Sons of Korah. A Psalm. On the ground of former benefits, the Church prays for deliverance from present evils (vs. 1-7), and joyfully anticipates a favorable answer (vs. 8-13). There is nothing in the title, or the Psalm itself, to determine its date or confine its application to any particular historical occasion. It seems to be appropriate to every case in which the fulfilment of the promise (Lev. 26: 3-13) was suspended or withheld. A. 1-4. The Psalmist dwells upon the Lord's favor to the chosen land, which he had shewed in a thousand ways. God's past doings are prophetic of what he will do; hence the encouraging argument: "Thou hast been favorable unto Thy land," therefore deal graciously with it again. Many a time had foes been baffled, pestilence stayed, famine averted, and deliverance vouchsafed, because of the Lord's favor; that same favorable regard is therefore again invoked. With an immutable God this is powerful reasoning. S. 6. Wilt Thou not return (and) quicken us, (and) shall (not) Thy people rejoice in Thee? "Wilt Thou not revisit us in mercy, raise us from the dead or dying state in which we now are, and give us, as Thy people, fresh occasion to rejoice in our relation to Thee, and in our union and communion with Thee?" A. Rejoice in Thee. Not in any earthly blessings, even when they are vouchsafed; not in corn, or wine, or oil; not in the fatness of the earth or the dew of heaven; but in Him who giveth all these things; who giveth more than all these—Himself. P.—When God changeth the cheer of His people, their joy should not be in the gift, but in the Giver. Dickson.—It is the most natural thing for the people of God to rejoice in God. God is the fountain of joy, and whom should He fill with it but His people? And whom should His people breathe it into again but Him? This posture God delights to have them in; this posture they delight to be in. John Pennington. 7. Thy mercy. It is not merely of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, but all is mercy, from first to last; mercy that met us by the way; mercy that looked upon us in our misery; mercy that washed us from our sins in His own blood; mercy that covered our nakedness and clad us in His own robe of righteousness; mercy that led and guided us by the way, and mercy that will never leave nor forsake us till mercy has wrought its perfect work in the eternal salvation of our souls through Jesus Christ. Bouchier. 8. I will hear; or, "let me hear." Having uttered his sorrows and his prayer for better days, he would now place himself in the attitude of calm and quiet expectation. Like Habakkuk, he will betake him to his watchtower, and wait to hear what the Lord will speak. P. A good life and a well-governed conversation doth not fear the voice of God; the word of God is the light which God hath set up in His Church, to guide her feet in the ways of peace. They that do evil hate the light; the children of the light resort to it, and call upon God. Marbury.—The Christian knows that the Lord Christ is speaking to him, when he reads His Word, with as absolute a knowledge as when he hears father, mother, wife, or child speaking to him. Ruskin put the whole of it in a line when he said that “No syllable of the great Book was ever yet to be understood but by a deed.” The Bible will never be destroyed so long as there is a right act done, and act of righteousness, to make its meaning clear—never till the Lord Christ is dumb, and the Holy Spirit dead. No man will ever know that the Scriptures are the Word of God till he knows it by Christian experience, and so knowing it, all kind of controversy is no more to him than the snow-storm beating against the window-panes, as he kneels amid his family to thank God for its sweet promises, pure truths, the blessed Christ, and the glorious salvation which it has brought to him and to his children. Interior. He will speak peace to His people, and to His saints. There are a people in the world who are God’s people, set apart for Him, subject to Him, and who shall be saved by Him. All His people are His saints, sanctified by His grace and devoted to His glory; these may sometimes want peace, when without are fightings and within are fears; but, sooner or later, God will speak peace to them; if He do not command outward peace, yet He will suggest inward peace; speaking that to their hearts by His Spirit which He has spoken to their ears by His Word and ministers, and making them to hear joy and gladness. H. Peace; that is God’s great word, which in fact sums up and comprises all else, peace with him declared to all who are His beloved, the objects of His loving-kindness (see on 16:10) having the privileges of their covenant relation to Him. P.—An upright heart will not be satisfied without hearing God speak peace by His Spirit. And for this he will pray and wait and hearken, and when God speaks peace, there comes such sweetness with it and such discovery of His love, as lays a powerful influence on the soul not to turn again to folly. This peace is an humbling, melting peace, which brings humiliation to the soul as well as joy; but this never happens when men speak peace to themselves. John Berridge. Only determine, “I will hear what God the Lord will speak,” and “He will speak peace.” God never disappoints a really attentive hearer. God has always something to say to us. We only miss it either because we do not believe that He is going to speak, or because we are not quiet enough. This is frequently the reason of a sickness or a deep sorrow. God has something to say to us. He makes a calm, He settles the rush of life, that He may speak. Peace, the peace of Christ, is a delicate plant. Do not expose it. Do not trifle with it, but lay it up in your heart’s closest affections. Watch it. Deal tenderly with it. It is your life. The expression, “turn again to folly,” may mean one of three things. Either all sin is folly, or you may understand by it the particular sin of those who return to the vanities of the world, or you may take it to imply that a relapse into what is wrong has such a distorting influence on the mind, and so perverts the judgment and darkens the intellect, that both by natural consequence and judicial retribution the condition of a person who goes on in sin after the strivings of the Holy Ghost and after the manifestations of God’s peace becomes emphatically “folly.” J. V. But let them not turn again to folly. The death of sin is mostly a gradual process, a thing going on for a long time, and not beginning or ending in one sharp, single struggle. Yet neither is it true that it goes on quite evenly. On the contrary, it has its sharper seasons and its gentler ones. It has times when it destroys much of the principle of sin within us; it has times also when it does little more than hold its ground, and the struggle seems suspended. The process of the death of sin has in it nothing horrible, nothing exciting; the imagination may not be struck by it; and yet it is of an interest really far deeper than the death of the body, and an interest which we may all presently realize. It works quietly and invisibly to the eyes of others, but most perceptibly and most truly to him who is undergoing it. Many struggle successfully against one marked fault, but fly back from the prospect of having to overcome a whole sinful nature and having to become made anew after God’s image. So it is but too often, but so it is not always. Let us suppose that we bear the sight of our general sinfulness not with a cowardly despair, but with a Christian resolution; then indeed begins the struggle which may be truly called the death of folly. T. Arnold. 9. Glory, i.e.,** the manifested presence of God tabernacling visibly among them, as of old. This hope was destined to have its fulfilment, but in a better and a higher sense, when He who was the brightness of the Father’s glory tabernacled in human flesh, and men “beheld His glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father.” P.—What land the true Church of Christ, the saints and they that fear God, do dwell in, there doth glory dwell; there God, there Christ by His Spirit bringing righteousness and salvation to such a society is glorious; and for His presence the people are glorious; and the land glorious above all other lands whatsoever. Dickson. 10-12. We must take the passage as poetry, genuine and beautiful poetry. These abstract qualities are personified; they take on the forms and the spirit, too, of life. The drift of thought here is of commerce between heaven and earth, transactions between the God above and His children below. God will speak peace to His people. His salvation is nigh to His hearers. Truth is thought of as springing up like other things that grow out of the earth; while righteousness looks down lovingly from heaven. The Lord gives the good; the land and man receive it. C. 10. Mercy and truth have met (together); righteousness and peace have kissed (each other). By truth, we are to understand the truth of God’s promises, the Divine veracity. The same combination with grace or mercy occurs in Psalms 25:10; 40:10; 57:3; 61:7 and 89:14. Righteousness, considered as the gift of God, justification, whether judicial or providential. Peace, immunity from all disturbing causes, which implies prosperity of every kind. Have met, in a peaceable and friendly manner, an idea still more strongly expressed by the kiss of reconciliation or affection in the last clause. A. Vs. 10-13 are a fourfold picture of how heaven and earth ought to blend and harmonize. In the tenth verse we have the heavenly twin sisters, and the earthly pair that corresponds. Mercy and truth, two radiant angels, like virgins in some solemn choric dance, linked hand in hand, issue from the sanctuary and move among the dim haunts of men, making “a sunshine in a shady place;” and to them there come forth, linked in a sweet embrace, another pair, whose lives depend on the lives of their elder and heavenly sisters, righteousness and peace. In man’s experience righteousness and peace cannot be rent apart. Righteousness and her twin sister Peace only come in the measure in which the mercy and the truth of God are received into thankful hearts. A. M. The four virtues here mentioned are, as Calvin remarks, the four cardinal virtues of Christ’s kingdom. Where these reign among men, there must be true and perfect felicity. P.—Mercy and truth are apparently irreconcilable. Righteousness and peace seem to be unattainable through sin. These meet and mutually embrace in the salvation of God. The work of the Redeemer and the work of the Sanctifier can alone explain this. Mercy is the moving cause; truth, the means of salvation. Righteousness magnifies the law, of which peace is the legal consequence. M.—Mercy and peace are on one side; truth and righteousness on the other. Truth requires righteousness; mercy calls for peace. They meet together on the way; one going to make inquisition for sin, the other to plead for reconciliation. Having met, their differences on certain considerations, not here particularly mentioned, are adjusted; and their mutual claims are blended together in one common interest; on which peace and righteousness immediately embrace. Thus, righteousness is given to truth, and peace is given to mercy. Now, where did these meet? In Christ Jesus. When were they reconciled? When He poured out His life on Calvary. A. Clarke. These four Divine attributes parted at the fall of Adam, and met again at the birth of Christ. Mercy was ever inclined to serve man, and peace could not be his enemy; but truth exacted the performance of God’s threat, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die;” and righteousness could not but give to every one his due. Jehovah must be true in all His ways, and righteous in all His works. Now, there is no religion upon earth, except the Christian, which can satisfy the demands of all these claimants, and restore a union between them; which can show how God’s Word can be true, and His work just, and the sinner, notwithstanding, find mercy and obtain peace. A God incarnate reconciled all things in heaven and earth. When Christ appeared in our nature, all the four parties met again, in perfect harmony: Truth ran to Mercy, and embraced her; Righteousness to Peace, and kissed her. Bishop Horne.—And not only was this the only way for the consistence of these two, justice and mercy, but take each of them severally, and they could not have been in so full lustre as in this. God’s just hatred of sin did, out of doubt, appear more in punishing His own only-begotten Son for it, than if the whole race of mankind had suffered for it eternally. Again, it raises the notion of mercy to the highest, that sin is not only forgiven us, but for this end God’s own co-eternal Son is given to us, and for us. Consider what He is, and what we are; He the Son of His love, and we enemies. Therefore it is emphatically expressed in the words, He Himself bare our sins. God so loved the world, that love amounts to this much, that it was so great as to give His Son. But how great that is cannot be uttered. In this, says the apostle, God commendeth His love to us, sets it off to the highest, gives us the richest and strongest evidence of it. Leighton. "Without shedding of blood is no remission;" and a soul taught of God is content that it should be so. Such a soul sees a grandeur in God's law, and a lustre in God's justice and truth, and much as it may covet pardon, thankful as it might be for a right to heaven, it would not wish to steal into heaven, nor receive a pardon which made God a liar. Ah no! let God be true though all mankind should perish; let the law be magnified, though the avenging bolt should fire the universe. And to such a soul it is relief unspeakable when it sees "mercy and truth meeting together, righteousness and peace embracing each other;" when it learns that for the remission of sin blood has been already shed, a blood which cleanseth from all sin, even the precious blood of God's own Son, as of a Lamb without blemish. Hamilton. In the mystery of Christ's incarnation, who was God as well as man, in the humiliation of His life, and in His death upon the cross, we behold the most stupendous instance of compassion; while at the same moment the law of God received more honor than it could have done by the obedience and death of any or of all His creatures. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. In this dispensation of His grace He has reached so far beyond our highest hopes that, if we love Him, we may be assured that He will with it freely give us all things. Access to God is now opened at all times, and from all places; and to such as sincerely ask it, He has promised His Spirit to teach them to pray, and to help their infirmities. The sacrifice of Christ has rendered it just for Him to forgive sin; and whenever we are led to repent of and to forsake it, even the righteousness of God is declared in the pardon of it. R. Hall. The justice and truth of God are as clearly revealed as His goodness and mercy. They must not be thrown into opposition, but must forever co-exist. And if mercy be ever displayed, it will be in such a way as shall hold up justice and holiness with undiminished and equal splendor. This is, indeed, the key to the whole Gospel, which is none other than a device of infinite wisdom to repair the evils of the fall, and thus show forth all the commingling prefections of God in magnificent and adorable harmony. All hues blend with consummate beauty in the rainbow around the throne. To effect this harmony was the intention of the most extraordinary transaction in the earth's history—namely, that He who made it died upon it. Love, boundless love, stayed the hand of justice, held the bolt of fiery retribution, and interposed itself between the descending edge and our condemned souls. If God were all justice, and He is as truly just as loving, no redemption had been possible. If God had been all love, and He is as truly loving as He is just, no redemption had been necessary. But because He is both justice and mercy, and because justice demanded satisfaction, and mercy pleaded for remission, "Righteousness and peace kissed each other;" and love hung on the arm of paternal severity, while wisdom pointed out a method to reconcile both. J. W. A. 11. Truth from the earth is springing, and righteousness from heaven looks down. The truth of God's promise may be seen, as it were, springing from the earth in its abundant fruits, and His rectitude, or faithfulness to His engagements, looking down from heaven in the rain and sunshine. By this bold and beautiful conception, the certainty of God's providential care is expressed more strongly than it could be by any mere didactic statement. The beauty of the image in the last clause is heightened by the use of a verb which originally means to lean or bend over, for the purpose of gazing down upon a lower object. A.—The meaning appears to be, the result of God's faithfulness to His covenant of grace will be abundance of the fruits of righteousness; in the outward sense, temporal prosperity; in the inner sense (which if not present to the Psalmist's mind is involved in the Divine promise), the spiritual gifts and graces which belong to the kingdom of God. Cook. Promises which lie unfulfilled, like buried seeds, shall spring up and yield harvests of joy; and men renewed by grace shall learn to be true to one another and their God, and abhor the falsehood which they loved before. "And righteousness shall look down from heaven," as if it gazed down upon a penitent people, whom it could not have looked upon before without an indignation which would have been fatal to them. This is a delicious scene. Earth yielding flowers of truth, and heaven shining with stars of holiness; the spheres echoing to each other, or being mirrors of each other's beauties. "Earth carpeted with truth and canopied with righteousness" shall be a nether heaven. When God looks down in grace, man sends his heart upward in obedience. S. In the eleventh verse, "Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven," we have God responding to man's truth. Man's truth shall begin to grow and blossom in answer, as it were, to God's truth that came down upon it. Righteousness shall look down from heaven, not in its judicial aspect merely, but as the perfect moral purity that belongs to the Divine nature, which shall bend down a loving eye upon the men beneath and mark the springings of any imperfect good and thankfulness in our hearts. 12. The third aspect of the ideal relation between earth and heaven set forth in this verse: "Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase;" that is to say, man responding to God's gift. The great truth is here developed that earthly fruitfulness is possible only by the reception of heavenly gifts. 13. The last phase of the fourfold representation of the ideal relation between earth and heaven is, "Righteousness shall go before Him, and shall set us in the way of His steps;" that is to say, God teaching man to walk in His footsteps. Man may walk in God's ways, not only in the ways that please Him, but in the ways that are like Him. "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." A. M. 1. 1 Bow down thine ear, O LORD, and answer me ; For I am poor and needy. 2. 2 Preserve my soul : for I am godly : O thou my God, save thy servant that trust-eth in thee. 3. 3 Be merciful unto me, O Lord ; For unto thee do I cry all the day long. 4. 4 Rejoice the soul of thy servant ; For unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. 5. 5 For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, And plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. 6. 6 Give ear, O LORD, unto my prayer ; And hearken unto the voice of my supplications. 7. 7 In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee ; For thou wilt answer me. 8. 8 There is none like unto thee among the gods, O Lord ; Neither are there any works like unto thy works. 9. 9 All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord ; And they shall glorify thy name. 1. 10 For thou art great, and doest wondrous things : Thou art God alone. 2. 11 Teach me thy way, O LORD ; I will walk in thy truth : Unite my heart to fear thy name. 3. 12 I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with my whole heart ; And I will glorify thy name for evermore. 4. 13 For great is thy mercy toward me ; And thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest pit (unseen world beneath). 5. 14 O God, the proud are risen up against me, And the congregation of violent men have sought after my soul, And have not set thee before them. 6. 15 But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion and gracious, Slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth. 7. 16 O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me ; Give thy strength unto thy servant, And save the son of thine handmaid. 8. 17 Shew me a token for good ; That they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed, Because thou, LORD, hast holpen me, and comforted me. THIS Psalm, which is inserted among a series of Korahite Psalms, is the only one in the third book ascribed to David. That it was written by him we can hardly suppose. Many of the expressions are, no doubt, such as we meet with in his Psalms, but there are also many which are borrowed from other passages of Scripture. Indeed, the numerous adaptations of phrases employed by other writers may reasonably be taken as evidence of a much later date. Further, the style is, as Delitzsch remarks, liturgical rather than poetical, and is wholly wanting in that force, animation, and originality for which David's poems are remarkable. The Psalm is stamped by the use of the Divine name, Adonai, which occurs in it seven times. P.—It can only be entitled "of David" as having grown out of Davidic and other classical passages. The author can measure himself in respect of poetic endowment neither with David nor with the authors of such Psalms as 116 and 130. D. This Psalm is not usually numbered, but it might well be, among the penitential Psalms. Its pensiveness is that of contrition. From the Divine attributes which it accentuates, and from its expressions, as well as from the tone that runs through it, we see a tender conscience, healed and lowly, sensible of fault, rejoicing in forgiveness. The Psalmist dwells on God's mercy, on His long-suffering, on His readiness to forgive, as only they dwell who have the broken and contrite heart. Observe that wherever you find contrition you find a light peculiarly its own, an unusual brightness, a lofty hope, a vision of God amazing in its clearness, and a vision of man remarkable for its brightness and its faith. We cannot by searching find out God, but we can by trusting. R. Glover. 1-4. The petitioner is first described as poor, then godly, next trusting, after that crying, finally, lifted up to God. And each epithet has its fitting verb; bow down to the poor, preserve the godly, save the trusting, be merciful to him who cries, rejoice the lifted-up. It is the whole gamut of love from the Incarnation to the Ascension; it tells us that Christ's humiliation will be our glory and joy. Anon. 1. When we use the name of Jehovah in our prayers, we contemplate and trust in and plead with Him all the grand thoughts of eternal subsistence, inexhaustible power, unwearied strength, resources that never fail, purposes that never alter, a being that never fails, a nature lifted high above the mutations of time, who dwells in a region above all tenses and moods, and is and was, and is to come in one ineffable and mysterious present. Nor only so, but we likewise say, "and this Rock of ages, and basis of all that is, hath spoken and entered into the bonds of love and covenant with men, whereby they can plead with Him His revealed character, and appeal to Him on the ground of His ancient promise." A. M. When our prayers are lowly by reason of our humility, or feeble by reason of our sickness, or without wing by reason of our despondency, the Lord will bow down to them, the infinitely exalted Jehovah will have respect unto them. Faith, when she has the loftiest name of God on her tongue, and calls Him Jehovah, yet dares to ask from Him the most tender and condescending acts of love. Great as He is, He loves His children to be bold with Him. S. 2. The first plea was his need; now he pleads his own covenant relation to God; for this is implied in the adjective here used, chásid. The appeal is not to anything in himself, but to God's goodness. This is clear from v. 5. At the same time he does not hesitate to say what the attitude of his heart is toward God, and to urge his simple, absolute confidence in God, as well as his unceasing, earnest prayer, as reasons why he should be heard. This is the language of honest, straightforward simplicity, not of self-righteousness. P. There is a consciousness of personal sanctification through faith (v. 2) associated with an acutely sensitive perception of intrinsic worthlessness, such as only finds relief in the remembrance of unaltered grace (v. 5), which, to the exercised spirit of one really growing in the knowledge of God, will address itself with an especial acceptance. Arthur Pridham. 2. Godly.** The original simply means "one who is a recipient or object of mercy." It is passive, not active, in signification. The meaning is as our Bible has it in the margin, "One whom Thou favorest." The plea then here is drawn, not from the righteousness of the man, but from the mercy of God. It sets forth the relation between God and His suppliant from the Divine side, and pleads God's gracious bestowal of mercy upon him in the past as a reason for its continuance and perfecting. "Thou hast been pleased to love and favor me, to enrich me with Thy grace. Be what Thou hast been; do what Thou hast done; forsake not the work of Thine own hands." And God, who begins no buildings which He is not able to finish, recognizes the strength of the plea, and will perfect that which concerneth us. There follows the same relation contemplated from the human side, and that, too, is a plea with God. "Thy servant that trusteth in Thee." I am knit to Thee, as a servant I belong to Thy household, and the Master's honor is concerned in His dependent's safety. I belong to Thee; do Thou watch over what is Thine own. I trust in Thee. We do not plead our faith as constituting a claim of merit with God, but as constituting a plea with Him. It is not that it deserves deliverance—else we might well hesitate to urge it, when we think of its weakness and often interruptions—but that it is sure to bring deliverance. For anything is possible rather than that the most tremulous trust should go unblest and unanswered. A. M. 3. He pleads: first that he was poor and needy; next that he was the Lord's set-apart one; then that he was God's servant and had learned to trust in the Lord, and lastly that he had been taught to pray daily; surely these are such holy pleadings as any tried believer may employ when wrestling with a prayer-hearing God, and with such weapons the most trembling suppliant may hope to win the day. S. God will suit His returns to our requests. Lifeless services shall have lifeless answers. When men are dull, God will be dumb. T. Brooks.—He walks in the presence of God that converses with Him in frequent prayer and communion; that runs to Him with all his necessities; that asks counsel of Him in all his doubtings; that opens all his wants to Him; that weeps before Him for all his sins; and that asks remedy and support for his weakness; that fears Him as a Judge, reverences Him as a Lord, and obeys Him as a Father. Jeremy Taylor. 4. Gladden the soul of Thy servant, for unto Thee, O Lord, my soul do I raise. It means "make me heartily rejoice, because I am Thy servant," thus suggesting a new ground of his petition, different in form although substantially identical with that in the preceding verse. A. —Love bears one's soul up; and it has been truly said that the soul is more where it loves than where it actually is. Thought and desire are the wings of love; for he that loves is borne on to and abides in what he loves by thinking constantly on and longing for the object of his love. Whoever truly and from his heart loves God, by thinking on Him and longing for Him, lifts up his soul to God; while whoever loves the earth, by thinking on and coveting the things of the earth, lets his soul down to its level. Bellarmine. It is worth notice that in all this variety of petitions for deliverance there is not a word about the exact manner of it. The way in which God's mercy is to guard and save is left, with meek patience, to God's decision. Let us not prescribe to Him the path which He shall take, but commit that to His own loving wisdom. There are two methods of lightening a burden: one is to diminish the load, the other is to strengthen the shoulders that carry it. The latter is often the more blessed, and often the shape in which God answers our prayer. "For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee." Then, in the final petition (v. 4), the Psalm rises still higher, and not satisfied with imploring that God would hear, guard, and save, asks for gladness, too, "Rejoice the soul of Thy servant." We may venture to ask and expect gladness if we are God's servants. All His creatures have a claim on Him for blessedness according to their capacity, so long as they stand where He has set them, and we, who have departed from that obedience which is joy, may yet, in penitent abasement, return to Him and ask that He would rejoice the soul of His servant. David's deepest repentance dared to ask, "Make me to hear joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice." No sorrow is so crushing and hopeless, but that happiness may again visit the heart, where trust and love abide. Only let us remember that this Psalm seeks for joy, where it seeks for help, not from earthly sources, but from God. Cisterns may be broken, but the fountain cannot be choked up with their ruins. They who find their deliverance in God are often tempted to find their pleasure somewhere else. It is often easier to pray with tears, "Preserve me and save me," than with undistracted love to choose Him as our only delight. But the true, devout heart turns equally to God for all it needs, and its prayer ever is, "O deliver me; then will I go unto the altar of God, to God, the gladness of my joy." A. M. 5-7. It is on the broad ground of God's mercy, as freely bestowed on all who seek it, that he rests. He applies the general truth (v. 5) to his own case (v. 6). In v. 7 he pleads again the need, under the pressure of which he cries to God; it is no unmanly, petulant, peevish complaint that he utters. The calamity is real, and there is but one who has power to deliver him. P. 5. For Thou, Lord, art good and forgiving and rich in mercy to all (those) invoking Thee. God is not only the Sovereign of His people, and as such bound by covenant to protect them, but benevolent or good in His own nature: and that not merely in the general, or in reference to all His creatures, but especially in reference to the undeserving and the ill-deserving; that is, to such of them as really desire His favor, and evince their willingness to have it by the act of asking for it. Rich (in) mercy, literally, great (or much, abundant, plenteous, as to) mercy. A. Ready to forgive. The mercy of God is a ready mercy, and His pardons are ready for His people; His pardons and mercies are not to seek, He hath them at hand, He is "good and ready to forgive." Whereas most men, though they will forgive, yet they are not ready to forgive, they are hardly brought to it, though they do it at last. But God is "ready to forgive." Thus the Scripture speaks to show how forward God is to do good; He needs not set His heart to it; His heart is ever in the exactest fitness. Caryl.—As there is no mercy too great for God to give, so there is no mercy too little for us to crave. Certainly that man hath little worth to him, who thinks any mercy not worth a seeking. T. Brooks. Because our necessities and our desires derive their force as pleas from God's own character, he urges that as his last and mightiest appeal. He began with invocation, and he ends as he began. The name of God is the ground of all our hope, and the motive for all His mercy. Turn away, then, from all thoughts of self, of your own needs, of your own trust, and prayer, and aspiration. The one prevalent plea with God is the faithful recounting of all that grace and pity which He is and has exercised. "For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee." Our need is the occasion; our faith and desire the channel; but Himself is the reason, as Himself is the source, of all our deliverance and all our salvation. Because we can pray by none other, we implore Him by Himself, for the sake of His own Holy Name, because He is that He is, to have mercy upon us who cry to Him. And when we call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, and ask that our prayers may be heard "for the sake of Christ," we are taking no other plea into our lips than that ancient and all prevalent one of this Psalm. It is His own mercy in Christ which we present. It is the work of His own love which we bring as our plea. A. M. 6,7. We need never shrink from prayer because it is our time of trouble, so be it we have honestly served God in our better days. With all His heart the Lord invites His faithful ones to come to Him in every trouble, and justifies the assurance expressed here: "for Thou wilt answer me." C. 8-10. There are two kinds of doubt which are wont in the hour of temptation to assail the soul: the doubt as to God's willingness, and the doubt as to God's power to succor. The first of these the Psalmist has already put from Him; he now shows that he has overcome the second. God is able as well as willing to help, and every being on the face of the earth who receives help receives it from the hand of Him who is the only God, and who shall one day be recognized (so speaks the strong prophetic hope within him, v. 9) as the only God. This hope rests on the fact that God has created all men ("all nations whom Thou hast made"), and nothing can be imagined more self-contradictory than that the spirit which has come from God should remain forever unmindful of its source. In v. 8 it might seem as if God were merely compared with the gods of the nations. In v. 10 they are plainly said to be "no gods," though they "be called gods." There is but one God: "Thou art God alone." P. 9. All nations which Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord, and give honor to Thy name. The common relation of Jehovah to all men as their Maker, although now denied by most nations, shall be one day universally acknowledged, not in word merely, but in act, the most expressive act of worship, involving a believing recognition of the previous display of God's perfections, in the language of the Scriptures called His Name. This prospective view of the conversion of the world to the belief and service of its Maker shows how far the Old Testament writers were from cherishing or countenancing the contracted nationality of the later and the less enlightened Jews. A. 9,10. From the infinite superiority of the true God above all idols, the Psalmist comes to the grand result that the truth of the case will ultimately triumph; all the heathen nations will one day cast away their empty gods and give their heart's entire love and homage to the Lord Jehovah. He loves to enlarge upon the reason why, "For Thou art great; thou doest wondrous things; thou only art really God." This is a perfect reason. There is infinite fitness that the supreme and only God should at length place Himself at the head of this world, its acknowledged Lord and King, its one only object of supreme love and obedience. So let it be! And let the time thereof hasten on! C. 11. Guide me, Jehovah, (in) Thy way; I will walk in Thy truth; unite my heart to fear Thy name. The common version of the first verb (teach me) is too vague, as it fails to bring out the peculiar suitableness of the term to express the kind of teaching here specifically meant. The original meaning of the Hebrew word is to point out or mark the way. According to the usage of the Psalms, the way of God is here the course of His providential dealings, and His truth the truth of His promises, to walk in which is to assent to them or acquiesce in them and trust them. That he may be enabled to do this without distraction or reserve is the prayer of the last clause. The idea of a united heart is the opposite of a double heart. A.—Every word here is beautiful and strong. “Point out to me Thy way ;” as with the extended finger, indicate the path for me to tread. I will walk earnestly—the intensive form of the Hebrew verb—in Thy truth ; i.e., according to all which thy revealed truth shall prescribe. “Unite my heart ;” combine all its utmost powers ; help me to concentrate every thought and affection upon filial, reverential obedience. Let not my heart be divided, given partly to other objects than Thyself. C. Walk in Thy truth. Although in a great strait, and in fear of his enemies, the Psalmist, like all who pray aright, offers first the petition, “Hallowed be Thy name,” before he asks, “Give us this day our daily bread,” and “deliver us from evil.” He confesses that his spiritual eye is not yet perfectly enlightened, his heart not yet perfect with God. And while he rejects every other way, every other rule of life, but the eternal rule of God’s truth, he prays first that he may more clearly discern that way, and then that all the various desires, interests, passions, that agitate the human heart, may have no hold upon him, compared with the one thing needful, “to fear God’s name.” P. Everything that makes the soul feel, or affects her nature, is but truth or error, in some of their numberless forms. Goodness, love, beauty, and all other right things, which the soul feels so keenly, what are they but the truth of character, actions, and objects to the eternal fitness of things in God ? And wickedness, injustice, deformity, and all other wrong things, to which the soul is so sensitive, what are they but the falsehood of character, actions, and objects to that same eternal fitness ? Without truth in matters of religion, the soul cannot understand what God is, what sin is, what holiness is, what duty is, what the way of salvation is, what heaven is, or what is the meaning of anything religious. And, until it understand what these and kindred things are, ay, and feel them too, it cannot repent, cannot believe, cannot exercise Divine love, cannot perform a single holy act, cannot become a renewed and purified being. God has given us His revealed and written truth ; this truth He has put into the hands of His Spirit ; and with this His Spirit works in renewing and purifying the soul. Under our economy of means, this is a necessary instrument in His work. With this only, as resident in His Church, and as making use of an instrument, He enlightens, quickens, changes, purifies, strengthens, comforts, and perfects the soul into a likeness to His own blessed self. J. S. Stone. Unite my heart, suffer it no longer to scatter itself upon a multiplicity of objects, to be drawn hither and thither by a thousand different aims, but turn all its powers, all its affections in one direction, collect them in one focus, make them all one in Thee. The prayer derives a special force from the resolve immediately preceding : “I will walk in Thy truth.” The same integrity of heart which made the resolve could alone utter the prayer. The nearest Old Testament parallels are : the “one heart” (Jer. 32 : 39) ; “And I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me forever ;” and the “whole heart” of love to God (Deut. 6 : 5). Our Lord teaches us how needful the prayer of this verse is. Compare what He says of “the single eye,” the impossibility of serving two masters, the folly and the wearisomeness of those anxious cares by which men suffer themselves to be hampered and distracted, and, in contrast with all this, the exhortation, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God.” P. Having taught me one way, give me one heart to walk therein, for too often I feel a heart and a heart, two natures contending, two principles struggling for sovereignty. A man of divided heart is weak, the man of one object is the man. God, who created the bands of our nature, can draw them together, tighten, strengthen, and fasten them, and so braced and inwardly knit by His uniting grace, we shall be powerful for good, but not otherwise. To fear God is both the beginning, the growth, and the maturity of wisdom, therefore should we be undividedly given up to it, heart and soul. S.—Sincerity drives but one design, and that is to please and enjoy God ; and what can more establish and fix the soul in the hour of temptation than this ? The reason why the hypocrite is unstable in all his ways is given us by the apostle ; he is “a double-minded man,” a man of two souls in one body. But all the designs of a gracious heart are united in one ; and so the entire stream of his affections runs strong. Flavel. Every man feels instinctively that all the beautiful sentiments in the world weigh less than a single lovely action ; and that while tenderness of feeling and susceptibility of generous emotions are accidents of life, permanent goodness is an achievement and a quality of the life. The only conclusive evidence of a man’s sincerity is that he gives himself for a principle. Words, money, all things else, are comparatively easy to give away, but when a man makes a gift of his daily life and practice it is plain that the truth, whatever it may be, has taken possession of him. From that sincerity his words gain the force and pertinency of deeds, and his money is no longer the pale drudge 'twixt man and man, but, by a beautiful magic, what erewhile bore the image and superscription of Caesar seems now to bear the image and superscription of God. J. Russell Lowell. "Unite my heart to fear Thy name." If we would be consistent men, God must be first in everything. If this is so, the first consequence will be that our motives will be consistent. The fear of God will abide as a purifying influence in the very centre of our springs of action, His eye ever looking on us, His benefits ever constraining us. Union of the heart in God's fear will save us from grievous or fatal inconsistency in opinion. He whose heart is united to fear his God, though not exempt from other men's failings, is saved from other men's recklessness, and has a tenderer and a safer conscience in the matter of forming and holding opinion. Alford. Whole verse. In the expressions "teach," "fear," "walk," we have religion presented to us in the three aspects of knowledge, feeling, and conduct; in other words, religion in the head, in the heart, and in the feet. Religion affects the whole circle of man's activity. As knowledge, it illumines his intellect or guides his thinking in relation to those matters of which religion takes cognizance; as feeling, it awakens right promptings within him in relation to those matters; as conduct, it furnishes rules for his doing. First, religion as a matter of knowledge, a process of instruction. "Teach me Thy way, O Lord." The Teacher, "the Lord." Religious illumination comes from God, the Father of lights. He graciously assumes the character of Teacher to men in the way of salvation. To this end He has provided for them a great lesson-book, none other than the Bible. When we read this book, we sit in effect, like Mary of old, at the feet of the Divine Teacher to learn "His way." The learner, man. Man displays the first essential of a true learner, a keen desire for his lesson. The scholar casts himself at the feet of his Divine Teacher, and entreats to be taught. Meekness and fear—that is, docility and reverence, are qualities in the pupil which unlock the secrets of the Divine heart. Secondly, religion in the heart, or religion as a matter of feeling. Religion here has made its way from the head into the heart; from the light of knowledge it has become the warmth of emotion. The particular emotion into which the knowledge develops is fear. This is not fear in the sense of terror or dismay, but love. It is heart-fear, not conscience-fear. It is the child disposition, sweet, trustful, and penetrated with holy, subduing reverence. The condition of its development. The essential condition of this beautiful disposition is a heart at peace with all its passions, in thorough harmony with God. Thirdly, religion in the life, or as a matter of conduct. Divine truth is first light in relation to men; this truth or light received into the hearts of men becomes converted into love; and this love becomes a mighty propelling force, impelling them irresistibly along the line of truth and righteousness. A. J. Parry. 12. This verse describes the effect that is to follow from the granting of the prayer at the close of the preceding verse. When his heart is once united to fear God, cordial and perpetual thanksgiving will follow as a necessary consequence. A. I will praise Thee. Praising God is one of the highest and purest acts of religion. In prayer we act like men; in praise we act like angels. Believers are called "temples of God." When our tongues praise, then the organs of God's spiritual temple are sounding. How sad it is that God hath no more glory from us in this way! Many are full of murmuring and discontent, but seldom bring glory to God, by giving Him the praise due to His name. Praise is the quit rent we pay to God; while God renews our lease, we must renew our rent. T. Watson.—O Lord my God. This is the second time in the Psalm that David calls the Lord "my God;" the first time he was in an agony of prayer (v. 2), and now he is in an ecstasy of praise. If anything can make a man pray and praise, it is the knowledge that the Lord is his God. "And I will glorify Thy name forevermore;" into eternity gratitude will prolong its praise. God has never done blessing us, let us never have done blessing Him. As He ever gives us grace, let us ever render to Him the glory of it. S. 13. From the lower Sheol, from going down to the under world. Hebrew usage compels us to interpret this of natural death, from which the Psalmist had been delivered. See Psalms 6: 5; 88: 10-12; 18: 5, and Deut. 32: 22, where these very words occur. C. 15. "Thou, O Lord, Adonai, art a God; El, the strong God, full of compassion;" the same words as Moses useth. Instead of Jehovah, Adonai is used, "O Lord;" but then El, strong God, is the same word. The meaning is, let all the strength and power Thou the strong God hast in Thee be for my advantage. Now, is it not a bold request to say, Lord, wilt Thou give me all Thy strength to help me? A very bold request indeed; but His mercy moves Him to grant it. Thus, then, petition Him: Thou art a God merciful and gracious, give Thy strength to me! Thou, O God, givest all Thy attributes up to Thy children, to serve their advantage, as well as to serve Thy own glory; give me Thy strength! T. Goodwin. 1. His foundation is in the holy mountains. 2. The LORD loveth the gates of Zion More than all the dwellings of Jacob. 3. Glorious things are spoken of thee, O city of God. [Selah 4. I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon as among them that know me: Behold Philistia, and Tyre, with Ethiopia; This one was born there. 5. Yea, of Zion it shall be said, This one and that one was born in her; And the Most High himself shall establish her. 6. The LORD shall count, when he writeth up the peoples, This one was born there. [Selah 7. They that sing as well as they that dance shall say, All my fountains are in thee. THE Messianic character of this beautiful Psalm, which declares the nature and glory of the Church, and the increase, honor, and comfort of the members thereof, is recognized by all modern commentators. It bears a close resemblance to the prophecies of Isaiah, which describe the future conversion of the bitterest enemies of Zion. Cook.—We have here a glorious exhibition of the kingdom of the Messiah, as covering the whole earth, but having its beginning and permanent centre at Jerusalem. The keynote is v. 9 of the preceding Psalm: "All the nations Thou madest shall come, And shall worship before Thee, O Lord;" which is itself an echo of chap. 22: 27 in the earlier worship of Israel: "All the bounds of the earth Shall remember and turn to Jehovah; All the families of nations Shall worship before Him." Several representative nations are mentioned, not as subjugated enemies, but as highly honored members of the household of God, in fellowship with Israel, and entitled to look with joyful pride to Zion as their birthplace and spiritual home. This is connected with a Divine declaration in vs. 3, 4 that they shall enjoy this great distinction. Its central thought is presented so boldly and concisely that it might be obscure were it not illuminated by other prophecies, especially Isa. 2: 2-4; 11: 10-18; 19: 18-25, and 45: 14. The regenerative grace which shall bring all nationalities of the earth into the most intimate and exalting relation with God is ever represented as issuing from Zion, the city of the Great King. De Witt. The Jewish Church was not a missionary Church. So far as the Jews looked upon the world around them, it was with feelings of antipathy, and with the hope, which was never quenched in the midst of the most terrible reverses, that finally they, as the chosen race, should subdue their enemies far and wide, and that, by the grace of Heaven, one sitting on David's throne should be king of the world. Psalmists and prophets shared the feeling. They exulted in the thought that the king who ruled Zion would dash the nations in pieces like a potter's vessel, fill the places with dead bodies, and lead rival kings in the long array of His triumph. But mingling with these anticipations, and correcting them, there were others of a nobler kind. The prophets speak not only of victories, but of voluntary submission. The vision which arises before them is not only of a forced unity of nations, such as that which was achieved by the iron hand of Roman dominion, but of a unity of faith and love. They see the mountain of the Lord's house exalted above the hills, and all nations flowing to it with one impulse, not led thither in the conqueror's train, but attracted by its glory, longing to taste its peace (Isa. 2 : 2-4). They see Gentiles coming to the light of Jerusalem, and kings to the brightness of her rising. They foretell a time when all wars and all national antipathies shall cease, when "the root of Jesse" shall be as a standard round which all nations shall flock, and the temple of Jehovah the centre of a common faith and worship. It is this last hope which expresses itself in this Psalm, but which expresses itself in a form that has no exact parallel in other passages. Foreign nations are here described, not as captives or tributaries, not even as doing voluntary homage to the greatness and glory of Zion, but as actually incorporated and enrolled, by a new birth, among her sons. Even the worst enemies of their race, the tyrants and oppressors of the Jews, Egypt and Babylon, are threatened with no curse, no shout of joy is raised in the prospect of their overthrow, but the privileges of citizenship are extended to them, and they are welcomed as brothers. Nay more, God Himself receives each one as a child newly born into His family, acknowledges each as His son, and enrolls him with His own hand in the sacred register of His children. It is this mode of anticipating a future union and brotherhood of all the nations of the earth, not by conquest, but by incorporation into one state, and by a birthright so acquired, which is so remarkable. In some of the prophets, more especially in Isaiah, we observe the same liberal, conciliatory, comprehensive language toward foreign States, as Tyre and Ethiopia, and still more strikingly toward Egypt and Assyria. But the Psalm stands alone among the writings of the Old Testament, in representing this union of nations as a new birth unto the city of God. It is the first announcement of that great amity of nations, or rather of that universal common citizenship of which heathen philosophers dreamed, which was "in the mind of Socrates when he called himself a citizen of the world," which had become a commonplace of stoic philosophy, which Judaism tried finally to realize by the admission of proselytes, through baptism, into the Jewish community; which Rome accomplished, so far as the external semblance went, first by subduing the nations, and then by admitting them to the rights of Roman citizenship. But the true fulfilment of this hope is to be found only in that kingdom which Christ has set up. He has gathered into His commonwealth all the kingdoms of the earth. He has made men one, members of the same family, by teaching them to feel that they are all children of the same Father. He has made it evident that the hope of the Jewish singer is no false hope; that there is a Father in heaven who cares for all, whatever name they bear. Thus the Psalm has received a better and higher fulfilment than that which lies on the surface of its words. It was fulfilled in Christ. Its tone, as has already been observed, falls in with that of some of the prophecies of Isaiah. Hence it has been referred, not without reason, to the reign of Hezekiah. P.—This Psalm must be dated in the times of Hezekiah for the following reasons: The five Gentile nations named here were prominent in that age, while in the age of David, Egypt was not known under the name Rahab, and Babylon was scarcely if at all known on the map of the nations. (See Isa. 30 : 7 ; 51 : 9.) The name appears also in Psalm 89 : 10, but this belongs to the age of Hezekiah. The prophetic sentiment of this Psalm—viz., the conversion of all the great nations of the earth to the true God, is remarkably in harmony with the prophecies of Isaiah, which were suggested by the same event—the fall of the Assyrian hosts and God's glorious triumphs therein. (See Isa. 10-12 ; 17 : 12-14, with chaps. 18 : 7 ; 19 : 23-25.) This coincidence is very remarkable, showing that this great thought was not in the mind of Isaiah alone, but belonged to that age; that the good men of Hezekiah's time saw in that wonderful overthrow of Assyria a sure presage of the fall of every opposing power and of the conversion of the great nations of the earth to the living God. C. The outline of the Psalm is as follows: It opens with an outburst of intensely national feeling, celebrating the glory of Zion as the city of God (vs. 1-3). But the patriotic sentiment is too large and too grand to suffer any narrow jealousy to interfere with it, and therefore all nations are said to be gathered to her as children to one mother. It lends more force and dignity to this idea, that God Himself appears as the speaker, declaring of one and another, foreign and hostile nations, that their true birthplace is there, in Zion. Finally, one brief, obscure verse tells of the joy and happiness of the holy city, welcoming new children on all sides, and making them partakers in her joy (v. 7). P. 1-3. The group of hills upon which Jerusalem was built is described as holy or sacred, because there was the temple, the seat of Jehovah's glory; and since Zion was the hill first occupied by David, and the most conspicuous quarter of the city, this stands for the whole. The glory of this sacred capital is here celebrated in the prospect of its universal supremacy. It is not of the physical Jerusalem, its streets, walls, gates, palaces, that these glorious things are spoken, but of Jerusalem as representing the presence, the Word, the Spirit, of the true God. J. P. T. 1. "His foundation," the place of His abode, where the strong pillars of His earthly temple are laid, is in the holy mountains; i.e., of Jerusalem, made sacred ages before by God's choice of them as the site of His house. C.—The Church has a foundation, so that it cannot sink or totter; Christ Himself is the Foundation of it, which God has laid. The Jerusalem above is a city that has foundations. The foundation is upon the mountains; it is built high, the mountain of the Lord's house is established upon the top of the mountains (Isa. 2 : 2). It is built firm; the mountains are rocky, and on a rock the church is built. The world is founded upon the seas (Psalm 24 : 2), which are continually ebbing and flowing, and are a very weak foundation; Babel was built in a plain, where the ground was rotten; but the Church is built upon the everlasting mountains, and the perpetual hills; for sooner shall the mountains depart, and the hills be removed, than the covenant of God's peace shall be disannulled, and on that the Church is built (Isa. 54 : 10). The foundation is upon the holy mountains. Holiness is the strength and stability of the Church, that is it which will support it, and keep it from sinking; not so much that it is built upon mountains, as that it is built upon holy mountains; upon the promise of God, for the confirming of which He has sworn by His holiness; upon the sanctification of the Spirit, which will secure the happiness of all the saints. H. The foundation that God has given His city is in "the holy mountains." What are these holy mountains whereon the city of God is built, and in which its deep and sure foundations are laid? The sure decree, the Divine perfections, the promise of Him that cannot lie, the oath and covenant of God, and the incarnate Son Himself, are the holy mountains, the perpetual hills, whose summits are gloriously crowned by the city of the Great King. There the city sits securely, beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth. Andrew Gray. 2. The Lord loveth the gates. The gates of a walled city give access to it and power over it, and are therefore naturally here put for the whole. The Hebrew participle (loving) implies constant and habitual attachment. A. 3. "Glorious things were spoken of Zion." The spirit of exultant prophecy pervaded the inspired writers of that time. Well might the sons of Korah write "Selah" after the expression of a thought so suggestive. Let every reader pause and think of it! In our times we may profitably read over and dwell long upon these "glorious things" as we find them in Isa. 2, 9, 11, 12, and 35; not to name also his later prophecies, chaps. 42, 49, 54, 55, 60, and 66; also Micah 4, 5. C. 4. The words are the words of God. We have the same abrupt introduction of the Divine speaker in other Psalms. P.—The glorious purport of the promise is now unfolded in a most vivid and direct manner; Jehovah Himself begins to speak and sets forth the glorious calling of His chosen and beloved city as the minister of salvation to the whole world. It is to become the birthplace of all peoples. D.—This declaration is one of the strongest found in the prophetic writings. It does not speak of the subjugation, much less of the overthrow, of the enemies of Zion, but of their free admission to every blessing upon their conversion. Cook. The nations thus announced as belonging to God's people are mere samples of the whole Gentile world, those being chosen for the purpose who were or had been most connected with the history of Israel, and were at the same time ruling powers of antiquity. Rahab is an enigmatical name given to Egypt by the Prophet Isaiah. The last words are obscure, but may be rendered clearer by supplying before them, as to each of these it shall be said. The pronoun (this) is then to be referred not to individual men, but to the nations as ideal persons. The idea of regeneration or spiritual birth, applied in the New Testament to individuals, is here applied to nations, who are represented as born again, when received into communion with the Church or chosen people. A. "Rahab," "Babylon," "Philistia," "Tyre," "Ethiopia." This is the glory of the Church, that into her the fulness of the nations shall enter: the proud from Egypt, who for her haughtiness is called Rahab; the worldly from Babylon, the city of confusion; the wrathful from Philistia, so long the enemies of Israel; the covetous from Tyre, the rich city of the traders, and the slaves of ignorance from Cush, and from the land of Ham—all these shall learn the love of Christ and confess His truth, and shall enter into that all-glorious city, and be admitted and acknowledged as citizens of the celestial Zion. Plain Commentary. Born there. It is remarkable that the figure of a new birth is used to express the admission of the different nations to the rights of citizenship in Zion. So Cicero speaks of his restoration to his privileges and honors on his return from banishment as “a regeneration.” P. 5. And of Zion; or, and to Zion.** The Psalmist represents the Almighty as presenting every convert to the holy city, and saying, “This and this, one and all, belong to thee, every one is thy own child.” Such, in fact, is the exact language of God to the Church, the true Zion, in which alone promises and predictions have an adequate and perfect fulfilment. Cook. Zion should be the spiritual birthplace of all nations. It is not merely said, as in other places, that they should “come to her,” should “flow into her,” but that they should be “born in her.” “Of Zion it shall be said, This and that man (i.e., all, one by one), was born in her;” Egyptians, Babylonians, Ethiopians, Tyrians, Philistines, should be “born in her,” and by being “born there,” should become children of God, citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. The Lord shall account them as His, being reborn in His Church. Pusey.—The thought is precisely that of all the Old Testament prophets. “The nations shall flow unto it,” the mountain of the Lord’s house (Isa. 2 : 2). “Many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of Hosts in Jerusalem and to pray before the Lord” (Zech. 8 : 22). So throughout those ancient prophecies, the Gentile nations come up in vast masses, flying as doves to their window-cotes, to learn of God and to give Him the homage of their hearts, in Zion. Here again “Selah” is altogether in place. Let all readers contemplate these marvellous things said of the future Zion of the Lord Jehovah. C. 6. Jehovah shall count, in enrolling the nations: This (one) was born there. Selah.** The theme or idea of the whole Psalm, that Zion should yet be the birthplace of all nations, is again repeated, under a new figure, that of registration. The meaning is that, as He counts the nations, He shall say of each, in turn or one by one, this one was also born there. In enrolling, literally, writing, i.e., inscribing in a list or register. A. When he takes a census of the nations (compare the figure of Ezek. 13 : 9), the most glorious thing that he can say of each of them, the crown of all their history, shall be this, not the record of their separate national existence or polity or dominion, but the fact that they have become members by adoption of the city of God. Zion shall be the metropolis of the world. This one is born there. The words are repeated, as by God Himself, as he enters one after another in the register of his city. P. 7. And singers as well as players** (shall be heard saying), All my springs are in Thee. The image present to the Psalmist’s mind seems to be that of a procession or triumphal march, composed of the nations on their way to Zion. At the head of this procession are the minstrels, who, as the spokesmen of the rest, acknowledge that the source of their happiness is henceforth to be sought in Zion, not as a mere locality, but as the place where God was pleased to manifest His gracious presence. It matters little, therefore, whether the closing words (in Thee) be referred to God directly, or to Zion, as the channel through which He imparted spiritual blessings to the Gentiles. A. The singers and dancers are the leaders in a procession of redeemed Gentiles, representing the peoples mentioned in v. 4. These in their turn represent the whole world, as brought into fellowship with the living and true God, through the gracious influences that proceed from His dwelling-place in Zion. De Witt. This verse seems to express the joy of the converted Gentiles, who are represented as coming in a procession with singing and choral dancing unto Zion, and there one and all exclaiming, “All my fresh springs; i.e., all sources of life and joy, are in thee.” Cook.—Great shall be the joy, great the pomp of festival and music when Zion welcomes her new inhabitants. This is doubtless the sense; but the compressed brevity of this verse makes it extremely obscure. The preferable rendering is: “Both they that sing and they that dance, All my fountains of (delight) are in Thee;” meaning that every source of pleasure, music, singing, etc., was to be found in Zion. P. Song and dance went together among the ancient Hebrews as expressions of religious joy, and here we have the singers and dancers with but one thought in the mind of each. And what more appropriate close could there be to this stirring lyric? If there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, how unspeakable must be the joy over whole nations crowding to the temple gates and counting it their highest privilege to be registered as newborn children of the Zion of God. Then, indeed, may the mountains and the hills break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field clap their hands (Isa. 55 : 12). Chambers. All my fountains are in Thee. There could be no more beautiful refrain than this. It refers especially to the spiritual life, the fountain of which is the Spirit of God. But it comprehends also the propitiation and the forgiveness of sin, both of which must also come from God. It may be even extended to the creation and providence as well as to the grace of God. This is the true and beautiful confession of the repentant, ransomed, and adopted children of God. M.—How truly does all our experience lead us to look to the Lord by faith, and say, “All my fresh springs are in Thee”! The springs of my faith and all my graces; the springs of my life and all my pleasures; the springs of my activity and all its right doings; the springs of my hope, and all its heavenly anticipations—all lie in Thee, my Lord. S. God is such a good that not only all can choose Him and find Him as adequate to each as if no other had thus chosen Him, but that each new choice of Him, both as augmenting His glory and increasing the good of others, augments the joy of those who have already thus chosen. And not only must we receive all things from Him, but it is only as we give back to Him our active love, as we love Him for His own sake as infinite in being and in excellence, that the highest joys of holiness can come. Those joys are indeed from the very activity that constitutes the holiness. Whether we regard ourselves then as passive or active, God is our good. “All our springs are in Him.” M. Hopkins. The images under which the Church is described in the Psalms are principally three. It is a city, Zion or Jerusalem. It is a kingdom. It is a bride. Here (as in the forty-sixth and forty-eighth Psalms) we have a City of God, enclosed and fenced, situated on the mountains, with strong foundations. This implies elevation, glory, strength, organization. And this City of God becomes the centre of some strange and resistless attraction. The most hostile and remote nations seek to be enrolled among her citizens. A thrill of exultation runs through the Psalmist’s style, as his heart overflows with joy. The eighty-seventh Psalm marks a turning-point in Revelation. It stands absolutely alone up to its own time, and, indeed, it may almost be said, even afterward, in one important particular. It shows that the unification of nations is to be effected by the welding power of a spiritual influence hitherto unknown. And it becomes more remarkable if we attribute it to the times of Hezekiah, and (with the inscription) to the sons of Korah. “The Korahite author of the Psalm, himself a chief singer in the sanctuary,” writes the Bishop of Lincoln, “does not grudge the admission of foreign nations into its sacred choir, but with generous and large-hearted sympathy rejoices in the prospect.” Thus the Psalmist here touches one distinctive peculiarity of the Christian Church. This is a great missionary Psalm. Bishop W. Alexander. This short Psalm is by emphasis the missionary lyric of the Psalter. It transcends all other utterances by its startling statements of the spiritual unity one day to be effected. Elsewhere we read of a victorious chieftain who dashes in pieces all opposition and becomes sole ruler, leading rival kings in the long array of his triumph. Or we are told of the exaltation of Zion’s hill above all other hills so that from all directions the nations flow to it, attracted by its glory and seeking to be enlightened by its teachings. Or it is predicted that one day in every place from the rising of the sun to his going down incense and a pure offering shall be presented to the Lord of Hosts. These are glowing prospects, and may well enkindle the believer’s hope and zeal, but the Psalm before us reaches a higher mark in that it selects as specimens just those nations which had been conspicuous for ages as wicked oppressors of the covenant race, and declares that they shall come into close union with the people of God, and that not under compulsion nor influenced by secular considerations, but by a new birth, so that they are sincerely welcomed as brothers. “God Himself receives each one as a child newly born into the family, acknowledges him as a son, and enrolls him with His own hand as in the sacred register of the household.” What a conception is thus given of the brotherhood of all nations and of their final incorporation into a single state, and that state the city of God! Chambers. A SONG, A PSALM OF THE SONS OF KORAH; FOR THE CHIEF MUSICIAN; SET TO MAHALATH LEANNOTH. MASCHIL OF HEMAN THE EZRAHITE. 1. O LORD, the God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee : 2 Let my prayer enter into thy presence; Incline thine ear unto my cry: 3 For my soul is full of troubles, And my life draweth nigh unto Sheol. 4 I am counted with them that go down into the pit; I am as a man that hath no help: 5 Cast off among the dead, Like the slain that lie in the grave, Whom thou rememberest no more; And they are cut off from thy hand. 6 Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, In dark places, in the deeps. 7 Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, And thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. [Selah 8 Thou hast put mine acquaintance far from me; Thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth. 9 Mine eye wasteth away by reason of affliction: I have called daily upon thee, O LORD, I have spread forth my hands unto thee. 10 Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? Shall they that are deceased arise and praise thee? [Selah 11 Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? Or thy faithfulness in Destruction? 12 Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? And thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? 13 But unto thee, O LORD, have I cried, And in the morning shall my prayer come before thee. 14 LORD, why castest thou off my soul? Why hidest thou thy face from me? 15 I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: While I suffer thy terrors I am distracted. 16 Thy fierce wrath is gone over me; Thy terrors have cut me off. 17 They came round about me like water all the day long; They compassed me about together. 18 Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, And mine acquaintance into darkness. THIS is the darkest, saddest Psalm in all the Psalter. It is one wail of sorrow from beginning to end. It is the only Psalm in which the expression of feeling, the pouring out of the burdened heart before God, fails to bring relief and consolation. In every other instance, however heavy the gloom, however oppressed and dejected the spirit of the sufferer, prayer and supplication are mingled with thanksgiving, the accents of lamentation are changed into the notes of triumph, the darkness of midnight gives way to the brightness of faith's morning-dawn. The deeper the sorrow at the opening, the greater the joy at the close. But here the darkness continues to the end. There is no confidence expressed that prayer will be heard, no hope uttered, much less any triumph. The Psalm ends with complaint, as it began. Its last word is "darkness." One ray of light only struggles through the gloom, one star pierces that thick midnight blackness; it is the name by which the Psalmist addresses God: "O God of my salvation." That he can address God by that name is a proof that faith and hope are not dead within him; it is the pledge of his deliverance, though he cannot yet taste its comfort. There is but one such Psalm, as if to teach us that our Father's will concerning us is not to leave us in our dejection, but, in answer to the prayer of faith, to lift us out of it; there is one, that we may remember that even His truest servants may be called upon "to walk in darkness and have no light," that thus they may be the better trained, like a child holding his father's hand in the dark, "to trust in the name of the Lord, to stay themselves upon their God." As to the author, and the circumstances under which the Psalm was written, various conjectures have been made, but they are really worth nothing. One thing only is clear, that it is not a national Psalm, and that it does not deplore any national calamity. It is throughout personal and individual. P. There is one word of trust, inseparable from inward hopefulness, in the beginning; the Psalmist knows that the Lord is the God of his salvation; but that word occurs but once, and finds no echo in the succeeding strains. Death is nigh at hand (v. 3), all strength exhausted (v. 4); as one already occupying the grave (v. 5) the sufferer lies in darkness, overwhelmed by God's wrath (v. 6); forsaken of all friends, an object of loathing to them, shut up in prison (v. 8), he is still praying, urgently and without ceasing (vs. 9, 13), yet finds no response; from his youth ever on the point of death, distracted by the terrors of God, crushed by His fierce wrath, he lies now without lover or friend, with but one acquaintance left, even the darkness of Sheol. We have the portraiture of an individual, highly gifted, but subjected to every affliction which can try a faithful servant of God. Cook. What trouble of wounded spirit some of God's children have felt in former times, others dear to God may find in after ages. They must comfort themselves in this, that other saints have been under like affliction; for this Psalm is appointed to "give instruction;" it is "Maschil of Heman." Such as are most afflicted in spirit and do flee to God for reconciliation and consolation through Christ have no reason to suspect themselves that they are not esteemed of and loved as dear children, because they feel so much of God's chastening; for here is a saint who hath drunken of that cup, as deep as any who shall read this Psalm. Dickson. The Psalm is designed to express one particular stage of consolation, viz., the earliest one of all, that which consists in the simple expression of the sorrow itself, only with this addition, that it expresses it as in the presence of God, and as an address to Him. All its expression indeed is that of grief; but that very expression is only one stage of consolation. The grief is relieved by giving due and reverential vent to it. A surface of evil is accompanied by a reserve and undercurrent of hope, and a grief externally unchecked proceeds upon an understanding that it is seen and compassionated by One who is able to remove it. Such a Psalm is wanted, as being the representation of one particular stage and form of consolation in affliction. This stage of consolation has its own peculiar and characteristic graces, which entitle it to such recognition. The earlier stages of consolation are nearer the beginning of things, closer to the fountain-head. In them the simple voice of Divine love speaks before man has yet added anything of his own strength and effort to it. The greatest victories of reason or of faith do not point so directly or so immediately to the one source of all consolation as that first stage and beginning of it which consists in the soul's simple expression of its grief, and no more. And this Psalm reminds us of a great truth respecting this dispensation of things. The world does not contain much positive and pure happiness, and the satisfactions it does supply are rather of a secondary sort, remedial to dissatisfaction. Let us be content with moderate, with secondary, satisfactions. A remedial system, if it is solid and effective, is not to be underrated, as if it were not worth enjoying. Let us bear affliction with a single view to greater self-control, more resignation, more humility, ever strongly impressed with the great utility and serviceableness of it, the impossibility of growing in grace without it. Mozley. 1. The Psalmist finds himself in the gloomiest possible condition, but he does not despair; he remains turned with his complaints to Jehovah, and calls Him the God of his salvation. This direct resort in prayer to the God of salvation is the fundamental characteristic of all faith. D.—The writer has salvation, he is sure of that, and God is the sole author of it. While a man can see God as his Saviour, it is not altogether midnight with him. While the living God can be spoken of as the life of our salvation, our hope will not quite expire. S. Cried day and night. No man knows what mercies or what miseries a day may bring forth; what good or what evil, what afflictions or what temptations a day may bring forth; and, therefore, a man need every day be in his closet with God, that he may be prepared and fitted to entertain and improve all the occurrences and emergencies that may attend him in the course of his life. T. Brooks. 5. His eye is looking down into the darkness, he sees himself already numbered with the dead. But what are the dead? Beings who "know not anything," "clean forgotten, out of mind," beings whom God Himself remembers not. "The living, the living, he shall praise Thee;" this was the feeling, not of Hezekiah only, but of all the Old Testament saints, in seasons of gloom and despondency. It could not be otherwise till the bright light of Christ's resurrection was cast upon the grave and the world beyond. P. Cut off from thy hand. Never look upon yourself as cut off from life and from enjoyment; you are not cut off, only taken apart, laid aside, it may be but for a season, or it may be for life; but still you are part of the body of which Christ is the Head. Some must suffer and some must serve. Your feet may be set fast; they may have run with great activity, and you sorrow now because they can run no more. But do not sorrow thus, nor envy those who are running; you have a work to do. It may be the work of lying still, of not stirring hand or foot, of scarcely speaking, scarcely showing life. Fear not; if He your heavenly Master has given it to you to do, it is His work, and He will bless it. Anon. 9. Mine eye mourneth, I have called.** Weeping must not hinder praying; we must sow in tears: "Mine eye mourns," but "I cry unto Thee daily." Let prayers and tears go together, and they shall be accepted together: "I have heard thy prayers, I have seen thy tears." H.—As a little child stretches out its hands to its mother while it cries, so did this afflicted child of God. He prayed all over, his eyes wept, his voice cried, his hands were outstretched, and his heart broke. This was prayer indeed. S. 10. The language refers to what takes place in the unseen world, not at the resurrection. (Compare Isa. 14 : 9.) The expostulation is like that of Job: "If a man die, shall he live again?" There is no question of the general resurrection, but only the improbability that God should restore to life one who was already dead. P. 10-12. In these verses we find mention made of four things on the part of God: "wonders," "lovingkindness," "faithfulness," and "righteousness." These were four attributes of the blessed Jehovah which the eyes of Heman had been opened to see, and which the heart of Heman had been wrought upon to feel. But he comes, by Divine teaching, into a spot where these attributes seem to be completely lost to him; and yet (so mysterious are the ways of God!) that spot was made the very place where those attributes were more powerfully displayed, and made more deeply and experimentally known to his soul. J. C. Philpot. 11. Shall Thy lovingkindness.** The plea for prolonged life thus rests upon a deep feeling of God's love; the answer, however, was reserved for a future revelation. The accumulation of expressions is noticeable, "the grave" or sepulchre; "destruction" or "Abaddon," as in Job 26 : 6; 28 : 22 (the word occurs elsewhere only in Job, and in Prov. 15 : 11); "the dark," as in Job 10 : 21; "the land of forgetfulness," in the twofold sense, where the dead have no remembrance, and where they are wholly forgotten. Cook. 12. Shall Thy wonders be known in the dark, and Thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? These are varied metaphorical descriptions of the state of death, considered negatively as the privation or the opposite of life. Darkness is here opposed to the light of life or of the living. The land of forgetfulness, where men forget (Eccl. 9 : 5, 6, 10), and are forgotten (Psalm 31 : 12). A. 13. But as for me, emphatic; though thus at the very edge of death, though bowed down with the heavy load of affliction, still I look to Thee. This unwearied "continuing instant in prayer" is the victory of faith in the midst of trials which, but for this, would end in despair. It had been one life-long suffering from his youth up, yet still his earnest pleading had never ceased. Such prayers are those "unutterable groanings" of which Paul speaks. P. Go to prayer in the cold to get heat. Go to it in the dark to wait and watch for the light. Go to it without inclination, pleading the promise of God's Spirit to give you inclination. All this in the rational conviction that as religion is your greatest practical concern, God will be waiting on His part to open the gate for you; to greet, accept, and bid you everlasting welcome. There is no person living who will not thus, after some due time, be established in the faith, and filled with the revelation of God. Bushnell. 14. We may put these questions to the Lord, nay, we ought to do so. It is not undue familiarity, but holy boldness. He cannot act toward us in other than a right and gracious manner, therefore for every stroke of His rod there is a sufficient reason in the judgment of His loving heart; let us try to learn that reason and profit by it. 16. Since Jesus bore my guilt as my substitute, my Judge cannot punish me, but my Father can and will correct me. Under a sense of the Father's averted face the dear, broken-down child may be laid in the dust and covered with wretchedness, and yet for all that he may be accepted and beloved of the Lord all the while. S. 18. Look at the threefold loss bewailed in the text. There are, or ought to be, three circles round every man like the belts or rings round a planet—love, friendship, and acquaintanceship. Love is the nearest, while, at the same time, it lends its value to the other two. Friendship and acquaintanceship have no real pith, or sub- stance, or value in them except as they are permeated by the spirit of the nearest circle. The three circles are needed by every man for the proper health and balance of his nature. No man suffices for himself. He needs others, as they need him. In proportion to the number and closeness of the ties in life is the pain in reserve for men. Strange life this, in which our best is the most subject to suffering, and pays a penalty as if it were the worst! The thinking of departed friends will help us to realize our own death. It is of the highest moment that we should realize death, for without this we do not realize eternity, sin, or God. Thinking of our departed will help to take away the bitterness of death. Death is but going as they have gone; it is just sharing with them. Death gets identified with the thought of father, or mother, or wife, or child; and we feel that we dare not and cannot shrink from going to them. Thinking of the departed will enable us to realize immortality. They live, these departed ones; if truth and love are real, they live. Death can no more touch their souls than the stormy waves can quench the stars. Thinking of the departed will take away the besetting feeling of solitude connected with death. What a glow it sheds over the future! How rich and full it makes it to think of meeting again some who have gone before. Their horizon is wide now. They have had experience of which we cannot form even a conception; but we know that no distance of time, no range of knowledge, no height or depth of experience, can ever alter their love to us J. Leckie. With this complaint the harp drops out of the poet's hand. He becomes silent and waits for God to solve the riddle of this affliction. We may infer from the Book of Job that He really appeared to him. He is far more faithful than men. No soul that in the midst of wrath lays hold of His love, whether it be with firm or trembling hand, is lost. D.—The ear remains in suspense, until the majestic eighty-ninth Psalm shall burst upon it like a bright resurrection-morning. W. Kay. 1. I WILL sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: With my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. 2. For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever; Thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. 3. I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant; 4. Thy seed will I establish for ever, And build up thy throne to all generations. [Selah 5. And the heavens shall praise thy wonders, O LORD; Thy faithfulness also in the assembly of the holy ones. 6. For who in the skies can be compared unto the LORD? Who among the sons of the mighty is like unto the LORD, 7. A God very terrible in the council of the holy ones, And to be feared above all them that are round about him? 8. O LORD God of hosts, Who is a mighty one, like unto thee, O JAH? And thy faithfulness is round about thee. 9. Thou rulest the pride of the sea: When the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them. 10. Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain; Thou hast scattered thine enemies with the arm of thy strength. 11. The heavens are thine, the earth also is thine: The world and the fulness thereof, thou hast founded them. 12. The north and the south, thou hast created them: Tabor and Hermon rejoice in thy name. 13. Thou hast a mighty arm : Strong is thy hand, and high is thy right hand. 14. Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of thy throne : Mercy and truth go before thy face. 15. Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound : They walk, O LORD, in the light of thy countenance. 16. In thy name do they rejoice all the day : And in thy righteousness are they exalted. 17. For thou art the glory of their strength : And in thy favour our horn shall be exalted. 18. For our shield belongeth unto the LORD ; And our king to the Holy One of Israel. 19. Then thou spakest in vision to thy saints, And saidst, I have laid help upon one that is mighty ; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. 20. I have found David my servant ; With my holy oil have I anointed him : 21. With whom my hand shall be established ; Mine arm also shall strengthen him. 22. The enemy shall not exact upon him ; Nor the son of wickedness afflict him. 23. And I will beat down his adversaries before him, And smite them that hate him. 24. But my faithfulness and my mercy shall be with him ; And in my name shall his horn be exalted. 25. I will set his hand also on the sea, And his right hand on the rivers. 26. He shall cry unto me, Thou art my father, My God, and the rock of my salvation. 27. I also will make him my firstborn, The highest of the kings of the earth. 28. My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, And my covenant shall stand fast with him. 29. His seed also will I make to endure for ever, And his throne as the days of heaven. 30. If his children forsake my law, And walk not in my judgments ; 31. If they break my statutes, And keep not my commandments ; 32. Then will I visit their transgression with the rod, And their iniquity with stripes. 33. But my mercy will I not utterly take from him, Nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. 34. My covenant will I not break, Nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips. 35. Once have I sworn by my holiness ; I will not lie unto David ; 36. His seed shall endure for ever, And his throne as the sun before me. 37. It shall be established for ever as the moon, And as the faithful witness in the sky. [Selah 38. But thou hast cast off and rejected, Thou hast been wroth with thine anointed. 39. Thou hast abhorred the covenant of thy servant : Thou hast profaned his crown even to the ground. 40. Thou hast broken down all his hedges ; Thou hast brought his strong holds to ruin. 41. All that pass by the way spoil him : He is become a reproach to his neighbours. 42. Thou hast exalted the right hand of his adversaries ; Thou hast made all his enemies to rejoice. 43. Yea, thou turnest back the edge of his sword, And hast not made him to stand in the battle. 44. Thou hast made his brightness to cease, And cast his throne down to the ground. 45. The days of his youth hast thou shortened : Thou hast covered him with shame. [Selah 46. How long, O LORD, wilt thou hide thyself for ever ? How long shall thy wrath burn like fire ? 47. O remember how short my time is : For what vanity hast thou created all the children of men ! 48. What man is he that shall live and not see death, That shall deliver his soul from the power of Sheol ? [Selah 49. Lord, where are thy former mercies, Which thou swarest unto David in thy faithfulness ? 50. Remember, Lord, the reproach of thy servants ; How I do bear in my bosom the reproach of all the mighty peoples ; 51. Wherewith thine enemies have reproached, O LORD, Wherewith they have reproached the footsteps of thine anointed. THE inscription assigns this Psalm to Ethan the Ezrahite, the colleague of Asaph and Heman. Supposing it to have been composed toward the end of his life, some few years after the death of Solomon, every portion of the Psalm finds a perfect explanation in the circumstances of that period. It is written not by the king, but by one closely connected with him; by a man specially conversant with the Divine promises and terms of the covenant with the family of David. The king had been subjected to severest chastisement, an object of God's wrath (v. 38); his crown had been dishonored (v. 39); the frontiers of his territory had been broken down, his strongholds ruined, his adversaries had prevailed and triumphed over him, his attempts at resistance had failed at once and ignominiously, his glory had passed away, his throne was cast down, old age has come on him in early manhood, he is covered with shame. Each of these points tallies exactly with the facts recorded of the invasion of Shishak, whose enormous army overran the whole country, destroyed the strongholds which had been fortified by Rehoboam, and who reduced the kingdom for a time to a state of vassalage, which is expressly stated to have been a punishment for the sins of the princes, and to have effected its object; for when the king "humbled himself, the wrath of the Lord turned from him;" for "yet in Judah there were good things." (See 2 Chron. 12: 1-12, especially vs. 4, 5, 8, and 12.) The tone of hopefulness, which, notwithstanding the terrible suffering, pervades the Psalm, is thus accounted for, and is strikingly unlike the forebodings of the prophets who were commissioned to announce the ruin of the descendants of Josiah, especially of Jehoiakin, of whom it was expressly said, no more of his seed should "prosper sitting on the throne of David." (See Jer. 22: 24-30.) Cook. The Psalm opens with a reference to the promise given to David (2 Sam. 7: 8). This promise, and the attributes of God on which the promise rests, and which are the great pledge of its fulfilment, form the subject of the poet's grateful acknowledgment, before he passes to the mournful contrast presented by the ruin of the house of David and the blighting of his people's hopes. He turns to the glorious past, that by its aid he may rise out of the grief and discouragement of the present. He takes the promise and turns it into a song. He dwells upon it and lingers over it. He dwells on that which is the ground and pillar of the promise, the faithfulness of God; and then he first lifts his loud lament over the disasters which have befallen his king and people, speaking out his disappointment till his words sound like a reproach; and next pleads earnestly with God that He would not suffer his enemies to triumph. P. The majestic COVENANT PSALM, according to the Jewish arrangement, closes the third book of the Psalms. It is the utterance of a believer, in presence of great national disaster, pleading with his God, urging the grand argument of covenant engagements, and expecting deliverance and help because of the faithfulness of Jehovah. This is most fitly called a Maschil, for it is most instructive. No subject is more important or is so fully the key to all theology as that of the covenant. S. 1. I will sing.** The Psalmist has a sad complaint to make, yet he begins with songs of praise; for we must in everything, in every state, give thanks. We think when we are in trouble we get ease by complaining; but we do more, we get joy, by praising. Let complaint, therefore, be turned into thanksgiving. Though we may find it hard to reconcile present dark providences with the goodness and truth of God, yet we must abide by this principle, that God's mercies are inexhaustible, and His truth inviolable; and these must be the matter of our joy and praise. We must sing of God's mercies as long as we live, train up others to sing of them when we are gone, and hope to be singing of them in heaven, world without end; and this is singing of the mercies of the Lord forever. H. Sing of mercies. Mercies are love's messengers, sent from heaven to win our hearts to love again, and entice us thither. Our mercies, therefore, should be used to this end. That mercy that doth not increase, or excite and help our love, is abused and lost, as seed that is buried when it is sowed, and never more appeareth. Earthly mercies point to heaven, and tell us whence they come, and for what. Like the flowers of the spring, they tell us of the reviving approaches of the sun; but, like foolish children, because they are near us, we love the flowers better than the sun; forgetting that the winter is drawing on. Baxter. 2. This "mercy built up forever" is the glorious and gracious fabric of our salvation, founded in the eternal purpose of God; carried into execution by the labors and the death of Jesus Christ, and then applied and brought home to the heart by the illuminating and converting power of the Holy Ghost. This is that "mercy" which is "built up forever." It was planned from everlasting, and will know no ruin or decay through the illimitable line of eternity itself. It stands on a rock, and is immovable as the rock on which it stands, the threefold rock of God's inviolable decree, of Christ's finished redemption, and of the Spirit's never-failing faithfulness. Toplady. Thy faithfulness. Faithfulness is the mercy of God's mercies, the brightest jewel in the crown of goodness. Unchangeable love and immutable promises demand everlasting songs. In times of trouble it is the Divine faithfulness which the soul hangs upon; this is the bower anchor of the soul, its holdfast, and its stay. Because God is, and ever will be, faithful, we have a theme for song which will never be worn out, never be disproved, never be unnecessary. S. Therefore mercy shall be built up forever, because thy faithfulness shall thou establish in the very heavens. Though our expectations are in some particular instances disappointed, yet God's promises are not disannulled; they are established in the very heavens—that is, in His eternal counsels; they are above the changes of this lower region, and out of the reach of the opposition of hell and earth. The stability of the material heavens is an emblem of the truth of God's Word; the heavens may be clouded by vapors arising out of the earth, but they cannot be touched, they cannot be changed. H. 3. 4. These are the words of God, the sum of His promise as given in 2 Sam. 7. They are introduced with remarkable abruptness, standing alone in their forcible brevity, while the Psalmist passes on to celebrate at length the might and faithfulness of the Promiser. In the nineteenth verse he returns to the promise, expands and dwells upon it. 5. At first sight the passage which follows, to v. 18, appears to break the train of thought. But the object of the Psalmist is to place in the strongest light those attributes of God on which the fulfilment of His promise depends, for "in a promise everything depends upon the person who promises." The question therefore occurs, "Has he the will and the power to fulfil the promise?" Hence the Psalmist dwells first upon God's power as exhibited and confessed in creation, then upon His righteousness, goodness, and truth, as manifested especially to his people. P. 5-8. Nothing can be more simple than the structure of these verses, which are not more evidently poetical in Hebrew than they are in English; and yet, such is the sublimity of the thought expressed, that none can fail to be affected by it, as by the most perfect form of metrical language. Indeed, so successfully and completely is the effect of poetry produced, that a somewhat rude prose translation of the Psalms, either in Latin or in English, is available for the purposes of music in a way that no other human compositions have ever been, or can be. Certainly, if a model were wanted which should serve as a universal type of poetry, we should turn instinctively to the Old Testament; for there, and there only, the phenomenon presents itself of poetry which again and again has been proved to be so in the languages of the east and west, and north and south. S. Leathes. 5. Thy wonders.** As the heavens are a proof of God's power, in respect of His first framing them out of nothing; so are they a pattern of God's faithfulness, in their constant and orderly motion according to His word since their framing: "The heavens shall praise Thy faithfulness also." However the power and faithfulness of God may be seen and heard in the work and speech of the heavens by all men, yet are they not observed and hearkened unto except in the Church by God's children; therefore saith he, "They shall praise Thy faithfulness also in the congregation of the saints." Dickson.—Thy faithfulness and the truth of Thy promise, that rock on which the Church is built, shall be praised in the congregation of the saints, who owe their all to His faithfulness, and whose constant comfort it is, that there is a promise, and that He is faithful who has promised. Anon. 7. To be feared.** Reverence in a reasonable creature is his conscious bowing of himself before One whom he knows to be worthy of such adoration from him, and whose presence and works he sees ever around and within himself; so that to such an one all is from God and all is leading up to God. Bishop Wilberforce.—Reverence is fear tempered by love. In the Old Testament, the fear predominated, in the New Testament, the love; but the sentiment of reverence pervades all religion on earth and in heaven. Whether as sacred dread or loving fear, it abideth always. W. B. Pope. There is beauty in reverence, there is joy in reverence, there is an uplifting and an ennobling power in reverence. He who lacks a reverent spirit lacks an attribute of the truest manhood. He who is reverent, and who gives reverence wherever it is due, shows more of the likeness, and grows more in the likeness, of Him who has commanded reverence as a duty, and to whom is due the supremest duty of reverence. Only in a reverent attitude is there the possibility of progress in the line of God's plans and God's providences; for at the best we cannot fully know God, and we must give reverent trust beyond our sphere of knowledge and of sight. H. C. T. **8. O Lord God of hosts, who is a strong Lord like unto Thee? Or Jehovah, God of Hosts, who is like Thee, Mighty Jah. Alexander remarks, that the infinite superiority of God to men and angels is here expressed, or rather indicated, by an accumulation of descriptive titles. Here we have the name which displays His self-existence, the title which denotes His dominion over all His creatures, and an adjective which sets forth the power with which he exercises His sovereignty. Yet this great and terrible God has entered into covenant with men! Who would not reverence Him with deepest love? S. Thy faithfulness is round about Thee. Whatever He doth, He is mindful of His faithfulness and covenant, before and behind, and on each side; He can look no way, but that is in His eye. And though He employ angels, and send them down into the world, and they stand round about Him, yet He hath better harbingers than these, mercy, and truth, and faithfulness, that wait round about Him. T. Goodwin. 9. Thou stillest them.** Let not faith go to sleep in our hearts when we have to face the storms and billows of this world. Do not be overcome by the waves which agitate the heart. If the wind has come down upon us, if it has stirred up the feelings of our soul, let us not despair; let us wake up Christ, that we may sail on in quietness, and reach our country. Aug. 9,10. The power of God in stilling the raging of the sea symbolizes His power to subdue the rebellious raging of the nations. Its introduction is fitly followed in the second line of the couplet by the mention of Rahab, a prophetic name of Egypt, and other enemies of God as scattered by His power. De Witt. 10. Thou didst crush, like the slain, Rahab; with Thine arm of strength Thou didst scatter Thy foes. This relates wholly to the sea of nations, in which Egypt stands first, as the earliest national enemy of Israel, and also perhaps because the power of Pharaoh, at the exodus, was literally broken in the sea. A. 11. *The world and the fulness thereof, all the riches contained in it, all the inhabitants of it, both the tenements and the tenants, they are all Thine; for Thou hast founded them. And the Founder may justly claim to be the Owner. He specifies the remotest parts of the world, the north and south, the countries that lie under the two poles which are uninhabited and little known; "Thou hast created them, and therefore knowest them, takest care of them, and hast tributes of praise from them." H. In Col. 1:16 the whole universe is, as it were, set in one class, and Christ alone over against it. No language could be more emphatically all-comprehensive. Four times in one sentence we have "all things"—the whole universe—repeated, and traced to Him as Creator and Lord. "In the heavens and the earth" is quoted from Genesis, and is intended here, as there, to be an exhaustive enumeration of the creation according to place. "Things visible or invisible" again includes the whole under a new principle of division; there are visible things in heaven, as sun and stars, there may be invisible on earth, but wherever and of whatever sort they are, He made them. "Whether thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers," an enumeration evidently alluding to the dreamy speculations about an angelic hierarchy filling the space between the far-off God, and men immersed in matter. So Paul groups together the whole universe of created beings, actual or imaginary, and then high above it, separate from it, its Lord and Creator, its upholder and end, he points to the majestic person of the only-begotten Son of God, His Firstborn, higher than all the rulers of the earth, whether human or superhuman. A. M. 12. Tabor and Hermon.** Mount Tabor represents the east side of the Holy Land, and Mount Hermon the west side. In connection with "the north and the south," in the preceding line, they fill out the conception of universal joy in the creative and sustaining power of God. De Witt.—They are mentioned as conspicuous mountains in a mountain land. Tabor, "remarkable for the verdure, which climbs—a rare sight in Eastern scenery—to its very summit;" Hermon, as its name imports, "The lofty, prominent peak," crowned with snow, the most striking of all the mountains of Palestine, are fit representatives of the whole country. P. Mount Tabor, now Jebel et Tûr, is one of the most striking and celebrated mountains of the Holy Land. It is not lofty, only 1400 feet above the plain, which here is 500 feet above the sea; but its peculiarly isolated position, standing out into the plain completely severed from the bank of Galilean hills behind it, its remarkable symmetry of form and graceful outline, its wooded slopes, in a land where timber is so scarce, its shaded leafy glades, have won for it universal admiration. The ascent to the top of Tabor is not difficult, and on its summit is a flattened platform, strewn with ruins of considerable importance, but now utterly uninhabited. The view from the summit gives the best idea of this part of Palestine. All the Plain of Esdraelon is spread like a map before us, from the Mediterranean past the ridge of Carmel, a vast expanse of green, to Jebel Duhy, with Nain and Endor in front and Mount Gilboa peering out behind them; then the slope down to the Valley of the Jordan by Bethshen, and the river for many miles up, till the eye rests on the Sea of Gillee, the south part of which is shut out from view, and the dark walls of the mountains of Gilead stretching far away. To the north the Horns of Hattin stand out over the hidden Plain of Gennesaret, and beyond is the high table-land of Bashan, as far as the rugged Hauran, while over Hattin towers the snowy peak of Hermon, and to the northeast the southern roots of Lebanon stretch to the sea. (See Vol. III., p. 187.) Hermon was the great landmark of the whole country to the northward. From the plains of the coast, from the Jordan valley, from Gilead and the highlands of Bashan alike, that white-crowned cone towers into the blue sky. Tristram. 14. Justice and judgment are the habitation of Thy throne.** The Holy Ghost alludeth to the thrones of earthly princes, which were underpropped with pillars, as Solomon's throne with lions, that were both a support and an ornament to it. Now, saith the Psalmist, justice and judgment are the pillars upon which God's throne standeth; as Calvin expoundeth it, the robe and diadem, the purple and sceptre, the regalia with which God's throne is adorned. Swinock. The Christian faith has come to be less and less regarded as a commanding and mighty power from heaven, a voice of authority, a law of holy life, but more and more as an easy-going guide to a future happiness and an indiscriminate salvation. The Gospel is a gift of grace; but if it does not keep the disciple out of the schemes of sharpers and liars, the grace has miscarried. The Gospel is love; but it has a law-element in it, too, which the saintliest Christian never outgrows. The Old Testament goes into the New. The Saviour says explicitly He came not to destroy the law, but to fill it full, and that He is coming again to judge every follower by his deeds. If you cut the New Testament apart from the Old, your one Bible is gone, and rationalism will pick the fragments to pieces at its leisure. We want that elder and eternal Testament which gives us the text, "Righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne." See how that word "righteous" studs all the Scripture-pages, and how the glorious reality it represents is the steadfast foundation of the welfare of souls, from the first creation on to the new heavens and the new earth. F. D. H. Mercy and truth go before Thy face. Not in the sense of preceding, but of standing in the presence of God; the two great attributes of the Lord God are, so to speak, personified, thus adumbrating the doctrine to be revealed, mercy incarnate in the Son, truth disclosed in the Spirit, that "leadeth into all truth." Cook. Justice and judgment are the basis of the Divine government, the sphere within which His sovereignty moves. God as a sovereign is never unjust or unwise. He is too holy to be unrighteous, too wise to be mistaken; this is constant matter for joy to the upright in heart. "Mercy and truth shall go before Thy face." They are the harbingers and heralds of the Lord; He calls these to the front to deal with guilty and changeful man; He makes them, in the person of the Lord Jesus, to be His ambassadors, and so poor, guilty man is enabled to endure the presence of his righteous Lord. If mercy had not paved the way, the coming of God to any man must have been swift destruction. Thus has the poet sung the glories of the covenant God. S. The sublimest spirits in heaven were at a loss how to unravel the difficulty and to find out the miraculous way to reconcile infinite mercy with inflexible justice—how to satisfy the demands of the one and the requests of the other. God was to overcome Himself before He restored man. In this exigence His mercy excited His wisdom to interpose as an arbiter, which, in the treasure of its incomprehensible light, found out an admirable expedient to save man without prejudice to His other perfections. And in the plan which was actually devised, there is a sweet concurrence of all the attributes. Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace kiss each other. Who can count up this heap of wonders? Who can unfold all the treasures of this mysterious love? The tongue of an angel cannot explicate it according to its dignity; it is the fairest copy of the Divine wisdom, the consummation of all God's counsels, wherein all the attributes are displayed in their brightest lustre; it is here the manifold wisdom of God appears. The angels of light bend themselves with extraordinary application of mind and ardent affections to study the rich and unsearchable variety that is in it. Only the same understanding comprehends it which contrived it. But as one that views the ocean, though he cannot see its bounds or bottom, yet sees so much as to know that that vast collection of waters is far greater than what is within the compass of his short sight, so, though we cannot understand all the depths of that immense wisdom which ordered the way of our salvation, yet we may discover so much as to know with the apostle that it surpasses knowledge. Bates. 15. Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound.** The trumpets sounded in token of joy at the great festivals, and chiefly on the first day of the seventh month, the feast of trumpets, and on extraordinary occasions, especially after the yearly atonement, on the day of jubilee, the tenth day of the seventh month of the fiftieth year, proclaiming liberty to bondmen, and restoration of their inheritance to them that had forfeited it (Lev. 25 : 8-10). As the jubilee joy did not come till after the atonement, so no Gospel joy and liberty are ours till first we know Christ as our atonement. Fausset.—The sound of the jubilee-trumpet was a joyful sound to servants and debtors, to whom it proclaimed release. The Gospel is indeed a joyful sound—a sound of victory, of liberty, of communion with God, and the sound of abundance of vain; blessed are the people that hear it, and know it, and bid it welcome. H. The text does not say, they shall sit down in the light of Thy countenance; or, they shall lie down in the light of Thy countenance; but “they shall WALK in the light of Thy countenance.” That holy walking which God’s Spirit enables all His people to observe is a continued, progressive motion in every good word and work. And the self-same “light of God’s countenance” in which the believer is enabled to walk will keep him in a walking and in a working state to the end. Toplady. 16. In Thy name shall they rejoice all the day.** To the soul which, in Christ Jesus, has entered into covenant with God, every attribute is a fountain of delight. There is no hour in the day, and no day in our life, in which we may not rejoice in the name, person, and character of the Lord. We need no other reason for rejoicing. S.—True religion is of right the happiest, gladdest thing in this world. It does not merely permit us to be glad, nor merely make it our duty to be glad. It offers such an opportunity, occasion, and reason for gladness, and turns everything into such a constant source of gladness, as nothing else on earth does or can do. It bids us “rejoice and be exceeding glad,” not to offset a gloom attending it, as we spice and sweeten medicines, but because it removes the cause of gloom from all things, and gives us power to turn the heaviest visitations themselves into blessings. Many other things bring delights, but we are sure to find their stream more or less mixed with things distasteful. They who reject religion, and we in so far as we misconstrue it, close or obstruct the only path to the pure headwaters of joy. And true religion always was the gladdest thing in the world. It is the very recipe for giving everything a permanent gladness. Man has not always given it a glad key-note; but that was always man’s fault, not religion’s necessity; and “Blessed is,” and always was and will be, “the people that know the joyful sound” of true religion, and key their life and worship to that note. Religion is not jocund, hilarious, pleasant to the senses; but it is the only influence permanently effective to make us independent of such conditions, and blessed in them and without them. Israel’s religion was a silver trumpet call to glad rejoicing. Cable. 19. The mention of the king in the preceding verse leads now to the resumption and expansion of the promise given to David. The two aspects of God’s relation to David and his house and kingdom are herein presented to us, an outward and an inward, corresponding to the two great attributes of God which are praised in vs. 1-18, His omnipotence and His faithfulness. To the first of these belong, David’s exaltation to the throne (v. 19); God’s constant aid, and hence his victory over his foes (vs. 21-23), and extended dominion (vs. 21, 25). To the second, which is the most prominent, God’s fatherly relation to David’s seed, which is shown in the exaltation to the dignity of a son, who is also the firstborn, and therefore holds the pre-eminence above all kings (vs. 26, 27); accordingly an everlasting covenant made with him and his seed, and an everlasting kingdom (vs. 28, 29); hence, too, the transgressions of his sons cannot make the covenant void (vs. 33, 34); with the assurance finally repeated, that this covenant, which God has once confirmed by an oath, cannot lie, and that therefore the seed as well as the throne of David must endure as the very heavens. P. 19,20. I have exalted one chosen out of the people.** In his extraction, election, and exaltation, David was an eminent type of the Lord Jesus, who is the man of the people, the chosen of God, and the king of His Church. S.—He has exalted Him, by constituting Him the prophet, priest, and king of His Church; clothing Him with power, raising Him from the dead, and setting him at His own right hand. Whom God chooses and uses He will exalt. He has anointed Him, has qualified Him for His office, and so confirmed Him in it, by giving Him the Spirit, not by measure, but without measure, infinitely above His fellows. He is called Messiah, or Christ, the Anointed. In all this, He designed Him to be His own servant, for the accomplishing of His eternal purpose, and the advancement of the interests of His kingdom among men. H. 21. The almightiness of God abides permanently with Jesus in His work as Redeemer and Ruler of His people. The fulness of Divine power shall attend Him. This covenant promise ought to be urged in prayer before the Lord, for the great lack of the Church at this time is power. We have everything except the Divine energy, and we must never rest content until we see it in full operation among us, and then there will be no lack of force in any of our Church agencies. S. 25. His kingdom should be greatly enlarged; I will set his hand in the sea; he shall have the dominion of the seas, and the isles of the sea, and his right hand in the rivers, the inland countries that are watered with rivers. David's kingdom extended itself to the great sea, and the Red Sea, to the river of Egypt, and the River Euphrates. But it is in the kingdom of the Messiah that this has its full accomplishment. H. 26. My Father.** Never until Christ uttered these words, never until He appeared on earth in humanity as the Son of God, did any man or any child of humanity address God in this endearing character. It was after Christ said, "I ascend unto My Father, and your Father," that believers were enabled to look up to God and to say, "Abba, Father." Here you see distinctly that this applies to Christ. He was the first to say this; David did not say it. Molyneaux. 27. My firstborn.** As he calls me "Father," so I not only acknowledge him as my son, but as my firstborn, and therefore my heir. (So Israel is called the firstborn, Ex. 4 : 22). P.—The great Jehovah, the Maker and the Owner and the Ruler of the universe, hath said respecting His Christ, "I will make Him my firstborn;" that is, I will constitute Him the chief of all creatures, and the depository of all power, and the possessor of all privileges, and the heir of all creation. By way of excellence, He is the firstborn, "higher than all the kings of the earth," enjoying priority in point of time, and precedence in point of place. Pitcairn.—When all power was given to Christ both in heaven and in earth, and all things were delivered unto Him by the Father, then God made Him His firstborn, and far higher, more great and honorable than the kings of the earth, for He is the King of kings, angels, authorities, and powers being made subject to Him (1 Pet. 3 : 22). 28. My mercy will I keep for Him, to be disposed of by Him forevermore; in the channel of Christ's mediation all the streams of Divine goodness will forever run. Therefore it is the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ which we look for unto eternal life (Jude 21; John 17 : 2). And as the mercy of God flows to us through Him, so the promise of God is, through Him, firm to us; My covenant shall stand fast with Him, both the covenant of redemption made with Him, and the covenant of grace made with us in Him. The new covenant is therefore always new, and firmly established, because it is lodged in the hands of a Mediator (Heb. 8 : 6). The covenant stands fast, because it stands upon this basis. H.—Is not Christ the Fountain of all mercy to us? Is it not the mercy of God the Father flowing to us through Christ that we enjoy? Is he not the Depository of it all? God says, then, I will keep it for Him; forever and ever shall it be lodged in Christ, and His people shall enjoy it throughout eternity. Molyneaux. 30. There follows a paraphrase of 2 Sam. 7 : 14. The chastisement is a necessary part of the paternal relationship (Heb. 12). The sins of individuals will be punished by God's fatherly correction, but the covenant cannot cease, the promises made to the seed as a whole cannot be withdrawn. Their unfaithfulness cannot make the faithfulness of none effect. P. 30-34. God here says two things: first, that He will chastise them; next, that He will not, on that account, cast them out of His covenant. Oh, wonderful tempering of the kindness and severity of God! in which He finds His own glory, and believers their safety! Daille.—When our heavenly Father is, as it were, forced to put forth His anger, He then makes use of a father's rod, not an executioner's axe. He will neither break His children's bones, nor His own covenant. He lashes in love, in measure, in pity, and compassion. T. Lye. 33. My mercy will I not utterly take from him.** If the covenant could be made void by our sins it would have been void long ere this. God may leave His people, and they may thereby suffer much and fall very low, but utterly and altogether He never can remove His love from them; for He adds, "nor suffer My faithfulness to fail." Man fails in all points, but God in none. To be faithful is one of the eternal characteristics of God, in which He always places a great part of His glory; His truth is one of His peculiar treasures and crown jewels, and He will never endure that it should be tarnished in any degree. This passage sweetly assures us that the heirs of glory shall not be utterly cast off. 35. Once have I sworn by My holiness that I will not lie unto David.** Because He could swear by no greater He swore by Himself, and by that peculiar attribute which is His highest glory, being the subject of threefold adoration by all the hosts of heaven, God here pledges the crown of His kingdom, the essence of His nature. In what stronger language can He express His unalterable adherence to the truth of His promise? We cannot imagine that God could lie, yet He puts it so, that if the covenant were not kept by Him, He would regard it as a lie. Here is ground for strong confidence. S.—When God plights His holiness He plights His right to the love, homage, and adoration of His creatures. He plights all claim upon their worship, veneration, and obedience. He virtually engages to abdicate His throne and to be stripped of the prerogatives that belong to Him, to lose His own self-respect, to forfeit forever His name, if He should be found unfaithful to His Word. What a security to the heirs of the promise! How can we hesitate in committing our souls, our interests for time and for eternity, to that everlasting covenant which is charged with the glory of God? What broader foundation could be laid for our faith? As if it were not enough to appeal to us upon the eternal principles of truth and justice and righteousness, as if these were too abstract and impalpable to arouse our sympathies and wake up a warm and living interest, God comes to us in a relation which is pre-eminently personal, and stands before us as one who has a Name to vindicate, and puts His faithfulness on a ground which, in the case of man, a creature like ourselves, we recognize as the most sacred and solemn of all sanctions. As certainly as God cannot deny Himself, as certainly as His own glory is the end of all His works, the scope of every manifestation of His being; as certainly as His own great name is dear to Him, so certainly shall every pledge of His love be redeemed. Not one word of all the good things He hath spoken shall ever fall to the ground. Heaven and earth may pass away, but the Word of the Lord abideth forever, and this is the Word which by the Gospel is preached unto us. Thornwell. 36. Endure forever.** Thus far David's seed and throne did endure, that, notwithstanding the wickedness of many of his posterity, who were the scandals of his house, yet his family continued in the imperial dignity a very long time; that, as long as Judah continued a kingdom, David's posterity were kings of it, and the royalty of that kingdom was never in any other family; and that the family of David continued a family of distinction till that Son of David came whose throne should endure forever. If David's posterity in aftertimes should forsake God and their duty and revolt to the ways of sin, God would bring desolating judgments upon them and ruin the family; and yet He would not take away His lovingkindness from David nor break His covenant with him, for in the Messiah, who should come out of his loins, all these promises shall have their accomplishment to the full. If we apply it to Christ, by His seed we are to understand His subjects, all believers, His spiritual seed, the children which God has given Him (Heb. 2 : 13). This is that seed which shall be made to endure forever, and His throne in the midst of them, in the Church, in the heart, as the days of heaven. To the end Christ shall have a people in the world to serve and honor Him; He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days. This holy seed shall endure forever in a glorified state, when time and days shall be no more; and thus Christ's throne and kingdom shall be perpetuated; the kingdom of His grace shall continue through all the ages of time, and the kingdom of His glory to the endless ages of eternity. H. The kingdom of David was an emblem, however faint, of that which would be erected by Jesus Christ; wonderfully preserved as was the throne of Judah, while the greatest monarchies were marked by perpetual vicissitudes; the kings of Israel were ever changing in their line, while the descendants of David maintained a direct succession. No Roman emperor, with the exception of Vespasian, was followed by his proper successor during a hundred and fifty years from the time of Julius Caesar; they passed and chased one another like shadows. Here, meanwhile, "in the house of Judah," was a preternatural stability, destined as an image (though an imperfect image) of the fixed, indestructible empire of Jesus Christ. His throne has never been shaken for a moment; He has appeared without a rival in the field. Who has ever dared to question His pretensions? who has dared to challenge a comparison with Him in prophecies, in miracles, in virtues, in doctrines? Not a doubt has been entertained among competent judges of His being the true Messiah. R. Hall. 37. Naturally reads: "As the moon shall it [His throne] stand forever, and the witness in the heavens is sure;" the moon on the sky, and the sun perhaps as well, are the witness that God has measured the duration of this promise by the existence of the sun and the moon, hung out before mortal eyes in the heavens. "Selah" fitly calls for special attention and meditation here, before the Psalmist passes on to other points. C. 46. The transition from expostulation to pleading, which of itself shows how the expostulation is to be understood. It is human weakness discovering to God its inmost heart. There is a sense of wrong, and the true man says that he feels it, speaks it out, and asks God to set it right. It is an example of the perpetual clash between convictions and facts. The pleading consists of two parts, each comprised in three verses. The argument of the first is the shortness of human life; that of the second, the dishonor cast upon God by the triumph of His enemies. P. 46-48. Remember, take into account. A great plea with God. The Psalmist is deeply impressed with the fleeting nature of all earthly things. Vanity seems to be written on all things under the sun. Death is the grand demonstration of the vanity of human things. Man's contemplations, desires, plans, purposes, proceedings, responsibilities, have a range beyond the boundaries of time. Death seems to cut them short and bring them to an abrupt and untimely end. Sheol is here equivalent to the grave. This trial of verses contains the plea that the life of man is vain, if it were not for the hopes founded on the promises of God. It is properly set apart by the Selah. M. 49-51. Here he comes to grand pleading, hand-to-hand work with the covenant angel. We may remind the Lord of His first deeds of love, His former love to His Church, His former favor to ourselves. Then may we plead His oath, and beg Him to remember that He has sworn to bless His chosen; and we may wrestle hard also, by urging upon Him His own character, and laying hold upon His inviolable truth. We may bring forth our strong reasons and debate the case with our condescending God, who has Himself said, "Come now, and let us reason together." S. What had become of the loving-kindness of God, what of His faithfulness, what of His power? Ethan, in his report of the promise, answered his own difficulty. The covenant with David depended upon conditions. Ethan himself states the supreme condition in the words of the Divine Author of the covenant: "If David's children forsake My law, and walk not in My judgments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their sin with scourges." Now, as always, the promises of God to His people are largely conditioned. If the gates of hell shall not prevail against His Church, much short of this may happen as a consequence of the unfaithfulness of her members or her ministers. Of this let us be sure, that if God's promises seem to any to have failed, the fault lies not with Him, but with ourselves; it is we who have changed, not He. H. P. L. 52. The Doxology is no part of the original Psalm, but was added subsequently to mark the close of the book. P. The Psalm is not directly Messianic; the whole tone of expostulation and prayer belongs to local and temporary circumstances; but the anticipations are grounded on promises which have their true fulfilment in Christ. It is a noble ode, and forms a fitting close to the book, which contains the deep teaching of seers trained in the school of David. The concluding words, though added to mark the completion of this division, seem to have a special connection with the beginning of the Psalm, and express the innermost and permanent conviction of the composer. Cook. The idea of the Covenant on which Jehovah entered with Israel is the fundamental and principal idea of the entire Old Testament religion. Though the covenant is in idea a compact relation, involving a reciprocity of obligations, still the mutual obligations have been fixed wholly by the one side, by Jehovah in the exercise of His unconditioned freedom and independence. Jehovah, therefore, is the sole Founder of the Covenant. In the absolute freedom of His gracious will, He has chosen Israel from among all the peoples of the earth to be His peculiar people (Ex. 19 : 5 ; Amos 3 : 2). Thus, in consequence of the election and the covenant, Jehovah is the God of Israel, and Israel is His holy and peculiar people. To devout Israelites ceremonial intercourse with Jehovah was, by the very fact of its externality, unsatisfactory; it could not in their eyes be what was intended in the covenant and the election. Every godly man, who carried the law of God in his heart and had his delight in the commands of Jehovah, every one who in any degree knew from his own intimate experience who the God of grace enlightens and leads the individual by His Holy Spirit, how inwardly near to Him accepted suppliants come, how He hears and answers them when they call upon Him, and what bliss it is to be able to call God his inheritance and his portion, would necessarily recognize in this inwardness of communion with his God what is most of all essential to the realization of the idea of the covenant. Richm. 1. LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place In all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. 3 Thou turnest man to destruction [or, dust]; And sayest, Return, ye children of men. 4 For a thousand years in thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, And as a watch in the night. 5 Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: In the morning they are like grass which groweth up. 6 In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; In the evening it is cut down, and withereth. 7 For we are consumed in thine anger, And in thy wrath are we troubled. 8 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, Our secret sins in the light of thy counte- nance. 9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: We bring our years to an end as a tale that is told [or, a sound or sigh]. 10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten, Or even by reason of strength fourscore years; Yet is their pride but labour and sorrow; For it is soon gone, and we fly away. 11 Who knoweth the power of thine anger, And thy wrath according to the fear that is due unto thee? 12 So teach us to number our days, That we may get us an heart of wisdom. 13 Return, O LORD; how long? And let it repent thee concerning thy ser- vants. 14 O satisfy us in the morning with thy mercy; That we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 15 Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, And the years wherein we have seen evil. 16 Let thy work appear unto thy servants, And thy glory upon their children. 17 And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: And establish thou the work of our hands upon us; Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. The Eternal God the only Refuge for Mortal Man. THE Fourth Book, according to the ancient traditional division of the Psalter, opens with the oldest Psalm in the collection; or rather the author of the present arrangement, who was probably no other than Ezra, placed this sublime composition by itself, between the two great divisions of the book, containing respectively the earlier and later Psalms. It may therefore be regarded as the heart or centre of the whole collection, and indeed as the model upon which even David, "the sweet Psalmist of Israel," formed that glorious body of psalmodic literature or hymnology, which, with its later but inspired and authoritative imitations, constitutes the present Book of Psalms. The date of the composition, though uncertain because not recorded, may with most probability be fixed near the close of the Error in the Wilderness, when the dying out of the older generation on account of their transgressions, and the threatened exclusion of Moses himself from the Promised Land, were exactly suited to produce such views of man's mortality and sinfulness as are here presented, but without destroying the anticipation of a bright futurity, such as really ensued upon the death of Moses, and is prospectively disclosed in the conclusion of this Psalm. Its great theme is the frailty and brevity of human life, considered as the consequence of sin, and as a motive to repentance and obedience. He first contrasts the eternity of God with the mortality of man (vs. 1-6), which is then described as the effect of the Divine wrath on account of sin (vs. 7-11), and made the ground of a prayer for the speedy restoration of the Divine favor (vs. 12-17). A. The Fourth Book of the Psalms begins with a prayer of Moses, the man of God, which comes out of the dying off of the older generation during the march through the wilderness. There is scarcely any memorial of antiquity which so brilliantly justifies the testimony of antiquity concerning its origin as does this Psalm. Not alone with respect to its contents, but with respect to the form of its language, it is perfectly suitable to Moses. Even Hitzig can bring nothing against this view; for the objection that the author, in v. 1, glances back upon past generations, while Israel was only born in the time of Moses, is removed by the consideration that the existence of Israel reaches back into patriarchal times. Delitzsch. The correctness of the title which ascribes the Psalm to Moses is confirmed by its unique simplicity and grandeur; its appropriateness to his times and circumstances, as already stated; its resemblance to the Law in urging the connection between sin and death; its similarity of diction to the poetical portions of the Pentateuch, without the slightest trace of imitation or quotation; its marked unlikeness to the Psalms of David, and still more to those of later date; and finally the proved impossibility of plausibly assigning it to any other age or author. The arguments against its authenticity have commonly been framed by a preposterous inversion of the evidence, converting into proofs of later date the very points of similarity which prove that this was the original and model Psalm, the primeval basis upon which even David reared a noble superstructure of his own. A. There are important internal reasons which may be urged in favor of the composition of the Psalm by Moses, as announced in the title. The poem bears throughout the stamp of high antiquity; there is no other Psalm which so decidedly conveys the impression of being the original expression of the feelings to which it gives utterance. There is, moreover, no other Psalm which stands so much by itself, and for which parallel passages furnish so little kindred matter in its characteristic peculiarities. On the other hand, there occurs a series of striking allusions to the Pentateuch, especially to the poetical passages, and above all others to Deut. 32, allusions which are of a different kind from those which occur in other passages in the Psalms, and which do not appear, like them, to be borrowed. Luther remarks in the Psalm another peculiarity: "Just as Moses acts in teaching the Law, so does he in this prayer. For he preaches death, sin, and condemnation, in order that he may alarm the proud who are secure in their sins, and that he may set before their eyes their sin and evil, concealing, hiding nothing." The strong prominence given to the doctrine of death as the wages of sin is characteristic of the Psalm a doctrine of not frequent occurrence in Holy Scripture, and especially not in the Psalms, and which is proclaimed as distinctly and impressively as it is here only in the Pentateuch (Gen. 2, 3) and in those ordinances of the ceremonial law which threaten death. Hengstenberg. This Psalm, which some one has called "a Psalm for every age," and of which Herder testified that it is "a wonderful, a striking poem, dating from the oldest part of Israel's history, pervaded by a deep and startling earnestness, stately and slow, but free from everything that savors of despair"—this is a Psalm which well might bear the name of Moses. In this poetic prayer it is as impossible to mistake the earnest spirit of the lawgiver as the faithful spirit of the mediator; and though there are particular expressions here and there which would be quite as suitable for other lips, and equally appropriate to other circumstances, yet the whole poem, which is quite inimitable, and in which there is a touching interchange of complaint and questioning, could, we believe, have arisen only in a heart like that of Moses, and in such a period as has been named. Van O.—The contents of the Psalm, its profound earnestness, and solemn treatment of the theme of man's weakness and misery through sin, are worthy of Moses, and suitable to the close of his life in the desert. Hupfield.—There is something in the Psalm that is wonderfully striking and solemn, acquainting us with the profoundest depths of the Divine nature. These awful thoughts may well have occurred to Moses at the close of his wanderings; and the author, whoever he may be, is plainly a man grown gray with a vast experience, here taking his stand at the end of his earthly course. Ewald. It is the oldest of stories, sung in this oldest of Psalms; of human weakness, turning in dismay from the change and decay about it, to find refuge in the eternity of God. The Psalm belongs to the nineteenth century no less than to Moses' time. It deals with universal and not with temporary and local truths. Let us not be repelled from it because its undertone is sad and solemn; for its lesson is wholesome if sad, bracing if bitter, and leading up to conclusions full of comfort and rest. In this Psalm we are not suffered to waste time in the attempt to comprehend the abstract truth of God's eternity. The truth itself is plainly shown to have a practical bearing upon our mortal life, and this is the chief end for which it is presented. We are lifted for the moment, in order that we may descend; suffered to grasp a few of the treasures of the Divine glory, that we may carry them back to glorify our earthly life. V. It is in the main a Psalm of mortality; and yet its primary thought is not mortality, but eternity. It opens with the note of eternal being. The idea of the eternal stands as a great light in front of the darkness. Man is mortal, but God is; and God is the Eternal, the home, the dwelling-place, of all generations. This is the grand peculiarity of Hebrew and of Christian thought, that God is first, man only second; that the eternal Being is the true Being, the present visible or transitory being only the derivative being, appearing and then vanishing away, according to the direction of the other. But there is more in this brief word than the general assertion of eternal being, and of a great primary power directing, controlling, all nature and all life. The character of this Being is further so far defined. He is a Being full of affection, and care, and thoughtful and deliberate love. He is not only Creator; He is Father. The assurance is that we have a supreme Heart above us, responsive to our hearts; that there is a spiritual home encompassing us, a life that changes not with the varying pulses of our thought and feeling. J. Tulloch. The ninetieth Psalm might be cited as perhaps the most sublime of human compositions, the deepest in feeling, the loftiest in theological conception, the most magnificent in its imagery. True is it in its report of human life as troubled, transitory, and sinful. True in its conception of the Eternal, the Sovereign, and the Judge, and yet the refuge and the hope of men who, notwithstanding the most severe trials of their faith, lose not their confidence in Him; but who, in the firmness of faith, pray for, as if they were predicting, a near-at-hand season of refreshment. Wrapped, one might say, in mystery, until the distant day of revelation should come, there is here conveyed the doctrine of immortality; for in this very plaint of the brevity of the life of man, and of the sadness of these his few years of trouble, and their brevity and their gloom, there is brought into contrast the Divine immutability; and yet it is in terms of a submissive piety; the thought of a life eternal is here in embryo. No taint is there in this Psalm of the pride and petulance, the half-uttered blasphemy, the malign disputing or arraignment of the justice or goodness of God, which have so often shed a venomous color upon the language of those who have writhed in anguish personal or relative. There are few, probably, among those who have passed through times of bitter and distracting woe, or who have stood the helpless spectators of the miseries of others, that have not fallen into moods of mind violently in contrast with the devout and hopeful melancholy which breathes throughout this ode. Rightly attributed to the Hebrew Law-giver or not, it bespeaks its remote antiquity, not merely by the majestic simplicity of its style, but negatively by the entire avoidance of those sophisticated turns of thought which belong to a late, a lost age in a people's intellectual and moral history. This Psalm undoubtedly is centuries older than the moralizings of that time when the Jewish mind had listened to what it could never bring into a true assimilation with its own mind, the abstractions of the Greek philosophy. With this one Psalm only in view, if it were required of us to say, in brief, what we mean by the phrase, "The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry," we find our answer well condensed in this sample. This magnificent composition gives evidence not merely as to the mental qualities of the writer, but as to the tastes and habitudes of the writer's contemporaries, his hearers, and his readers; on these several points, first, the free and customary command of a poetic diction, and its facile imagery, so that whatever the poetic soul would utter, the poet's material is near at hand for his use. There is then that depth of feeling, mournful, reflective, and yet hopeful and trustful, apart from which poetry can win for itself no higher esteem than what we bestow upon other decorative arts, which minister to the demands of luxurious sloth. There is, moreover, as we might say, underlying this poem, from the first line to the last, the substance of philosophic thought, apart from which, expressed or understood, poetry is frivolous, and is not in harmony with the seriousness of human life; this Psalm is of a sort which Plato would have written, or Sophocles, if only the one or the other of these minds had possessed a heaven-descended theology. Isaac Taylor. 1. In the first place, this splendid thought of the Divine eternity is made to touch the shifting and inconstant character of our earthly state, by the single word "dwelling-place." "Lord, a home hast Thou been to us, in generation and generation." V.—Our dwelling-place; or, "a place of refuge for us." The word, which occurs Deut. 33 : 27, would have a peculiar force of meaning for the Israelites in the wilderness; for Israel was without a country and without a home, finding here and there only a brief resting-place beside the well and under the palms of the desert. And Israel was without a refuge, exposed to enemies and a thousand perils. P. "Our dwelling-place," our home (so the Hebrew) or place of rest. Ranging this houseless desert; ploughing these trackless sands; clambering these stony hills; threading these treeless valleys, with never a place of rest anywhere to the soles of our weary feet—such is our life; and it is only when our eye rests on the pillar of Thy glory standing above our sacred tent that we get the first idea of a home. In a wilderness, if God dwells in it, there may be a home, but it must be in God only. So it was with our fathers, the patriarchs, in their wanderings. Their God was their dwelling-place through all their generations. Apart from God there was no sense of home in their souls. C. How far back into the past may the patriarch have been looking when he spake these words? The burning bush, the fiery furnace of Egypt, the Red Sea, Pharaoh with his chariots of war, and the weary march of Israel through the wilderness, were all before him; and in all of them he had experienced that "God is the Rock, His work perfect, all His ways judgment" (Deut. 32 : 4). But Moses was looking beyond these scenes of his personal history when he said, "Thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations." He was casting in his mind how God had been the refuge of Jacob and Isaac, of Abraham, Noah, and all the patriarchs. Moses could take a retrospect of above a thousand years, which had all confirmed the truth. I can look back to the days of Moses and Joshua and David, and descending thence to the days of the Son of God upon earth, and of Paul and Peter, and all the saints of the Church down to the present hour; and what a thousand years avouched to Moses, three thousand now avouch to me: the Lord is the dwelling-place of those that trust in Him from generation to generation. And to Him who was the refuge of a Moses and an Abraham, I too in the day of trouble can lift my hands. Delightful thought! That great Being who, during the lapse of three thousand years, amid the countless changes of the universe, has to this day remained unchanged, is my God. Tholuck.—This exordium breathes life and pertains to a certain hope of the resurrection and of eternal life, since he calls God our place of refuge, to whom fleeing we may be in safety. For if God is our dwelling-place, and God is life, and we dwellers in Him, it necessarily follows that we are in life, and shall live forever. For who will call God the dwelling-place of the dead? Who shall regard Him as a sepulchre? He is life; and therefore they also live to whom He is a dwelling-place. Luther. In this verse he is the spokesman and representative of all that is good and great in the past annals of mankind. He is speaking for the living; he is speaking also for the dead. The spiritual experience which these words represent is continually deeper and wider; and they are repeated at this moment by more souls in heaven and earth than ever before, souls which have found in them the motto and the secret of life, whether in struggle or in victory. H. P. L.—In God there is scope for the widest excursions of the mind, the highest elevations of thought and feeling; in His favor and friendship there are unknown possibilities of bliss. "He is the dwelling-place" of all His people in all ages; there is room in Him for all. He who supplies all with natural good here below, fills, at the same time, all the heavenly beings with the eternal effluxes of His light, and love, and joy! He is an immense, and therefore an adequate good to all. R. Hall. God did not make us for death, but for life. If He has appointed a tent for our sojourn, He has reared a building for our dwelling. Moses, in that old Psalm, voices the truth. There is nothing eternal but God. There is no warrant of man's eternity but God. There is no eternal home for man but in God. The old lawgiver looked forth from the tent where a generation was dying out in the wilderness; looked away from the purple mountains, the most impressive symbol of stability which the earth furnishes; looked away into what would have been vacancy to many another eye, and saw the eternal home there. . . . Thought has tended too much to the violent separation of the mortal life from the eternal life; has tended to set them in contrast and opposition instead of in harmony; has tended to regard them as representing different economies, instead of as being included in one and the same economy. We draw the line sharply between life and death; and yet many a scientist will tell you that death is the beginning of life; and Christ and Paul (2 Cor. 5 : 1) tell you that in unmistakable terms. And what we want clearly to apprehend with reference to this mortal, transitory tent-life of ours, is that it has a definite relation to the permanent spiritual life of the future; that it serves a purpose of preparation and development toward that life; that it furnishes a basis, a soil in which the seeds of the spiritual life are sown; and that, therefore, instead of being despised and neglected because it is temporary and destined to dissolution, it is to be cherished and cultivated as the real and effective ministrant of the eternal life. "He that wrought us for this very thing is God." If God made us merely to die, and if death is the end, why, then, life has very little significance. If He made us to live forever, and if our life here fits into that life beyond, and prepares us for it, then life is not only significant, but gets its chief significance from that other thing for which God hath wrought us, the building of God eternal in the heavens. V. 2. From everlasting.** Would you gather some idea of the eternity past of God's existence? Go to the astronomer, and bid him lead you with him in one of his walks through space; and, as he sweeps outward from object to object, from universe to universe, remember that the light from those filmy stains on the deep pure blue of heaven, now falling on your eye, has been traversing space for a million of years. O. M. Mitchell.—The earth, from her deep foundations, unites with the celestial orbs that roll through boundless space to declare the glory and show forth the praise of their common Author and Preserver; and the voice of natural religion accords harmoniously with the testimonies of revelation, in ascribing the origin of the universe to the will of one eternal and dominant intelligence, the Almighty Lord and supreme First Cause of all things that subsist; the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made, God from everlasting and without end. Buckland. Moses was surrounded by the unchanging mountains, and before him was the Land of Promise, to which he was leading the people; and so there came to him the thought of the everlasting God, whose covenant of mercy is as unchangeable as the mountains. The personal and absolute existence of Jehovah, His perpetual providence over the world, and His eternal power and glory in the creation, are here asserted as strongly as in the first chapter of Genesis. This thought of God's eternity, while it inspires awe and humility, is the true ground of confidence and hope. We can trust in the Word and the grace of the unchanging Jehovah. He can give permanence to our feeble aims, and hopes of good; and, if we apply our hearts to His ways, we shall find in Him the life everlasting. J. P. T. 3. Thou turnest man even to dust, and sayest, Return, sons of Man (or, Adam)!** The evident allusion to Gen. 3 : 19, which is also found in Job. 10 : 9; 34 : 15, and reappears in Psalm 104 : 29, may serve to determine the meaning of the word translated dust in the first clause, but which is properly an adjective signifying crushed, broken to pieces, ground to powder, and is figuratively applied, in Psalm 34 : 18, to brokenness of heart. The shortness and fragility of human life is thus brought into the strongest contrast with the eternity of God. A.—Return is put here as a second fiat of the Almighty; the first (ideally) summoning man forth from dust into organized body instinct with life; the second, remanding him back again: Return to your primeval dust, ye sons of men! It is in point here to recall the words of the Lord to Adam, then representing the race: "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return." C. Ye children. Two of the greatest lessons which Christ came to teach us were the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Look at man in himself, look at man as he makes himself by yielding to and aiding in the fraud and malice of the devil, and hardly any language can be too bitter to describe his baseness and his degradation. But look at man in the light of revelation; look at him under the triple, overarching rainbow of faith, hope, and love; look at him ransomed and ennobled into filial relationship with God, and you will see at once where men have learned their high faith in their own being and the dignity of God's image upon them, and who it is that has taught them to speak in such noble accents about themselves. Farrar. 4. Even the patriarchal measure, which so often approximated to a thousand years, was in God's sight like a single day in man's, or rather like a mere subdivision of it, a third part of the night, which was divided by the ancient Hebrews into three watches. That this division was as old as Moses may be seen from Ex. 14 : 24. When it is past, or passing. It might also be translated, for it passes, i.e., no less hastily and swiftly. This verse is quoted and amplified, but without any change of meaning (2 Pet. 3 : 8). A. A watch in the night. The night was anciently divided into three, later into four watches. There is a climax; for the past day, short as it seems, was, while it was passing, capable of measurement; it had its hours and its minutes, its thoughts and its acts, and its memories. But the night-watch "is for us as though it were not; we sleep through the watch of the night, living, but observing nothing." "In those words, 'a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday,' etc., the Psalmist has thrown a light upon the nature of God such as a volume of reasoning could not have kindled. With God there are no measures of time. With us time is the name we give to the duration of a certain succession of thoughts and efforts, each of which for a moment held full possession of us." P. —"This present time," especially as restricted to the life of individuals, when compared with endless duration, resembles an atom compared with the universe! With the eternal God the most distant periods of time coalesce; they meet in the same point, the creation and the last judgment, the beginning and the end of time, succeed to each other as the morning succeeds to the night, while the whole intervening lapse of duration passes as merely a watch in the night! R. Hall. 5. Thou carriest them away as with a flood.** Journeying oft amid mountains penetrated by deep and narrow valleys, Moses knew what a mountain torrent was in those pent-up defiles, a boiling, roaring flood, filling a valley sometimes to the depth of four hundred feet, carrying down huge boulders of rock as though they were so many pebbles, and sweeping whole families to destruction. Remember that a single thunder-storm, with a heavy shower of rain, falling on the naked granite mountains, is sufficient to convert a dry and level valley into a roaring river in a few short hours, and you have some faint idea of the intensity with which the swiftness of man's passage from time to eternity appealed to the mind of Moses. V. They are as a sleep. The comparison of human life to a sleep or dream is common in all languages. The morning is mentioned as the time of waking, the time when we are most impressed with the unsubstantial nature of our dreams. A.—Sleep is but short, and the sweeter it is the shorter it seems to be. And as it is but short of itself, though it should last the full swing of nature, so the soundest sleep is easily broken, and a number of means and occasions there be to interrupt and break it off. And is it not so with the life of man? Is not the longest life short? Is it not the shorter, the sweeter and fuller of contents it is? And is it not easily taken away? Are there not many means to bring us unto our end? even as many as there are to waken us out of sleep. W. Bradshaw. As grass that springs in the morning. For all the days that are past of our life, death hath them rather than we, and they are already in its possession; when we look back on them, they appear but as a shadow or dream, and if they be so to us, how much more short are they in the sight of God? So says David, When I look on Thee and Thy eternity, mine age is as nothing before Thee; what is our life, being compared to God, before whom a thousand years are but as one day, and less, like yesterday, when it is past, and that is but a thought! The whole duration of the world is but a point in respect of eternity; and how small a point is the life of man, even in comparison with that! Leighton. 6. Moses had seen the whole generation that came with him out of Egypt perish in the wilderness. In looking back over the forty years of the wandering, they seemed as a dream. A nation had vanished like the grass that springs up along the scanty water-courses of the desert, and withers beneath the scorching sun. It was as if a swift torrent from the gorges of the mountains had flooded their encampment and carried them away. Such is the littleness, the brevity of human life, when measured by itself; and such has been the ceaseless ongoing of the tide of destruction since first death entered the world by sin. Through all the bustle and enterprise, the gayety, and ambition of the world, is still heard the sad refrain, "Return to dust, ye children of men." J. P. T.—The sense of the nothingness of life is much deepened when we contrast it with the capabilities of us who live it. Our earthly life gives promise of what it does not accomplish. It promises immortality, yet it is mortal; it contains life in death and eternity in time, and it attracts us by beginnings which faith alone brings to an end. Newman. 7-12. Such is the striking and significant contrast with which this ancient Psalm opens. On one hand, the eternal years of God; on the other, man, who is a dream, a night watch, a fading flower. But the author is not a mere poet; he does not waste time in sentimental reflections upon life's brevity as compared with God's eternity, but proceeds to give the reasons for human frailty. Chambers. 7. For; explanatory, not argumentative. The reason of all this transitoriness is to be found in Israel's sin, which has provoked God's heavy displeasure against His people. The use of the first person and the past tenses shows that the writer is dealing with the facts of his own history and that of his people. P. 8. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret (sins) in the light of Thy countenance. As man's mortality is the effect of God's wrath, so this wrath itself is the effect of sin. And this sin becomes the cause of death. The verse before us represents God in the act of shortening man's life, and gives the necessary explanation of what might otherwise have seemed at variance with His infinite benevolence. The Bible, as an eminent interpreter has well said, throws the blame of death entirely on man himself. When God slays man, He puts his sins before him, looks directly at them; not only those which are notorious, but those which are concealed from every eye but that of omniscience. The precise sense seems to be that God holds our sins to the light of His own countenance, and therefore cannot fail to see them. A.—The light of God's countenance is everywhere else spoken of as a light of love and approbation. Here it is a revealing light. The "light" or rather "sun" of God's countenance shines down into the dark abysses of the human heart, bringing out its hidden evils into strong and painful relief. P. God sees our iniquities. They are "before Him." When they are committed, they are committed before His face; not in His presence merely, but directly in His sight. He consequently sees them distinctly, clearly, thoroughly. None of them can escape Him, none deceive Him. This truth the Psalmist most forcibly expresses. He bids us look on our sins as arrayed "in the light of Jehovah's countenance." And who can tell us what that light is? The sun which is shining in the heavens throws around us day by day a glorious splendor; it discovers to us more iniquity on the earth than we can sometimes bear the sight of without a pang; but what is the light of yonder sun compared with the brightness of the Almighty's face? It is utter darkness. And yet in the brightness of that face are all our sins committed, all seen. The follies of our childhood, the iniquities of our youth, the misdeeds of our riper years; the sins of our hands, the sins of our lips, the sins of our hearts; our sins in company, our sins alone; our sins in our business, our sins in our pleasures; our sins at home, our sins abroad; our light-heartedness and pride in our prosperity, and our impatience, and murmuring, and rebellion in our troubles; our stifled convictions, our forgotten resolutions, our broken vows; our contempt of the wrath of God, our abuse of His mercy; above all, the little value we have set on the great salvation of His dear Son—it is of all these, in all their multitude and all their enormity, of which Moses here speaks. He calls them ours. Not satisfied with laying them on our heads, he bids us look on them as altogether our own. C. Bradley. 9. For all our days are gone in Thine anger; we spend our years like a thought. The all in the first clause is emphatic. What he says is true of our whole life. Are gone, literally, turned away, as an act preparatory to departure. The word we translate thought is elsewhere applied to audible sound as the spontaneous expression of thought or feeling to one's self. A.—We are still losing and spending life as we enjoy it; yea, our very enjoying it is the spending it; yesterday's life is dead to-day, and so shall this day's life be to-morrow. We spend our years, says Moses, as a tale, or as a thought, so swift and vanishing is it. Each word helps a tale toward its end, and while it lasts it is generally vanity, and when it is done it vanishes as a sound in the air. Leighton. As a tale that is told. As we listen to the attractive story of friend or stranger, with mind and heart so absorbed that the very consciousness of continued existence for moments or hours is utterly lost, so under the unbroken spell of swiftly succeeding events and experiences, days, months, years are unconsciously spent and gone. To him that meditates upon a life of forty, fifty, sixty years, how like a tale that is told are all that he has spent! How strangely, as by a force he could not resist, set on a path of life he has not planned, has he been hurried along through the shifting scenes of childhood, youth and manhood! Startling, indeed, piercing to the quick of the sensitive soul, is the realized thought of this pauseless, onward movement of time! Alas! who does think upon, who has realized it? As each day has risen out of and sunk again into eternity, who of us has heard its solemn questioning voices, one as the day has risen, asking, "What will you do with the work set before you of God?" the other, as the day has departed, inquiring, "What have you done, toiled, and achieved for God and man, or idled, slept, and so wasted opportunities never to return?" B. However long it may appear in looking forward, when counting the years of which it may consist, the longest life seems short in the retrospect; except, indeed, in some cases, where there may have been great activity, many changes, and much sorrow. To our consciousness, time takes its measurement from what we do or endure. With the busy man time is quick in its passage, but protracted to memory, from the number of links which go to make up what can be recalled. To the indolent and inactive it is slow and wearisome, but seems as nothing when it is past, for there is nothing to be remembered. The hearing of a story is attended by a rapid and passing interest; it leaves behind it a vague impression, beyond which comparatively but few incidents may stand out distinctly in the afterthought. The story ended; and then came the sense of shortness, brevity, the rapid flight of the period employed by it, with something like a feeling of wonder and dissatisfaction at the discovery of this. Another thought in relation to those who live only for excitement. They are just like the men habitually devoted to listening to a story-teller. No sooner is one tale done, than they want another. They think of nothing but the impression of the moment. They want the pleasure repeated, though they know very well that they may have only to listen to an old story, or that even a new one will but feebly reproduce the pleasurable excitement which attended their entrance into the charmed circle. It is the same with those who live for enjoyment rather than work. They cry out for the repetition of that which has ceased to satisfy; and they go on, trying to prolong or to vary excitements which they perfectly well know have come to be to them as "a thrice-told tale." For a final and more important thought. It is for each of us to remember that life is no fiction, no mere tale, though it may look like one. It is something inexpressibly serious, something terribly and grandly real. It is to be spent, subject to the action of those universal and eternal laws under which God has placed us, and which, in the end, will have momentous issues, whether men now think so or not. By reason of sin, the whole aspect of things is broken and confused; derangement and dislocation are everywhere; yet, through the grace of God and the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, our poor, weak, guilty nature can be so restored and purified, so raised and helped, that life, instead of being like a tale told by an itinerant story-teller, shall put on the appearance of a sublime epic, of which the substance and the song shall be alike Divine. We may so spend our threescore years and ten that, at the end of them, instead of feeling that they have passed like a poor story that comes to nothing, or stooping to take up the splenetic complaint of the remorseful and disappointed—"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity"—we may be able to adopt the noble and lofty language of one who was conscious that, by God's help, he had really lived to some purpose: "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course. I ran, not as uncertainly; I fought, not as one that beateth the air. I am now ready to be offered. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love His appearing." T. Binney. Death comes as a flood, violently and suddenly; we are as a sleep; we are as grass; our life is like a dream; we spend our days as a tale that is told. All these similitudes Moses hath in this Psalm, as if he wanted words and examples to express the vanity, frailty, and shortness thereof. Samuel Smith. 10. This dark shadow extends over the whole of life, and not only its close. "All our days" bear the same stamp, and even when they stretch out into years, still they fly away "as a thought," a comparison used by Homer and Theognis, yet without the underlying thought of Moses that the flight is retributive. This conception is here expanded with great force and beauty. The poet exclaims as in amazement, The days of our years! What are they, or what do they amount to? Threescore and ten is the usual limit, but even when that is exceeded there is small room for glorying, for "their pride" (as the literal rendering is), that which causes us to be proud, health, strength, honor, riches, etc., all—all is mere toil and emptiness. Chambers. The time of our life is threescore years and ten (saith Moses), or rack it to fourscore, though not one in every fourscore arrives to that account, yet can we not be said to live so long ; for take out ten years for infancy and childhood, wherein we scarce remember what we did, or whether we lived or no ; and how short it is then ? Take out of the remainder a third part for sleep, wherein we lie senseless, and how short is it then ? Take out yet besides the time of our worldly care, wherein we seem both dead and buried in the affairs of the world, and how short is it then ? So short is that life which nature allows, and yet we sleep away part, and play away part, and the cares of the world have a great part, so that the true spiritual and Christian life hath little or nothing in the end. Robert Wilkinson. 11. The entire sentiment of the verse is : Who has ever fully comprehended the power and the results of God's displeasure against sin, as we see them in the universal mortality of the race, and in all the pains and woes which fill this earthly life ? Who estimates this with such fear of God as the facts inspire ? C. — So far as one can see from the present arrangements of the world, it is God's way to withdraw for the most part from our view the sterner features of His character, while He puts forward and emphasizes everywhere His gracious and fruitful goodness. The mere power or strength of God is itself rather concealed than thrust upon us. It hides itself behind the order within which He is pleased to exert it. The extent to which God's strength might come to be at the service of His anger, and be used by Him to destroy, is still more closely veiled from us by the uniform beneficence of His creation. Only occasionally does nature suggest wrath. Her deliberate arrangements are all inspired by goodness. The experience which we have had of God in our own lives is to the same effect ; our bitter days we count upon our fingers, our happier ones by years. Judgment is God's strange work ; but His tender mercies are over all His works. Seeing that God intends His latent wrath to remain as yet concealed from us and hath Himself been at pains to conceal it, by what means shall we search it out ? The writer of this Psalm puts into our hand a standard of comparison which, though insufficient, is at least approximative. The wrath of God, he says, is "according to His fear ;" to His fearfulness, that is, or His fitness for inspiring in the bosoms of men an awful and sacred dread. Whatever suggests to our minds the enormous strength of God as against our weakness suggests how terrific His wrath may be if He will. But in order to estimate the capacity of wrath in the Almighty we need to know more than His strength, more than His material terribleness. One event in history expresses to the full the moral terribleness of God. The Passion of Jesus Christ is the crown of all terrible things, and the supreme measure not only of God's mercy, but quite as really of God's severity. According to His fearfulness, so is His wrath. Dykes. 12. The eternal being of God is used to convict us of delusion. We measure life by false standards. The Psalm brings us back to the true rule of measurement. "A thousand years, in Thy sight, are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. Teach us to number our days by Thy standard, that we may be wise." That old delusion, older than Moses, is woven into man's very nature, and is fed and flattered with every gilded cheat that his fancy can devise ; the delusion which leads him to think seventy years a long time. We need Moses to call to us out of the desert, and tell us that even the patriarchs' lives of centuries are represented to God's eye by a vanished yesterday, or a brief night-watch. What life is long, measured by an eternal standard ? Well said Bengel, "As to a rich man, a thousand pounds are as a penny, so to God, a thousand years are as a day." Evidently we are poor reckoners when life is a factor of the problem. We need eternal wisdom to teach us to number our days, so as to apply our hearts unto wisdom. V. There is nothing in eternity but what springs out of time ; all the good which eternity has in store and all the evil, all the promises and all the threatenings of God in Scripture, all will be realized in consequence of and in proportion to the improvement or abuse of the present time of our probation. The less there remains of this precious article, the more valuable it should appear ; the narrower becomes the isthmus that separates us from eternity, the more time seems to enlarge itself in moral magnitude ; in a word, to squander time is to squander all. R. Hall. — There is no saying shocks me so much as that which I hear very often, that a man does not know how to pass his time. It would have been but ill spoken by Methuselah, in the nine hundred and sixty-ninth year of his life. Cowley. — The hours of a wise man are lengthened by his ideas, as those of a fool are by his passions. The time of the one is long, because he does not know what to do with it ; so is that of the other, because he distinguishes every moment of it with useful or amusing thoughts ; or, in other words, because the one is always wishing it away, and the other always enjoying it. Addison. Every day is a little life; and our whole life is but a day repeated. And hence it is that Jacob numbers his life by days, and Moses desires to be taught this point of holy arithmetic, "to number not his years but his days, and these so as to apply his heart unto wisdom." Anon.—Of all arithmetical rules, this is the hardest, to number our days. Men can number their herds and droves of oxen and of sheep, they can estimate the revenues of their manors and farms, they can number and tell their coins, and yet they are persuaded that their days are infinite and innumerable, and therefore do never begin to number them. We can number other men's days and years, and utterly forget our own, therefore this is the true wisdom of mortal men, to number their own days. Tymme.—Your greatest responsibility is yourself. The gravest charge you have to keep is the charge of your own soul. Life weaves us into the fabric of society. We are knitted and knotted with other lives. But death unthreads us from our connections. In the last day you will be responsible for yourself. Search, then, and see how you stand. W. H. Murray. It is evident that the great thing wanted to make men provide for eternity is the practical persuasion that they have but a short time to live. They will not apply their hearts unto wisdom until they are brought to the numbering of their days. The most surprising thing in the text is, that it should be in the form of a prayer. It is necessary that God should interfere to make men number their days. What! is there not enough to make us feel our frailty? Are there not lessons enough of that frailty without any teaching from above? Melvill.—To number our days is to take the measure of our days as compared with the work to be performed, with the provision to be laid up for eternity, with the preparation to be made for death, with the precaution to be taken against judgment. It is to estimate human life by the purposes to which it should be applied, by the eternity to which it must conduct, and in which it shall at last be absorbed. T. Dale.—The depth of the individual life must be counted, as well as its length, its intensity as well as its duration, ere we can come to any real appreciation of its true value. The whole shallow life of the unwise or the sensual does not count for as much as a single day in a life filled with high thinking and pure achievement. The measurement by quality is therefore more important in this matter of human life than the measurement by quantity. Intensity, not attenuation, is the true measure of being. It is with God to decide how many suns shall rise upon us, how many wanings of the moon we shall see. It is left to ourselves to decide whether we shall live while we live, and whether our days shall be those which the Lord lengthens, or our years those which His wrath shortens. We can choose that course in which the great end of life is attained, or that other course which ends in the dreariness and emptiness of dead souls. For time is not the true measure of life; but that life is a long life which attains life's great end; which has been made rich with pure thoughts, lofty purposes, worthy enthusiasms; and which has been filled with the deeds of Christ. S. S. T. The Bible wastes no time in sentimental condolence over the brevity of life and the swift coming of death. It is a fact to be dealt with, and not merely bemoaned. The Bible speaks to man as to one that must be saved. "Thou art a sinner, O man! Thou art swept away like a flood because of sin. Thou art frightened because death draws nigh. Thou mayest well be frightened, but not at death. That which is behind death, that which propels it so swiftly and resistlessly is more terrible than death, the wrath of a holy God against sin." God has no easy good-nature or false tenderness which lead Him to conceal the terrors of sin. It is the Comforter who convinces of sin and of judgment. His face beams with tenderness upon man, His voice calls him to find his home and his rest in the eternal God; but the very brightness of His face, which lights up the way to eternal rest, brings out with terrible distinctness the outlines of human iniquity, and the secret sins which lurk in the deepest heart. True it is that the Bible is an evangel of love and pardon and compassion; true that God knoweth our frame and remembereth that we are dust; true that, "like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him;" but also true that the Bible, from beginning to end, blazes like Sinai with God's hatred of sin, resounds with warnings of man's danger from sin, and sets forth as in letters of fire that man is responsible for sin, and liable to its penalties; true that history and prophecy and Psalm and Gospel and epistle are grouped round one definite purpose, to save him from the power, dominion, and consequences of sin. In view of these terrible facts, and of men's persistent blindness to the power of God's anger then as now, is it strange that Moses prayed, is there not good cause for us to pray, "Teach us to number our days"? Teach us how short our life is; teach us the true meaning of its brevity, as a punishment and not as an unhappy accident; teach us how we may use its brief hours to escape the consequences of God's wrath; teach us to number our days, until, as Thy humble pupils, we bring a heavenly wisdom to bear upon the conduct of our lives. V. With a visible world so enthralling, so bewildering, so deceiving; with an invisible world so near, so secret, so capable of being wholly unnoticed and forgotten, how thoughtfully should Christians step, as from year to year their remaining time of trial grows shorter, their end nearer, their judgment surer! How should they learn to feel prayer, their constant, their blessed, their certain, their only safety! How should their whole lives be prayer! How should they link their private devotions with their momentary thoughts and words of supplication through their day; their momentary words of supplication with the ever-present faith, which regulates every little act and movement of their hearts to the honor and devotion of God! For die we sooner or later, live we smoother or rougher lives on earth, visitations of God in Christ come to us all in great abundance; and happy only are they whom He findeth watching, watching in prayer, that they may know and not misuse the times of their visitation. G. Moberly.—Oh, that I could inscribe upon your souls the legend round the clock: "They pass away, but they are laid to our account!" Count up the many days already gone, the few that still remain. Thank God if you have found the only true reply to the great question, "What is life?" and urge this in your turn on other men. "Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation;" but above all, like Moses, "continue instant in prayer." A short time longer and then your death, too, shall confirm the truth of Moses' view of life; and one who has observed your faith and your departure from this world will point aloft as he declares, "His true life has begun!" Van O. 13-17. The prayer which follows springs from the deep source of the preceding meditation. God is everlasting, man transitory and sinful. Man does not consider his sin aright, even when God lays His hand upon him. He needs Divine instruction that he may take to heart the lesson both of his sinfulness and his transitoriness. But Moses does not forget that, in spite of all, God has been and still is the home of His people. He is a compassionate God, as well as a God that punisheth transgression. And therefore he asks not only that he and his people may learn the lesson of Divine wisdom, but that the God who had chastened them would visit them with His loving-kindness, that the night of sorrow may flee away, and the morning of gladness dawn. God's love, God's personal manifestation of Himself, His blessing descending upon them as they enter upon their new life in the promised inheritance—for this, and not for anything less, he prays. P. The last five verses bring us back to the starting-point of the Psalm. Whither shall a sinful, short-lived man flee but to a holy and eternal God? Thither turns the prayer of these last five verses, and turns with hope and confidence. Man is the subject of God's wrath, but there is mercy with Him to satisfy him who flees from the wrath to come. Man is a pilgrim and a stranger, with no continuing city, but there is gladness and rejoicing in God for all his brief days. Man's beauty consumes as the moth, but "the beauty of the Lord our God" shall be upon him, and that beauty is immortal, untouched by time and change. Man's work is fragmentary, his plans often disconcerted, his grandest enterprises nipped in the bud by death, but God's touch upon human work imparts to it the fixedness of eternity; and if He establish the work of our hands, it shall abide, though the world pass away and the lust thereof. He will make good the sufferings of sin by the joys of holiness. Glory, beauty, establishment. A strange ending of this wail from the desert; and yet not strange in the Gospel light in which we read it to-day. It is only the prophecy of the saved man's triumph over mortality and sin and death; of the victim of the down-sweeping flood snatched from its fury, and landed safely in the eternal dwelling-place in "the everlasting arms;" of the mown grass garnered, of the sleeper awaking, satisfied, in God's likeness. It is the foreshadowing of that blessed story of the wandering son brought home at last, and seated at the Father's table, to go no more out forever. V. 15. The time of our pilgrimage upon earth is a time of sorrow; these are "the days wherein God afflicted us; these the years wherein we see evil;" but he will hereafter "make us glad according to them;" in proportion to our sufferings, if rightly we bear those sufferings, will be our reward; nay, "these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." Then shall our joy be increased, and receive an additional relish, from the remembrance of our former sorrow; then shall we bless the days and the years which exercised our faith and perfected our patience; and then shall we bless God, who chastised us for a season, that He might save us forever. Bishop Horne. We have to serve and help our neighbors, we who ourselves stand in such bitter need of help! We have to contend with the spiritual wickednesses which are in them, we who are so often overcome! Everywhere around us there is the same heavy task, the same unremitting and deadly conflict, which we find within. And how can we achieve or contribute to that task save by manifold and exhausting labors? how be always in the thick of that conflict without taking as well as giving many wounds? If there were no interior contest, no constant toil at home, the sheer force of sympathy with our neighbors is at times enough to break our hearts, if at least we have our Master's spirit of love and pity. Think how many sorrows there are in the world, what deep and wide miseries, what innumerable and incurable evils! Nay, think how many even in our own narrow circles are at this very moment weeping bitter tears of regret, anguish, despair; how many faint in languor and pain; how many, and these the most pitiable of all, eat and drink, and laugh and swear, while the very soul is dying out of them, oppressed and strangled by the lusts of the flesh. If we are Christian in spirit as well as in name, if we have any share of our Master's purity, and tenderness, and grace, all these miseries and evils are as thorns in our crown. We cannot, we dare not, be indifferent to them. At times they tear and sting us well-nigh into despair, till, like Moses and Paul, we could wish ourselves blotted from the book of life, if only these poor souls might be healed and saved. It is through such pains and toils as these that we grow strong in spirit. Christ's crown of thorns broke into flower long ago; its sweet healing odors float through the heavenly temple, and are wafted over the earth by every wind that blows. Let us but be patient, steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, always showing a good courage in the wars of the Lord; and in due time our crowns, of which we should hardly be conscious now but for the thorns, will also blossom into flower, and will make us glad according to the days wherein they have afflicted us. Cor. 16. The prayer of the Psalmist is the prayer of one who looks forward, of one who would fain build what will be continued by them that come after. "Show Thy servants Thy work, and their children Thy glory." Amid all that is fleeting and perishable, make us to know what Thou doest; and for our children we can ask no richer gift. The work of God is the glory of God. Once let us believe in our hearts that God is working in the world, and then it becomes an axiom that we, too, in our humble measure, have a work to do, a work lofty and ennobling because it is done for Him and with Him, because we are in truth admitted to very co-operation with God. H. M. Butler. 17. And let the beauty of Jehovah our God be upon us, and the work of our hands establish upon us, and the work of our hands, establish Thou it. While the glory of Jehovah is expected to be fully revealed only in His dealings with the next generation, He is still besought to grant their fathers the experimental knowledge of His beauty, loveliness, or all that renders Him an object of affection. The work of our hands is a favorite Mosaic phrase for all that we do or undertake, all our affairs and interests. To establish or confirm it is to prosper and succeed it, to bring it to a favorable issue. A.—The closing verse of the Psalm comprehends both the Divine and the human side of the work given to God's people. First, the Psalmist prays for the beauty of Jehovah; that is, all that which renders Him an object of affection, His wondrous graciousness, to be revealed to them in the way of experience. But this, so far from superseding rather implies their own activity. Hence the next petition mentions "the work of our hands," a favorite Mosaic phrase for all that we do or undertake, which God is requested to establish; i.e., to confirm and bring to a favorable issue. Chambers. They were content to live and to die as pilgrims, provided only they could feel that in His sterner dealings with them God was, however slowly, preparing the way for that display of glorious blessedness which should be the lot of their descendants. In a similar spirit they ask God to establish the work of their hands, though they reckoned not that they should behold its results. Their comfort in sowing was the belief that their children would reap. Thruyp. The beauty of the Lord our God. What an eye and ear these Psalmists had for beauty! But in how much truer a light than either the meagre realism of our day or the pagan worship of beauty for its own sake! Their holy art could not content itself with the forms and pictures about them; they must come into communion with the Divine Artist, and see Him at His work. It is the presence of the Good Shepherd which makes the fields bright. It is the Lord of glory who gives the storm its voice of majesty. It is of Him that the days speak, and the nights show starry knowledge. It is He who curiously wrought our bodies and fashioneth our hearts. And before the work of our hands can be established, the beauty of the Lord our God must be upon it. F. N. Zabriskie. What is the beauty of God? The excellence of His character. The meaning of all beauty is to image the holiness and excellence of God. The perception of beauty has been given us not, as some suppose, for enjoyment merely, but to bind us to the infinite, to make it more difficult for man to lose himself in time and sense, and to woo him to a heavenly perfection. The beauty of God is His love, mercy, patience, faithfulness. The justice of God, too, which may well appear to sinful man only terrible, has truly a grand beauty. Viewed from a higher point, the terrible in God is the beautiful, for it is seen to be a form of love. Once in the history of this sinful world infinite beauty appeared. Once God contracted Himself into the limits of our nature and walked the earth. Divine loveliness spoke and acted among us, shone through the eyes and lived in the actions and sufferings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is a perception of the beauty of God, a delight in it, a desire after it, which distinguish the spiritual man from others. They may feel that God is great and right; he feels that God is beautiful. A sense of the Divine beauty gives an elevation to all life, and clothes it with a certain infinite halo of gladness. Nothing can greatly afflict a soul that has a steady vision of the Divine beauty. Such a soul rises freely above temptation, heaven has entered into it, and it finds it easy to keep the road to heaven. J. Leckie. Heart-purity is the glory of all loveliness. The heart makes the life. The inner fashions the outer. So, above all things, be pure-hearted. That you may be pure-hearted, let Christ more and more into your life, that He may fill all your soul, and that His Spirit may permeate all your being. That the beauty of the Lord may be upon you, that the winning charm of God's loveliness may shine in your features, you must first have the beauty of Christ within you. The transfiguration must come from within. Only a holy, beautiful heart can make a holy, beautiful character. J. R. M. — In the present state, the least part of a saint's worth is visible. As the earth is fruitful in plants and flowers, but its riches are in mines of precious metal and the veins of marble hidden in its bosom, true grace appears in sensible actions, but its glory is within. The sincerity of aims, the purity of affection, the impresses of the Spirit on the heart, the interior beauties of holiness, are only seen by God. Salter. There is spiritual light, so beauty-inspiring that the plainest face within which it is born is illuminated with singular loveliness, which wins its way into many a heart. Who of us has not marvelled at an unexpected light in what we had always thought an uninteresting face? Who has not beheld a light Divine irradiate the human countenance, giving joy, and prophesying perfection, where we had least thought to find beauty? May we not take these facts as emblems, albeit faint and imperfect, of what the "Beauty of the Lord" does for us and our work? You know what the natural light can do for material objects; you know what mental and moral light can work for human faces; rise from these, and know what spiritual light, Divine light, can do for immortal beings and immortal works. Jessie Coombs. — God is glorified and His work advances when His Church is beautiful. "The beauty of the Lord" is the beauty of holiness, that beauty which in the Lord Jesus Himself shone with lustre so resplendent, and which ought to be repeated or reflected by every disciple. And it is toward this that all among us who love the Saviour, and who long for the extension of His Kingdom, should very mainly direct their endeavors. Nothing can be sadder than when preaching or personal effort is contradicted and neutralized by the low or unlovely lives of those who pass for Christians; and nothing can go further to insure success than when prayer is carried out and preaching is seconded by the pure, holy, and benevolent lives of those who seek to follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. Hamilton. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 1. HE that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in whom I trust. 3 For he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, And from the noisome pestilence. 4 He shall cover thee with his pinions, And under his wings shalt thou take refuge: His truth is a shield and a buckler. 5 Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, Nor for the arrow that flieth by day; 6 For the pestilence that walketh in darkness, Nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. 7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, And ten thousand at thy right hand; But it shall not come nigh thee. 8 Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold, And see the reward of the wicked. 9 For thou, O LORD, art my refuge! Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation; 10 There shall no evil befall thee, Neither shall any plague come nigh thy tent. 11 For he shall give his angels charge over thee, To keep thee in all thy ways. 12 They shall bear thee up in their hands, Lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. 13 Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: The young lion and the serpent shalt thou trample under feet. 14 Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name. 15 He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble: I will deliver him, and honour him. 16 With long life will I satisfy him, And shew him my salvation. THIS Psalm, which in the Hebrew has no inscription, celebrates, with considerable variety and beauty of expression, God's loving and watchful care, and the perfect peace and security of those who make Him their refuge. “Can the providence of God,” asks Herder, “be taught in a more trustful or more tender spirit? The language is the language of a father, growing ever more fatherly as it proceeds, till at last the Great Father Himself takes it up, and declares His truth and faithfulness.” The variety of figures employed shows that the Psalmist is thinking of peril of every kind, coming from whatever source, and that he paints all dangers and fears vividly to the eye of his mind, in order to express the more joyfully his confidence that none of these things can move him, that over all he is more than conqueror. It is Paul’s fervid exclamation, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” expressed in rich and varied poetry. The structure of the Psalm is in some respects peculiar. The writer speaks at one time of or from, at another to, himself; he is both subject and object; now he utters his own experience, and now he seeks to encourage himself with Divine promises; and the transitions are so abrupt that various attempts have been made to soften or explain them. Delitzsch thinks that the Psalm is dramatic in character, and that it must be distributed between three voices, and may have been possibly so sung in Divine service. The first voice utters v. 1: “He that sitteth in the secret place, that abideth in the shadow of the Almighty,” and is taken up by the second voice, which sings v. 2. The first voice resumes at the beginning of v. 3, and continues to the end of v. 8. The second voice then utters the first clause of v. 9, “For Thou, O Jehovah, art my refuge.” And the first voice begins with, “Thou hast made the Most High Thy habitation,” and goes on to the end of v. 13. The third voice, which utters the words of God Himself, is heard in vs. 14–16. Probably this, on the whole, is the simplest explanation of the change of speakers in the Psalm; but v. 1 may have been sung by the choir rather than by a single voice. P. Analysis. A declaration by the Psalmist, not personal but general (v. 1). A voice heard in soliloquy, expressing trust in Jehovah (v. 2). The Psalmist responds, assuring him of safety in all dangers (vs. 3–8). The voice is again heard addressing God with confident trust (v. 9a). Again the Psalmist responds with additional assurances (vs. 9b–13). God now speaks, confirming the hope of His servant (vs. 14–16). De Witt. This Psalm would be full of interest found anywhere, standing in any relation; but has peculiar interest standing here in manifestly close relations to Psalm 90. The slightest attention tion to these two Psalms will show that they are paired together, the second a counterpart to the first. The prayer of Moses has in its foreground a sweeping mortality among the people of Israel. It speaks therefore of human frailty; of man returning back to dust, and of man’s sin as calling forth the high displeasure of his Maker and demanding such a demonstration of it as the cutting off of a whole generation in the freshness of their manhood. But this sombre view of human life should not stand alone. Something should be said touching the strain of this Psalm 90 by way of exception. It should be said that those who live near to God shall abide under His protection; shall be shielded against the pestilence, protected from the fierce lion and poisonous adder, put under the charge of God’s sleepless angels to be kept in all their ways, and crowned with the blessings of long life and God’s full salvation. Such is the tone of Psalm 91. C. The general drift of its scenery and allusions concur in showing that, like the last, we are indebted for this beautiful ode to the muse of Moses; that it was composed by him during the journey through the wilderness, shortly after the plague of the fiery serpents; when the children of Israel, having returned to a better spirit, were again received into the favor of Jehovah. Besides political enemies, the children of Israel in the wilderness had other evils in great numbers to encounter, from the nature and diseases of the climate, which exposed them to sun smitings, during the heat of the day; and to pestilential vapors, moon smitings, during the damp of the night, so as to render the miraculous canopy of the cloud that hung over them in the former season, and the miraculous column of fire that cheered and purified them in the latter, equally needful and refreshing. In Egypt they had seen much of the plague, and they had been threatened with it as a punishment for disobedience. Now in the Psalm before us, and especially in vs. 6–13, we have so clear and graphic a description of the whole of these evils presented to us, as to bring its composition directly home to the circumstances and the period here pitched upon, and to render it at least needless to hunt out for any other occasion. J. M. Good. 1. A better construction makes the parallel clauses of the first verse descriptive of an ideal person, with whom the speaker is then tacitly identified. As if he had said, “Happy the man who dwells,” etc., and then added, “Such is my condition; I can say,” etc. For the figure of a secret place or covert, see Psalms 27:5; 31 : 20 ; 32 : 7 ; for that of a shadow, Psalms 17 : 8 ; 36 : 7 ; 57 : 1. The Divine titles, Highest and Almighty, suggest the reason of this perfect safety. The last verb is strictly a reflective, and as such means to take up one's lodgings, to domesticate one's self, implying a voluntary choice. A.—The word for "dwellet" might equally well be translated sitteth, i.e., under the covert, in the hiding-place, the sequestered shelter of the Most High. This man "shall abide," lodge all night and by consequence perpetually under the shadow of the Almighty. The sense, He who lives in great nearness to God, making God his trust and refuge, may expect permanent protection. Stress is laid upon God's infinite power to shield His trustful people by the choice of those names for God which make His power prominent. Who can be otherwise than safe with the Almighty God for his Protector? C. 1,2. In each clause of vs. 1, 2 God is spoken of by a different name. God is "Most High," far above all the rage and malice of enemies; "Almighty," so that none can stand before His power; "Jehovah," the God of covenant and grace, who has revealed Himself to His people; and it is of such a God that the Psalmist says in holy confidence, He is "my God," in whom I trust. P. It is the character of a true believer that he dwells in the secret place of the Most High; he is at home in God, returns to God, and reposes in Him as his rest; he acquaints himself with inside religion, and makes heart-work of the service of God; worships within the veil, and loves to be alone with God, to converse with Him in solitude. It is the privilege and comfort of those that do so, that they abide under the shadow of the Almighty; He shelters them, and comes between them and everything that would annoy them, whether storm or sunshine. They shall not only have an admittance, but a residence under God's protection; He will be their rest and refuge forever. H.—The place of God's presence is the place of refuge, of peace, of safety, of rest, to the soul that knows how to find Him and has learned to trust in Him. And every one can find Him who seeks Him by faith in Christ, and cultivates communion with Him in the spirit of a little child. To such a one nothing can come in reality as an evil. The storms of adversity and persecution, the calamities that agitate others with fear, and sweep away their possessions and their hopes, only drive this trusting soul the closer into its refuge. J. P. T. 3. For to, He will free thee from the fowler's snare, from the plague of mischiefs. The confiding soul is now addressed directly in the tone of promise. The fowler's snare is a figure for insidious and complicated dangers. The parallelism requires plague or pestilence to be taken as a metaphor, no less than snare. Both probably denote dangers arising from the craft of wicked enemies, to which the word translated mischiefs is peculiarly appropriate. A. 4. Covered under wings and feathers is a favorite Hebrew figure, open to the most common observation in the habits of domestic fowls. Our Lord has it in beautiful form (Matt. 23 : 37). C.—God protects believers with the greatest tenderness and affection; intimated in that, He shall cover thee with His feathers, under His wings, which alludes to the hen gathering her chickens under her wings. By natural instinct she not only protects them, but calls them under that protection when she sees them in danger; not only keeps them safe, but cherishes them and keeps them warm. To this the great God is pleased to compare His care of His people, who are helpless and easily made a prey of, but are invited to trust under the wings of the Divine promise and providence. H. God's providence means not merely His foresight, but His loving care—His providing for us in all things, as our heavenly Father—His loving arrangements for the supply of all our wants. It is this kind and loving providence, under which the creatures of His power and mercy, as the children of His grace, are invited to come and repose. If we do this, then we are safe and happy. All things are ours, and we may go and come secure in the care and love of our heavenly Father, and fearing no evil, till from on high He call us home. But without this loving faith, we are not ready to step across the threshold of our own door; we are not ready to sit securely by our own fireside; we are not ready to lie down in peace upon our nightly slumbers. Cheever. 5,6. Here is great security promised to believers in the midst of this danger: "Thou shalt not be afraid, God by His grace will keep thee from disquieting, distrustful fear (that fear which hath torment) in the midst of the greatest dangers. Wisdom shall keep thee from being causelessly afraid, and faith shall keep thee from being inordinately afraid. Thou shalt not be afraid of the arrow, as knowing that though it may hit thee, it cannot hurt thee; if it take away the natural life, yet it shall be so far from doing any prejudice to the spiritual life, that it shall be its perfection." A believer needs not fear, and therefore should not fear, any arrow, because the point is off, the poison is out. O death, where is thy sting? It is also under Divine direction, and will hit where God appoints, and not otherwise. Every bullet has its commission. Whatever is done, our heavenly Father's will is done; and we have no reason to be afraid of that. H. 6. The pestilence that walketh in darkness; the destruction that wasteth at noonday.** The description is equally forcible and correct. The diseases of all hot climates, and especially where vegetation is highly luxuriant, and marshes and miry swamps are abundant, as in the wilderness here referred to, proceed from the accumulating vapors of the night, or from the violence of the sun's rays at mid-day. The Beriberi of Ceylon, the spasmodic cholera and jungle-fever of India, and the greater part of the fevers of intertropical climates, especially that called the yellow fever, chiefly originate from the first of these—"the pestilence that stalketh in darkness;" while sunstrokes or coups de soleil, apoplexies, inflammations of the brain, and liver complaints of most kinds proceed from the second, "the destruction that wasteth at noonday." And it is in allusion to this double source of mischief that the Psalmist exclaims most beautifully on another occasion (121 : 6): "The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night." And hence the Israelites were miraculously defended against both during their passage through the wilderness by the pillar of a cloud in the daytime, to ward off the solar rays; and by the pillar of fire by night, to dissipate the collecting vapors, and preserve the atmosphere clear, dry, and healthy. J. M. Good. 7. It shall not come nigh thee.** The singular refers to any and every one of the evils mentioned in vs. 5, 6. P.—Nigh him, but not so nigh as to hurt him; the power of God can bring us near to danger, and yet keep us far from harm. As good may be locally near us and yet virtually far from us, so may evil. The multitude thronged Christ in the Gospel, and yet but one touched Him so as to receive good; so Christ can keep us in a throng of dangers, that not one shall touch us to our hurt. Caryl. Divine restraint enters into all things. The nature of things is but their limit assigned by God. The original relation of forces in the physical world is so settled by God that their interaction shall be bounded by definite results. To every effect wrought out in the development of the material universe it has been virtually said, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." Scripture makes known the restraint which God puts on hearts and on moral beings. Lions dare not touch a Daniel. The history of the Church and of individual Christian life brings out instances of the restraining power which silently lays hold of man and renders his enmity innocuous. "It shall not come nigh thee" has often been verified. In all these instances we have but glimpses of that unseen Power by which in due time all principalities and powers, and whatever opposeth itself to God and His Church, shall be either turned unto Him or deprived of their power of injury. Chapman. —Amid all seeming confusion, every separate event has its separate destination. If pestilence has only some one person devoted to it in a city or community, that person it will assuredly find out, and execute the judgment of heaven regarding him. If there be a thousand persons allotted to it in a district, it will not allow one of the thousand to escape. If among the numbers who are dying there be one regarding whom it has no commission to seize upon him, that individual must remain untouched. "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee." It has a commission, and it will execute it; but then it cannot go beyond its commission. And in regard to every person to whom the event comes, it has a special end to accomplish; and it bears a special message, if he will but read it and attend to it. M'Cash. 8. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.** First, indeed, because of thy own escape; secondly, on account of thy complete security; thirdly, for the sake of comparison; fourthly, because of the perfect pre-eminence of justice itself. For then it will not be the time of mercy, but of judgment; nor shall any mercy in any way be ever shown toward the wicked there, where no improvement can be hoped for. Bernard. 9. The change of persons is again perplexing. The Psalmist suddenly interrupts the address to himself which had been continued in one strain from v. 3 (and which is resumed again in the second clause of this verse, "Thou hast made," etc.), to express his own trust in God. But whether we suppose the address in vs. 3-8, and again that which, beginning with the second member of v. 9, extends to the end of v. 13, to be the words of the Psalmist himself, or whether they are put into some other mouth with a view to musical effect—in either case the words are really a voice from heaven, the promise of God uttered to and appropriated by the soul. P. For Thou, Jehovah, (art) my refuge. The Most High hast thou made thy home (or habitation). The construction adopted in the English Bible is a forced one, only assumed in order to avoid the sudden change of person, which, however, is characteristic of this Psalm. A. It is our duty to be at home in God, to make our choice of Him, and then to live our life in Him as our habitation; to converse with Him, and delight in Him, and depend upon Him; and then it shall be our privilege to be at home in God; we shall be welcome to Him as a man to his own habitation; then, too, we shall be safe in Him, shall be kept in perfect peace (Isa. 26:3). H.—He who makes God his refuge shall find Him a refuge; he who dwells in God shall find his dwelling protected. We must make the Lord our habitation by choosing Him for our trust and rest, and then we shall receive immunity from harm; no evil shall touch us personally, and no stroke of judgment shall assail our household. S.—It is therefore the making of God our habitation, upon which our safety lies; and this is the way to make God an habitation, thus to cast ourselves by faith upon His power and providence. Jeremiah Dyke. 10. There shall no evil befall thee.** It is a security in the very midst of evils. Not like the security of angels—safety in a world of safety, quiet in a calm; but it is quiet in a storm, safety amid desolation and the elements of destruction, deliverance where everything else is going to wreck. C. Bradley.—God doth not say no afflictions shall befall us, but no evil. T. Watson.—Though trouble and affliction befall thee, yet there shall be no real evil in it, for it shall come from the love of God, and shall be sanctified; it shall come, not for thy hurt, but for thy good; and though for the present it be not joyous but grievous, yet in the end it shall yield so well that thou thyself shalt own no evil befall thee. It is not an evil only, but there is a mixture of good in it and a product of good by it. Nay, not thy person only, but thy dwelling shall be taken under the Divine protection; there shall no plague come nigh that; nothing to do thee or thine any damage. H. 11. For His angels He will charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.** The plural angels shows that there is no allusion to a guardian spirit attending the individual believer, but merely to the angels collectively, as ministering spirits, the instrumental agents of God's providential care over His people. A. They are the inhabitants of the heavenly Jerusalem, of which we are heirs; they have possession, and we have title, and shall in time possess it. We are called to much of the same employment with them; we must love the same God, and glorify Him by obedience, thanks, and praise, and so do they; therefore they are ministers for our good, and rejoice in the success of their labors, as ministers of Christ on earth do. There is not a sinner converted but it is the angels' joy, which showeth how much they attend to that work. They are especially present and attendant on us in our holy assemblies and services of God; and therefore we are admonished (1 Cor. 11:10) to reverence their presence and do nothing before them that is sinful or unseemly. The presence of God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels must continually awe us into exact obedience. With the Church, they pry into the mystery of the dispensation of the Spirit to the Church. And so "by the Church"—that is, by God's dealings with the Church, is "made known the manifold wisdom of God" even to those "heavenly principalities and powers." In conclusion, Christ telleth us that in our state of blessedness we shall be "equal to the angels," and so shall live with them forever. Baxter. In all thy ways. Your ways are God's ways, your way is the way commanded by God. If you be out of God's ways, you are out of your own way; if you be in your way, the angels shall keep you. W. Bridge.—While you keep your way, angels, yea, the God of angels, will keep you. Do not so much fear losing your estate or your liberty or your lives, as losing your way and leaving your way; nothing but sin exposeth you to soul-loss or misery. So long as you keep your way you shall keep other things; or if you lose any of them, you shall get what is better; though you may be sufferers for Christ, you shall not be losers by Him. S. Salter. He shall give His angels charge over thee. When Satan tempted Christ in the wilderness, he alleged but one sentence of Scripture for himself, and this Psalm, out of which he borrowed it, made so plain against him, that he was fain to pick here a word and there a word, and leave out that which went before and came after, or else he had marred his cause. The Scripture is so pure and true that no word nor syllable thereof can make for the devil or for sinners. H. Smith.—Revelation discovers to faith, on the one hand, the hierarchies of the blessed angels, and, on the other, the corresponding gradations of evil spirits, principalities, and powers who have abused their freedom, and who are ceaselessly laboring to impair and to destroy the true moral order of the universe. These spiritual beings, good and evil, act upon humanity as certainly, as constantly, as man himself acts upon the lower creatures around him, and thus it is that we "wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places." Liddon. 14-16. God's answer to the soul which trusts in Him. "God Himself comes forward to establish the faith of His servant, writes deeper in the soul so great a consolation, and confirms the testimony to His servant. 'He hath set his love upon Me; he knoweth My name; he calleth upon Me'—these are the marks of a true servant of God. God draws nigh to one who so draws nigh to Him." P. What God Himself is overheard to say at the close of the Psalm is the glorious corner-stone of this edifice of confidence. Mark the cause assigned by the Lord for the warm interest which He feels in His servant thus exposed: "He has set his love upon Me; he has known My name." Mark how the Lord speaks, connecting His servant's love to Him and knowledge of His name with His own purpose of deliverance and exaltation, as if His honor were concerned to make it plain that the love is not misplaced: "I will deliver him." Mark what the Lord expects on the part of His servant: "He shall call upon Me." Mark the assurance of the Lord's gracious interposition, answering to His servant's calling upon Him: "He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him," etc. Nor is it to be all trouble with the man of God while he is fighting the good fight and finishing his course. Nay, there is so much enjoyment for him as to make him rather wish for its continuance, and welcome the concluding promise which he hears the Lord giving, "With long life will I satisfy him, and show him My salvation." R. S. Candlish. 14. He does not say, Because he is without sin, because he has perfectly kept all My precepts, because he has merit and is worthy to be delivered and guarded. But he produces those qualities which are even found in the weak, the imperfect, and those still exposed to sin in the flesh—namely, adhesion, knowledge of His name, and prayer. Musculus.—These promises belong to those that have set their love upon God, that know His name, and that call upon Him. H. There is one thing in this verse which may encourage us very much. It is not because of perfect love that God will deliver. It is to the will to love and serve—it is to the setting the heart that the promise is made—to the "full purpose of heart" that is set to cleave unto the Lord. M. B. M. Duncan.—The love of the Christian is a delightful love (as Mr. Baxter called it), because there is in the Lord everything that is worthy of infinite and eternal admiration; and then there is the thought which produces a thrill of pleasure—whatever I admire I can, in some measure, possess. The illuminated eye of God's favorite sees everything in the Lord to supply his necessities; everything to satisfy his desires, all his own; which makes the soul delight itself in the Lord, and he rests in His love. Therefore, the Lord says of the object of His lovingkindness, "He hath set his love upon Me"—he hath taken off the heart from all idolatrous attachment to the creature, and placed it fixedly and supremely upon God. W. Dawson Do for His sake deeds of love, and He will give thee His love. Still thyself, thy own cares, thy own thoughts for Him, and He will give thee Himself. Ask for Himself, and He will take thee into Himself. Truly a secret, hidden thing is the love of God, known only to them who seek it, and to them also secret, for what man can have of it here is how slight a foretaste of that endless ocean of His love! Pusey.—Sound love to God floweth from and is joined with sound knowledge of God, as His Majesty is declared unto us in Scripture; the believer who hath set his love upon God "hath known My name," saith He. Dickson. 15. He shall call upon Me. I will pour upon him the spirit of prayer, and then I will answer—answer by promises, answer by providences, bringing in seasonable relief, and answer by graces, strengthening them with strength in their souls; thus He answered Paul with grace sufficient. H. I will be with him in trouble. God hath made promises of His special presence with His saints in suffering. God will hold our head and heart when we are fainting! What if we have more afflictions than others, if we have more of God's company? God's honor is dear to Him; it would not be for His honor to bring His children into sufferings and leave them there; He will be with them to animate and support them; yea, when new troubles arise (Job 5:19). "He shall deliver thee in six troubles." T. Watson. Communion with Christ is the best proof of Christ's existence and Christ's love. It is so even in human life. Misgivings gather darkly round our heart about our friend in his absence; but we seek his frank smile, we feel his affectionate grasp; our suspicions go to sleep again. It is just so in religion. No man is in the habit of praying to God in Christ, and then doubts whether Christ is He "that should come." It is in the power of prayer to realize Christ, to bring Him near, to make you feel His life stirring like a pulse within you. Let but a man live with Christ, anxious to have his own life destroyed and Christ's life established in its place, losing himself in Christ, that man will have all his misgivings silenced. He who works, and feels he works—he who prays, and knows he prays—has got the secret of transforming life-failure into life-victory. F. W. R. 16. Long life;** literally, "length of days." The special promise of long life at the close, as a temporal blessing, is in accordance with the general character of the Old Testament. Still it is possible that men like the Psalmist, full of faith in God, attached a deeper and more spiritual meaning to promises and hopes like these, than was attached to them by the majority of their countrymen. P. "I will satisfy him with long life," give him all his heart craves; fill his largest desires. Thus there is an offset to the mournfulness of human frailty and swift mortality. It shall be well with those that fear God and walk softly before Him. Usually they have longer lives and more earthly blessings even in our age and in every age than the defiantly wicked. C.—They shall live long enough; they shall be continued in this world till they have done the work they were sent into this world for, and are ready for heaven; and that is long enough. Who would wish to live a day longer than God has some work to do, either by him or upon him? They shall think it long enough, for God by His grace shall wean them from the world and make them willing to leave it. H. Bernard interprets this of heaven; because he thought nothing long that had an end. This, indeed, is the emphasis of heaven's joy; those blessed souls never sin, never weep more; they shall not only be with the Lord, but ever with the Lord. This is the accent which is set on the eulogies given to heaven in Scripture. 'Tis "an inheritance," and that an "incorruptible one, that fadeth not away;" it is "a crown of glory," and that a weighty one; yea, "an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory." Gurnall. What we all need to realize more than we do, is that we live in God. He is nearer to us than we are to our own bodies, and is only partly hidden from us by the garments of thing and circumstance wherewith He wraps Himself round. We stand as near to Him as did those Bible-men and women whom we are liable to think of as placed above all worldly cares, and as enjoying in all their life the consciousness of the presence and approval of God. They had their struggles and temptations, as we have; and some of them complained that they looked for God on the right hand and on the left, and did not see Him, as some of us have also done. It was as hard for them as for us to lay hold upon the garments of God in the toil and turmoil of this world's strife, and as they succeeded, we also may succeed. If their cry, "Oh, that I knew where I might find Him!" awakes an answering echo in our hearts, so, too, may their song of triumph when they were lifted from the depths, and found themselves in the secret place of the Most High. Daily we touch the garments of God, whether we know it or not. What we need is a heart enlightened by the knowledge of God and an eye that is willing to look through the deeds of daily life to the God behind them, if we would pierce through that which seems to that which is. God is not far from any one of us. What we call the ordinary and the commonplace are the garments which reveal His presence; and we may reach through them to Him who is revealed in them, to cling forever to God Himself. Thus to recognize His presence and thus to cling is the sure privilege of every child of God. S. S. T. Day and night ministers of grace, silent and unseen, are near to us, who have received a charge from God to keep us in all our ways. They will beat back and chase away the powers of darkness. God Himself is with you. Nothing can separate you from Him but your own unwillingness to have your home in the light and joy of His presence. When the noise of the world is loudest and the crowd thickest you can still be alone with Him, and dwell in perfect peace. Ah! how wonderful is the blessedness of those who have learned the true secret of a devout life! Partakers of the Divine nature, they partake the Divine bliss. They are in heaven already. They are one with God. He Himself finds delight in their childlike trust and their reverential love. To Him, their grateful thoughts of His goodness, which come and go all day long, and their ineffable joy when they remember that He is near, are sweeter and nobler music than the pathetic chants which roll along the pillared aisles and vaulted roofs of ancient cathedrals, or the exulting hallelujahs of that mighty chorus which has sometimes made us think that we were listening to the songs and harps of heaven. And when in hours consecrated to devotion they are able to gaze more steadfastly on His face, and to enter into a more sustained and protracted communion with Him, His happiness and theirs are an anticipation, and more than an anticipation, of the blessedness of the immortal fellowship between Himself and the glorified spirits of the redeemed. At such times it is true of the joy of God Himself, as well as of the joy of the soul that worships Him, that a stranger cannot intermeddle with it. Yes, the soul that dwells with Him is already in possession of a victorious strength, celestial peace, and Divine delight. The calamities of this world can only for a moment cloud its bliss. In the wilderness, fiery chariots wait to carry it to the upper skies. Choirs of angels descend and fill the night of its sorrow with music and rapture. In exile and loneliness it sees visions of the city of God. When storms and tempests rage, it sits in peace on lofty mountain-tops of faith and hope, and looks down upon the flashing lightning, and listens to the thunder rolling far beneath its feet. It dwells in the secret place of the Most High, and is satisfied with the pleasures which are at His right hand, and with the fulness of joy which is in His presence forevermore. R. W. Dale. 1. It is a good thing to give thanks unto the LORD, And to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High; 2 To shew forth thy lovingkindness in the morning, And thy faithfulness every night, 3 With an instrument of ten strings, and with the psaltery; With a solemn sound upon the harp, 4 For thou, LORD, hast made me glad through thy work: I will triumph in the works of thy hands. 5 How great are thy works, O LORD! Thy thoughts are very deep. 6 A brutish man knoweth not; Neither doth a fool understand this: 7 When the wicked spring as the grass, And when all the workers of iniquity do flourish; It is that they shall be destroyed for ever: 8 But thou, O LORD, art on high for evermore. 9. For, lo, thine enemies, O LORD, For, lo, thine enemies shall perish; All the workers of iniquity shall be scattered. 10 But my horn hast thou exalted like the horn of the wild-ox: I am anointed with fresh oil. 11 Mine eye also hath seen my desire on mine enemies, Mine ears have heard my desire of the evildoers that rise up against me. 12 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. 13 They that are planted in the house of the LORD Shall flourish in the courts of our God. 14 They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; They shall be full of sap and green: 15 To shew that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him. THIS Psalm is called a Psalm for the Sabbath-day, and, as we learn from the Talmud, was appointed to be used in the temple service on that day. It was sung in the morning, when, on the offering of the first lamb, the wine was poured out as a drink-offering unto the Lord. It celebrates in joyful strain the greatness of God's works, and especially His righteous government of the world, as manifested in the overthrow of the wicked, and the prosperity and final triumph of the righteous. The apparent success of the ungodly for a time is admitted, but this is a mystery which worldly men, whose understanding has become darkened, cannot penetrate (v. 6). The Psalm therefore touches upon the same great principles of the Divine government which are laid down in such Psalms as the first, the thirty-seventh, the forty-ninth, and the seventy-third. But here there is no struggle with doubt and perplexity, as in the seventy-third; the poet is beyond all doubt, above all perplexity; he has not fallen down to the low level of the brutish man (compare 73 : 22 with v. 6 of this Psalm); he is rejoicing in the full and perfect conviction of the righteousness of God. P. As one main design of the Sabbath was to afford an opportunity for the admiring contemplation of God's works or doings, the Psalm before us was peculiarly appropriate at such a time, and the third clause of the inscription is evidently correct. A. 1. It is good.** The Sabbath is the day which God has consecrated, and which we should consecrate to God by turning away from our every-day occupations (Isa. 58 : 13) and attending to the praise and worship of God, the blessed occupation of the Sabbath. It is good, i.e., not only good in the eyes of God, but also good for man, of benefit to his inmost being, precious and blessed. D. When saints assemble together for devotion, they call into action all the graces of the Spirit; faith rests upon His promises—love grows in the contemplation of perfection—gratitude is felt warm and vivid in the heart—adherence to Divine truth is experienced so as to produce a resolution to buy the truth, and sell it not—reverence for the service of God and for His majesty, deference to His authority, a desire of being acquainted with His will, and entire resignation of ourselves to His discipline, are the sentiments expressed in praise and prayer. These actuate the breasts of Christians, and they produce a great mass of devotional feeling experienced nowhere else. They cannot but be acceptable to God in their insulated state; but when combined together, when there are thousands engaged in the same worship, and actuated by the same graces of the Spirit of God, called into exercise on these occasions—who can fail to perceive how acceptable such a spectacle must be to the great object of worship! R. Hall. To sing praises, to give thanks. Thankful praise is a just and due tribute for all God's blessings. It is a debt always owing and always paying; upon the due discharge of this debt the soul will find peace. And a thankful heart to God for His blessings is the greatest blessing of all. Sibs.—Singing is the music of nature. The Scriptures tell us the mountains sing, the valleys sing, the trees of the wood sing. Nay, the air is the birds' music-room, where they chant their musical notes. Singing is the music of saints. They have performed this duty in their greatest straits, in their greatest deliverances, and in their greatest plenties. In all these changes singing hath been their stated duty and delight. Singing is the music of angels. Job tells us, "The morning stars sang together." When the heavenly host was sent to proclaim the birth of our dearest Jesus, they delivered their message in a "laudatory singing," the whole company of angels making a musical choir. Singing is the music of heaven. Saints and angels accent their praises this way, and make one harmony in their state of blessedness; and this is the music of the bride-chamber (Rev. 15 : 3). J. Wells. 2. In the morning, every night.** Grace is purposely connected with the morning-dawn, for it itself is morning-light, which breaks through the night every morning; so faithfulness is also combined with the night-seasons, for amid the perils of the loneliness of the night it is the best companion, and nights of affliction are the foil of its verification. D.—God is Alpha and Omega. It is fit we should begin and end the day with His praise, who begins and ends it for us with mercy. As thou wouldst have God prosper thy labor in the day, and sweeten thy rest in the night, clasp them both together with thy morning and evening devotions. Gurnall. We are ever in want, and God is ever giving; prayers, therefore, and praises are ever suitable and becoming. Let no day go without observation and review of God's carriage toward you, and yours toward Him: of mercies and afflictions; of your duties and the frame of heart in them; of your sins or inclinations to sin; and so likewise of any remarkable providence of God related to you by others, or seen or heard by yourself; and let God have the glory of what is good. J. Mason. Wherever there is material for prayer, there is material for thanksgiving. If we need to pray to God even for our bread, then even for our bread let us give thanks to Him. If today's supply does not come by chance, nor because we were similarly supplied yesterday and the day before, but because God regards our wants of to-day and for this day also grants us life; then this day ought we to thank Him for this day's mercies, though they be but the same as yesterday's, and what all other men are enjoying. As each rising sun, touching the wing of the sleeping birds, wakes through the woods a fresh burst of glad melody, as if sun had never risen before; so let each day's mercies awake our hearts afresh to the sense of God our Father's smile, and turn our lives toward His light. "Where nothing is deserved, everything should be received with thanksgiving;" how then shall we ever discharge our debt of thanks, who deserve to know the power of God's anger, but experience the power of His mercy? Dods. Thy faithfulness. In every perfect union there must be mutual confidence, and a strict fulfilment of engagements on both sides. If man be trustful, God must be "faithful." In this great contract there must be in God a something that will answer to the faith that is in His humble follower. Thus faith in man and faithfulness in God are the two members of one spiritual harmony. Neither is to be conceived without the other. Man without God would be fatherless; and God has almost permitted us to say that, without His people (the "little children" whom He wills not "to perish"), He would Himself be, as it were, childless in His own celestial family! The highest object of man's existence is undoubtedly to hold communion with his God. For this his nature was originally framed, and in this alone will his nature ever find contentment or repose. God is, as it were, the counterpart to his being; the Divine and human elements are fitted to each other; and humanity, without the corresponding principle of Deity, is a thing imperfect, insufficient, incomplete. W. A. B. 5. How great are Thy doings, Jehovah, (how) exceedingly deep Thy thoughts!** Thoughts and doings are correlative expressions, signifying plan and execution. Deep, not mysterious, but vast, immense, and inexhaustible, corresponding to great in the other clause. A.—The works of God are exceeding great; very deep are His thoughts, which give shape to human history, in which they themselves gain form. Man can neither measure the greatness of the Divine works, nor fathom the depths of the Divine thoughts; the man that is enlightened, however, discerns the immeasurableness of the former and the unfathomableness of the latter. D. The context shows sufficiently that the "works" thought of here are not primarily those of creation, but those of Providence—the Divine agencies in controlling human life—rewarding and punishing the well or ill-doing of men. It is of these that the Psalmist exclaims: "How great are Thy works; how very deep are Thy thoughts"—thoughts in the sense of counsels, plans, principles of moral government. The Psalmist is in most profound sympathy with God in these works of His, for he cries out, "Thou, Lord, hast gladdened me by these works of Thine." C. And Thy thoughts are very deep. The Lord's plans are as marvellous as His acts; His designs are as profound as His doings are vast. Creation is immeasurable, and the wisdom displayed in it unsearchable. Providence is inexhaustible, and the Divine decrees which originate it are inscrutable. Redemption is grand beyond conception, and the thoughts of love which planned it are infinite. S. 6,7. Expressively he wrote: "The man-brute will not know; the fool will not understand this"—viz., that when the wicked spring up with rapid and apparently vigorous growth as the summer flowers in Palestine, it is that they may ripen soon for a swift destruction. The man-brute precisely translates the Hebrew words; one whom God has endowed with manhood, but who has debased himself to brutehood; a man as being of God's creation in His own image, but a brute as being self-moulded into the image of the baser animals! C. 8. And Thou (art) Most High to eternity, Jehovah!** This brief but pregnant proposition is the centre of the Psalm, and at the same time a summary of its contents. The superlative expression Most High is here used to translate a single Hebrew word which strictly means a height or high place, but here denotes that which holds the highest place in the scale of being. A.—All the joy of the Psalmist culminates in this great central fact on which all the doctrine of the Psalm rests, that Jehovah is throned on high forevermore; from that flows the overthrow of the wicked and the triumph of the righteous. P. Most high forevermore; literally, "art height," the abstract used for the concrete, to imply that the essence of all that is high is concentrated in Jehovah. When God and the cause of holiness seem low, God is really never higher than then; for out of seeming weakness He perfects the greatest strength. When the wicked seem high, they are then on the verge of being cast down forever. The believer who can realize this will not despair at the time of his own depression, and of the seeming exaltation of the wicked. If we can feel "Jehovah Most High forevermore," we can well be unruffled, however low we lie. Fausse. 10. Anointed with fresh oil.** Every kind of benediction and refreshment I have received, do receive, and shall receive, like one at a feast, who is welcomed as a friend, and whose head is copiously anointed with oil or fragrant balm. Geier. 11. And my eye has looked upon my enemies; of those rising up against me, evil-doers, my ears shall hear. The sense is that he sees and hears what is become of them. Their destruction is implied, though not expressed. The word translated enemies occurs only here. According to the most probable etymology it means watchers, liers in wait or ambush. A. 12-15. What is true of the Psalmist is true of all who are partakers of the same faith. The date-palm and the cedar are selected as the loveliest images of verdure, fruitfulness, undecaying vigor and perpetuity. "Throughout the year, in the winter's cold as in the summer's heat, the palm continues green. Not by years, but by centuries is the cedar's age reckoned." (Tholuck.) There is also a contrast: "The wicked spring as the green herb, or grass" (v. 7), which soon withers away, "The righteous spring as the palm," which is ever green and ever fruitful. Besides this, there are only two passages in the Old Testament where the palm is used in comparison—Cant. 7: 7, where it is said of the bride, "Thy stature is like to a palm-tree;" Jer. 10: 5, where the idols are said to be "upright as a palm-tree;" and one in the Apocrypha (Eccl. 24: 14), "I was exalted like a palm-tree in Engaddi." This, as Dr. Howson has noticed, is remarkable, considering the beauty of the tree and its frequent recurrence in the scenery of Palestine. P. 12. Like the palm-tree.** The large tuft of broad leaves which crowns the palm-tree, always retains its verdure; these leaves rise erect in the centre, and widely expand on each side of the stem, from which they immediately proceed, measuring from six to eight feet in length; the small white flowers (shielded by a spathe or sheath) comes out in long bunches from beneath them, being attached to the trunk by small stalks. It grows in a stately column, from thirty to fifty feet in height, crowned with a verdant capital of waving branches covered with long spiral leaves. Though the tree arrives at maturity thirty years after planting, it continues in full strength seventy years longer, producing annually fifteen or twenty clusters of dates, each weighing fifteen or twenty pounds. It is one of the most beautiful trees in the vegetable kingdom—upright, lofty, and verdant. The utility of this tree is not less remarkable than its beauty. Its clusters of fruit, which are frequently very large, furnish a great part of the diet of the inhabitants of Arabia and Persia: whole families in Upper Egypt, we are told, subsist entirely upon it. Gibbon says, that the Asiatics celebrated three hundred and sixty uses to which the trunk, branches, leaves, juice, and fruit were applied. Anon. There is no more charming and majestic sight than the palm-tree of the oasis, this king among the trees of the plain, with its proudly raised diadem of leaves, its attitude as it looks far away into the distance and gazes into the face of the sun, its perennial verdure and its vegetative power, which is continually renewing itself from the root—a symbol of life in the midst of a world of death. From the earliest times the palm-tree has been an emblem of longevity, of fruitfulness and victory, of unity and peace. D. Like a cedar in Lebanon. Along with the palm-tree there stands here the cedar, the prince of the trees of the mountain, and more especially of Mount Lebanon. The most obvious point of comparison is its stately, lofty growth; then in general the intensity of its power of growing, but also the perennial verdure of its foliage and the fragrance which it breathes out. D.—As the palm among the trees in the plain, so is the cedar in the mountain. The palm is distinguished by its tallness and fruitfulness; the cedar, by its strength and longevity. The palm rises in a single stem to sixty or one hundred feet, and bears fifteen or twenty clusters of dates, weighing each as many pounds; the cedar rises to ninety feet, with wide-spreading, umbrageous boughs, and lives about three thousand years. Each of these trees is in its own respects a striking emblem of the righteous man, who enjoys the protection and blessing of God. M. In the excavations of the palace of one of the Assyrian kings, some fragments of cedar beams were found by Mr. Layard, which have since been transported to England, and are now preserved in the British Museum. Mr. Carruthers, keeper of the Botanical Department of the Museum, has made a careful microscopic examination of the wood-cells of these beams, and confirms Mr. Layard's opinion that they were cedars from Lebanon. Thus these fragments have withstood the wear of time and the destroying chemical influences for perhaps thirty centuries, and are still the fragrant, incorruptible wood of the temple. Other woods may be riddled with worm-holes; no worm will touch the cedar. Giant eucalypti and sequoias may be "rotten to the core a thousand years before their falls;" there is not, and never has been, a false hearted cedar. Woodruff. "The righteous," says the Psalmist, "shall flourish like a palm-tree." That is one part of our life; to be upright, graceful, gentle, like that most beautiful of Oriental trees. But there is another quality added, "He shall spread abroad like a cedar in Libanus." That is, his character shall be sturdy, solid, broad; he shall protect others as well as himself; he shall support the branches of the weaker trees around him; he shall cover a vast surface of the earth with his shadow; he shall grow and spread and endure; he and his works shall make the place where he was planted memorable for future times. A. P. Stanley. The palm-tree and cedar grow because they are fed by hidden resources. The palm in the desert is fed by hidden springs that flow beneath the surface of the dry sand; its roots drink deep and are sustained, and they send up the moisture into the leaves and branches, and they are refreshed and invigorated. The roots of the cedar are fed by the streams that come down from the snow-crowned tops of Lebanon; they go far and wide into the fissures of the rocks, securing stability by their sturdy grasp, and continuing strong by drinking of the perpetual supply that comes down from the melting snows. So the righteous in this world grow and flourish. Like the palm, they are fed by hidden resources; with joy they draw water out of the wells of salvation, and Jesus declared that men thirsting for salvation were to come unto Him and drink, and that the water He would give them should be in them a well of water springing up unto everlasting life. Like the cedar, the righteous grow, for they are fed by hidden resources which come from above; the water of life flows down from the river of life that flows by the throne of God. D. Thoms. 13. The figure need not be so far pressed as to imply that such trees actually grew in the temple-court. Still it is by no means improbable that the precincts of the temple, like the Haram es-Sherif, contained trees. P.—The allusion to being planted in the house of the Lord is probably drawn from the custom of planting beautiful and long-lived trees in the courts of temples and palaces, and in all "high places" used for worship. This is still common; nearly every palace, and mosque, and convent in the country has such trees in the courts, and, being well protected there, they flourish exceedingly. Solomon covered all the walls of the "Holy of Holies" round about with palm-trees. They were thus planted, as it were, within the very house of the Lord; and their presence there was not only ornamental, but appropriate and highly suggestive. The very best emblem, not only of patience in well-doing, but of the rewards of the righteous—a flourishing old age, a peaceful end, a glorious immortality. W. M. Thomson. 14. They shall be fruitful; were there nothing but leaves upon them, they would not be trees of any value; but they shall still bring forth fruit, the products of sanctification, all the instances of a lively devotion and a useful conversation, good works, by which God is glorified and others are edified. These are the fruits of righteousness, in which it is the privilege as well as the duty of the righteous to abound; and it is the matter of a promise as well as the matter of a command. It is promised that they shall bring forth fruit in old age. Other trees, when they are old, leave off bearing, but in God's trees the strength of grace does not fall with the strength of nature. The last days of the saints are sometimes their best days, and their last work their best work. This indeed shows that they are upright; perseverance is the surest evidence of sincerity. H. God promises to His people that they shall still bring forth fruit in their age, and sometimes it is so verified that their last days are their best days of usefulness. They have to forego some kinds of labor, such as require enterprise or bodily strength; but there are others in which, by their experience, though with feeble hands, they may make themselves greatly useful. It will be the prayer of an old disciple that he may not fall into utter helplessness, nor outlive his usefulness, and the effort to keep up will tend to fulfil the prayer, and enable him to keep on. W. H. Lewis.—Aged believers possess a ripe experience, and by their mellow tempers and sweet testimonies they may feed many. Even if bedridden, they may bear the fruit of patience; if poor and obscure, their lowly and contented spirit may become the admiration of those who know how to appreciate modest worth. Grace does not leave the saint when the keepers of the house tremble; the promise is still sure though the eyes can no longer read it; and the voice of the Spirit in the soul is still melodious when the daughters of music are brought low. Blessed be the Lord for this! Because even to hoar hairs He is the I AM, who made His people, He therefore bears and carries them. S. How beautiful is the old age of piety—the faith and devotion that through a long life have waited upon God, merging into the peace of Christ's coming, and the joy of the heavenly rest!—no fears, no anxieties, no cares, no doubts, but a trust in God so calm and full, that even death is waited for in holy expectation, as the consolation promised to Israel, as the longed-for vision of Christ. This rich peace in prospect of death comes of a life of faith, "just and devout, according to the Word of God." A holy life is the prelude of a happy death. But the aged saint is not simply waiting for his departure; he is not severed from the present and translated beforehand into the future. Sometimes such a one fancies that, because his days of activity are over, he has outlived his usefulness; but his life of patience and hope, his mature and serene piety, his devout waiting upon God are a continual argument for the Gospel. He still brings forth fruit in old age. The cedar, with the growth of centuries upon it, still flourishes in majestic beauty. "The palm-tree remains green all the year round, in the cold of winter no less than in the heat of summer. It grows slowly, but steadily, uninfluenced by those alternations of the seasons which affect other trees. Drawing its moisture from hidden springs, when the green of the meadows is withered and the earth is parched to powder," the palm-tree still lifts aloft its verdant roof of leaves. J. P. T. 12-15. The palm-tree is the glory of Palestine, magnificently tall and beautiful, and all its parts made useful to meet human wants. So the cedars of Lebanon are unsurpassed in grandeur. The figure which compares the righteous to the palm and the cedar is still heightened by supposing them to be planted in the house of the Lord and to flourish in the courts of His temple. Their character—all that which makes them righteous men and not wicked; good men and wise rather than sensual, brutish, foolish; finds its root and life-power in the household of the Lord where God reveals His love and makes known His name and breathes His own purity into the souls of His sincere and humble worshippers. These are the great truths so beautifully clothed with Oriental imagery in our passage. Such men survive to a ripe old age, fruitful all the way, living witnesses that the Lord, the Jehovah who keeps covenant with His people, is upright, the rock of support to His trustful children, in whom, moreover, there never can be the least iniquity—never a shade of unrighteousness. C. A great many old people do enter very largely upon the higher life before they have done with this. There is no pull upon them but love and duty, and these pull both ways, toward God and toward man—and strongly toward righteousness in its relations to both worlds. Let the old man stand like a marble pillar under the good and true. He ought to realize that the breeze which fans his cheek is the breeze of the morning. The finest fire we have seen was the sparkle of old eyes, lit up by the courage and hope of the rising sun. Die? The old man is not going to die. He has no thought of dying. He is only getting ready to live. Interior. 15. Thus in the end God's righteous government of the world will be manifested. The flourishing of the workers of iniquity has been but for a moment (vs. 7, 9, 11); the joy and prosperity of the righteous is forever. This is the signal proof of God's righteousness; this is the justification of the Psalmist's confidence resting ever on that unshaken "Rock." P.—For shelter, for defence, for indwelling, for foundation, God is our rock. He is true and righteous altogether, and so we weave the end of the Psalm with its beginning, and make a coronet of it for the head of our Beloved. "It is a good thing to sing praises unto the Lord," for "He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him." S. 1. THE LORD reigneth; he is apparelled with majesty; The LORD is apparelled, he hath girded himself with strength: The world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved. 2. Thy throne is established of old: Thou art from everlasting. 3. The floods have lifted up, O LORD, The floods have lifted up their voice; The floods lift up their waves. 4. Above the voices of many waters, The mighty breakers of the sea, The LORD on high is mighty. 5. Thy testimonies are very sure: Holiness becometh thine house, O LORD, for evermore. THIS short Psalm is left by the compilers without a word as to its author or occasion. Its leading thought, the majesty and glory of Jehovah's reign over His creatures, is remarkably in harmony with the strain of the Psalm preceding. The thought of the Psalm is at once simple and sublime. "The Lord reigneth," all glorious, with all power; has reigned through all the ages of the past, rising infinitely above all opposing forces, and finally crowning all His glorious natural attributes with the highest moral perfections, truth and purity. C. This Psalm, like the two that precede it, goes back to the beginning of history. The subject is Jehovah, the God of revelation, ruling in majesty over all hostile powers, in executing the purposes of His grace. The Theocratic Psalms, beginning "Jehovah is King," are no less Messianic than those commonly so designated, and in the same general direction. In fact they steadily converge toward the event in which they both find their fulfilment, the ascension of our blessed Lord to the right hand of the Father. D. The substance of this Psalm is contained in the eighth verse of the preceding Psalm. It celebrates the majesty of Jehovah as ruler of the universe. He is Creator of the world. He has been its King from everlasting; it rests upon Him, and is stayed by His might. All the powers of nature obey Him, however lawless they may seem, as all the swelling and rage of men, of which those are but a figure, must obey Him. But His majesty and His glory are seen, not only in controlling the powers of nature, and whatsoever exalteth and opposeth itself against Him, but in the faithfulness of His Word, and in the holiness of His house. As the Psalm speaks of a particular manifestation of Jehovah's kingly rule, of a time when He has taken to Himself His great power and reigned, it may in this sense be termed Messianic. For, as Delitzsch has pointed out, the Old Testament prophecy concerning the kingdom of God consists of two series of predictions, the one of which speaks of the reign of the anointed of Jehovah out of Zion, the other of the reign of Jehovah Himself as the great King over all the earth. These two lines of prophecy converge in the Old Testament, but never meet. Only here and there do we discern an intimation (as in 45 : 7) that the two are one. P. The Scriptures do not propose to prove the attributes of God. These shine forth in His wonderful actions, which were to His ancient people familiar throughout their history. But, ever and anon, referring to these great facts, the inspired penman utters the most beautiful and enrapturing views of the Divine character and government. M. Simpson. The subject of this magnificent Psalm is the stability of God in His natural and moral kingdom. He is represented as a king upon his throne, robed in majesty and girded with strength; to Him the world is indebted for its stability, since He is from everlasting and His throne was established of old. Against Him, thus sitting on His throne, the wild, turbulent floods rise in their fury, as if they would drive Him from His established power, but the Lord, seated on high, is mightier than all the disturbing forces, whether of nature or of nations, which lift themselves against His authority. And of this stability His law and moral government partake; His testimonies or precepts are very sure; they may be relied upon, for they have the permanency of God in them. Holiness becometh His house forever; there are fixed proprieties in the worship of Him and in the relations of the worshipper, which will not pass away. The stability of God presented to us in the Scriptures consists in His fixed character and purposes, backed by unlimited power. It is not law—regular and uniform sequence, dependent on the necessity of things—to which the Bible refers the order of nature. There is a will above law, and a character of infinite wisdom and goodness behind will, which is the support of the universe. If ever the Scriptures seem to represent God as arbitrary, as willing and decreeing without a reason, the representation, which is made in order to set forth in a strong way the unalterableness and irresistibleness of the decree of God, is corrected by other passages where the decrees of God appear as His counsels, the results of His perfect wisdom and moral excellence. T. D. Woolsey. 1. The Lord reigneth.** It is a kind of proclamation in which God's people are invited to declare before men and angels that the Lord is King, He and He only. It is the response of the Church to the preaching of the Gospel, so rapturously hailed in Isaiah; the preaching of the messenger "that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!" W. Binnie. The Lord reigneth! And all history, sacred and profane, shows that He is bringing out of early ignorance, rudeness, wars, and widespread vice a continually increasing amount of knowledge, wisdom, civilization, justice, and righteousness. T. Hill.—We have here the history of the Church of God deduced from the text, "Jehovah reigneth." These words are to us as "a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in our hearts." So long as they are left us, all that threatens us from without is only like the noise of the breaking wave. The unspeakable comfort conveyed in this assurance is ever tested in the experience of God's people. There is no truth more precious to the heart of the Christian than that "the LORD reigneth." The conviction of this must carry us far above all cares and fears. A personal God, a living God, a reigning God, alike in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and this God the Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ—such are the steps by which we reach a height, where, far removed from the turmoil of men, we gain a comprehensive and clear view of earth and its concerns. I would not exchange the assurance which these two words, "Jehovah reigneth," convey, for all the wisdom, combined with all the power of this world. Received into my heart, they are the solution of every difficulty, the end of all perplexity. A. E. The world is established that it cannot be moved. This stability is an emanation of the wisdom and power of God, of wisdom which has contrived it as the theatre where He is carrying forward His great plan, and which must be kept in its place as long as the plan demands, and of power which deals with unyielding matter, as easily as the potter with the clay. The agitated sea and air, the flood and the lightning do their work, and that on the whole a beneficent work according to God's laws, without endangering the safety of the system. Since man has been placed on the earth its face and frame-work have remained nearly the same. Nay, earth outlasts all attacks upon it, whether occasional and violent, or silent and continual, and will endure until it shall be remodelled again to become a dwelling-place of the saints. Woolsey. 2. One glorious personage, Eternal and Divine, one grand central figure dominates human history from first to last, as He does all history of worlds of being beyond our ken, one who now as always, always as now, before or since His manifestation in the flesh, is the King of men, the real operative and controlling spiritual force in human history throughout, the Alpha and the Omega, the Eternal Son of God, the Lord and the Heir of all things, for us made man. Him we own as King of kings, and Lord of lords, to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth, in the unseen worlds and in the seen, in things eternal and in the things of time. Medd. 3-5. All the raging of the world will not be able to hinder the progress of the kingdom of God and its ultimate breaking through to the glory of triumph. The sea, with its vast mass of waters, with the constant restlessness of its waves, with its unceasing pressing upon the firm land, and its foaming against the rocks, is an emblem of the God-estranged, God-opposed Gentile world; while the streams are an emblem of the world-kingdoms, just as the Nile is a symbol of the Egyptian, the Tigris, swift as an arrow, of the Assyrian, and the winding Euphrates of the Babylonian. These streams, as the poet says with a confident look upward to Jehovah, have lifted up, have lifted up their voice; the streams lift up their noise. But Jehovah's majesty in the heavens soars above all the noisy majesties here below; their waves, though lashed ever so high, can never reach His throne. He is King of His people, Lord of His Church, which retains His revelation, and worships in His temple. In virtue of His unapproachable, all-overcoming kingship, this revelation is inviolable; His testimonies, which minister to the setting up of His kingdom and promise its future presentation in glory, are sure. And holiness becometh His temple. D. 3. 4. In the Old Testament the floods are often compared with the rage of the peoples, and the rebellion of man against the will of God. God lets people work against His kingdom in this world. It is not to be always so. The kingdom of God is in the earth, and the kingdom of God admits of opposition. But the opposition, even here on earth, all comes to nothing. "Thou art mightier than the noise of many waters;" the floods "have lifted up their voice;" but Thou "sittest upon the floods, yea, Thou sittest King forever." It is an experience repeated over and over again, in the history of individuals and in the history of the world. A. M.—There is a difference between violences in the moral system and those in the kingdom of nature. The wild forces in the latter case obey an established law and do a beneficent work; all, at least, except the earthquake, into the purpose of which men have not yet been able to penetrate. But violence in the moral world, the fury and wild force of nations, as of individuals, is not only against moral order but also against the original conception of the system. The fact of sin, then, the impetuous rage of sin on the great scale, looks as if finite beings were getting the better of God, as if they were disappointing Him, and marring somewhat the majesty of His throne, when they lift up their waves against Him. But it is far otherwise: the Lord on high is in the end shown to be "mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea." For, first, the law of retribution is continually coming into play, when nations commit great crimes. The blind force of finite minds punishes itself, and thus clothes God before the eyes of His creatures with majesty, and establishes His throne. And, secondly, God draws good out of evil. As in storm, and flood, and lightning, so here His final purpose is beneficent, although, through the perversity of man, not always attained. Sometimes He chastises their pride, and a humbled nation, bowing in repentance before Him, will henceforth have in its hand the key of prosperity, will respect the rights of others more, and learn lessons more readily. Sometimes a vast structure of injustice on which they set their hearts, which they upheld by all sophistry in defiance of truth and God, is made the source of their present ruin, but out of the trunk grows up again a vigorous tree, which will flourish for ages. A lesson of justice has been burned into them which they will not forget. Sometimes they cast God away in voluptuous refinement and heartless scepticism. They are punished by dissolution of civil order, by wild passions in society, by strife of class with class, by political revolution. They are shaken until they acknowledge God again and become able to have an orderly and established government. 5. The Psalmist passes on by an easy sequence to teach us that God's testimonies or precepts are sure; that is, are true, permanent, and to be relied upon. If the swelling waters that lift up their voice are symbols of disorder among nations as well as in nature, the transition is yet more smooth; for from the majesty and power of God, as displayed against rebellious nations, we go directly to His precepts which they have violated, and which He upholds by His judgments. Woolsey. Thy testimonies are very sure. As in Providence the throne of God is fixed beyond all risk, so in revelation His truth is beyond all question. As the rocks remain unmoved amid the tumult of the sea, so does Divine truth resist all the currents of man's opinion and the storms of human controversy; they are not only sure, but very sure. Our faith is grounded upon the eternal truth of the Most High. S. —The promises no less than the precepts are God's testimonies, or the witnesses or declarations of His mind and will to mankind. And He seems here to speak of those great and precious promises concerning the erection and establishment of His kingdom in the world by the Messias; which, saith He, are infallibly true, and shall certainly be accomplished in thy time, M. Pool. Holiness becomes Thy house, O Lord, forever. God's Church is His house; it is a holy house, cleansed from sin, consecrated by God, and employed in His service. The holiness of it is its beauty; nothing better becomes the saints than conformity to God's image, and an entire devotedness to His honor; and it is its strength and safety. It is the holiness of God's house that secures it against the many waters and their noise; where there is purity, there shall be peace. H.—"Holiness becometh Thine house," the Hebrew word ["becometh"] combining, as in Psalms 33: 1, the two ideas of beauty and fitness, expressing therefore the beauty of fitness. Holiness, moral purity, exemption from all sin, is appropriate and exquisitely beautiful in Thine house, the place of Thine earthly abode, where Thy worshipping people meet Thee face to face. Let them appear there before this faithful and glorious God with clean hands and pure heart, in the beauty of holiness. C. 1. O LORD, thou God to whom vengeance belongeth, Thou God to whom vengeance belongeth, shine forth. 2 Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth : Render to the proud their desert. 3 LORD, how long shall the wicked, How long shall the wicked triumph ? 4 They prate, they speak arrogantly : All the workers of iniquity boast themselves. 5 They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, And afflict thine heritage. 6 They slay the widow and the stranger, And murder the fatherless. 7 And they say, The LORD shall not see, Neither shall the God of Jacob consider. 8 Consider, ye brutish among the people : And ye fools, when will ye be wise ? 9 He that planted the ear, shall he not hear ? He that formed the eye, shall he not see ? 10 He that chastiseth the nations, shall not he correct, Even he that teacheth man knowledge ? 11 The LORD knoweth the thoughts of man, That they are vanity [a breath]. 12 Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O LORD, And teachest out of thy law ; 13. That thou mayest give him rest from the days of adversity, Until the pit be digged for the wicked. 14 For the LORD will not cast off his people, Neither will he forsake his inheritance. 15 For judgment shall return unto righteousness : And all the upright in heart shall follow it. 16 Who will rise up for me against the evildoers ? Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity ? 17 Unless the LORD had been my help, My soul had soon dwelt in silence. 18 When I said, My foot slippeth ; Thy mercy, O LORD, held me up. 19 In the multitude of my thoughts [doubts] within me Thy comforts delight my soul. 20 Shall the throne of wickedness have fellowship with thee, Which frameth mischief by statute ? 21 They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, And condemn the innocent blood. 22 But the LORD hath been my high tower ; And my God the rock of my refuge. 23 And he hath brought upon them their own iniquity, And shall cut them off in their own evil ; The LORD our God shall cut them off. THE Psalm opens with an appeal to God to execute righteous vengeance on wicked rulers or judges who oppress and crush the helpless, while in their folly they dream that his long-suffering is but the supineness of indifference. It concludes with the expression of a calm confidence that God's righteousness will be finally manifested. The righteous, taught by God's fatherly discipline, and upheld by Him, can wait for the end, when the wicked shall reap the reward of their wickedness, and shall be utterly destroyed. The conviction thus expressed of the righteousness of God's government is similar to that in Psalm 92, except that here this conviction is grounded more directly on personal experience. P. 1. God to whom vengeance belongeth.** There is a distinction between revenge and vengeance. "Revenge," says Dr. Johnson, "is an act of passion, vengeance of justice; injuries are revenged, crimes avenged." And it is from not attending to this essential distinction that the scorner attributes a vindictive spirit to the Almighty, as if he found delight in wreaking vengeance on an adversary. The call which the Psalmist here makes on God as a God to whom vengeance belongeth, is no other than if he had said, "O God, to whom justice belongeth!" Vengeance, indeed, is not for man, because with man's feelings and propensities it would ever degenerate into revenge. "I will be even with him," says nature; "I will be above him," says grace. Bouchier. God of retributions, Jehovah, God of retributions, shine forth! A very natural prayer when innocence is trampled down and wickedness exalted on high. If the execution of justice be a right thing—and who can deny the fact?—then it must be a very proper thing to desire it; not out of private revenge, in which case a man would hardly dare to appeal to God, but out of sympathy with right, and pity for those who are made wrongfully to suffer. S. 6. Widow and stranger they kill, and orphans they murder.** The strongest description of injustice and violence is given by saying that they not only wrong but murder the very classes of sufferers, who in the law are constantly exhibited as objects of compassion. 7. And they say, Jehovah will not see, and the God of Jacob will not attend.** The same impious presumption is expressed in Psalms 10: 11, 13; 14: 1; 59: 7. The Divine names are, as usual, significant. That the self-existent and eternal God should not see, is a palpable absurdity; and scarcely less so, that the God of Israel should suffer His own people to be slaughtered without even observing it. The last verb means to mark, note, notice. 8. Attend ye brutish among the people; and ye fools, when will ye act wisely?** The first verb is the same with that at the end of the preceding verse. It is stronger than the English word attend, implying in all cases intelligent attention. A.—The utter folly of this denial of a Divine providence because judgment is not executed speedily. The argument which follows is from the perfections of the creature to those of the Creator. The very nature of God and of man convicts these fools of their folly. "Can anything," says Herder, "more to the point be urged, even in our time, against the tribe of philosophers who deny a purpose and design in nature? All that they allege of the dead abstraction which they term 'nature,' the heathen ascribed to their gods; and what the prophets say against the one, holds against the other." P. 9. We can understand the mechanism of the eye, we can comprehend the wisdom that devised it; but the preparation of materials and the adjustment of parts speak of a power and skill to which man can never hope to attain. When he sees his most cunning workmanship surpassed both in plan and execution, shall he fail to recognize design? Shall we fail to recognize a builder when we contemplate such a work? P. A. Chadbourne. 10. He that teacheth man knowledge.** What knowledge have we but that which is derived from Himself or from the external world?—and what is that world, but His creation?—and what is creation, but the composition, structure, and arrangement of all things according to his previous designs, plans, intentions, will, and mandate? In studying creation in any of its departments, we therefore study His mind; and all that we can learn from it must be His ideas, His purposes, and His performances. No author, in his compositions, no artificer, in his mechanisms, can more truly display their talents and ideas to others than the unseen Creator manifests His thoughts and intelligence to us in the systems and substances which He has formed, and presents to our continual contemplation. In this sense nature is an unceasing revelation of them to us. Sharon Turner. It was no limited power that could make this eye to see, this ear to hear, this heart to understand; and if that eye which He hath given us can see all things that are within our prospect, and that ear that He hath planted can hear all sounds that are within our compass, and that heart that He hath given us can know all matters within the reach of our comprehension; how much more shall the sight, and hearing, and knowledge of that Infinite Spirit, which can admit of no bounds, extend to all the actions and events of all the creatures that lie open before Him that made them! Bishop H. He that teaches man knowledge, shall He not know? He not only as the God of nature has given the light of reason, but as the God of grace has given the light of revelation, has showed man what is true wisdom and understanding; and He that does this, shall He not know? (Job 28: 23, 28). The flowing of the streams is a certain sign of the fulness of the fountain. If all knowledge is from God, no doubt all knowledge is in God. From this general doctrine of God's omniscience He not only confutes the atheists, who said, "The Lord shall not see (v. 7). He will not take cognizance of what we do;" but awakens us all to consider that God will take cognizance even of what we think (v. 11). The Lord knows the thoughts of man. H. 11. The Psalmist was going to say at the end of v. 10, "Shall not He know?" finishing his question as the preceding verses, but instead of that he gives the answer directly in v. 11. So far from "not seeing," "not regarding," as these "brutish" persons fondly imagine, Jehovah reads their inmost thoughts and devices, as He reads the hearts of all men, even though for a time they are unpunished. P. Vanity. Had vanity been ascribed only to the exercise of our sensual or mortal part, or of that which we possess in common with other animals, it had been less humiliating. But the charge is pointed at that which is the peculiar glory of man, the intellectual part, his thoughts. The soul of man seems to be necessarily active. Everything we see, hear, taste, feel, or perceive has some influence upon thought, which is moved by it as leaves on the trees are moved by every breeze of wind. But "thoughts" here include those exercises of the mind in which it is voluntarily or intensely engaged, and in which we are in earnest: even all our schemes, contrivances, and purposes. Yet even these most serious exercises of the intellectual faculty "the Lord knoweth to be vanity." A. Fuller. —Thoughts are the firstborn of the soul, the immediate issues of the mind; yet we lavish them away upon every trifle. Follow men all the day long and take account of their thoughts. What madness and folly are in all the musings they are conscious of: "The Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that they are vanity." If we did judge as God judges, all the thoughts, reasonings, discourses of the mind, if they were set down in a table, we might write at the bottom, Here is the sum and total account of all—nothing but vanity. Manton. 12. Suddenly the course of thought changes. Such outrageous wickedness and persecution of the good has some indirect benefits. It may be turned to some account as discipline for the pious sufferer. "Blessed is the man, O Lord, whom Thou chastenest, and at the same time teachest him out of Thy law"—sustaining his heart by Thy precious truth, and giving him hope for the latter end. C. Not only knowledge, but also every other gift which we call the gifts of fortune, have power to puff up earth; afflictions only level these mole-hills of pride, plough the heart, and make it fit for wisdom to sow her seed and for grace to bring forth her increase. Happy is that man, therefore, both in regard of heavenly and earthly wisdom, that is thus wounded to be cured, thus broken to be made straight; thus made acquainted with his own imperfections, that he may be perfected. Bacon.—Afflictions of themselves, though severe schoolmasters, yet can do us no good, unless God come by His Spirit and teach our hearts inwardly. Let us therefore pray, that, as in the ministry of God's Word, so also of His works and judgments, we may be all taught of God. The reason that many men have rather grown worse by their afflictions than better, is because God's Spirit hath not gone with the affliction to put life and spirit into it. D. Dyke. The afflictions of the saints are fatherly chastenings, designed for our instruction, reformation, and improvement. When the teachings of the Word and Spirit go along with the rebukes of Providence, they then both bespeak men blessed and help to make them so; for then they are marks of adoption and means of sanctification. When we are chastened we must pray to be taught, and look into the law as the best expositor of Providence. It is not the chastening itself that does good, but the teaching that goes along with it and is the exposition of it. God therefore teaches His people by their troubles, that He may prepare them for deliverance and so give them rest from their troubles; that being reformed they might be relieved, and the affliction having done its work may be removed. H. If by outward afflictions thy soul be brought more under the inward teachings of God, doubtless thy afflictions are in love. All the chastening in the world, without Divine teaching, will never make a man blessed; the man that finds correction attended with instruction, and lashing with lessening, is a happy man. If God, by the affliction that is upon thee, shall teach thee how to loathe sin more, how to trample upon the world more, and how to walk with God more, thy afflictions are in love. If God shall teach thee by afflictions how to die to sin more, and how to die to thy self-interest more, thy afflictions are in love. If God shall teach thee by afflictions how to live to Christ more, how to lift up Christ more, and how to long for Christ more, thy afflictions are in love. If God shall teach thee by afflictions to get assurance of a better life, and to be still in a gracious readiness and preparedness for the day of thy death, thy afflictions are in love. When God loves, He afflicts in love. T. Brooks. It is only in the Word of God that we learn to consider affliction as a blessing. The utmost which the most refined philosophy can effect is to remove from our sorrows that which is imaginary, to divert the attention from the cause of distress, or to produce a sullen and stoical resignation more like despair than hope. The religion of the Gospel grapples with the evil itself, overcomes it, and transforms it into a blessing. It is by no means included in the promises made to true Christians that they shall be exempt from suffering. On the contrary, chastisement forms a necessary part of that paternal discipline by which our heavenly Father fits His children for their eternal rest in glory. The Psalmist asserts the blessedness of the man who is chastised by the Lord with this qualification as necessary to constitute it a blessing, that he is also instructed in Divine truth. By this we understand that the influence of chastisement is not physical; that mere suffering has no inherent efficacy; but that the afflictions of this life are, in the hand of God, instrumental in impressing Divine truth upon the heart, awakening the attention of the believer to the consideration of his own character and situation, the promises of the Gospel, and the rewards of heaven. The child of God is assured that all things work together for his good; in this is plainly included the pledge that chastisements and afflictions shall eventually prove a blessing; and this is verified by the experience of the whole Church. Particularly, chastisement is useful, because it convinces the believer of his helplessness and misery when left to himself, and of his entire dependence on God; because it leads him to renew his repentance, puts his faith to the test, and strengthens his Christian graces; because it contributes to the exercise of filial submission, and fixes the mind upon the heavenly inheritance. J. W. A. The end of our spiritual Father, in all our chastisements, is to make us "partakers of His holiness." Who that knows what it is to be holy, but will rejoice in this end of the Divine discipline? To be made like to God, to be beautified with the graces of His own image, what a high and exalted design is this! And such is the effect of His chastisements. They wean the Christian from the world, they turn his mind back to Him who made it, they take him off from self-will, they break the perverseness which clings to the fallen heart. "My soul," says the Psalmist, "is even as a weaned child," humbled within me, no longer meddling with things too high for me: quieted, calmed, composed; saying with the prophet, "What I know not, teach Thou me;" "If I have done iniquity, I will do so no more." R. Hall. Through suffering to glory; to eternity this remains the fundamental law under which we live on earth. Suffering trains for glory. God deals with His chosen ones as the diamond-polisher with the precious stone which he handles, so that the dust is separated from it on all sides, but only that thus it may shine the brightest jewel in a kingly crown. Suffering is changed into glory, even as the shadow is swallowed up in light and death in life. Glorious Gospel which lets fall so comforting a light in the dark depths. Glad prospect for so many who here daily sow with tears, yet as certainly may count upon a harvest with rejoicing! Van O. The highest felicity that outward things can bring us is when they come in the guise of sorrow, with the errand of chastening from our Father. Polished steel needs much friction. The fair statue needs much merciless hammering away of lumps which, though they be marble, obscure the likeness. June roses are the children of February's sleet. And the world that we live in to-day has been made ready for men by tremendous convulsions and chaos. And so God deals with us all, moulding us for His purposes by sharp blows; polishing us for His quiver by painful friction; making us fruitful by many a storm; and preparing us to be the dwelling-place of Himself, by many an earthquake throe and much chaos and darkness. Let us accept the gift as part of the benediction of heaven. So all comes to this. If we will trust God, will fear Him, will dwell with Him, will aspire after Him, will bring our sins to Him to be forgiven, if we will regulate our lives and our hearts by His gracious and sweet law, if we will take His chastisements as His love gifts, and say, "It is the Lord!" then, whatever happens, we shall not be desolate. A. M. 13. To give him rest.** This is the end of God's teaching, that His servant may wait in patience, unmoved by, safe from, the days of evil, seeing the evil all round lifting itself up, but seeing also the secret, mysterious retribution slowly but surely accomplishing itself. In this sense the "rest" is the rest of a calm, self-possessed spirit. P. Rest from the days of adversity. To rest from the days of adversity is not to be disturbed by them to such an extent as to murmur or despond in spirit, but to trust in God, and in silence of the mind and affections expect from God deliverance. Venema.—It is not the will of God to give us more troubles than will bring us to live by faith simply on Him; He loves us too well. Romaine. Whatever may be the longing of the natural heart, and whatever may be the teachings of the most widely popular of false religions, in the direction of a selfish, ease-giving rest, the whole spirit of the Gospel of Jesus breathes of the gain and of the duty of suffering; while all the Gospel precepts and all the Gospel illustrations in this sphere indicate that the “rest” which is given on earth to the Christian believer, is a rest while in suffering, rather than a rest from suffering. “It behooved Christ to suffer;” “leaving you an example, that ye should follow His steps.” And “as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings,” even “so also are ye (partakers) of the comfort” which is in and from Christ, in His triumph over evil. He who promises “rest” to all who will come to Him, promises them “tribulation” also; and Christ’s conditional promise of eternal rest is, “He that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved.” Contentment and endurance in suffering are the privilege and the duty of every true disciple of Jesus. And as are the teachings of the Gospel of Jesus so are the teachings of the highest and noblest experiences of the children of men. There is a gain in suffering. True rest is not in unthinking ease. Only through prolonged endurance is there any real attainment of a worthy soul-enjoyment. H. C. T. The essence of Christianity is self-renunciation; and the discipline that brings us to feel our childlike dependence is the perfecting of our piety. Grief after grief brings us to joy. Broken in spirit, we are made whole; humbled, we are exalted. We gain the great victory through a succession of defeats. It is in the Lord that we must “rest,” and it is for His Almighty will that we must “wait.” Any other rest will be guilty indolence; any other waiting will be faithless self-love. It must be a religious repose. It must be that holy and consecrated frame in which every subdued and submissive energy shall breathe the consistent prayer, “Thy will be done.” This will be casting all our care on Him who careth for us. This will be the peace and joy of believing. F. D. H. How needful amid the trials of this earthly life, and how blessed is it to look off from the low plane, and past the near horizon of earth and time, to the higher, wider heavens with their juster standards and clearer lights and unsetting glories, that thus we may learn to judge aright of the events around us, and of the influences that are passing over us. Earthly trial, however sharp and however long, is not hopeless or endless, or even aimless, if accepted as the appointment of a parental Providence, and as training and meeting us for rest in Jesus. William R. Williams. 15. Upright in heart.** While religion and prosperity go together, it is hard to say which a man follows; but when once they are forced to a separation, where the heart was will soon be manifest. The upright in heart are like Ruth; whatsoever becometh of the Gospel, they will be sharers with it in the same condition; be it affliction or be it prosperity; be it comfort or be it sorrow; be it fair weather or be it foul; be it light or be it darkness—they will take their lot with it. Caryl. 18. Thy mercy held me up.** We have come to see the beauty of law, and to know that the broken heart, the dying babe, the crucified Christ—all these things come as much out of the Divine love as the flowering spring, the yellow harvest, the marriage-day, and the birth of the firstborn. We believe that God is the merciful Giver to man of bitterness, as well as of what men call bliss; we believe that when we are sad He is as near to us as when we are glad; we believe that He is equally the Author of what men call evil as He is of happiness; that all is of God, all in God. And we rise at last, not in pride, but in humility, to say, Where each man is at this moment is best for his eternal gain, the world’s eternal good, and the unbroken purposes of the Almighty. Does it require little faith and courage to hold this creed? It requires more humility, more faith, more courage. G. Dawson. 19. Thoughts,** or “perplexities;” literally, divided or branching thoughts,” whether doubts or cares. P.—There is a graphic little picture in those words. They mean literally, “in the multitude of my tangled or intertwined thoughts,” a confused mass of thoughts like the interlacing twigs and boughs of a tree swept by a tempest. His thoughts are too confused to think out anything. That suggests a common feature of sorrow. When a great calamity has overtaken one, the first experience, and a dreadful one it is, is that of utter confusion, of inability to think connectedly at all. It is there, amid the multitude of tangled, conflicting thoughts, that he finds healing if he can get hold on God. It is a comfort if he can only realize that God is in the dark with him. He does not trouble himself much about the mode of the comfort He merely clings to God and finds the more comfort the closer he gets to Him. V. In the multitude of my thoughts within me. When I am tossed to and fro with various reasonings, distractions, questionings, and forebodings, I will fly to my true rest, for "Thy comforts delight my soul." From my sinful thoughts, my vain thoughts, my sorrowful thoughts, my griefs, my cares, my conflicts, I will hasten to the Lord; He has Divine comforts, and these will not only console, but delight me. S.—It is still true that "many are the afflictions of the righteous," and that "through much tribulation" we enter the kingdom. But all this is not a matter of chance, nor an indication of imperfect wisdom and love. The world is evil, and goodness can only live in it by conflict. It is part of the great battle of the universe that sin shall be exterminated by endured sorrows. History proves that the purest lives and most beautiful virtues have flourished in times and by means of severe trial. Every sufferer knows how blessed it is to be driven nearer to God. The tribulation is only for a brief space, and works out a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. Hence faith can bear the strain; the more so as God does succor and delight the soul with His comforts. Chapman. We are to understand here such comforts as are peculiarly and altogether God's, such as flow at once from God. The comforts that we get from His attributes—from meditating on, and what we call realizing them; the comforts we get from His promises—believing and hoping in Him; and the comforts of His presence, He drawing near to our souls and shining into them—we knowing He is near us, conscious of it by the light and happiness and renewed strength within us. "Thy comforts"—the comforts we get from the Lord Jesus Christ; from looking at Him, considering Him; thinking of His person, and offices, and blood, and righteousness, and intercession, and exaltation, and glory, and His second coming; our meeting Him, seeing Him, being like Him. "Thy comforts"—the comforts which come from the Holy Spirit, "the Comforter;" when He opens the Scriptures to us, or speaks through ceremonies and ordinances, or witnesses within us of our adoption of God; shining in on His own work of grace in our hearts; enabling us to see that work, and to see in it God's peculiar, eternal love to us; not opening to us the book of life, and showing us our names there, but doing something that makes us almost as joyful as though that book were opened to us; showing us the hand of God in our own souls—His converting, saving hand—His hand apprehending us as His own; making us feel, as it were, His grasp of love, and feel, too, that it is a grasp which He will never loosen. C. Bradley. 20-23. This strophe, like the last, applies the general doctrine of the Psalm to the individual case, the personal security of the Psalmist, and the righteous retribution visited upon the evil-doers. But for "Jehovah my God," in v. 22, we have in v. 23, "Jehovah our God," as if to remind us that His personal welfare does not stand apart from, but is bound up with, that of the nation. Compare v. 14. P. 20. Judges and magistrates ought to exercise their authority as God's vicegerents, so that in this their unrighteousness they might seem to be claiming God Himself as their ally. Bunsen. 23. God interposes in a special manner, and cuts short the career of tyrants while they are in the very midst of their crimes. Wicked men are often arrested by the pursuivants of Divine justice redhanded, with the evidences of their guilt upon them. "He shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness." While the ill-gotten wedge of gold is yet in their tent judgment overtakes them. God Himself conspicuously visits them, and reveals His own power in their overthrow, "yea, the Lord our God shall cut them off." Here, then, the matter ends; faith reads the present in the light of the future, and ends her song without a trembling note. S. 1. O COME, let us sing unto the LORD : Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before his presence with thanks-giving, Let us make a joyful noise unto him with psalms. 3 For the LORD is a great God, And a great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the deep places of the earth ; The heights of the mountains are his also. 5 The sea is his, and he made it ; And his hands formed the dry land. 6 O come, let us worship and bow down ; Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker : 7 For he is our God, And we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. To-day, Oh that ye would hear his voice ! 8. Harden not your heart, as at Meribah, As in the day of Massah in the wilderness : 9 When your fathers tempted me, Proved me, and saw my work. 10 Forty years long was I grieved with that generation, And said, It is a people that do err in their heart, And they have not known my ways : 11 Wherefore I sware in my wrath, That they should not enter into my rest. THIS Psalm is one of a series intended for the temple worship. Both the joyfulness of its opening verses and its general character, in which it resembles the eighty-first Psalm, would render it suitable for some of the great national feasts. As to the date of its composition nothing certain can be said. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, in making a quotation from the Psalm, uses the expression "in David," but this is evidently only equivalent to saying "in the Psalms." In the Hebrew it has no inscription. P. We may think of this Psalm, as we sing it in our daily worship, as prophetic of a better worship still, even of the perpetual adoration of that heavenly city, wherein the apostle saw no temple, "for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." Housman. It consists of two very distinct parts : The first is an invitation to a joyful public acknowledgment of God's mercies (vs. 1-7). The second (beginning with the last member of v. 7 to the end) is a warning to the people against the unbelief and disobedience through which their fathers had perished in the wilderness. P. 1. Come, let us sing unto Jehovah, let us shout unto the rock of our salvation. The first verb properly means go, but is constantly used like come in other languages, as a formula of invitation, in summoning others to participate in some act of the speaker. The two verbs in this verse are those commonly applied to the vocal expression of joy and triumph. The rock of our salvation, the strong ground of our confidence, the basis upon which our hope of safety rests. A. 2. Go to meet. Such is the proper and strict rendering of the word. "Come before" does not sufficiently express the forwardness, the ready alacrity, which are really denoted by the verb. P. 3-7. The adorableness of God is based upon a threefold fact : He is exalted above all gods as King, above all things as Creator, above His people as Shepherd and Leader. D.—He is called King of kings, and Lord of lords, having none above Him : "A great King above all gods ;" needing no license from any when to act, nor direction how to act, nor assistance in His action. He owes not any of those to any person ; He was not ordered by any other to create, and therefore receives not orders from any other to rule over what He hath created. He received not His power and wisdom from another, and therefore is not subject to any for the rule of His government. He only made His own subjects, and from Himself hath the sole authority ; His own will was the cause of their being, and His own will is the director of their actions. He is not determined by His creatures in any of His motions, but determines the creatures in all. His actions are not regulated by any law without Him, but by a law within Him, the law of His own nature. It is impossible He can have any rule without Himself, because there is nothing superior to Himself. Charnock. This being a Gospel Psalm, it is the Lord Jesus whom we are here taught to praise; he is a great God; the Mighty God is one of His titles, and God over all, blessed forevermore. As Mediator He is a great King above all gods; by Him kings reign, and angels, principalities, and powers are subject to Him; by Him, as the Eternal Word, all things were made, and it was fit He should be the Restorer and Reconciler of all, who was the Creator of all (Col. 1 : 16, 20). To Him all power is given both in heaven and in earth, and into His hand all things are delivered. H. 4. The untrodden heights of the mountains are all the Lord's. These are His fastnesses and treasure-houses, where He stores the tempest and the rain; whence also He pours the icterrents and looses the avalanches. The granite peaks are His, and His the precipices and the beetling crags. Strength is the main thought which strikes the mind when gazing on those vast ramparts of cliff which front the raging sea, or peer into the azure sky, piercing the clouds, but it is to the devout mind the strength of God. S. 5. The Psalmist names the lowest known localities and the highest, to give definiteness to the conception that God holds all alike in His great hand. "The sea and the dry land," another comprehensive grouping, to signify all there is of the earth's surface. Honor ye the glorious Maker of all! C. The sea is His. We thank God for the sea. Without it earth would be barrenness, and waste, and without inhabitants. Not an acre could be cultivated and not a creature live. This great wide sea holds large place, and is appointed to high functions in the physical and moral economy of our globe. It must temper our climate, refresh our soil, furnish a way for the going and coming of the nations, bear the traffic of the world, and bind the distant and dissevered tribes of man into a common brotherhood. It has a higher mission. Man is to be trained, disciplined, educated. He is here not simply to contend with elements and adverse conditions, and so become courageous and strong, but he is here to be made intelligent, virtuous, and happy. He is here to see God and serve Him; and nowhere can he see God in such awful grandeur and sublimity as on the sea. No lessons of human weakness and dependence are so impressed upon men as by the ocean. This liquid wonder, with its wide acres of barrenness, on which no cities can be built, no roadways projected, no foot of traveller pass, with a volume of water outweighing the solid land of our globe, laid away in depths still unfathomed, with light and life penetrating to its profoundest deep, its liquid tombs, its unseen storehouse, in which the spoils of the ages are gathered, abides in all generations one of the grandest revelations of the Creator's handiwork and a perpetual symbol of the Infinite. Beadle. 6,7. Most of the Psalms are direct addresses to God. The rest of them are devout meditations upon the Divine Word, and the blessedness of those who receive it into their hearts, or varied expressions of spiritual life arising from the most intimate and inspiring relations with God, and suitable to the sanctuary. The central and ruling idea of the whole is worship in its most comprehensive sense, and is here embodied in a single impressive sentence. De Witt. 6. O come. Again the invitation to lowliest adoration and worship, called forth afresh by the remembrance of God's revelation to and covenant with Israel. Our Maker, and (v. 7) our God, thus asserting the personal covenant relationship of God to His people; and here, as so often elsewhere, God's majesty as seen in creation is linked with His love as seen in redemption. P. Let us worship. Worship comes of reverence, the most august and profound of man's capacities, because it reaches instantly from his humblest self-distrust to the loftiest sufficiency, laying the trembling arm of his infirmity on the Almighty throne. Without worship manhood is dwarfed, for it ignores the only supreme intelligence, the only irresistible power, the only infinite love, the Highest, the Greatest, the Best One; and he who ought to open out on every side of him, by every breathing pore of his constitution, and every thirsty passion of his immortality, toward the boundless realm that encompasses, invites, and waits to transfigure him, shrinks self-limited. F. D. H. Worship should be the homage of the soul; its true seat, therefore, is the inner sanctuary of the spirit; and, whatever the place or the mode of worship, the act itself should correspond with the essence of God, who is Spirit. Our Lord said literally, God is Spirit; not simply a Spirit, but Spirit itself. This infinite Spirit is the Father of our spirits; and, with the love of a Father for every one of His children alike, He desires from every one the same simple, affectionate, grateful devotion. The truest worship is the communion of our spirits with God. J. P. T.—Spiritual worship is enlightened; it is the result of knowledge; it perceives and rejoices in its object; it takes hold of a promise, or fixes on a precept; it must be the result of faith, for faith sees the great Invisible; it must be the kindling of the Holy Spirit. Lessey.—There is no worship where there is no joy. For worship is something more than either the fear of God or the love of Him. It is delight in Him. F. W. Faber. 6. Bow down.** Adoration is the expression by an outward, but much more by an inward, act of man's sincere conviction that his first duty to Almighty God is submission; and thus it is distinct from many other acts of the soul which are sometimes apt to be mistaken for it. Thanksgiving, praise, and prayer for blessings, all three differ from adoration in this, that in each of them the soul is less prostrate, more able to bear the thought of self, than in pure and simple adoration. Pure adoration has no heart for self; it lies silent at the foot of the throne, conscious only of two things—the insignificance of self, the greatness of God. H. P. L. All passions earnestly desire to be freely exercised, especially our holy affections of love, joy, and admiration of Almighty God. In expressing such affections, we naturally desire communion with many. Methinks when we are singing the praises of God in great assemblies with joyful and fervent spirits, I have the liveliest foretaste of heaven upon earth, and could almost wish that our voices were loud enough to reach through all the world, and to heaven itself. Nothing comforts me more in my greatest sufferings, nor seems more fit for me, while I wait for death, than singing Psalms of praise to God; nor is there any exercise in which I had rather end my life. Should I not, then, willingly go to the heavenly choir, where God is praised with perfect love, and joy, and harmony? Had I more of a praising frame of soul, I should long more for that life of praise. I never find myself more willing to be there than when I most joyfully speak or sing the praises of God. Baxter. We do not only need to worship, we need to perform public and congregational worship. It is of the very nature of all spiritual profits and pleasures that the more and the more widely they are shared, the more they multiply. We need each other in the worship of God. For one thing, we need all community of worship can do for us to keep our religion, which is our life, from the blight of individualism. Our religion is not only and entirely a private matter between each of us and his God. There are priceless results of religion and of worship that we cannot get by ourselves, and our fellow-men cannot get without us. Cable. 7. The Gospel Church is His flock, Christ is the great and good Shepherd of it; we, as Christians, are led by His hand into the green pastures, by Him we are protected and well provided for, to His honor and service we are entirely devoted as a peculiar people, and therefore to Him must be glory in the churches (whether it be in the world or no) throughout all ages (Eph. 3 : 21). 7-II. The latter part of this Psalm, which begins in the middle of a verse, is an exhortation to those that sing Gospel Psalms to live Gospel lives and to hear the voice of God's Word; otherwise, how can they expect that He should hear the voice of their prayers and praises? H. 7. To-day if ye will hear His voice.** Here is the same solemn strain of warning and expostulation breaking in upon the very joy and gladness of the temple worship, as we have already observed in chap. 81 : 6. Psalms like these seem to have had a double purpose. They were not only designed to be the expression of public devotion, the utterance of a nation's supplications and thanksgivings, but they were intended also to teach, to warn, to exhort. Hence, too, the prophetic character which marks them. The Psalmist, like every true preacher, comes as an ambassador from above, speaking not his own words, but the words which God has given him, the words which God Himself has uttered. The warning here rests, as in chaps. 78 and 81, on the example of their fathers in the desert. To-day, the present moment, as critical and decisive, the day of grace which may be lost. P.—Often as they were faithless, the "to-day" sounded ever anew; for the gifts and calling of God are "without repentance." Tholuck. This Psalm is twice quoted in the Epistle to the Hebrews, as a warning to the Jewish Christians at Jerusalem, in the writer's day, that they should not falter in the faith, and despise God's promises, as their forefathers had done in the wilderness, lest they should fail of entering into His rest; see Heb. 3 : 7, where v. 7 of this Psalm is introduced with the words, "As the Holy Ghost saith, To-day if ye will hear His voice," and Heb. 4 : 7, it is said, "Again, He limiteth a certain day, saying in David, To-day." Wordsworth.—"To-day," in the hour of grace, in the day of mercy, we are tried as to whether we have an ear for the voice of our Creator. Nothing is said of to-morrow, "He limiteth a certain day," He presses for immediate attention, for our own sakes He asks instantaneous obedience. The Holy Ghost saith, To-day! S. O that ye would hear His voice! That ye would be so wise, and do so well for yourselves; like that, If thou hadst known (Luke 19 : 42); that is, O that thou hadst known! Christ's voice must be heard to-day. While He is speaking to you see that you attend to Him, for this day of your opportunities will not last always; improve it, therefore, while it is called to-day. H.—There is no time yours but the present time, no day yours but the present day; therefore, do not please and feed yourselves with hopes of time to come: that you will repent, but not yet; and lay hold on mercy, but not yet. T. Brooks.—If we put off repentance another day, we have a day more to repent of, and a day less to repent in. W. Mason.—He that hath promised pardon on our repentance hath not promised to preserve our lives till we repent. Quarles.—You cannot repent too soon, because you do not know how soon it may be too late. T. Fuller. 8. God Himself is here abruptly introduced as speaking. A.—Harden not your heart.** The measure for the Divine estimate of man lies in the uprightness and purity of the attitude of the heart toward God. The Old Testament calls the highest degree of sin obduracy, or hardening of the heart. This is the condition in which a man, by continually cherishing sin, has [in a sense] lost the ability to withstand it; and it is added, that God can glorify Himself on such a one only by punishment. For it is God's ordinance, that as the power to do good grows by its exercise, so also sin is punished by continued sinning. This hardening is both a Divine act and at the same time the sinner's own act, so that the two expressions are interchangeable. Oehler. No matter what fears and anxieties may alarm the soul; no matter what convictions of guilt may harass the conscience; no matter what service may be rendered by the feet, the hands, or the lips, if the heart continue shut to the holy influence of Divine realities, there is, there can be no obedience to a single Divine command. Whatever reason, then, there is in the commands of the living God, why they should now be obeyed, there is all that, why the sinner should no longer harden his heart. Whatever there is in the beaming glories of the Godhead, whatever there is in the claims of a creating God, of an all-providing God, of a redeeming God, whatever there is in the majesty and authority of a reigning God, why His voice should be heard and obeyed to-day, it all combines to enforce the exhortation, "To-day, harden not your hearts." To harden the heart is death to every right feelfeeling, to every holy affection. So long as you harden your heart, you hear not the voice, you break every command of Him that speaketh from heaven. N. W. Taylor. 8,9. The special point of the exhortation is, Do not make your heart hard by resisting this kind and earnest appeal. God speaks in love; do not repel His kindness and deaden your own moral sensibilities to the ruin of your souls. The example of their fathers in the wilderness is brought before them to augment the force of this appeal. The Hebrew words suggest these historical allusions, and it were better that our English version should do the same, thus: "Harden not your heart as at Meribah, as in the day of Massah in the wilderness." These names were significant, Meribah meaning strife; Massah, temptation, with reference to their trying and proving God as if to see how much abuse He would bear. C.—The aggravation of this sin was that they saw God's work; they saw what He had done for them in bringing them out of Egypt; in the bread He rained from heaven for them, and the water out of the rock that followed them, than which they could not have more unquestionable evidences of God's presence with them; with them even seeing was not believing, because they hardened their hearts, though they had seen what Pharaoh got by hardening his heart. H. 10, 11. "I said, a people wanderers in heart are they," the words being an allusion to their wandering over the wilderness. That is, they are not only wanderers over barren hills and dreary wastes, but worse yet, wanderers in heart from truth and duty, from their greatest, best Friend, the God of their broken covenant. "They have not known My ways," not that they have had no means of knowing, but that they had no heart to know. So far as "they knew God they glorified Him not as God," and therefore became only the more lost to virtue and alien from God. Hence God swore in His wrath that that generation should never enter Canaan, their promised land of rest. C. The curse was not causeless, and it did come. We have an account of its actual fulfilment (Num. 26 : 64, 65). The "rest" from which they were excluded was the land of Canaan. Their lives were spent in wandering. It is termed "God's rest," as there He was to finish His work of bringing Israel into the land promised to their fathers, and fix the symbol of His presence in the midst of them, dwelling in that land in which His people were to rest from their wanderings, and to dwell in safety under His protection. We are by no means warranted to conclude that all who died in the wilderness came short of everlasting happiness. The curse denounced on them went only to their exclusion from the earthly Canaan. John Brown. 11. They shall not; literally, "if they shall enter," this elliptical form of the oath being equivalent to a strong negative. My rest, strictly "place of settlement," as the abode of God, but used also of the land of promise (Deut. 12 : 9), as a place of rest after the wandering in the wilderness. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews (4 : 6-9) argues, from the use of the word "to-day" in v. 7, that the language of the Psalm is applicable not merely to the times of the law, but also to the Gospel dispensation; and from the reference to God's rest here, "in David" (i.e., in the Book of Psalms), that Canaan was not the true rest. Joshua, he says, did not bring the people into God's rest, otherwise this warning would have no application. P.—The older generation died in the wilderness, and therefore through their disobedience forfeited the privilege of entering into God's rest. If now, many centuries after Moses, Israel is invited in the Davidic Psalter, with the significant call, "To-day if ye will hear His voice!" and with a reference to the warning example of the fathers, to submissive adoration of Jehovah, it follows that, now as formerly, the obedience of faith has to expect the gracious reward of entering into God's rest, a reward which the disobedient in those days forfeited, and that, consequently, the occupation of Canaan was not yet the final rest. This is the connection of the wider train of thought which the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews develops from this passage in the Psalm. D. Catching up this word rest—God's rest—contained in the Divine utterance of judgment (as given by the Psalmist), the inspired writer goes on (Heb. 4 : 1) to discourse of the relation in which believers under the Gospel stand to it. He reminds them that they had succeeded to the heritage of promise given in former ages to God's people concerning it; it had come down as an entail of blessing to them, and might now, precisely as of old, be either appropriated by faith or forfeited by unbelief. Not only does he thus connect believers under the Gospel with believers under the law in respect to the promised rest, but the promise itself he connects with the very commencement of the world's history, with that rest of God which He is said to have taken, when He ceased from all His works which He created and made (Gen. 2 : 2). This was emphatically God's rest, the only thing expressly characterized as such in the history of the Divine dispensations; and the apostle points to it as a noteworthy thing, that while the works from which God is thus said to have rested were finished at the creation of the world, the promise of the land of Canaan should somehow, thousands of years afterward, have been associated with it. Yet he does not (as is too commonly supposed) simply identify the two; while both he and the Psalmist speak of exclusion from Canaan as involving for ancient Israel exclusion from an interest in God's rest, they both also conceive the possibility of having an inheritance in Canaan, and yet wanting a participation in the rest of God. On this account the Psalmist had plied his contemporaries when they were in Canaan with the admonition to beware, lest by provoking God they should still lose their interest in God's rest. And now, again, the writer of this epistle, laying hold of the words of the Psalmist repeats the same warning, and calls upon Christians to take good heed, that by steadfastly adhering to the faith and obedience of the Gospel, they should secure their entrance into that rest of God which remains for them, as it has remained for God's people in every age, the blessed result and consummation of a life of faith. P. F. Rest, not annihilation, as now for many the Gospel of despair announces; not yet unceasing song and praise, as a childish imagination loves to conceive of heaven; but a condition, a region, a personal enjoyment of rest in the deepest and holless sense of the term. Sabbath rest, this is the signification of the original word, such as that which, according to the Divine record, God enjoyed when the work of creation was complete. Godlike Sabbath rest, that is undoubtedly and unspeakably blessed rest, from which the eye looks back with calm serenity upon the finished work. It is an unwearied, active rest, like that of the Father, who in His rest yet works, since heavenly joy without some occupation would cease to be heaven. It is, finally, a rest that cannot be disturbed, like that of God Himself, raised above all the trouble and turmoil of this vain world: "And there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." Thus, the longer we contemplate it, the clearer does heaven appear before our eyes as the land of perfect rest. And the rest remaineth. After all the inquietude and the short-lived rest of this life, it is as surely to be expected, as for the faithful Israelites something better was yet in store than the earthly Canaan into which Joshua had led them. Yea, verily, this remains, whatever else fades or removes from earth. Van O.—Perfect beings in a perfect world, rejoicing in their native element, having no weakness within, and no resisting force without, to check the outflow and expression of their loving natures; their activity, therefore, being easy, natural, and necessary, as light is to the sun, and fragrance to the flowers of spring, activity to them is rest. Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for they rest, not from their works, but only from their labors. It would be a labor for them not to work. To hush their music and to stop their action would be to them intolerable toil; they would be “weary with forbearing and could not stay.” So they “rest,” yet they rest not day nor night. Stanford. The rest of a soul in God, though infinitely removed from the agitations of the world, and its conflicting and distressing reasonings, is, nevertheless, a state in which the thoughts are active; seeking after God, apprehending Him, appropriating and enjoying Him. The seraphs that adore and burn are intellectual creatures; and we conceive of the saints in heaven as knowing, learning, and putting forth those mental exertions which tend to the perpetual advancement and expansion of their powers. A heaven in which there is no intellectual activity would be no heaven for a rational creature; and it is a gross, though common abuse of the term rest, to apply it to a drowsy, listless, unimproving eternity; though heaven is a rest, it is neither a dream nor a sleep. J. W. A.—Rest is not inaction, but liberty; not idleness, but willing and joyous movement forward. Rest is the perfect harmony and fulness of all the energies and affections of the soul, acting together by Him who fills all with His peace. And here we have splendid outlines of what the Christian life hereafter will be. “This is life eternal;” life is action. Heaven will indeed be “rest,” but not the rest of doing nothing. It will be intense, ceaseless, glorious work for God, every faculty free, every energy in play, every condition harmonized and every breath thanksgiving. There shall be no night there, because there will be no need of any other repose or recovery or recreation than simply to live in a climate like that, a climate created by the face of the Lord, who is the Everlasting Light. Day and night “they serve Him.” Limitation, weariness, failure, suffering, sin are ended. The discords of our cross-purposing and jarring plans, with too much self-seeking in them, our jangling tempers and noisy passions, will be still. A few more of these twilights fading down the walls of the outer heavens that we see, and then the darkest and weakest mind among us will be able to comprehend what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height. F. D. H. #### Material and Moral Uses of the Sea (v. 5). The sea is as essential to the life of the world as the blood is to the life of the human body. Instead of being a waste and desert, it is the thing which keeps the earth itself from becoming a waste and desert. It is the world’s fountain of life and health and beauty; and if it were taken away, the grass would perish from the mountains, the forests would crumble on the hills, the harvests would become powder on the plains, and the solid globe itself, scarred and blasted on every side, would swing in the heavens as silent and dead as on the first morning of creation. If it were not for the sea, the entire belt of the tropics would be a desert of perpetual fire, and the entire polar regions would be a desert of perpetual frost. One third of the whole earth’s surface would be unendurable with heat, another with cold, and only the remaining third would be fit for human habitation; whereas now, under these tempering influences of the ocean, the whole width of the world, with few exceptions, is given to man for his dwelling; and wherever he goes he finds a thousand forms of vegetable and animal life, which the same genial influence has made to wait upon him and be subservient to him. The sea is a perpetual source of health to the world. Without it, there could be no drainage for the lands. The process of death and decay, which is continually going on in the animal and vegetable kingdoms, would soon make the whole surface of the earth one vast receptacle of corruption, whose stagnant mass would breed a pestilence, sweeping away all the life of a continent. The winds would not purify it; for, having no place to deposit the burden, it would only accumulate in their hands, and filling their breath with its poisonous effluvia, it would make them swift ministers of death, carrying the sword of destruction into every part of the world at once. The sea furnishes the great natural pathways of the world. Perhaps the first impression in looking upon the sea is that it is a great barrier between the nations; that it puts the continents much further asunder than they would otherwise be; and that thus it acts as an unsocalizing force, hindering the intercourse of the world. The truth lies in just the opposite direction. Instead of a barrier, the sea is a road across the barrier; instead of putting the ends of the earth farther apart, it brings them nearer together; instead of being an unsocializing and an alienating force between them, it is the surest means of their acquaintance, and the most effectual bond of their fellowship. It does, indeed, draw a decisive boundary around a nation, and keep its main population in on every side. But this is, in itself, a blessing. For boundaries are necessary to give individuality to nations, as they are to give individuality to men. There must be an outline to their personality; and the firmer that outline is drawn, the greater vigor of character and the deeper intensity of life they are likely to possess. The sea, therefore, first defines a nation to itself, fills it up with the influence and reaction of its own proper life; and then, when it has reached a certain height and fulness, opens the door and lets it forth to find the life of other nations, and feel the brotherhood of the world. Hence, other things being equal, the strongest nations in civilized history have always been the insular or peninsular ones, like England, Italy, and Greece, which, using the sea in the beginning as a separation from other lands, and making it a boundary, a barrier, and a defence, have by it been able so to compress and compact their own energies that they have, at last, become strong enough to burst the ocean barrier that surrounded them, and then to employ the sea itself as an arm of power to reach and subsidize the ends of the earth. Thus that which was at first a wall to bar all further progress, becomes a path of such breadth and permanence and ease of tread as could not have been constructed by all the art and all the strength of man. Hence the ocean has been the great educator of the world. It has furnished the prime stimulus of national energy, and has determined in the beginning and for all time the paths in which all great history must run. Another office of the sea is to furnish an inexhaustible storehouse of power for the world. The two greatest available powers known to man are those of running water and steam; and both these come out of the sea. And as these two are the greatest, so they are the most enduring powers; they will last until the rains cease to fall from the clouds, until the forests are hewn from the mountains, and the treasures of coal are all dug from the depths of the earth. A further office of the sea is to be a vast storehouse of life. The sea has a whole world of life in itself. It spreads its table, first of all, for its own children, and these other gifts which it makes to the lands, royal and munificent as they are, are but the superfluities and remainders that are left from its table and wardrobe, after all its own inhabitants are housed and nourished, and clothed and fed. It is said that the life in the sea far exceeds all that exists out of it. There are more than twenty-five thousand distinct species of living beings that inhabit its waters. It is one of the noble uses of the sea that it furnishes the dwelling-place for such an inconceivable immensity of life. It is even more full of God's goodness than it is of His power; for in every drop of inhabited sea water there is literally a whole continent of happy beings that draw their existence from God, wait upon Him for food, and receive their daily sustenance at His hand. The last use of the sea may be called the geological one. It brings into sight the impressive element of time, and sends us back to that gigantic history of the past when the forces of the sea, which are now in comparatively feeble play, were set to their Titanic task, and wrought out those stupendous results which belong to the very framework of nature itself, and which will endure till the very substance of the globe is dissolved. God has appointed the sea to be the architect of the world. It has quarried the materials and brought them to their place, and then with its building tool and dressing hammer it has given them shape, and piled them, layer above layer, for the walls of the great house of life. There is the clearest evidence that every part of the known earth has been, successively and for unnumbered ages, under the dominion of the sea. When the cooling crust of the globe had become one unbroken sphere of granite rock, then the waters were let in upon it by Jehovah's hand, to join, with fire and frost and moving ice, and all the forces of the volcano and the earthquake, in tearing asunder this quarry of the continents; disintegrating, grinding, pulverizing, and sifting, till the sands and limes and clays and various earths were separated from their rocky prison, assorted each after its kind, carried a thousand miles by mighty currents, spread out over the bottom of the deep, cemented firmly in their place by pressure, heat, and inward chemistry, piled story above story, till they were many thousands and many ten thousands of feet in thickness; and so the great house of the world being built and finished and furnished beneath the sea, with endless stores of all things needful—coal, and iron, and marble, and copper, and gold—it felt the uplifting hand of God, and rose into the sky, parting the ocean from pole to pole, a mighty continent, with mountain, and valley, and river, and plain, soon green and golden, from side to side, with grass and grain, and forest and flower; a house not made with hands, high as the heavens, deep as the centre, wide as the firmament, bright as the light; a glorious habitation, waiting for the footstep, the eye, and the voice of its great coming master—man. "The sea is His," says the Psalmist; and we may take the emphasis of that assertion as if it meant that in some sense He claimed exclusive possession of the sea; that He gave the land to man, but in a manner reserved the ocean as His own domain. And it is so. Man's dominion is the solid land. There he rears his habitation, hews down the forests, upturns the hills, fills the valleys, spreads his waving harvests, lays his roads of stone and iron like net-work across a whole continent, plants cities that last for thousands of years. All that is within the compass of the land is given to his dominion, and he shall subdue its strength and appropriate its treasure, and scatter the refuse of it as the dust beneath his feet. But there man's empire stops. God has given the land to man, but the sea He has reserved to Himself: "the sea is His, and He made it." He has given man "no inheritance in it; no, not so much as to set his foot on." If he enters its domain, he enters it as a pilgrim and a stranger. He may pass over it, but he can have no abiding place upon it. He cannot build his house, nor so much as pitch his tent within it. He cannot mark it with his lines, nor subdue it to his uses, nor rear his monuments upon it. Its vastness, loneliness, and the impossibility of its subjugation by man set it apart from the secular aspect that belongs to the rest of the world, and consecrate it as the peculiar possession and dwelling-place of the Most High. Like some vast builded temple, it perpetually speaks of Him and for Him. It bodies forth His immensity. It represents eternity. Girded round all the lands, as death is girded around all life, it seems to bring the unseen world to our vision, and to sound and shine with the glory and the awfulness of that state which is beyond the grave. Travelling out into its vastness, we seem to be moving beyond the boundaries of space and time. Sailing on, day after day, without any apparent progress, never reaching the horizon that is before, never leaving the horizon that is behind, it is as if we had lost all connection with the earth which we inhabit, and were voyaging upon the infinite expanse of the skies, travelling to some world that lies beyond the stars of heaven. We look at the stars by night, and they seem to be nearer to us, and to be gazing upon us with longing eyes, and with a more fixed and solemn earnestness. We look at the track of the ship, and it is a wake of sparkling fires, as if our bark had left at length the seas of earth behind it, and were sailing over the ocean of the firmament. We have forgotten time; we are thinking of eternity. We have forgotten man; we are thinking of God. The bondage of the senses is dissolved, and the things that are beyond them come breaking into our being. We feel as if we saw the very fields of immensity and eternity, and held within our grasp the lines that bound us to another life. And it is this which gives the sea its mystery and might; that it is fraught with these Divine elements; that it is charged with these spiritual suggestions; that it is the symbol of eternity and infinity, and crowds upon us, with irresistible majesty, the vision of that life unseen, and those worlds unknown, for which our souls are made, and to which the feet of every one of us are swiftly and irreversibly travelling. There is a sea within us which responds to the sea without. Deep call-eth unto deep, and it is the answer and the yearning of these inward waves, in reply to that outward call, which makes our hearts to swell, our eyes to grow dim with tears, and our whole being to lift and vibrate with such strong emotion when we stand upon the shore and look out upon the deep, or sit in the stern of some noble ship and feel ourselves cradled on the pulsations of its mighty bosom. There is a life within us which calls to that sea without, a conscious destiny which only its magnitude and its motion can symbolize and utter. And so, by its material uses and its spiritual voices, does the sea ever speak to us to tell us that its builder and maker is God. He hewed its channels in the deep, and drew its barriers upon the sand, and cast its belted waters around the world. He fitted it to the earth and the sky, and poised them skilfully the one against the other when He "measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance." He gave the sea its wonderful laws, and armed it with its wonderful powers, and set it upon its wonderful work. "O'er all its breadth His wisdom walks, On all its waves His goodness shines." Let us give thanks, therefore, for the sea. Let us remember Him that gave it such vast dominion, and made it to be not only the dwelling-place of His awful presence, but the beautiful garment of His love and the mighty instru- ment of His goodness. Let it speak to us of His unfathomable fulness. Let it teach us that He has made nothing in vain. Let it remind us that the powers of destruction and death are under His control, and that behind the cloud of darkness and terror that often invests them, they are working out immeasurable results of blessing and life for the future time, for distant regions and for coming generations. Let it lead us to confide in Him who "ruleth the raging of the seas, who stilleth the noise of their waves and the tumult of the people;" who has all the forces of the world at His control, and all the ages of time at His command; who knows how to build His kingdom beneath the sea of human opposition, as He built the continents beneath the ocean waters; who makes all the powers of dislocation and decay yield to that kingdom some element of strength or richness; and who, when the appointed hour shall come, will lift it irresistibly above the waves, and set its finished beauty beneath the heavens, with the spoils of all time gathered upon its walls, and the nations of the saved walking in its glory. Swain. 1. O SING unto the LORD a new song: Sing unto the LORD, all the earth. 2 Sing unto the LORD, bless his name; Shew forth his salvation from day to day. 3 Declare his glory among the nations, His marvellous works among all the peoples. 4 For great is the LORD, and highly to be praised: He is to be feared above all gods. 5 For all the gods of the peoples are idols [things of nought]: But the LORD made the heavens. 6 Honour and majesty are before him: Strength and beauty are in his sanctuary. 7 Give unto the LORD, ye kindreds of the peoples, Give unto the LORD glory and strength. 8 Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name: THIS grand prophetic Psalm looks forward with joyful certainty to the setting up of a Divine kingdom upon earth. But it is only indirectly Messianic. It connects the future blessings, not with the appearance of the Son of David, but with the coming of Jehovah. There are in the Old Testament two distinct lines of prophecy, culminating in these two advents. Their convergence and ultimate unity are only seen in the light of New Testament fulfilment. The same hopes, however, gather about both, as may be seen, for instance, by a comparison of this Psalm with such a passage as Isa. 11: 1-9. P. Bring an offering, and come into his courts 9 O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: Tremble before him, all the earth. 10 Say among the nations, The LORD reigneth: The world also is stablished that it cannot be moved: He shall judge the peoples with equity. 11 Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; 12 Let the field exult, and all that is therein; Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy; 13 Before the LORD, for he cometh: For he cometh to judge the earth: He shall judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with his truth. The present Psalm is a millennial anthem. It accords with the condition of the world when Christ shall sit enthroned in the willing loyalty of our race. The nations join in an acclaim of praise to Him as their rightful Judge and King. There is a unanimity in the song, as if it ascended from a world purged into a temple of holiness, and whose inhabitants were indeed a royal priesthood, with one heart to make Jesus king, with one voice to sound forth one peal of melody in praise of the name above every name. It holds true to the deepest principles of our nature, that what we contemplate as possible, much more what we anticipate as certain, lends us the very hope and energy conducive to its realization. On the contrary, despair paralyzes effort. Is it on this account that everywhere in prophecy, old and new, there floats before us the ideal of a recovered and rejoicing world, at times transfigured into a loftier scene, the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness? Our earth may be in ruins meanwhile, blackness on the sky, barrenness on the soil, because sin is everywhere; but a change is promised. What we hope for, we labor for all the more that our hope is no dream of fancy, but has its basis in the science and certainty of absolute truth. "For as the earth bringeth forth her bud, and as the garden causeth the things that are sown in it to spring forth; so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations" (Isa. 61: 11). In this holy Psalm, the Jerusalem from above, the mother of us all, trains us to the utterance of a song suitable to seasons of millennial glory, when the Moloch of oppression, the Mammon of avarice, the Ashtaroth of fiery lust, every erring creed, every false religion, shall have given place to the worship of the one true and living God—to the faith and love of Christ. "Let the peoples praise Thee, O God; let all the peoples praise Thee." W. H. Goold. 1-3. A summons to the people of Jehovah to sing praise unto its God, repeated three times, and to evangelize the heathen. The new song presupposes a new state of affairs, while the summons to sing the new song presupposes a present, which had the appearance of being such a beginning of this new state as guaranteed its realization, the beginning, viz., of the recognition of Jehovah throughout the whole Gentile world, and of His accession to lordship over the whole earth. The new song is an echo of the revelation of redemption and glory that is making a way for itself in history; and this revelation is also the inexhaustible material of the joyful tidings that are proclaimed from day to day. D.—The new song is not the Psalm itself, but one which shall be the fit expression of all the thoughts and hopes and triumphs of the new and glorious age which is about to dawn. It is the glad welcome given to the King when He enters His kingdom. Compare with this verse Isa. 42: 10; 60: 6; 66: 19. P. A new song. The old song is the song of creation; the new is the song of salvation. M.—"A new song," unknown to you before. Come, all ye nations of the wide earth, who up to this hour have been giving your worship to dead gods that were no gods at all; come and give your hearts to the true and only God in this new song! C. Three times we are here called to sing unto the Lord; sing to the Father, to the Son, to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, when the morning stars sang together, is now, in the Church militant, and ever shall be in the Church triumphant. We have reason to do it often, and we have need to be often reminded of it and stirred up to it. Sing unto the Lord—that is, "Bless His name, speak well of Him, that you may bring others to think well of Him." Sing a new song, the product of new affections, clothed with new expressions. A new song is a song for new favors, for those compassions which are new every morning. A new song is a New Testament song, a song of praise for the new covenant and the precious privileges of that covenant. A new song is a song that shall be ever new, and shall never wax old or vanish away; it is an everlasting song, that shall never be antiquated or out of date. H. 2. From day to day. Salvation is a fit subject for unceasing praise. Every man should praise God every day—on each returning morning and on every evening—for the assurance that there is a way of salvation provided for him, and that he may be happy forever. If we had right feelings, this would be the first thought which would burst upon the mind each morning, irradiating as with sunbeams all around us; and it would be the last thought which would linger in the soul as we lie down at night and close our eyes in slumber, making us grateful, calm, happy, as we sink to rest, for whether we wake or not in this world we may be forever happy. Barnes.—Each day brings us deeper experience of our saving God, each day shows us anew how deeply men need His salvation, each day reveals the power of the Gospel, each day the Spirit strives with the sons of men; therefore, never pausing, be it ours to tell out the glorious message of free grace. S. 3. The use of glory, to denote the special manifestation of God's attributes, is a characteristic feature of Isaiah's later prophecies. To preclude all doubt as to the extent of the invitation, the ambiguous expression all the earth, in v. 1, is here explained to mean the nations, and then still more absolutely all the peoples. A. Declare His wonders. What a wonderful person He is, God manifest in the flesh; what wonderful love He has shown in His incarnation, obedience, sufferings, and death; what amazing miracles He wrought, and what a wonderful work He performed; the work of our redemption, the wonder of men and angels; declare His wonderful resurrection from the dead, His ascension to heaven, sitting at the right hand of God, and intercession for His people; the wonderful effusion of His Spirit, and the conquests of His grace, and the enlargement of His kingdom in the world; as also what wonders will be wrought by Him when He appears a second time; how the dead will be raised, and all will be judged! Gill. 5. For all the gods of the nations are nothings, and Jehovah the heavens did make.** Nothings, nonentities, a favorite description of idols in Isaiah's later prophecies. The contrast intended is extreme and absolute. He called the world into existence; they do not even exist themselves. A.—Their Elohim are elilim. The word elilim occurs in two places in the Psalms, here and 97: 7. It is used most frequently by Isaiah, and properly signifies nothings; as Paul says, "An idol is nothing." Chr. Wordsworth. Remarkably here, as usually in the Scriptures, the decisive test of true divinity, distinguishing the true God from all false gods, is His creator-ship. Your heathen gods are mere nothings (the sense of the Hebrew word for "idols"), but Jehovah, our God, built the heavens. Compare Psalm 95: 5 and Jer. 10: 11, 12, 16. Ought He not then to be feared and worshipped, high above all gods? C. 6. Splendor and majesty are before Him**, in His immediate presence above, where the angels cover their faces as unable to bear the dazzling lustre of His glory. Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary, both that above and this below. In God there is everything that is awful, and yet everything that is amiable. If we attend Him in His sanctuary we shall behold His beauty, for God is love, and experience His strength, for He is our Rock. Let us therefore go forth in His strength, enamoured with His beauty. H. "Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary;" strength first, beauty afterward; strength as the basis and support, and beauty as a graceful floral finish and decoration. This is the Divine order in all things. Beauty comes not first, but last. The flowers may perish while the foundations remain, but the foundations cannot perish and the flowers remain. Whatever a Christian be else, he must be strong. Stand he cannot unless there be in him the qualities symbolized in Jachin and Boaz—strength and stability. The world itself has grown from strength to beauty. Just as the pillars were not finished till their capitals bloomed in "lily work," so must it be with a true human life and character. This is not completed without its capital, a capital which need not be of lily work, but must be the reproduction of some Divine flower. The fruits of the Spirit are the lily work by which, often more than by the sterner virtues of our religion, it is to be commended to the admiration and the faith of others. To despise these graces is to despise the Saviour in whom they were embodied. Mellor. God has in the Bible wedded beauty to truth, and preluded, by the existence of this book, the period when in each soul glory shall crown the sacred work of grace. "Beauty and power," it is said, "are in His sanctuary." Godet. Character-building ought to be temple-building—the framing and adorning of a sanctuary for the indwelling God—a sanctuary in whose firm foundation, massive walls, fair proportions, and rich adornings there should be blended strength and beauty. Nor will the strength suffice for the perfection of character without the beauty. As the beautiful in nature is something more than the useful, so is the beautiful in character something more than the substantially good. This beauty of character you need not only for your own sake, but equally for your social influence, for the good that you may do in the world, which I trust will enter into the life-purpose of every one of you. It is this element of character, more than anything else, that gives goodness its beneficent power. You will do good, less by what you say or do, or even give, than by what you are. A. P. Peabody. The tree that has its firm-fixed root and upright stem has also its spreading branches and thousand waving twigs, which yield to the breeze and salute the gentlest movement of the surrounding air. How beautiful strength is, when it thus melts away at its extremities into kindness and courtesy; and how attractive would be firm Christian principle, when it was seen that it could clothe itself with softness and tenderness, and that it rises so powerful and lofty to bear up and spread out all genial affections, like leaves and blossoms, and to have all innocent enjoyments come fluttering like birds to sing among its branches! "Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary." Ker. We can give the highest evidence of strength of character when strength is so restrained and controlled as to elaborate itself into beauty. True strength is the strength of faith, and true beauty is the beauty of holiness. Other strength will decay, other beauty will fade; but this strength will only grow stronger and this beauty more beautiful as eternity shall roll on. M. Hopkins. Beauty and strength come from communion with God. If you want to be pure and good, noble and gentle, sweet and tender; if you desire to be delivered from your own weaknesses and selfish, sinful idiosyncrasies, the way to secure your desire is, "Look unto Me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth." There is no influence to refine and beautify men like that of living near Jesus Christ and walking in the light of that beauty which is the effulgence of the Divine glory and the express image of His person. And in like manner as beauty, so strength comes from communion with God, and laying hold on Him. The two poles of perfectness in humanity, so often divorced from one another, beauty and strength, have one common source, and depend for their loftiest position upon one thing. God possesses both in supremest degree, being the Almighty and the all-fair; and we possess them in limited, but yet possibly progressive measure, through dependence upon Him. The true force of character, and the true power for work, and every real strength which is not only weakness, comes on condition of our keeping close by God. It is safe for us to leave all thoughts of our miserable selves behind us if instead of them we have the thought of that great, sweet, dear Lord filling mind and heart. "Looking off" from ourselves "unto Jesus" is safe. Self-oblivion comes only from self being swallowed up in the thought of the Lord. A. M. 7-9. The families of the nations themselves are called upon to take up the song in which Israel has made known to them the salvation of Jehovah. These three verses are taken partly from Psalm 29 : 1, 2. 7,8. Give glory.** We go into God's courts, it has been truly remarked, to give rather than to get. This is the principle of all true prayer, ascription rather than petition. P. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name. It is a stated rule in Scripture that respect to God must be proportioned to the nature of God. God is a spirit, therefore will be worshipped in spirit and truth. God is a God of peace, therefore lift up pure hands, without wrath and doubting. God is a holy God, therefore will be sanctified. They that will glorify and honor God with a glory due to His name must sanctify Him as well as honor Him. For "God is glorious in holiness." This God counteth to be His chief excellency, and the glory which He will manifest among the sons of men. Manton. This power of giving glory to God assures us that we have fellowship with Him, and that our true work is His. There must be some likeness of nature, or the tribute would be impossible. There must be some community of purpose, or we should not rejoice instinctively in the thought of the Divine omnipotence. And as we exercise the powers which enable us thus to realize a Divine communion they become insensibly more pervading and more energetic. Whoever has cultivated the habit of looking to God and praising Him will have found growing up within himself the vital consciousness of a present Saviour by whose strength and for whom he is working. He will have learned not to be impatient of results, for he knows that we see but little of that which can be seen even on earth, and that the end is not here. He will have ceased to trouble himself as to what God gives him to do, for he feels that the work of God is one, and that all faithful labor contributes to its fulfilment. Bishop Westcott. Bring an offering, and come into His courts. Come with an unbloody sacrifice; atonement for sin having been made, it only remains to bring thank-offerings, and let not these be forgotten. To Him who gives us all, we ought gladly to give our grateful tithe. When assembling for public worship we should make a point of bringing with us a contribution to His cause, according to that ancient word, "None of you shall appear before Me empty." The time will come when from all ranks and all nations the Lord will receive gifts when they gather together for His worship. S. The Scripture makes it a very material circumstance of worship to approach God's house, to enter into His courts, to come into His presence, to own ourselves His servants and worshippers; and without disparaging private prayers or closet and family devotions, there is no reason to think God will own those for His worshippers who deny Him this public homage. All the promises of the Gospel are originally made to the Christian Church, the body of Christ, and to particular Christians, as members of and in communion with the Christian Church. But those cannot pretend to be in communion with the Church who never communicate with it; and those who live in communion with the Church, and serve God in His house as oft as opportunity will permit, may expect a gracious return to their private prayers, which are offered to God in the name of Christ and in the communion of the Church; but this is no encouragement to those who set up private devotions against public worship. W. Sherlock. 9. If thou wouldst be faithful to that work that God hath allotted thee to do in this world for His name, then labor to see a beauty and glory in holiness and in every good work; this tends much to the engaging of thy heart. Oh, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness! Bunyan. Shall we call holiness an attribute? Is it not rather the glorious combination of all His attributes? All are glorious, but in this we have a combination of all into a still more glorious whole. It is for this reason that it is so frequently in Scripture associated with the Divine beauty. The poetic nature of the Psalmist is exalted to ecstasy in contemplation of the "beauty of holiness," the "beauty of the Lord." Beauty is a combination of elements according to the laws of harmony; the more beautiful the parts or elements, and the more perfect the harmonious combination, the higher the beauty. How high and glorious, therefore, must be the beauty of this attribute which is the perfect combination of all His infinite perfections! J. Le Conte. Beauty consists in delicacy of proportion, a harmony of parts conveying to the mind sweet associations of thought. Holiness is the subdued reflection of the bright things of heaven, the image of God traceable in His creatures, a spirit of love, and peace, and order, gathering all things gracefully into a unity of being and a singleness of purpose. Then is not holiness true beauty? Our services on earth are done best when they copy most the worship of heaven. There the beauty of saints and angels is their awe. The nearest to God will always be the most reverential. J. V.—In worship we must be reverent, sincere, earnest, and pure in heart both in our prayers and praises. Purity is the white linen of the Lord's choristers, righteousness is the comely garment of His priests, holiness is the royal apparel of His servitors. S. It is part of the constitution of a church, without which it cannot be "beautiful," that every member should be exercising in some way his own proper gift for the service of God and the extension of His kingdom. For a church is to be a centre—a centre of expansion, always extending itself, light and love always radiating from it. The acme of holiness itself is love. Let your sympathies go out and give expression to the thought you feel. Let the Church be more what it ought to be, "one family," and so "grow up into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ." J. V.—He takes a very limited view of what constitutes the worship of God who restricts it exclusively to those exercises of prayer, praise, or thanksgiving which are specifically religious. Our whole life should be one great instance of devotion. It is the end, the intention of it which determines the character of an act; and if in all that we do we aim at the glory of God, "every action of nature becomes religious," every meal an instrument of piety, every office of ordinary life a holy oblation. It is the spirit and temper of the soul which settles the question of worship. Thornwell. Prayer here, such as God can accept, adoration and praise here are qualifying souls for the deeper and nobler emotions which will accompany the grander revelations of the heavenly world. Whether any of these sensibilities will be superseded there, I will not venture to inquire. But it is not probable that reverence will ever cease, since the disclosures of the glories of God there, natural and moral, will make the distance between the finite man and the infinite God greater and greater, so that there will be the more need of reverence, and the more room for its exercise. Prepare, then, by worship here for worship there. Wherever else light-minded, be devout in God's house and in worship. If you have been profane, shake off the habit; learn to see God everywhere and to adore Him. If you have been formal and yet decent, think that God cannot accept such services. Give your mind to the grand thoughts of the Gospel, and enter on the worship of God in spirit and in truth. Then you will have joy when you unite with all the good ones of earth and heaven in the cry, "Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty, which is and was and is to come!" "Blessing and honor and glory and power be unto Him that sitteth on the throne and unto the Lamb forever and ever!" Woolsey. Excess of material circumstance in spiritual worship, whether of architectural adornment, ritual ceremony, musical elaboration, or even intellectual fastidiousness, is as injurious to it as is overcumbrous machinery in manufacture, excess of ceremonial in social life, superfluous raiment to personal activity, or gaudy ornamentation to personal grace. It is both injurious to life and offensive to taste. But, on the other hand, if we may not overlay spiritual life, neither may we denude it. The true law of life is that its energies be developed in all the force and with all the beauty of which they are capable, and that it worship with such cultured adornment as in the highest degree may appeal to and express its own spiritual emotions. This is the simple law and the sufficient test of all artistic appliances. Is any particular cultus conducive to the worshipping heart of the congregation? If not, and still more if it be injurious to it, then no matter how beautiful in itself it may be—how conducive to the profit and joy of other congregations—however sanctioned by history and contemporary use, let it be rejected. Allon. 10. The glad tidings which the world is to hear. The world's largest hopes are to be fulfilled. A new era is to begin, a reign of righteousness and peace, a time so blessed that even the inanimate creation must be partakers of the joy. Compare Isa. 35:1; 42:10; 44:23; 45:8; 49:13; 55:12. With the coming of Jehovah and the setting up of His kingdom all the broken harmonies of creation shall be restored. P.—That which is to be uttered among the peoples is the joyous Gospel of the kingdom of heaven as now come and realized. The world below, hitherto convulsed by war and anarchy, now stands upon foundations that are henceforth unshakeable under Jehovah's righteous and gentle rule. This is the glad tidings of the new era, which the poet predicts from the standpoint of his own present, depicting as he does the joy that will then pervade the whole creation. D.—It is when the hour of conflict is over that history comes to a right understanding of the strife, and is ready to exclaim, "Lo! God is here, and we knew it not." At the foot of every page in the annals of nations may be written "God reigns." Events as they pass away "proclaim their original;" and if you will but listen reverently, you may hear the receding centuries, as they roll into the dim distance of departed time, perpetually chanting "Te Deum Laudamus" with all the choral voices of the countless congregation of the age. Bancroft. Say among the heathen that the Lord reigneth must be the Christian's as it was the Israelite's motto. The earliest preaching of our Saviour and His disciples was the preaching of the Gospel of the kingdom. It was because all power was given unto Him in heaven and in earth, that, after His resurrection from the dead, Jesus sent forth His apostles to go and teach all nations. The substance of the apostles' subsequent preaching was, confessedly, the kingdom of God. Thrupp. 11-13. Nothing can excel this noble exultation tion of universal nature, where the whole animate and inanimate creation unite in the praises of their Maker. Poetry here seems to assume the highest tone of triumph and exultation, and to revel, if I may so express myself, in all the extravagance of joy. Lowth.—These verses are full of comprehensive beauty and power. They present the gathering together of everything under the confessed dominion of the reigning Christ. Things in heaven as well as things on earth rejoice together in the acknowledged blessing of the Lord of peace. The Psalm is throughout a very sweet strain of millennial prophecy. A. Pridham. 13. Before Jehovah, for He cometh, for He cometh to judge the earth; He shall judge the world in righteousness, and nations in His truth (or faithfulness). The rejoicing described in the preceding verse is to take place in the presence (literally, to the face) of God when He assumes His universal sovereignty, the judicial function of which is here made prominent, in order to suggest the moral perfection of His reign. In righteousness, not merely in a righteous manner, but in the exercise of His inherent and essential justice. The use of the word people in the common version of the last clause obscures the sense by seeming to apply the verse to Israel, whereas it is expressly applied in the original to the nations generally. Even the truth or faithfulness of God, which commonly denotes His veracity in fulfilling His promises to the chosen people, has here a wider sense, as opposed to the dishonesty or partiality of human judges. A.—He cometh. The repetition is full of force and animation, as if the coming of Jehovah is actually taking place before the eyes of the Psalmist. It is a coming to judgment, but a judgment which is to issue in salvation. This judgment in righteousness and faithfulness, and the peace which follows thereon, are beautifully portrayed in Isa. 11:1-9. P. In the mind of the Psalmists there was nothing contradictory between faith in God as a righteous Judge and faith in God as being long-suffering and of great kindness. They did not think of God as divided between His sense of justice and His love of mercy, because they understood that mercy was never forgotten in His judgments. They felt that His judgments were the truest mercies both for themselves and for the world at large. So deep was their conviction of the blessedness of God's judgments that some of their most joyous strains are those in which they proclaim God as coming to judge the world in righteousness. G. Forbes. Let all above and all below rejoice with gladness in the near development of God's reign on earth; and no less in the more remote development of His final judgment and eternal reign of righteousness. But first is that which is nearest and of time. As God proceeds to make His name and Gospel more fully known on earth, with this advance of knowledge goes also a more full development of Himself as Supreme Ruler and Judge. Making Himself more known in these relations, He should be more heartily and reverently adored. Let the universe of intelligent beings, and indeed, through sympathy, the sea and all that fills it; the fields and all they contain, and the trees of the wood as well, unite in exulting praise and gladness before the mighty Lord, because He ruleth in righteousness, and will bring down and bring under the cruel wrongs of sin and the very spirit of sinning—all that makes earth groan and heaven weep; all the mass of earthly woe begotten of sin and running riot over the world's peace till God comes forth to rule and judge the world in righteousness. C. 1. THE LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; Let the multitude of isles be glad. 2 Clouds and darkness are round about him: Righteousness and judgment are the foundation of his throne. 3 A fire goeth before him, And burneth up his adversaries round about. 4 His lightnings lightened the world: The earth saw, and trembled. 5 The hills melted like wax at the presence of the LORD, At the presence of the Lord of the whole earth. 6 The heavens declare his righteousness, And all the peoples have seen his glory. 7 Ashamed be all they that serve graven images. That boast themselves of idols: Worship him, all ye gods. 8 Zion heard and was glad, And the daughters of Judah rejoiced; Because of thy judgments, O LORD. 9 For thou, LORD, art most high above all the earth: Thou art exalted far above all gods. 10 O ye that love the LORD, hate evil: He preserveth the souls of his saints; He delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked. 11 Light is sown for the righteous, And gladness for the upright in heart. 12 Be glad in the LORD, ye righteous; And give thanks to his holy [memorial] name. THE keynote of this series of Psalms, "Jehovah is King," is again sounded in the first verse. The subject is the same as in the preceding Psalm—viz., the personal Advent of Jehovah, which is represented in terms borrowed from the Pentateuch, and from those earlier Psalms which describe the Theophany on occasion of the giving of the law. All nature is moved at the Divine presence. The flames which once lighted up Mount Sinai, at the appearance of the great King enlighten the whole world; and by them His enemies, "who would not that He should reign over them," are consumed. The heavens, which now proclaim the glory of God, shall then attest His righteousness. His glory is displayed throughout the whole earth; and, while the worshippers of false gods are confounded, Zion rejoices and is glad; and all nations come and worship before their King; for His judgments are made manifest (Rev. 15: 4). C. J. E. "Jehovah is King." Such is the glad assurance with which the Psalm opens. He has come to take possession of His throne with all the awful majesty with which He appeared on Sinai. All nature is moved at His presence. The heavens have uttered their message, telling of His righteousness, and all the nations of the world have seen His glory. His empire must be universal. Already the idols and the worshippers of idols are ashamed; and Zion rejoices in the coming of her King. He is near, very near. The first flush of the morning is already brightening the sky. They who love His appearing may look for Him, in holy abhorrence of evil and in faithfulness of heart, waiting till they enter into the joy of their Lord. Such is briefly the purport of the Psalm. "If the bringing in of an everlasting worship gives its distinctive coloring to the foregoing Psalm, the final casting out of evil is the keynote of this; if the thought of the Great King bringing salvation to His people is foremost in that, in this it is the trampling down of His enemies; there He comes 'to diadem the right;' here, 'to terminate the evil'" (Housman). The structure of the Psalm consists of strophes of three verses. In the first, the coming of Jehovah is portrayed as if actually present (vs. 1-3). In the second its effects are described on nature, and its purposes with reference to the world at large (vs. 4-6). The third speaks of the different impression produced on the heathen and on Israel, and the exaltation of God above all earthly power as the final result (vs. 7-9). The fourth is an exhortation to the righteous, and also a promise full of consolation (vs. 10-12). P. 1. "The Lord reigneth" by His providence over the kingdoms of the earth, and manages all their affairs according to His sovereign and wise pleasure; and He doth the same for His church. "The Lord reigneth" upon a throne of grace! It is the mediatorial government of the Messiah which is the principal cause of joy to the earth and its guilty inhabitants. And the Lord will reign erelong upon a throne of universal judgment, conspicuous to the assembled universe—"Let the earth therefore rejoice, and the multitude of the isles be glad." Samuel Davies. Here's good news, glad tidings: "The Lord reigneth." It cannot be published without praise, without rejoicing, without singing, without blessing. We should dishonor this truth if we did not publish it; if we should with silence suppress it; if we should not speak well of it. It is so sweet and comfortable, that it fills the whole world with joy, and calls on every ear and every tongue and every heart to be glad, to rejoice and to praise God. W. Sedgwick. As light irradiates all nature, so the thought of God diffuses gladness over all the moral world. The proposition which, above all others, should fill all intelligent creation with transport, is this, There is a God. Conceive of a world where this prime revelation has never shone, having the light of common day but no knowledge of God; conceive of the poor, blank, cheerless dwellers on this atheistic orb, and then figure to yourself some beautiful and mighty angel, who has been thousands of years filling his lamp at the central founts of light, dispatched by infinite love, and speeding to carry these tidings to the ignorant planet; who can measure the glory of the advent? It is a change like that when God said to chaos, Let there be light! If in all human knowledge there is a truth which should transport us beyond ourselves, it is, that there is a God. The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice! Without it, we are a fatherless brood, and our world an orphan universe. The names of God are names of relation; and among the relations we have found something more great, more tender, and more lovely than parent, brother, or husband, when we have found a God. J. W. A. Faith is always assured that God reigns; that He is ever pledged to order all events so as to promote the highest good of all true believers. Faith obeys; faith is wise and cautious in the use of the appointed means; faith compares Scripture with Scripture to ascertain the whole truth; faith is subject to law, and impels us to use the best means to gain good ends. And then it calmly commits the future to God. If trials come, if sorrow, bereavement, loss of property, loss of health, death come in the path of duty, it trusts with absolute assurance the Divine promise; and rising above these external trials, it triumphs even before it enters the pearly gates. S. W. Fisher. 2. Clouds and darkness are round about Him, but the Old Testament writers never falter in the conviction, which was the soul of all their heroism and the life blood of their religion, that in the heart of the clouds and darkness "justice and judgment are the foundations of His throne." A. M. If in revealing Himself to mortals the invisible God should deem it wise to make some visible manifestations of His presence, it is quite obvious that they must be made under limitations. It should not surprise us that at Sinai, in the solemn announcement of His law, God should speak forth from the thick darkness; that cloud and tempest, thunder and lightning, and the quaking of that grand and awful mount, should impress the assembled people with fear and even awe and dread. So when the Lord prepared for Himself a permanent dwelling-place in the tabernacle and temple, He invested Himself in "thick darkness." Yet let it not be overlooked that a deeper meaning is here suggested by these historic facts and beautifully illustrated thereby—viz., that the reasons of God's ways are often, perhaps usually, too deep for our human line to fathom. Our short vision cannot penetrate their mystery. Clouds and darkness gather round about Him; and yet He takes cares to give us abundant reasons for believing that righteousness and judgment are the basis of His throne—the principles that forever control His decisions. C. Righteousness is the essential perfection of the Divine Being. If there had been no creatures for Him to govern, He would have had an unchangeable and invincible love of rectitude. Judgment is the application of the principle of righteousness in His government of His creatures and their actions; it is a development of His rectitude in the management of the affairs of His great empire; it is that superintendence over all, whereby the operations of all things are directed to some vast and important end. Judgment implies measure and equity, in opposition to what is done without rule and consideration. All the Divine conduct is equitable, regulated by rectitude, and everything is directed by a judgment that cannot err. Thus "Righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne." The throne of God is built, and stands firm upon these principles; they are the place, the basis, and the foundation of His throne. Though the clouds cannot be dispelled, though there is thick darkness round about, through which our eyes cannot penetrate; yet there are principles discernible through the light of revelation, and by the eye of faith, which may serve to subdue despondency, and lead us to acquiesce in all the measures of the righteous Sovereign. Notwithstanding the appearances which obscure the providence of God, it often makes itself conspicuous in the midst of them all. When we have allowed to human agency, to human wisdom and human power a large circle of events imputed to nothing else, we see the Divine wisdom frequently disencumber itself from all second causes, and stretch itself out in the face of all men. Many remarkable deliverances God works out for his servants, in order to make bare the interposition of Providence and to show to His enemies that there is a "God that judgeth in the earth." He writes deep moral lessons from the events of history, so that the history of the Church and the world is the history of Providence. R. Hall. God Himself can be seen in the darkness, as He cannot be in the light. His loved ones can commune with Him in the shadow, as they cannot in the glare. "Clouds and darkness are round about him;" and the child of God who is most favored of God "shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty." Not in the blaze of prosperity's sunlight, but in the gloaming of the dusk of sorrow and of trial, can the child of God see the face of God, and have those disclosures of God's love which only the darkness brings. S. S. T. The persecutions of the good, the afflictions of the righteous, the desolations of conquest, the fall of nations and their liberties, the extinction of churches, the sufferings of innocence, the pains of animals, the removal by death of genius and character just ripened to bless the world—there is no end to our dark questions. There are times, too, when our own personal experience becomes enveloped in darkness. Practically, much is known about God and His ways, all that we need to know; but, speculatively, or by the mere understanding, almost nothing, save that we cannot know. The believing mind dwells in continual light; for when God is revealed within curious and perplexing questions are silent. If we but love the right, God will be revealed in us internally, as the object of our love and trust. He will not appear to be distant or difficult. We shall know Him as a friendly presence in our heart's love, and we shall have such a blessed confidence in Him that if, in the outer world of fact and event, clouds and darkness appear to be round about Him, we shall have the certainty within that justice and judgment are the habitation of His throne. Meanwhile, He will be teaching us graciously and drawing us insensibly through our holy sympathies into the sense of His ways, and widening, as fast as possible, the circle of our human limitation, that we may expatiate in discoveries more free. Bushnell. 3. A fire goeth before Him.** So was it at Sinai, so must it be; the very Being of God is power consuming all opposition; omnipotence is a devouring flame which "burneth up His enemies round about." God is long-suffering, but when He comes forth to judgment the unrighteous will be as chaff before the flame. S. 7. Shamed shall be all serving a graven image and boasting themselves of idols.** Bow down to Him, all ye gods! The first word means not merely ashamed, but disappointed, defeated, and confounded. All serving or all servers (i.e., worshippers) of a graven image. Boasting themselves, exulting in the knowledge and possession and imagined favor of material images. Idols, nothings or nonentities. The use of this word shows that in the following clause the false gods are invested with existence only to be treated with the more contempt. A. This and the next verse describe the twofold result of the Divine judgment, the impression produced on the heathen and on Israel, the confusion of all worshippers of idols, and the joy and exultation of the people of God. P.—When the glory of Jehovah is revealed, everything that is opposed to it will be reproved and consumed by its light. Those that serve idols become conscious of their delusion with shame and terror. The superhuman powers deified by the heathen will then submit themselves to Him who alone is Elohim in absolute personality. D. Worship Him, all ye gods. These words are not applied to Christ directly in Heb. 1 : 6. It is merely said that when God sends His Son into the world, He may be understood as saying again of Him what is here said of Himself, that even the false gods are required to worship Him, much more the angels who have real existence. A. 8. When Zion hears that Jehovah has appeared, and that all the world and all powers become submissive to Him, she rejoices; for it is her God, whose kingship is acknowledged. And all the daughter churches of the land of Judah exult along with the mother Church over the salvation, which dawns through judgments. D.—Although the coming of Jehovah has been portrayed in images full of awe and terror, yet here, as in the two preceding Psalms, it is described as a coming to be welcomed with jubilant gladness by His Church. In the same spirit our Lord, when speaking of the signs of fear which shall be the precursors of His second coming, says, “When ye shall see these things begin to come to pass, then lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” P. 9. That such a God, the Great Jehovah, is high above all the earth and all the wicked thereof is here assigned as properly the ground and reason of this joy. How infinitely above the empty and powerless gods of the heathen! C. 10. The Psalm closes with a practical application, because the King and Judge is drawing near, a warning against the evil which is in the world, and an assurance of Divine protection and blessing to those who "hate evil." P.—The one great moral lesson from these views of God and His throne is briefly put here: "Ye that love the Lord, hate evil." As God hates all sin and wrong, so should ye. He who preserves your souls and redeems you from the power of the wicked does all in the love of righteousness and the hatred of sin; therefore let this benevolence of your God prompt and inspire you to like love of others' well-being and abhorrence of all evil. C. He preserveth, He delivereth. There are two parts of Divine protection—preservation and deliverance. Preservation is safe keeping, guarding against peril; deliverance, saving those already involved in peril. The shepherd keeps his sheep lest they should fall among wolves; but if perchance they should fall into the clutches of the wolf, he pursues and delivers. So the Lord keeps the souls of His saints lest they fall into the hands of the wicked; and if they should fall, He will deliver them. Musculus.—He loves His saints on account of the image of Himself which they bear; He loves them on account of those graces which are infused into them when they are renewed by the Spirit; He loves them on account of the relation they stand in to Him as His people, who are qualified for the duties of the relation by that love of their Father, that reliance upon His care, that delight in His person, that enjoyment in His service which belongs to dutiful and affectionate children. He loves them because they imitate His perfections in some humble measure; because they receive the word of His mouth; because they are ready to obey every call of His providence, setting themselves in the paths of His testimony wherever He may direct. R. Hall. 11. Light (is) sown for the just (man), and for right-hearted (men) joy. The figurative term light is explained by the literal one joy or gladness. Its being sown suggests the two ideas of diffusion and productiveness. Compare the similar and parallel expression, Psalm 112 : 4. The alteration of the singular and plural number shows that the just man of the first clause is an ideal person, representing a whole class. A.—Light and gladness are sown. A startling figure that, and a grand one, too. God as a sower, scattering seeds of light. The statement is: God gives light to His children as seed. The figure simply recognizes the great law of growth which everything in the universe, from a grass-blade to the spiritual kingdom of God on earth, obeys. Nothing comes into life full-grown. The tree and the grain grow up from seed. So of the fruits of the spirit in men. Knowledge, faith, love, joy, grow through successive stages, like the blade, the ear, and the full corn If then light and gladness are to be looked for in Christian life, it is important to remember that they are growths, and that as such they carry with them a certain amount of concealment and delay. God hides away light and gladness in certain things which, for the time, give no hint of what is within; and when God gives us these seeds, He expects us to look for our light in them. One of the hardest lessons we ever learn is to undertake that search cheerfully and believingly. V. "Light sown," to produce a harvest of blessings, the best of "gladness." The figure is exquisitely beautiful. Light is one of the finest possible emblems of happiness. That it should be planted as a seed is of course a poetic conception, yet at once clear in sense and beautiful in figure, surely foretokening a future product of good for the truly righteous. C.—Light is sown for the righteous—that is, gladness for the upright in heart. The subjects of Christ's kingdom are bid to expect tribulation in the world; yet let them know, to their comfort, that light is sown for them, it is designed and prepared for them; what is sown will come up again in due time; though, like winter seed, it may lie long under the clods and seem to be lost and buried, yet it will return in a rich and plentiful increase. God's goodness shall be sure of a harvest in the appointed weeks. They that sow in tears shall without fail reap in joy. Christ told His disciples at parting, You shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. Gladness is sure to the upright in heart, to those only that are sincere in religion. The joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment. There is no serenity without a lasting sincerity. H. Light is sown in God's discipline with us, God's providences upon, over, and around us; in all things the germs of light are hidden, for discovery, for cherishing, for growth, for a future and glorious harvest. God's word itself is hidden in the heart, to break forth into glory, to constitute now, while beneath the furrow, as it were, the life of God in the soul of man, the life hidden with Christ in God, and to constitute, when all these preparatory and growing processes are finished, the suddenly revealed harvest of eternal light and blessedness in Christ, according to the rule that when He who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with Him in glory. Cheever.—Light is sown for the righteous; and the harvest from God's sowing never fails. First conceptions and lower knowledge is the seed of the higher; and that again of higher still. Mistakes and misconceptions fall off and die if only there be the fruitful ground of "an honest and good heart." It is of far more importance to have right dispositions than right notions. A clear heart is better than a sound creed. Depend upon it, the sound creed is in the clear heart, or will come by its means. But the clear heart is not, of necessity, in the sound creed. Raleigh. Most thoughtful men increase in faith and spiritual discernment by having their doubts cleared up. Religious thought in this way grows into a personal feeling; and the solid rock of truer conviction and deeper trust as a firm foundation for the soul to build upon for eternity remains behind after all the abrasion of loose and more perishable materials through speculation. A different if not a truer revelation of heavenly realities is given to us through the dark, distressing process of doubting, than through the bright, joyful exercise of unhesitating faith; just as our knowledge of the chemistry of the sun and stars, of the physical constitution of distant worlds is derived not from the bright bands of their spectrum, which reveal only their size and shape, but from Fraunhofer's wonderful lines—those black blank spaces breaking up the spectrum bands—which tell us of rays arrested in their path and prevented from bearing their message to us by particular metallic vapors. Unto the upright, just because of the purity and singleness of their motives and the earnestness of their quest after truth, there ariseth light in the darkness. We must remember that "light is sown for the righteous;" that its more or less rapid germination and development depend upon the nature of the soil on which it falls and the circumstances that influence it; that, like seed, it at first lies concealed in the dark furrow, under the cheerless clod, in the cold, ungenial winter; but that even then, while shining in the darkness, while struggling with doubts and difficulties of the mind and heart, it is nevertheless the source of much comfort, and in its slow, quickening, and hidden growth the cause of lively hope, and of bright anticipation of that time when it shall blossom and ripen in the summer time of heaven, shine more and more unto the perfect day. Hugh Macmillan. Righteous souls pass through many dark hours; sometimes they are put to a stand, ready to question if they have any interest in Christ; for they have a nature in which dwells every evil which wars against God, and the peace, holiness, and comfort of their souls; hence they are sometimes in seasons of darkness; they see not things in the light of truth; they enjoy not the comfort of the truth that they are righteous in the righteousness of Christ, and made upright by His grace. Upright souls mourn in darkness, and desire ever to walk in the light; yes, says Peter, ye "greatly rejoice" in the salvation of Jesus, "though now for a season (if need be) ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations." If need be! What need can there be? He tells us "that the trial of your faith might be found unto praise, and honor, and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ." Tried faith is true faith. True faith stands the fire of temptation; trusts Christ in heaviness; stays upon Him in darkness; for at all times, in all seasons, under all circumstances, light and gladness are sown for you and in due season shall spring up in you. They are sown where every covenant blessing is reaped: in Jesus, the surety of the covenant. All natural light flows from the sun; all spiritual light flows from Christ, the Sun of righteousness, who saith, "I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Is light sown in Christ for us? Let us with David claim in faith, "The Lord is my light, and my salvation." Does gladness of heart spring from Christ? Then say, "My meditations of Him shall be sweet, I will be glad in the Lord." W. Mason. 12. Rejoice in the Lord. Our rejoicing in the Lord relates to the existence, the perfections and providence of the ever-blessed God; the discoveries of His will to us, especially in His word; the interest we have in Him, and the relations wherein we stand to Him; His continual protection, guidance, and influence; His gracious intercourse with us in the duties of religious worship, and, finally, the hope He has given us of fulness of joy in His beatific and glorious presence above. H. Grove. Rejoice and give thanks. He unites joy in the Lord and praise of God, for it is not possible for a man to praise the Lord unless he rejoices in Him. Again, he connects the praise of God with the remembrance of His holiness. And with good reason; for it is the chief use of Divine praise that we should keep fresh in our souls the remembrance of God and of all the blessings received from Him. Thus this verse contains the root and fruit of Divine praise. The root is joy in God; the fruit is the remembrance of God and His goodness. Musculus. Well, indeed, may all the righteous rejoice in the Lord, who makes sure to them such a wealth of blessing. Let them especially rejoice as they think of His holiness, His abhorrence of sin; His glorious purity; His supreme devotion to the highest interests of His moral universe. C. The uniform calm and cheerfulness which lights up the face of a true Christian, the happy expression of countenance, the sunshine on the brow—these are never to be found where the life is not careful. Not that trictness will always make a man cheerful. God sometimes permits His truest servants to be afflicted with depression of spirits for many reasons. But, assuredly, though you may sometime see strictness of life without cheerfulness of spirits, you never see cheerfulness of spirits without strictness of life. The careless Christian is sure to be discontented with himself, and so robs himself of the very thing which would make service happy. Try to make your service strict and careful. No doubt the bent of your will is chiefly shown in the great duties, but the sense of love and of wishing to be loved is chiefly shown in the small duties. Let each have its place. The great sterling duties, the exact truth of word, the resolute refusal to countenance wrong, the command of temper, the mastery of indolence, the unstained purity—these, and such as these, form the character, and fashion our souls into instruments in God's hands for high and heavenly purposes in His providence. But the carefulness over details, the watchfulness against faults which we know to be faults, but which, notwithstanding, seem venial, the devout regularity and attention in our private prayers, the invariable good humor of our manners, the seeking for occasions of kindness and unselfishness, the avoidance of little temptations, the care not to cause little annoyances and little troubles—to attend to all this for the sake of Christ our Master is the natural and fitting expression of a loving heart. And such love is always repaid ten thousandfold. Bishop Temple. 1. O SING unto the LORD a new song ; For he hath done marvellous things : His right hand, and his holy arm, hath wrought salvation for him. 2 The LORD hath made known his salvation : His righteousness hath he openly shewed in the sight of the nations. 3 He hath remembered his mercy and his faith- fulness toward the house of Israel : All the ends of the earth have seen the sal- vation of our God. 4 Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all the earth : Break forth and sing for joy, yea, sing praises. 5. Sing praises unto the LORD with the harp ; With the harp and the voice of melody. 6 With trumpets and sound of cornet Make a joyful noise before the King, the LORD. 7 Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof ; The world, and they that dwell therein ; 8 Let the floods clap their hands ; Let the hills sing for joy together ; 9 Before the LORD, for he cometh to judge the earth : He shall judge the world with righteous- ness. And the peoples with equity. THIS Psalm is little more than an echo of Psalm 96. Its subject is " the last great revela- tion, the final victory of God, when His salva- tion and His righteousness, the revelation of which He has promised to the house of Israel, shall be manifested both to His own people and to all the nations of the earth." P.—It con- sists of three triplets : the first celebrating the salvation of God, the second calling upon men to praise Him with all the auxiliaries of song, and the third summoning inanimate nature to join the chorus that hopes with joy for the judgment to come. M. The parallels of this Psalm with the Virgin's Song are very striking, and it seems as if Mary had this Psalm in her eye when she composed her song of triumph. And this is a further argument that the whole Psalm is yet to be ultimately understood of the redemption of the world by Jesus Christ, and the proclamation of His Gospel through all the nations of the earth ; and taken in this view, no language can be too strong, nor poetic imagery too high to point out the unsearchable riches of Christ. A. Clarke. This is the only Psalm which is entitled sim- ply " a Psalm." It is at least interesting to no- tice that a song of Zion which so exults in the King's arrival should be called pre-eminently Mizmor ; as if the Psalm of Psalms were that which celebrates Israel, and the earth at large, blessed in Messiah's Advent. A. A. Bonar. 1. Oh, sing unto the Lord a new song ; for He hath done marvellous things. We had a new song before (Psalm 96), because the Lord was coming ; but now we have another because He has come, and seen, and conquered. Jesus, our King, has lived a marvellous life, died a marvellous death, risen by a marvellous resurrection, and ascended marvellously into heaven. By His Divine power He has sent forth the Holy Spirit doing marvels, and by that sacred energy His dis- ciples have also wrought marvellous things and astonished all the earth. Idols have fallen, superstitions have withered, systems of error have fled, and empires of cruelty have perished. His acts have proved His Deity, Jesus is Jehovah, and therefore we sing unto Him as the Lord. The salvation which Jesus has ac- complished is wrought out with wonderful wis- dom, hence it is ascribed to His right hand ; it meets the requirements of justice, hence we read of His holy arm ; it is His own unaided work, hence all the glory is ascribed to Him ; and it is marvellous beyond degree, hence it deserves a new song. S. 3. He hath remembered His mercy and His truth. His mercy moved Him to make His promise, and His truth hath engaged Him to perform it ; and He hath been mindful of both, by scattering the blessed influences of His light and bounty over the face of the whole earth, and causing all nations to see and par- take of the salvation of God. Matthew Hole. 5. The voice of a Psalm. With Psalms Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah celebrated their victories. Psalms made glad the heart of the exiles who returned from Babylon. Psalms gave courage and strength to the Maccabees in their brave struggles to achieve their country's independence, and were the repeated expression of their thanksgivings. The Lord of Psalmists and the Son of David, by the words of a Psalm proved Himself to be higher than David, and sang Psalms with His apostles on the night before he suffered, when He instituted the holy supper of His love. With Psalms Paul and Silas praised God in the prison at midnight when their feet were made fast in the stocks, and sang so loud that the prisoners heard them. And after his own example the apostle exhorts the Christians at Ephesus and Colossæ to teach and admonish one another with Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Jerome tells us that in his day the Psalms were to be heard in the fields and vineyards of Palestine, and that they fell sweetly on the ear, mingling with the songs of birds, and the scent of flowers in spring. The ploughman, as he guided his plough, chanted the hallelujah, and the reaper, the vine-dresser, and the shepherd sang the songs of David. P. 7,8. These appeals to nature in her great departments—of the sea in its mighty amplitude, and the earth with its floods and hills—form, not a warrant, but a call on Christian ministers to recognize God more in their prayers and sermons as the God of creation, instead of restricting themselves so exclusively to the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. Do the one, and not leave the other undone. Thomas Chalmers. The Psalm is much occupied in celebrating the benign fruits which Christ's reign is to yield in all the earth. It will be a reign of holiness. This is its proper and distinctive nature. Under it, the ends of the earth will fear God, and rejoice in His salvation. It will be a reign of justice. Under it the wars and oppressions and cruelties, the unequal laws and iniquitous institutions that have so long vexed and cursed the world, shall find a place no more. This happy reformation is usually foretold in the form of a proclamation that the Lord is coming "to judge the earth." It is important, therefore, to keep in mind the true sense and intention of that oft-repeated proclamation. It does not refer, as an unwary reader might suppose, to the Judgment of the Great Day. There is no terror in it. The Psalms that have it for their principal burden are jubilant in the highest degree. The design of the proclamation is to announce Christ in the character of a peaceful prince coming to administer equal laws with an impartial hand, and so to cause wrong and contention to cease in the earth. This is Christ's manner of judging the earth. What He has already done in this direction enables us to form a clear conception of what He will yet set Himself to do. When He designs to accomplish great and salutary reforms in the political and social institutions of a people, He begins by dislodging bad principles from men's minds and planting scriptural principles in their stead; by purging evil passions from men's hearts, and baptizing them with the Spirit of truth and justice, godliness and lovingkindness. A sure foundation having been thus laid for a better order of things, He will by some storm of controversy or of revolution sweep away the institutions in which injustice has entrenched itself, and will thus make it possible for righteousness to have free course. Oh, what a store of comfort for the down-trodden, the enslaved, the needy, is laid up in the announcement that the Lord is coming to be the avenger of all such! Well may all the creatures be invited to clap their hands for joy at the thought that He has taken this work in hand; that He sitteth upon the floods, and that the storms that agitate the nations are the chariot in which He rides to take possession of the earth, and make it an abode of righteousness and peace. W. Binnie. 1. THE LORD reigneth ; let the peoples tremble : He sitteth upon [dwelieth between] the cherubim ; let the earth be moved. 2 The LORD is great in Zion ; And he is high above all the peoples. 3 Let them praise thy great and terrible name : Holy is he. 4 The king's strength also loveth judgment ; Thou dost establish equity, Thou executest judgment and righteousness in Jacob. 5 Exalt ye the LORD our God, And worship at his footstool Holy is he. 6. Moses and Aaron among his priests, And Samuel among them that call upon his name ; They called upon the LORD, and he answered them. 7 He spake unto them in the pillar of cloud : They kept his testimonies, and the statute that he gave them. 8 Thou answeredst them, O LORD our God : Thou wast a God that forgavest them, Though thou tookest vengeance of their doings. 9 Exalt ye the LORD our God, And worship at his holy hill ; For the LORD our God is holy. THIS is the last of the series of Royal Psalms, of Psalms which celebrate the coming of Jehovah as King. The first of the series, the ninety-third, opens with the announcement that "Jehovah is King," passes on to tell that His throne has been from everlasting, that He made the world and that He rules it—rules the rage of the elements and the convulsions of political strife, of which that is the figure—and then concludes with one brief glance at His revelation of Himself to His people, and the distinguishing glory of the house in which He deigns to dwell, "Holiness becometh Thine house forever." The ninety-fifth Psalm ascribes glory to Him as "a great King above all gods" (v. 3). The ninety-sixth would have the glad tidings run far and wide that "Jehovah is King," that "He shall judge the people righteously" (v. 13). The ninety-seventh opens, "Jehovah is King," speaks of the glory of His advent, and of the joy with which it is welcomed by His people. The ninety-eighth calls upon all lands to break forth into loud shouts "before the King Jehovah," to go forth to meet Him with glad acclaim, with the voice of harp and cornet and trumpet, as men go forth to meet a monarch who comes in state to take possession of the throne of his fathers. The ninety-ninth, like the ninety-third and the ninety-seventh, opens with the joyful announcement that "Jehovah is King," and then bids all men fall down and confess His greatness, and worship Him who alone is holy. Both the first and the last of the series, the ninety-third and the ninety-ninth, celebrate the kingly majesty and holiness of Jehovah, and also the holiness of His worship. All these Psalms alike tell of the setting up of a Divine kingdom upon earth. All alike anticipate the event with joy. One universal anthem bursts from the whole wide world to greet the advent of the righteous King. Not Zion only and the daughters of Judah are glad, but the dwellers in far-off islands and the ends of the earth. Even inanimate nature sympathizes with the joy ; the sea thunders her welcome, the rivers clap their hands, the trees of the wood break forth into singing before the Lord. In all these Psalms alike the joy springs from the same source, from the thought that on this earth, where might has so long triumphed over right, a righteous King shall reign, a kingdom shall be set up which shall be a kingdom of righteousness and judgment and truth. In this Psalm, not only the righteous sway of the King, but His awful holiness, forms the subject of praise, and the true character of His worshippers as consecrated priests, holy, set apart for His service, is illustrated by the example of holy men of old, like Moses, Aaron, and Samuel. The two principal divisions of the Psalm are marked by the greater refrain with which each closes, "Exalt ye Jehovah our God," etc. (vs. 5, 9). But the thrice-repeated lesser refrain, "He is holy," more full, as at the close (in v. 9), "Jehovah our God is holy," marks also a strophical division, and is, in the words of Delitzsch, "an earthly echo of the seraphic Trisagion" (compare Isa. 6 : 3). We have thus three strophes or Sanctuses (vs. 1-3; 4, 5, and 6-9), the first and second consisting each of six lines. In each of these Jehovah is acknowledged in His peculiar covenant relation to His people. In the first, He is "great in Zion" (v. 2); in the second, He has "executed righteousness in Jacob" (v. 4), and He is "Jehovah our God" (v. 5); in the third, the great examples of this covenant relationship are cited from Israel's ancient history; and again God is twice claimed as "Jehovah our God" (vs. 8, 9). In each there is the same exhortation to worship (vs. 3, 5, 9), and in each the nature of the worship and the character of the worshippers is implied, because the character of God is in each exhibited, "He is holy." But in the third Sanctus this is brought out most fully. The priestly character of all true worship is declared. All who call upon Jehovah call Him as His priests, all anointed with the same holy oil, all clothed in the same garments of holiness, "for Jehovah our God is holy." Bengel, recognizing this threefold partition of the Psalm, explains the structure somewhat differently. "The ninetyninth Psalm," he says, "has three parts, in which the Lord is celebrated as He who is to come, as He who is, and as He who was, and each part is closed with the ascription of praise, He is holy." P. When the Prophet Isaiah saw his great vision of the King in His beauty, "sitting upon a throne, high, and lifted up," and His train filling the temple, he heard from the voices of the encompassing seraphim the triple ascription of praise, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty." This Psalm may be called the earthly echo of that celestial doxology; for it is divided into three great sections, at the close of each of which it comes like a recurring thunder peal—"for it is holy;" "for He is holy;" "for the Lord our God is holy." And these three sections, which thus celebrate the different sides of the Divine nature, and climb up to the one climactic thought—the holiness of God—stand related to each other in a regular progress and sequence. The first of them magnifies His universal dominion, as sitting between the cherubim, and being high above all people, and calls for praise to the name which is great and terrible. The second of them hymns the praises of that dominion which is as just as it is strong, which establishes equity and gives ordinances and statutes to Jacob. And the third of them sets forth the close relation of love and fellowship and mutual converse which is possible between sinful men and this mighty God. "They call upon the Lord, and He answers them; He speaks to them in the cloudy pillar; they keep His testimonies." "Thou was a God that forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions." And on this loftiest of all the thoughts, that God talks with men and listens to them; that He gives them His mind and will, and strengthens them to keep it; that He smites them in order that they may be good, and pardons them even while He smites, there is piled a third call for praise: "Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at His holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy." A. M. 1. The Lord reigns.** God governs the world by His providence, governs the Church by His grace, and both by His Son. We are to believe not only that the Lord lives, but that the Lord reigns. H. 3. It is holy.** No attribute is sounded out so loftily, with such solemnity and so frequently by angels that stand before His throne, as this. Where do you find any other attribute trebled in the praises of it as this? Isa. 6: 3: "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory;" and Rev. 4: 8: "The four living creatures rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty." His power of sovereignty as Lord of hosts is but once mentioned, but with a ternal repetition of His holiness. Where do we read of the crying out, Eternal, eternal, eternal; or Faithful, faithful, faithful, Lord God of hosts! Whatsoever other attribute is left out, this God would have to fill the mouths of angels and blessed spirits forever in heaven. As sincerity is the lustre of every grace in a Christian, so is purity the splendor of every attribute in the Godhead. His justice is a holy justice, His wisdom a holy wisdom, His arm of power a "holy arm;" His truth or promise a "holy promise." Holy and true go hand and hand (Rev. 6: 10). "His name," which signifies all His attributes in conjunction, "is holy." Charnock. 4. The King's strength.** The same King who is mentioned v. 1, Jehovah. His might is no arbitrary power, like that of earthly tyrants, but a judgment-loving might. His power only expresses itself in righteousness. He has "established uprightness" as the great eternal law of His government, the inner principle of His sway, and He has manifested it in all His acts: "He has executed judgment and righteousness in Jacob." P. 6,7. The third Sanctus looks back into the history of the days of old prior to the kings. In support of the statement that Jehovah is a living God and a God that proves Himself in grace and judgment, the Psalmist appeals to three heroes of the days of old and to their recorded experiences. D.—The happiness of Israel in God's government is here further made out by some particular instances of His administration, especially with reference to those that were, in their day, the prime leaders and most active useful governors of that people, Moses, Aaron, and Samuel, in the former of whom the theocracy or Divine government began (for they were employed to form Israel into a people), and in the last of whom that form of government, in a great measure, ended. Moses, as well as Aaron, is said to be among his priests, for he executed the priest's office till Aaron was settled in it, and he consecrated Aaron and his sons; therefore the Jews call him the Priest of the priests. H. Moses is, so to speak, the proto-priest of Israel, he having twice performed priestly acts that laid the foundation for all ages to come—viz., the sprinkling of the blood at the ratification of the covenant under Sinai, and the whole ritual, which was to be a pattern for the consecrated priesthood, at the consecration of the priests; it was he also that, previous to the consecration of the priests, attended to the service in the sanctuary; he set the shew-bread in order, set up the candlestick, and burnt incense upon the golden altar. D.—So likewise he "called upon the Lord" as "a priest," in intercession for his people. P.—Aaron is the first priest appointed by Moses; the father of the priesthood, the one with whom the divinely selected mediatorial priesthood began. D. Samuel also, though not here classed with the priests, but mentioned as a great example of prayer, not only like Moses discharged priestly functions, but also like Moses interceded for the people. We find him at Ramah offering sacrifices in the high place, and his independent priestly position so recognized by the people that they would not partake of the sacrifice till he had blessed it (1 Sam. 9 : 12, 13). We find him on the occasion of a battle offering a whole burnt offering unto Jehovah (1 Sam. 7 : 9), at the same time that he sternly rebukes Saul for presuming to do the same thing (1 Sam. 13 : 11-13). For the efficacy of his prayers and intercessions—on which, and not on sacrifices, the stress is here laid—see the instances in 1 Sam. 7 : 8, 9; 12 : 16-18. P.—His character as mediator in connection with Divine service is outweighed by his character as a man mighty in prayer; by earnest entreaty he obtained for Israel the victory of Ebenezer over the Philistines, and confirmed his words of warning with the miraculous sign that at his calling upon God it thundered and rained in the midst of a cloudless season. The poet purposely says: Moses and Aaron were among His priests, Samuel among those that called upon His name. D. Each of these three stood in the gap when the wrath of God broke forth, because His holiness had been insulted; and acting as intercessors, they screened the nation from the great and terrible God, who otherwise would have executed judgment in Jacob. They made it their life's business to call upon Him in prayer. S.—He answered them, and granted them the things which they called upon Him for. Miracles were wrought at their special instance and request; nay, God not only condescended to do that for them which they desired, as a prince for a petitioner, but He communed with them as one friend familiarly converses with another. He spake unto them in the cloudy pillar. H. S. There is here a beautiful transition from the representatives of the people to the people themselves. The pronoun in the first clause (them) can refer only to Moses, Aaron, and Samuel; in the second, it is applicable both to them and to the people; in the third, it relates to the latter exclusively. A. Thou forgavest them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their doings. Because He loves the person and hates only the sin, therefore He preserves the one, destroys only the other. The covenant that is made with us in Christ is not a covenant made with works, but with persons; and, therefore, though the works be often hateful, yet He goes on to love the persons; and that He may continue to love them, destroys out of them what He hates, but cutteth not them off. T. Goodwin.—It is a blessed assurance that nothing can disturb our standing in the covenant. Answer and forgiveness are certain, though vengeance is taken of our inventions. Yet withal we are not shut out from God. We are able to speak to, and to hear Him; we receive what we need and much more; and, above all, we have the sweet, abiding sense of forgiveness. A. E. Forgavest. Forgiveness is at bottom the undisturbed communication of the love of God to sinful men. We are too apt to think that God pardons men in the fashion in which the sovereign pardons a culprit who has been sentenced to be hanged. Such pardon implies nothing as to the feelings of either the criminal or the monarch. There need neither be pity on the one side nor penitence on the other. The true idea of forgiveness is to be found not in the region of law only, but in the region of love and fatherhood. The forgiveness of God is over and over again set forth in Scripture as being a Father's forgiveness. Vengeance. The modern notion attached to revenge is by no means to be found in the word which is here employed. Our notion of vengeance is harm, or loss, or pain of some sort inflicted at the bidding of private and passionate resentment and hate, in opposition to the calm and unhating course of public justice. We set up "the wild justice of revenge," as the phrase goes, against the course of sovereign and authoritative retribution and punitive action. But what the Old Testament meant by vengeance is precisely that public justice to which the modern notion of revenge is diametrically opposed. And what this verse says is, "Thou wast a God that didst forgive," and in the very act of forgiving, moved by no personal animosity, moved by no passionate resentment, but in the calm, sovereign, righteous process of that law, which is only the manifestation and the form of expression of Thine infinite love, didst at one and the same time forgive the man, and amite and punish him because of his evil. A. M. Even Divine forgiveness is not inconsistent with the exaction of certain penal consequences of evil-doing. A wound may be healed by nature, but there remains a scar. No man can sin with impunity, even though he may repent and be forgiven. There are effects left on body, mind, heart, conscience, which not even Divine grace wholly removes. No repentance can restore lost opportunity, forfeited privilege, wasted time, or exhausted life. God is not vindictive, but He is vindicative; He is not a revenging, but He is an avenging God. He owes something to His own inflexible holiness, justice, truth; to the unchanging physical and moral order He has established. Anon.—God is too loving to shield men from the natural consequences, in the physical and social world, of their sins. The penitent drunkard's hand shakes, and his constitution is not renewed, though his spirit is. Only, punishment is changed into discipline, when the heart rests in the assurance of pardon, and is accepted as a token of a Father's love. David's sin relaxed the bonds of family life, and set an evil example of passion, indulged in the face of law, to his children. His eldest son copied his example, and added fresh horrors to it. That, and the miserable polygamy which David permitted himself, bore bitter fruit in Absalom's revenging his sister's disgrace by procuring Amnon's murder. David, conscious of his own sin, had weakly left Amnon unpunished; and the same consciousness, added to his foolish fondness for his handsome, good-for-nothing son, led him to wink at his flagrant violation of law. He forgot that he was God's minister of justice, and only remembered that he was Absalom's father. His feeble compromise only irritated his son, and suggested the conspiracy to him. The success of it was facilitated by David's passiveness, which sprang from his sense of demerit, and had helped to wean his subjects' hearts from him. Thus every way God made of the vice the whip to scourge the sinner, and David, like us all, had to drink as he had brewed, though he was forgiven the sin. A. M. # Conflict between the Old and New Nature. As there is much beast and some devil in man, so is there some angel and some God in man. The beast and the devil may be conquered, but in this life never destroyed. Coleridge.—There is an intestine war in man between reason and the passions. He might enjoy some repose had he reason alone without passion, or passion alone without reason. But, having both, he must needs live in a state of warfare, since he cannot maintain peace with one without being at war with the other. Hence he is always divided and always at variance with himself. Pascal. No sooner is peace with God, through Christ, settled, than war is proclaimed, and the man involved in its arduous and lifelong struggles. Conflict begins with conversion. Besides the world and its influences, the passions that he loved in his breast and fed by long indulgence into strength, it may be said that "his enemies are the men of his own house." Guthrie.—So long as we are in the world and of it, we know nothing of spiritual conflict. But when we become sons of God, through faith in Christ Jesus, then it is that we become conscious of conflict. "Conflict with what?" Conflict with the selfishness of our own hearts. Self wishes to be lord, and forbids Christ to be Lord. We have to resist self. Calthrop.—That idol, myself, is the idol we all bow down to. What made Eve fall and hurried her headlong upon the forbidden fruit, but that wretched thing, herself? What drew that brother-murderer to kill Abel? What drove the old world on to corrupt their ways? Who but themselves and their own pleasures? What was the cause of Solomon's falling into idolatry, and multiplying strange wives? What but himself, whom he would rather please than God? What was the hook that took David and snared him first in adultery, but his self-lust; and then in murder, but his self-credit and self-honor? What made Judas sell his Master for thirty pieces of money, but a piece of self-love, idolizing avaricious self? What made Demas go off the way of the Gospel to embrace this present world? Even self-love and love of gain for himself. Every man blameth the devil for his sins, but the great devil, the house devil of every man, that eateth and lieth in every man's bosom, that idol which killeth all—himself. Rutherford. Day and night follow each other not more surely than punishment follows upon sin. Whether the sin be great or little, momentary or habitual, wilful or through infirmity, its own peculiar punishment seems, according to the law of nature, to follow as far as our experience of that law carries us, sooner or later, lighter or heavier, as the case may be. Newman. The pardoning mercy of God leaves many penalties unremoved. Forgiveness and punishment both come from the same source, and generally go together. The old statement, "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," is absolutely true, universally true. The Gospel is not its abrogation. It modifies it, it gives it a new aspect; in some respects it gives it a new incidence; but be sure of this, that the harvest has to be gathered. For our worst sins there is plenteous redemption. My sin may become white as snow and pass away altogether, in as far as it has power to disturb or sadden my relation to God. Yet our least sins leave in our lives, in our characters, in our memories, in our consciences, sometimes in our weakness, often in our worldly position, in our reputation, in our success, in our health, in a thousand other ways—leave their traces and consequences. But pardoning love so modifies the punishment that it becomes an occasion for solemn thankfulness. Whatever painful consequences of past sin may still linger about our lives or haunt our hearts, we may be sure of two things about them all, that they come from forgiving mercy; that they come for our profit. The truths that lie in the whole are these: pardon and retribution are ever united; they spring from one source of holy love, and they ought to become to us the occasions of solemn and thankful praise. "Exalt the Lord our God . . . for He is holy." Thou forgavest them, and didst punish their inventions. A. M. 9. The Lord our God is holy in His power, holy in His righteousness, and holy especially in His mercy. In the great work of salvation His power is displayed pre-eminently in the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, His righteousness in the propitiating work of the Son, and His mercy in the giving and forgiving deeds of the Father. M. The God of Revelation is a moral God. If He is power and wisdom, He is also sanctity, justice, providence, mercy, love. According to the Gospel love is His essence; and love is interest in and self-sacrifice for that which is its object. Such a God alone can be the adequate object of religion. Traceable in every human history, especially in the history of one separated and chosen race, the interest of the Perfect Moral Being in the moral and thinking creatures of His hand culminates at Bethlehem and Calvary. The incarnation of the Eternal Son, the manifestation of the Divine life of love and justice, and compassion and purity, flashing through a veil of flesh, and leading up to a death of agony and shame, which alters the whole existing moral relation between earth and heaven; this is the glorious creed which rivets a Christian's conviction of the moral intensity of the life of God. Liddon. The holiness of God must be recognized by any one who would for a moment feel safe in the universe. If God were otherwise than holy and just, what could restrain any arbitrary exercise of His power? How could we know that the most terrific catastrophe the human imagination ever conceived shall not at the next moment befall the creation? His holiness, which men hate, is the safeguard of the universe in which they live. He could not properly be worshipped except He were holy. Worship mere power, and it demoralizes, it demonizes. Worship intellect, and it degrades the moral nature in us. Worship can only be offered to absolute and sovereign purity of character; and that must be God's character, or else let every harp on high be silent and every heart on earth be dumb; shut up the Psalms and seal them; put an end to every service of praise in the creation. God's holiness shines upon us through His law, shines in our own reason and conscience and their intuitions, shines clear and evident in the person of Christ, and is the fundamental fact of character which we are always to affirm. But then with this holiness is united tenderness; and it is that which it seems harder still to recognize and declare, for we associate austerity with holiness; we associate the Divine holiness with infinite, solitary, and self-absorbed grandeur, cold and high and far away. We associate with absolute justice absolute sov- creignty, rather than absolute tenderness; and yet there is in His Word, even in the ancient Scripture, the declaration of His tenderness. We see this illustrated most beautifully and perfectly, of course, in the life of the Son of God, whose mission it was to reveal the infinite Father to us, that we might not be afraid of His holiness, but might see the very splendor of that holiness surrounded and crowned with the sunny radiance of this tenderness. And we must affirm that tenderness combined with that perfect holiness in God, in order to fulfil the precept of the Master, and thoroughly, with heart and soul, believe in Him. R. S. S. 1. MAKE a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands. 2 Serve the LORD with gladness: Come before his presence with singing. 3 Know ye that the LORD he is God: It is he that hath made us, and we are his; We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4. Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, And into his courts with praise: Give thanks unto him, and bless his name. 5 For the LORD is good; his mercy endureth for ever; And his faithfulness unto all generations. HERE ends what Hengstenberg describes as a decalogue of Psalms (91-100), all intended to exhibit the relation between Israel and the world at large; all of a cheering and triumphant character, without the slightest intermixture of complaint or lamentation; all crowded with citations from the older Scriptures, or allusions to them; almost all pointing to a glorious theophany still future; and almost all distinguished by emphatic repetitions, and the frequent use of musical terms, especially the names of instruments. That these Psalms are not thrown together at random is apparent from the fact that the series begins with a general assurance of Divine protection (Psalm 91), and of God's power both to save the righteous and destroy the wicked (Psalm 92), followed by variations on the grand theme that the Lord reigneth (Psalms 93-99), and closing with an earnest exhortation to the whole world to receive Him as their Sovereign (Psalm 100). According to Hengstenberg, these ten Psalms are in psalmody what the later chapters of Isaiah (40-66) are in prophecy; and as the former are undoubtedly anterior to the exile, they confirm the genuineness of the latter. A. If we are right in regarding Psalms 93-99 as forming one continuous series, one great prophetic oratorio, whose title is "Jehovah is King," and through which there runs the same great idea, this Psalm may be regarded as the doxology which closes the strain. We find lingering in it notes of the same great harmony. It breathes the same gladness; it is filled with the same hope, that all nations shall bow down before Jehovah, and confess that He is God. "Among the Psalms of triumph and thanksgiving this stands pre-eminent, as rising to the highest point of joy and grandeur. No local restrictions, no national exclusiveness, can find place in the contemplation of God as the common Creator and Father of man; hence it is that no hymn or Psalm in any subsequent age has found a readier response than this first appeal to the whole world to unite in worshipping Jehovah on the ground of common sonship and humanity." (The Psalms Chronologically Arranged.) P. Luther would have immortalized his name had he done no more than written the majestic air and harmony to which we are accustomed to sing this Psalm, and which, when the mind is in a truly worshipping frame, seems to bring heaven down to earth, and to raise earth to heaven, giving us anticipations of the pure and sublime delights of that noble and general assembly in which saints and angels shall forever celebrate the praises of God. Cobbin. 1. All the earth. As in all the preceding Psalms, so here the hope of the Psalmist goes far beyond the narrow limits of his own people and country. The blessing of Abraham is become the heritage of the Gentiles. The whole world is to acknowledge Jehovah, and to rejoice before Him. P. 3. The Lord He is God.** The only living and true God; He is a Being infinitely perfect, self-existent, and self-sufficient, and the fountain of all being. He is our Creator: "It is He that hath made us." Therefore, He is our rightful owner. "We are His people," or subjects, and He is our Prince, our Governor, that gives laws to us as moral agents, and will call us to an account for what we do. He is our bountiful Benefactor; we are not only His sheep whom He is entitled to, but "the sheep of His pasture," whom He takes care of. H.—In "He made us and we are His," there is also a rich mine of comfort and of admonition, for the Creator is also the Owner, His heart clings to His creature, and the creature owes itself entirely to Him, without whom it would not have had a being, and would not continue in being. D. God hath given us a soul to inform us; senses to inform our soul; faculties to furnish that soul; understanding, the great surveyor of the secrets of nature and grace; fantasy and invention, the master of the works; memory, the great keeper or master of the rolls of the soul, a power that can make amends for the speed of time, in causing him to leave behind him those things which else he would so carry away as if they had not been; will, which is the lord paramount in the state of the soul, the commander of our actions, the elector of our resolutions; judgment, which is the great counsellor of the will; affections, which are the servants of them both; a body, fit to execute the charge of the soul, so wondrously disposed as that every part hath best opportunity in his own functions, and is fit to serve the soul and maintain itself. Bishop H. Sheep of His pasture. The true sheep are identified by certain marks, partly in themselves as the experience of believing souls, and partly in the feelings and purposes of Christ toward them. Tholuck has grouped together these marks under the following heads: They understand Christ's call; He knows them by their sympathy; they direct themselves by His will; He gives them eternal life; they never lose it; no power can snatch them away from Him. If we hear the Saviour's voice, and follow Him with a loving, trusting obedience whithersoever He leadeth, we may safely leave to Him our guidance, our protection, our final salvation. The one thing which concerns us is, that we do truly follow Him. J. P. T. 4. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving.** In all our public service the rendering of thanks must abound; it is like the incense of the temple which filled the whole house with smoke. Expiatory sacrifices are ended, but those of gratitude will never be out of date. So long as we are receivers of mercy we must be givers of thanks. Mercy permits us to enter His gates; let us praise that mercy. S.—Tis great reason that we should continue to pray, because our wants continue; and 'tis as great reason that we should continue to praise, because our mercies continue. Who is there so full that wants nothing? and who so empty, but hath something? Let none give over praying, but he that wants nothing; and let none give over praising that hath anything. Is not the mercy we want worth asking? and is not the mercy we receive worth the acknowledging? Venning. There is no such way to get much grace as to be thankful for a little grace. He who opens his mouth wide in praise shall have his heart filled with grace. T. Brooks.—Thanksgiving makes our prayers bold and strong and sweet; feeds and enkindles them as with coals of fire. Luther.—Our whole life should speak forth our thankfulness; every condition and place we are in should be a witness of our thankfulness; this will make the time and place we live in the better for us; when we ourselves are monuments of God's mercy, it is fit we should be patterns of His praises and leave monuments to others; we should think life is given to us to do something better than to live in; we live not to live; our life is not the end of itself, but the praise of the Giver. R. Sibbes. The spirit of thankfulness develops breadth of character. Generosity and large-heartedness are the flowers of the seed of gratitude. Gratitude puts a man in sympathy with all men. Gratitude helps him to understand human conditions, weigh motives, and appreciate principles and methods. Thanklessness is seclusive and exclusive. Thanklessness develops narrowness of character. Thanklessness seems to crowd one into his own little cell of self. The living a life of thankfulness promotes generosity. The ungrateful man feels that all is his and therefore he may keep all. The grateful man feels that all that is his has come from God and therefore he must use it as God wills. . . . Thankfulness deepens life in itself. Thankfulness broadens life among men. Thankfulness also heightens life, lifting it Godward. It thus gives the third range of development and completes character. Deep, broad, high; this is life's perfect cube. Deep in yourself, broad in touching men, high in aspiring Godward. May such be the influence of the spirit of thankfulness upon each. "In everything give thanks." C. F. Thwing. 4,5. The men of all people shall enter the gates of His temple with thanksgiving and the courts of His temple with praise, in order to join in the worship of the Church, which—a creation of Jehovah for the good of the whole earth—is gathered around this temple and has it as the place of its worship. The pilgrimage of all peoples to the holy mountain is the Old Testament way of expressing the hope of the conversion of all peoples to the God of revelation and the close union of all with the people of this God. His temple is open to them all. They may enter into it; and, if they do so, they have great things to look for. For the God of revelation and His grace and faithfulness endure forever. The grace of God is the liberality, and His faithfulness the constancy of His love. D. His mercy is everlasting. The everlasting, unchangeable mercy of God is the first motive of our turning to Him and of our continuing steadfast in His covenant, and it shall be the subject of unceasing praise in eternity. As the Lord is good and His mercy everlasting, so the full perfection of these attributes in a perfect state will call forth praise unwearied from hearts that never faint. W. Wilson.— The summons to praise, in public, in His earthly courts, is based most appropriately on His goodness, which no human words can adequately express; on His everlasting mercy, and on His truth; i.e., faithfulness to His promises, which endureth age after age in unwaning strength, always reliable; never failing. C. We can wish the reader nothing more beatific in this life than to have found and fully brought into feeling the practical significance of this eternal act or fact of God, which we call the Christian Trinity. Nowhere else do the bonds of limitation burst away as here. Nowhere else does the soul launch upon immensity as here; nowhere fill her burning censer with the eternal fires of God, as when she sings: "One inexplicably three, One in simplest unity." Who that has been able, in some frame of holy longing after God, to clear the petty shackles of logic and the paltry quibbles of a world-wise speculation, committing his soul up freely to the inspiring impulse of this Divine mystery as it is celebrated in some grand doxology of Christian worship, and has so been lifted into conscious fellowship with the great celestial minds, in their higher ranges of beatitude and their shining tiers of glory, has not known it as being at once the deepest, highest, widest, most enkindling, and most practical of all practical truths? Bushnell. 1. I WILL sing of mercy and judgment: Unto thee, O LORD, will I sing praises. 2 I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way: Oh when wilt thou come unto me? I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. 3 I will set no base thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; It shall not cleave unto me. 4 A froward heart shall depart from me: I will know no evil thing. 5. Whoso privily slandereth his neighbour, him will I destroy: Him that hath an high look and a proud heart will I not suffer. 6 Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me: He that walketh in a perfect way, he shall minister unto me. 7 He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: He that speaketh falsehood shall not be established before mine eyes. 8. Morning by morning will I destroy all the wicked of the land ; To cut off all the workers of iniquity from the city of the LORD. THIS Psalm has been styled "the godly purposes and resolves of a king." It opens with the joyful contemplation of God's mercy and justice as kingly virtues, in their measure and degree to be manifested in earthly kings. It then records the king's pious resolve to keep his own heart and life unspotted, and to remove from him all that might lead him astray. Yet scarcely has he uttered the resolve when, reflecting on all that such a resolve implies, he breaks forth in the earnest cry that God Himself would come to him and take up His dwelling with him, giving him grace to walk in "a perfect way." Thus having consecrated himself and his house, he declares further how he will provide for the purity of his court. With jealous care he will exclude those who are the bane of king's houses, the slanderer, the proud, the deceitful, the liar. None but the faithful; none but those who, like himself, walk in a perfect (i.e., blameless) way, shall be admitted to places of honor and trust about his person. Finally, the work of zealous reformation shall extend to his capital, the city of Jehovah, and to the utmost borders of the land, that he may see realized under his sway the great ideal, "Ye shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." All this falls in admirably with the early part of David's reign, and the words are just what we might expect from one who came to the throne with a heart so true to his God. P.—One who begins his reign with thoughts and resolutions such as these may well look for a happy termination of it, and nothing shows us more clearly the true nobleness of David's soul than this short Psalm. It is the spontaneous, inartificial expression of feelings long restrained; feelings and purposes, however, which form in themselves a whole, and which therefore naturally, and without effort, appear as a whole in the Psalm, and give it the unity which it possesses. Ewald. This is the Psalm which the old expositors used to designate "The Mirror for Magistrates;" and an excellent mirror it is. It would mightily accelerate the coming of the time when every nation shall be Christ's possession, and every capital a "City of the Lord," if all magistrates could be persuaded to dress themselves by it every time they go forth to perform the functions of their godlike office. W. Binnie. This Psalm has been appropriately called "The Householder's Psalm;" and assuredly if every master of a family would regulate his household by these rules of the conscientious Psalmist, there would be a far greater amount, not merely of domestic happiness and comfort, but of fulfilment of the serious and responsible duties which devolve on the respective members of a household. Bouchier. 1. God's providences concerning His people are commonly mixed—mercy and judgment; God has set the one over against the other and appointed them April days, showers and sunshine. Whatever our outward condition is, whether joyful or sorrowful, still we must give glory to God and sing praises to Him; neither the laughter of a prosperous condition, nor the tears of an afflicted condition, must put us out of tune for sacred songs. H.—The severity of God is tempered by His goodness; and His goodness, like the bow in the cloud, is brightened by the background of severity. Alike in nature, in the Bible, and in Providence, the awful and the gentle, the severe and the gracious, are blended together. J. P. T. The pillars of the state are mercy and judgment. The throne of the King is borne up by them, as Solomon's was with lions of ivory on each side. Therefore, as in one place it is said that "the throne is established by justice" (Prov. 16 : 12); so in another that it is "upheld by mercy" (Prov. 20 : 28); justice being as the bones and sinews in the body politic, and mercy as the veins and arteries. They are the two hands of action, the two eyes of virtue, and the two wings of honor. G. Hakewell. Mercy and judgment are the two sides of the Divine character as it is revealed by God and apprehended by men. They are the two attributes which lie over against each other, for conflict or in harmony, according to the conditions in which they are exercised, or the point from which they are viewed. They intimate that God is merciful and that God is just. On the one hand, both these attributes are ascribed to Him throughout the Scriptures; on the other hand, both are more or less clearly mirrored in the human conscience. The subject of the song is not one or the other, but both united. Their nature, as manifested to men, is essentially determined by their union. Neither mercy nor justice alone and apart could become the theme of praise in the lips of men. We could not sing them separately. Their union takes place in Christ crucified. In Him the promises of God are Yea and Amen. In the Substitute mercy and justice meet. Christ is the unspeakable gift; God is love. The design and effect of the sacrifice of Jesus is that God may be just, and the Justifier of him who believeth on Jesus. Arnot. What a beautifully woven web of judgment and mercy does every man's secret history in his way through the wilderness of life to the land of promise, present! and how good, and how wholesome, and how kindly, and how gracious is this blessed intermingling of both! How do we need the judgment to keep us humble and watchful and pure! and how do we need the mercy to keep us hopeful, and to nerve our efforts, and to stir our hearts, and to sustain us in patience amid life's battle and struggle and disappointment and vexation! Oh, how good it is for us, that we should thus, therefore, have the rod and staff together, the rod to chasten, and the staff to solace and sustain! How good it is for us that we should have to "sing of mercy and judgment!" And yet, what is judgment itself, but mercy with a sterner aspect? And what are the chidings of judgment, but the sterner tones of the voice of a Father's love? For even judgment is one of the "all things" that "work together for good to them that love God, to them that are the called according to His purpose." Hugh Stowell. Of mercy and judgment. And who among us has not the same mingled strain to utter? Who can say that His mercies have not been tempered with the gentle but solemn reminders of judgment at God's hand? Our very proverbs tell us of this: no day without its cloud; no rose without its thorn. And who can say, on the other hand, that His judgments have not been most tenderly mixed with mercies? Our song may well, then, be of mercy and judgment; of His dealings toward us who, when He blesses, also chastises, lest we should forget Him; who, when He chastises, also blesses, lest we should distrust Him. Arnold. How few our miseries to the number of our mercies; how far have our blessings exceeded our afflictions; our nights of sleep, those of wakefulness; our hours of health, those of sickness; our many gains, the few losses we have suffered? For every blow, how many blessings! and even when He smote with one hand, did not a gracious God hold up with the other? Who has not to sing much more of mercies than of judgments? Is there ever a month, a week, a day, an hour, a moment, a single moment, when from Thy blessed and bountiful hand, O God! mercies are not falling in showers, thick as the rain-drops that shimmer in sunlight on the water, or as the snow-flakes that fill the wintry air! Guthrie. To bless God for mercies is the way to increase them; to bless Him for miseries is the way to remove them. No good lives so long as that which is thankfully improved; no evil dies so soon as that which is patiently endured. Dyer. 2. After propounding as his theme the mercy and justice of the Lord, the Psalmist announces his determination to be blameless in his own walk (vs. 2-4), and so to exercise his power over others as to favor the godly and drive out the wicked (vs. 5-8). A. 2. I will behave myself wisely. The first thing he vows touching himself is wise behavior; prudence, not sapience; not wise contemplation, but wise action. It is not wise thoughts, or wise speaking, or wise writing, or wise gesture and countenance, will serve the turn, but wise behavior; the former are graceful, but the other needful. Hakewell. "O when wilt Thou come unto me?" an ejaculation, but not an interruption. He feels the need not merely of Divine help, but also of the Divine presence, that so he may be instructed and sanctified and made fit for the discharge of his high vocation. S.—It bursts forth from the heart, moved and stirred to its inmost centre, as it thinks of all the height and depth of that resolve to "walk in a perfect way." How shall a frail son of man keep his integrity? The task is too great for his own strength, honest and sincere as the resolution is, and therefore he cries, "When wilt Thou come unto me?" come to be my abiding guest, come not only to dwell in Zion, in Thy tabernacle, but with me Thy servant, in my house and in my heart (compare John 14: 23), giving me the strength and the grace that I need? P.—"O when wilt thou come unto me?" involves the prayer, Grant me fresh manifestations of favor. Come near to me to dwell with me and to aid me in maintaining the life of devoted service to Thee which I now solemnly purpose. C. I will walk within my house. Much, though not all of the power of godliness lies within doors. It is in vain to talk of holiness if we can bring no letters testimonial from our holy walking with our relations. It is sad when they that have reason to know us best, by their daily converse with us, do speak least for our godliness! David knew very well how near this part of a saint's duty lies to the very heart of godliness; and, therefore, when he makes his solemn vow to walk holily before God, he instanceth this as one stage wherein he might eminently discover the graciousness of his spirit; "I will walk within my house with a perfect heart." Gurnall.—With a perfect heart; literally, "in the integrity of my heart." So "a perfect way" might be rendered "the way of integrity." P. I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. Piety must begin at home. Our first duties are those within our own abode. We must have a perfect heart at home, or we cannot keep a perfect way abroad. Notice that these words are a part of a song, and that there is no music like the harmony of a gracious life, no Psalm so sweet as the daily practice of holiness. S.—In Christendom the family is a different and a more beautiful thing than it was in David's time. Each father of a family can, by God's help, say, with David, that he will walk in his house with a perfect heart. To every head of a household has been committed a great power of influencing those about him for good. Influence them in some way he certainly will; if not for good, then for evil. H. P. L. 3. I will not allow myself to look on any wickedness lest the sight of the eye should bring temptation to my soul. I hate the doing of unrighteousness; it shall find no sympathy in me. My heart shall not cleave to it. I hate the doing, and [by implication] the spirit of apostasy from God. C.—Deviations from truth, from integrity, from that Divine law by which he rules himself, shall not "cleave" to him. Temptations to such a course may beset him. The whisper might come: policy requires this course; craft must be met by craft; power is given to be used; kings are above law, and the like. But he refuses to listen to the whisper. P. That religion is not real which does not claim for its dominion daily life and common duties. To serve the Lord in sincerity and truth, we must serve Him in those posts of occupation He has assigned us here below. The merchant must serve Him in the way he transacts his business, and the merchant's clerk in the way he keeps his employer's books and watches for his employer's interest. The scholar must serve the Lord in the intensity with which he applies his mind, and in the thoroughness with which he conquers his subject or achieves his task. The workingman must serve the Lord by striving to be the most accomplished in all his craft, the fastest, the most solid, the most finished hand in all that field of labor; and the man who undertakes a learned profession should grudge no study and spare no pains till he has reached professional optimism, and made it every man's interest who wants the best assistance or the best advice, to take it from the Christian physician, the Christian lawyer, or the Christian teacher. Our true life is our daily life. Hamilton. 4,5. He is full of a stern exclusiveness, of a noble intolerance, not against theological error, not against uncourtly manners, not against political insubordination, but against the proud heart, the high look, the secret slanderer, the deceitful worker, the teller of lies. These are the outlaws from King David's court; these are the rebels and heretics whom he would not suffer to dwell in his house or tarry in his sight. Stanley. 4. A froward heart shall depart from me. He refers both to himself and to those round about him; he would neither be crooked in heart himself, nor employ persons of evil character in his house. He who begins with his own heart begins at the fountain-head, and is not likely to tolerate evil companions. S. 5. Having declared what his own course of life should be, he now describes the conduct which he should require in his confidential servants. Here again the statement is both negative and positive, but in this case beginning with the former. A.—"Privity slandereeth," literally, he that tongueth his neighbor secretly. "Will I not suffer," is properly, "him I cannot," i.e., cannot live with, cannot bear about me. C. In slander the listener is almost as bad as the speaker. The only true thing is to shut your ears the moment you begin to hear from any one an evil report of another. The person has no right to tell it to you, and you have no right to hear it. Courtesy requires that we be patient listeners, even to dull and prosy talkers; but even courtesy may not require us to listen to evil reports about a neighbor. J. R. M.—Slander cannot make the subject of it either better or worse; it may represent us in a false light, or place a likeness of us in a bad light, but we are the same. Not so the slanderer; for calumny always makes the calumniator worse, but never the calumniated. Colton. 6. Those who are not faithful to God will not be likely to be faithful to men; if we are faithful ourselves, we shall not care to have those about us who cannot speak the truth or fulfil their promises; we shall not be satisfied until all the members of our family are upright in character. S. 6,7. The home must be safe. It must be a sanctuary, where there is nothing to hurt or destroy. It is a great and life-long benefit when life's outset is passed in an atmosphere of truth and openness, and nothing is more disastrous than that system of false threatening and coercion which makes its little victims both incredulous and superstitious, both cowardly and cunning. Be yourself fair, candid, evenly-minded, making it easy to others to tell the truth, listening to both sides of the story, and careful to judge righteous judgment. And keep out all that has the opposite tendency. Whether as the servants who abide or the acquaintances who visit, let your eyes be on the excellent of the land, and the immoral and irreverent exclude as you would exclude contagion. And although life should not be all regulation any more than a park should all be paling, yet like the fence which surrounds the little tree, like the hoops which hold the staves together, good rules create good habits; the regular hours, the family prayer, the timely return at night, the collective upgoing to the house of God. Hamilton. 8. Morning by morning. Day by day will he exercise his work of righteous judgment, purging out all ungodliness from the holy city. He will have a pure state, a pure city, as the writer of the one hundred and fourth Psalm hopes to see a pure earth (v. 35), without spot or stain of sin. P. A PRAYER OF THE AFFLICTED, WHEN HE IS OVERWHELMED, AND POURETH OUT HIS COMPLAINT BEFORE THE LORD. 1. HEAR my prayer, O LORD, And let my cry come unto thee. 2 Hide not thy face from me in the day of my distress: Incline thine ear unto me; In the day when I call answer me speedily. 3 For my days consume away like smoke, And my bones are burned as a firebrand. 4 My heart is smitten like grass, and withered; For I forget to eat my bread. 5 By reason of the voice of my groaning My bones cleave to my flesh. 6 I am like a pelican of the wilderness; I am become as an owl of the waste places. 7 I watch, and am become Like a sparrow that is alone upon the house top. 8 Mine enemies reproach me all the day; They that are mad against me do curse by me. 9 For I have eaten ashes like bread, And mingled my drink with weeping. 10 Because of thine indignation and thy wrath: For thou hast taken me up, and cast me away. 11 My days are like a shadow that declineth; And I am withered like grass. 12 But thou, O LORD, shalt abide for ever; And thy memorial unto all generations. 13 Thou shalt arise, and have mercy upon Zion: For it is time to have pity upon her, yea, the set time is come. 14 For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, And have pity upon her dust. 15 So the nations shall fear the name of the LORD, And all the kings of the earth thy glory: 16 For the LORD hath built up Zion, He hath appeared in his glory; 17 He hath regarded the prayer of the destitute, And hath not despised their prayer. 18 This shall be written for the generation to come: And a people which shall be created shall praise the LORD. 19 For he hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary; From heaven did the LORD behold the earth; 20 To hear the sighing of the prisoner; To loose those that are appointed to death; 21 That men may declare the name of the LORD in Zion, And his praise in Jerusalem, 22 When the peoples are gathered together, And the kingdoms, to serve the LORD. 23. He weakened my strength in the way ; He shortened my days. 24 I said, O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days : Thy years are throughout all generations. 25 Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth ; And the heavens are the work of thy hands. 26 They shall perish, but thou shalt endure : Yea, all of them shall wax old like a gar- ment ; As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed : 27. But thou art the same, And thy years shall have no end. 28 The children of thy servants shall continue, And their seed shall be established before thee. THIS Psalm must have been written by one of the exiles in Babylon, probably toward the close of the captivity, when the hope of a re- turn seemed no longer doubtful. In mournful strains he describes his bitter lot. Sorrow and pain had been very busy with him. But when he looks away from his sorrow, a prospect so bright and so glorious opens before him, that in the thought of it all else is swallowed up and forgotten. Zion's deliverance is at hand. Her God has not forsaken her. The grounds on which his hope rests are broad and manifold ; for Jehovah is the everlasting King (v. 12) ; the time fixed in His counsels is come (v. 13) ; the hearts of her children are moved with a more passionate longing for her restoration (v. 14) ; the prayer of His suffering people has prevailed, the sighing of the prisoner has en- tered into His ears (vs. 17, 19, 20). A new na- tion shall be born in Zion, and other nations and kingdoms shall be gathered into her to praise Jehovah (vs. 18, 21, 22). Once again, as for a moment, the sadness of the exile and the sufferer prevails. His life is ebbing away, his heart and his flesh fail. Shall he be permitted to look upon that glory with the thought of which he has been comforting himself, the vision of which has been passing before his eyes ? " Oh my God, take me not away in the midst of my days !" is the natural and touching petition which breaks from his lips, as he fears lest his eyes should be closed in death before that glory appears. And then suddenly, as if every cloud of apprehension were dispelled, he triumphs in the thought that there is One who changeth not ; that though the solid frame of the universe itself should crumble into dissolution, yet he is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever," the one hope and stay of His children now and in all generations to come. On the Messianic character of the Psalm, and the quotation made from it in the Epistle to the Hebrews, see the remarks at the end on vs. 25-27. It is strange that this quotation should have been passed over without any notice, not only by commentators like De Wette and Hupfeld, but even by Calvin, Tholuck, and Hengs- tenberg. This Psalm is clearly individual, not national ; and must have been intended for private rather than liturgical use, as the in- scription seems designed to inform us. This inscription is peculiar ; it stands quite alone among the titles prefixed to the Psalms ; for it describes the character of the Psalm, and marks the circumstances under which it should be used. In all other instances the inscriptions are either musical or historical. Besides the pro- logue (vs. 1, 2), and the epilogue (vs. 23-28), the Psalm consists of two main divisions—the complaint (vs. 3-11), and the consolation (vs. 12-22). P. 2. In the day when I call answer me speedily. We may ask to have answers to prayer as soon as possible, but we may not complain of the Lord if He should think it more wise to delay. We have permission to request and to use im- portunity, but no right to dictate or to be petu- lant. If it be important that the deliverance should arrive at once, we are quite right in making an early time a point of our entreaty, for God is as willing to grant us a favor now as to-morrow, and He is not slack concerning His promise. S. 6. I resemble a pelican of the wilderness ; I am become like an owl (haunting) ruins. The simple idea conveyed by these figures is that of extreme loneliness and desolation. Beyond the fact that they inhabit solitudes, the natural his- tory of the birds mentioned is of no exegetical importance. 7. I have watched, and have been like a sparrow dwelling alone upon a house-top. A.—These birds are chosen to represent his case because they frequent old ruins, the most desolate localities, and in the night. This afflicted one is a desolate, dreary mourner, sleep- less and lonely. C. Alone. But little do men perceive what solitude is, and how far it extendeth ; for a crowd is not company, and faces are but a gal- lery of pictures, and talk but a tinkling cymbal where there is no love. The Latin adage meet- eth it a little ; " magna civitas, magno solitudo ;" because in a great town friends are scattered, so that there is not that fellowship, for the most part, which is in less neighborhoods; but we may go further, and affirm most truly that it is a mere and miserable solitude to want true friends, without which the world is but a wilderness; and even in this sense also of solitude, whosoever in the frame of his nature and affections is unfit for friendship, he taketh it of the beast, and not from humanity. Bacon.—See the reason why people in trouble love solitariness. They are full of sorrow; and sorrow, if it have taken deep root, is naturally reserved and flies all conversation. Grief is a thing that is very silent and private. Those people that are very talkative and clamorous in their sorrows are never very sorrowful. T. Rogers. 10. The acknowledgment is the same as in Psalm 90:7-9. It is sin which has thus provoked God's displeasure; the two nouns, "indignation" and "wrath," are in the Hebrew the strongest which the language possesses. D. 11. "A shadow that declineth" is literally a shadow stretched out, as shadows lengthen rapidly just when they are taking their flight. Wasting grief, perhaps sickness, is cutting short his days. C.—My days (my term of life) are as the lengthened shade, the lengthening shade of evening, that shows the near approach of night. The comparison, though not strictly expressed, is beautifully suggestive of the thought intended. Conant.—Seneca well says, that "though death is before the old man's face, yet he may be as near the young man's back." Man's life is the shadow of smoke, the dream of a shadow. One doubts whether to call it a dying life or a living death. T. Brooks. Withered like grass. Heart break has a marvellously withering influence over our entire system; our flesh at its best is but as grass, and when it is wounded with sharp sorrows, its beauty fades, and it becomes a shrivelled, dried, uncomely thing. S. 12. BUT THOU. This is the great consolatory thought by which he rises above his sorrow. He, the individual, may perish, but Zion's hopes rest on her eternal King. And yet this might seem, as Calvin remarks, a far-fetched consolation. What is it to us that God changeth not, that He sitteth King forever, if meanwhile our own condition is so frail and feeble that we cannot continue for a moment in one stay? His unchangeable peace and blessedness do but make our life seem the more complete mockery. But the Psalmist recalls God's promises to His Church, especially that great covenant promise, "I will dwell in the midst of you" (Ex. 25:8). Resting on this, he feels sure that God's children, however miserable their state, shall have their share in that heavenly glory wherein God dwelleth. Because God changes not, His promise and covenant change not, and therefore we may ever lift our eyes to His throne in heaven, from which He will surely stretch forth His hand to us. P.—This is my comfort—nay more, my joy—that my God lives, and will live forever. "Thy memorial name." Hebrew usage favors this sense. The meaning then would be that the faithfulness and love expressed in that memorial name (Jehovah) shall endure through all generations. God not only lives forever, but will be forever the same faithful, loving God, the everlasting hope and joy of His trustful people. C. Our days are as a shadow that declineth; but faith exclaims, "Thou shalt abide forever." Unchangeable as God's being is also His covenant; and of all the promises which He has made to the soul that seeks salvation, not one shall ever be withdrawn. Yea, the work of His grace does not share in the sentence of decay, wherefore we bow the head in adoration. God's work in our heart does not wither like the grass, but ever blossoms fairer; and that which He has done for His name and kingdom, through our means, survives the feeble instrument, and is carried on by others. Van O. 13,14. Nothing is more certain than that God will rise for mercy to Zion when His appointed time shall have come, which time is in the Divine plan and cannot fail. So also the set time will surely have come when God's servants shall manifest their sympathy with her ruined stones and give themselves with all their souls to her rebuilding. God's set time will be indicated by the hearts of His people. Let it not be overlooked that this faith in God's returning to rebuild Zion lifts the load of grief from this smitten sufferer's heart. Inspired by such faith and hope he can bear anything; he practically knows no more any sorrow. The logical relations of thought in the passage are also richly instructive. God will arise to restore Zion, for the thing is fixed in His mind; will thus arise when this time shall have come; and it will have come, you may know, when His servants give the love of their heart to Zion and the power of their hand to her work. Plainly the writer lived at a point where he saw, present, or in the near prospect, the desolation of Zion, and in the certain future, her glorious restoration. C. 14. Jerusalem itself affords at this day a touching illustration of this passage. There is reason to believe that a considerable portion of the lower part of the walls which enclose the present mosque of Omar, which occupies the site of the ancient Jewish temple, are the same, or at least the southern, western, and eastern sides are the same as those of Solomon's temple. At one part where the remains of this old wall are the most considerable and of the most massive character—where two courses of masonry, composed of massive blocks of stone, rising to the height of thirty feet—is what is called the Wailing Place of the Jews. "Here," says Dr. Olin, "at the foot of the wall, is an open place paved with flags, where the Jews assemble every Friday, and in small numbers on other days, for the purpose of praying and bewailing the desolations of their holy places. Neither the Jews nor Christians are allowed to enter the Haram, which is consecrated to Mohammedan worship, and this part of the wall is the nearest approach they can make to what they regard as the precise spot within the forbidden enclosure upon which the ancient temple stood. They keep the pavement swept with great care, and take off their shoes, as on holy ground. Standing or kneeling with their faces toward the ancient wall, they gaze in silence upon its venerable stones, or pour forth their complaints in half-suppressed, though audible tones. This, to me, was always a most affecting sight, and I repeated my visit to this interesting spot to enjoy and sympathize with the melancholy yet pleasing spectacle." Kitto. 16. The Lord in His glory.** The sun is ever glorious in the most cloudy day, but appears not so till it hath scattered the clouds that muffle it up from the sight of the lower world; God is glorious when the world sees Him not, but His declarative glory then appears when the glory of His mercy, truth, and faithfulness break forth in His people's salvation. Gurnall. 17. He has turned unto the prayer of the destitute, and has not despised their prayer. This verse continues to assign the reason why the nations and their kings will be struck with awe—viz., because this great and glorious God has turned round, as it were, and listened to the prayer of the destitute and granted their petition. The word translated destitute occurs only here and in Jer. 17:6; but from its etymological affinities and its intensive form, appears to mean naked, and then figuratively, stripped of everything, impoverished, entirely destitute. A. "The prayer of the destitute"—in Hebrew, the naked one, the most utterly destitute and helpless. When His people have this feeling and come before God in conscious want and conscious weakness, yet taking hold of His strength as their legitimate hope, God will never despise their prayer. C.—The heart often prays most fervently when the lips are dumb or wholly inaudible. It is not the eloquent tongue that we want, but the humble and anxious heart. If we have deep wants felt within, the heart will speak should the lips be dumb. And God hears heart-prayer; He is not dependent upon its outward and eloquent expression. In His ear the publican's first cry, the thief's word, rose with infinite and perfect acceptance, and brought down an answer exceeding abundant above all that they could ask or think. Cumming. 18. The written record of God's merciful purpose. Written in this Psalm, as well as in the foregoing Scriptures. For the after age. This refers to the future unto its remotest ages. A people created (Isa. 43:7). This has its grand fulfilment in the Christian Church. M.—The Gospel of the saving deeds wrought by God shall be committed to writing for the generations to come, and a created people, i.e., a new people coming into existence, the Church of the future, shall praise God the Redeemer for it. D. 20. To hear the groaning of the prisoner. God takes notice not only of the prayers of His afflicted people, which are the language of grace; but even of their groans, which are the language of nature. H. 23-27. Again he returns to the contrast between his own weakness and the brevity of human life, on the one hand, and the eternity and unchangeableness of God on the other (see above, vs. 11, 12), finding in this his perfect satisfaction and rest. P.—The sentiment is grand. Human life is too short for man to form and execute great plans; for how often is his strength cut off in the midst of his work? But God's years roll on forever. The sun and the stars will fade out, but His strength remains unwasted forevermore! "Thou art the same," literally, Thou art He—an expressive affirmation of God's changeless being—forevermore Thou art He—all there is in God remaining forever the same. It is remarkable that the writer to the Hebrews (1:10-12) assumes that this passage ascribes Creatorship to the Son of God. This obviously implies that God as revealed to His people under the name Jehovah, the great "I Am," was really the eternal Son. C. 24. The abrupt transition in this verse is full of pathetic beauty. The prayer that his life may not be prematurely cut short seems to spring in this instance not merely from a natural clinging to life (as in Hezekiah's case), but from the intense desire to see God's glory manifested in Israel's restoration. Then, having uttered that prayer, without waiting for the answer, he magnifies God's eternity and unchangeableness. He finds in these his strength in weakness; he feels that he can rest on the everlasting arms. He draws his highest consolation from the thought that though he himself may perish, cut off in the midst of his days; though the heavens and the earth may be changed, and wax old as a garment; yet He who created them is ever the same, that His purposes cannot be frustrated, that His Church, the children of His servants, shall abide, the witness and the monument of His love. P. My God. The pronoun my is as much worth to the soul as the boundless portion. Luther saith, Much religion lieth in pronouns. All our consolation, indeed, consisteth in this pronoun. It is the cup which holdeth all our cordial waters. This pronoun is the door at which the King of saints entereth into our hearts, with His whole train of delights and comforts. Swinnock. Take me not away in the midst of my days. This is an earnest, impassioned prayer, a prayer against death; and the fact which gives it its earnestness and impassioned energy is that he who offers it is in "the midst of his days." Men in middle life are very apt to look upon death as an improbable event so far as they are concerned, and to make their calculations and shape their course accordingly. Hence it is that they, of all men, are least prepared to die. In them, too, the legitimate effects of the Gospel are rarely seen for the first time. E. Mason. This is a prayer which, with submission to the will of God, we may in faith put up, that God would not take us away in the midst of our days, but that, if it be His will, He would spare us to do Him further service, and to be made riper for heaven. H.—We may lawfully ask for recovery from sickness and may hope to be heard. Good men should not dread death, but they are not forbidden to love life; for many reasons the man who has the best hope of heaven, may nevertheless think it desirable to continue here a little longer, for the sake of his family, his work, the Church of God, and even the glory of God itself. S. The prayer is a request for a complete life. The wish is submitted to the will of God; for the man is a believer, and is ready to accept life in the form in which God orders it. He feels that there can be no real life without God, but that with Him it is certain to have a perfect and happy issue. A complete life has in it the doing some service to God and His world. We are here not merely to find God's favor, but to do God's work. So there are degrees of completeness even in Christian lives. They all reach the haven, but some with fuller sail and richer freight. In the Psalmist's contrast of his days with God's years, there is deep pathos; a sense of his own frailty and evanescence, and yet in the heart of it there is faith and hope. The eternal life of God suggests the thought of His power to grant, and of His immutability to secure, this request. Ker. 25-27. In Heb. 1: 10-12 addressed to Christ, and form part of the writer's proof from the Old Testament. The quotation stands between two others, one from the forty-fifth, the other from the one hundred and tenth Psalm, bearing on the same argument. But these are both of them Messianic Psalms, and the principle on which the quotation rests is sufficiently obvious. It is by no means so easy to understand why the words of this Psalm should have been quoted, as it does not seem at first sight to be a Messianic Psalm. It may be observed, however: First, that it is in this sense Messianic, that it looks forward to Israel's redemption from captivity, and the future glory of Zion; second, that there are two great lines of Messianic hope running through the Psalms, the one human, the other Divine; the one of which the reign of the Son of David, the other of which the advent of Jehovah, is the great end and object. Here the Psalmist is occupied with the latter, the appearing of Jehovah in His glory. Third, this identification of the Jesus of the New Testament with the Jehovah of the Old is what we find elsewhere; compare John 12: 41 with Isa. 6 (Isaiah sees the glory of Jehovah; John tells us it was the glory of Christ), and John 19: 37, "They shall look on Him whom they pierced," which in Zech. 12: 10 is language used directly of Jehovah. P. 25. Earth. Heavens.** He names here the most stable parts of the world and the most beautiful parts of the creation, those that are freest from corruptibility and change, to illustrate thereby the immutability of God, that though the heavens and earth have a prerogative of fixedness above other parts of the world, and the creatures that reside below, the heavens remain the same as they were created, and the centre of the earth retains its fixedness, and are as beautiful and fresh in their age as they were in their youth many years ago, notwithstanding the change of the elements. Yet this firmness of the earth and heavens is not to be regarded in comparison of the unmovableness and fixedness of the being of God. As their beauty comes short of the glory of His being, so doth their firmness come short of His stability. Charnock. 26. Wax old like a garment, as a vesture shall thou change them. A garment shows the man, and he is known by it; but also it hides him, that he is not perfectly or fully seen. So are the works of creation unto God, He so far makes them His garment or clothing as in them to give out some instances of His power and wisdom; but He is also hid in them, in that by them no creature can come to the full and perfect knowledge of Him. Now, when this work shall cease, and God shall unclothe or unveil all His glory to His saints, and they shall know Him perfectly, see Him as He is, so far as a created nature is capable of that comprehension, then will He lay them aside and fold them up, at least as to that use, as easily as a man lays aside a garment that he will wear or use no more. This lies in the metaphor. Owen.—The frame of nature, yea, the universe itself, is but as a loom for the weaving and unrolling of truth revealing God; and when it shall have answered its present purpose, then it shall be laid aside, just as a loom is taken to pieces when nothing more is to be done with it. It exalts the importance of the material universe, and gives it a grandeur even beyond its own immeasurable wealth of the Divine intelligence revealed in its principles and laws for our study, when we regard it thus as God's loom, the framework for higher designs and a more infinite glory. Cheever. There is no mistaking these scriptural analogies of the past and the future. Earth shall be rehabilitated; nature shall put on her new robe; there shall be a new creative day, a new firmament, a new glory in the sun and stars, a new Adam, Prince of a new life, a new human kind over whom death shall reign no more, a new Eden-world, "Wherein dwelleth righteousness." T. Lewis. 27. Thou art the same.** Everywhere else we meet with change; the grass springs up and withers; flowers bloom and fade; trees grow and decay. Man in the pride of his glory is swept away. The seasons change, the mountains crumble, the very heavens grow old. The best of men forget their promises or change their purposes. But God is unchangeable. "Thou art the same, and Thy years shall have no end." M. Simpson. The being of creatures is successive; the being of God is permanent, and remains entire, with all its perfections unchanged in an infinite duration. All His perfections are most perfect in Him every moment, before all ages, after all ages. Of a creature it may be said, he was, or he is, or he shall be. Of God it cannot be said but only He is; He is what He always was, and He is what He always will be. Of man it may be said, he is a succession of parts; but he is not the same that he was, and will not be the same that he is. But God is the same without any succession of parts, and of time; of Him it may be said, He is; He is no more now than He was, and He shall be no more hereafter than He is. Charnock. 28. God's servants individually may be cut short of life and die; but their generations shall endure; their children shall rise up to fill their places, and then their children's children, so that God's covenant shall stand and the seed of the righteous be established before God. So the Church has a sort of earthly immortality; God's earthly kingdom shall not end while the world shall stand. C. 1. BLESS the LORD, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless his holy name. 2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget not all his benefits: 3 Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all thy diseases; 4 Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; Who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies: 5 Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle. 6 The LORD executeth righteous acts, And judgments for all that are oppressed. 7 He made known his ways unto Moses, His doings unto the children of Israel. 8 The LORD is full of compassion and gracious, Slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy. 9 He will not always chide; Neither will he keep his anger for ever. 10 He hath not dealt with us after our sins, Nor rewarded us after our iniquities. 11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, So great is his mercy toward them that fear him. 12 As far as the east is from the west, So far hath he removed our transgressions from us. 13. Like as a father pitieth his children, So the LORD pitieth them that fear him. 14 For he knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust. 15 As for man, his days are as grass; As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth. 16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; And the place thereof shall know it no more. 17 But the mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, And his righteousness unto children's children; 18 To such as keep his covenant, And to those that remember his precepts to do them. 19 The LORD hath established his throne in the heavens; And his kingdom ruleth over all. 20 Bless the LORD, ye angels of his: Ye mighty in strength, that fulfil his word, Hearkening unto the voice of his word. 21 Bless the LORD, all ye his hosts; Ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure. 22 Bless the LORD, all ye his works, In all places of his dominion: Bless the LORD, O my soul. THIS beautiful Psalm is the outpouring of a full heart in thanksgiving to Jehovah for His grace and compassion, both as experienced by the Psalmist in his own life, and also as manifested to his nation in their history. It celebrates especially God's mercy in the forgiveness of sin, and that tender pity, as of a human father, wherewith He remembers the frailty, and stoops to the weakness of His children. It is a hymn of which the text and motto are to be found in that revelation of Himself which God gave to Moses when He proclaimed Himself as "Jehovah," tenderly compassionate and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth" (Ex. 34 : 6). Nothing certain can be said as to the author and date of the Psalm. P.—Although the title ascribes it to David, nearly all authorities regard the authorship of this song as doubtful. There is an accumulation of Aramaic forms, such as are found only in the latest Hebrew songs. But there can be no difference of opinion about its beauty and preciousness. De Witt. The Psalm consists of three parts : 1. A prelude, in a strain of trustful gladness, in which the Psalmist seeks to stir up gratitude within him, by the review of God's mercies to him as an individual (vs. 1-5). 2. The body of the poem, in a more reflective tone, full of a quiet, tender, pathetic, even melancholy beauty, in which, after a brief allusion to the facts of the national history, the great covenant relationship of God to His people forms the prominent ground of hope amid human sins and transitoriness (vs. 6-18). 3. A triumphant conclusion. Joy in the remembrance of God's goodness to himself and his people predominates over every other feeling. Such a joy must utter itself in praise. Praise seems its natural employment, and therefore the natural employment of all other creatures, which it summons to a holy sympathy and fellowship with itself (vs. 19-22). P. It is observable that no petition occurs throughout the entire compass of these twenty-two verses. Not a single word of supplication is in the whole Psalm addressed to the Most High. Innumerable blessings had been showered down from above; and, therefore, an overflowing gratitude now bursts forth from their joyful recipient. He touches every chord of his harp and of his heart together, and pours forth a spontaneous melody of sweetest sound and purest praise. John Stevenson. 1. All that is within me;** not as opposed to outward or mere lip service, but expressing the desire to enlist every thought, faculty, power, the heart with all its affections, the will, the conscience, the reason, in a word, the whole spiritual being, all in man that is best and highest, in the same heavenly service. P.—The literal translation of the form here used is my inner parts, the strong and comprehensive meaning of the plural being further enhanced by the addition of all, as if to preclude exception and reserve, and comprehend within the scope of the address all the powers and affections. A. Let your conscience "bless the Lord," by unvarying fidelity. Let your judgment bless Him, by decisions in accordance with His Word. Let your imagination bless Him, by pure and holy musings. Let your affections praise Him, by loving whatsoever He loves. Let your desires bless Him, by seeking only His glory. Let your memory bless Him, by not forgetting any of His benefits. Let your thoughts bless Him, by meditating on His excellencies. Let your hope praise Him, by longing and looking for the glory that is to be revealed. Let your every sense bless Him by its fealty, your every word by its truth, and your every act by its integrity. Stevenson. His holy name. The purity of God is that which beautifies all His perfections, and renders them worthy to be praised. His eternity, knowledge, and power, without justice, goodness, and truth, might indeed alarm and confound us; but could not inflame our love or engage us to hearty blessing. But when infinite mightiness and unerring wisdom and eternal nal dominion are mixed with unchangeable love and inviolable veracity and goodness, when thus it becomes a holy name, then the Divine perfections are rendered suitable objects of our hope and confidence and loudest songs; hence the Psalmist mentions the purity of God: "Bless His holy name." W. Dunlap. 2. Forget not.** This touches the secret spring of so much ingratitude—forgetfulness, the want of recollection, or gathering together again of all the varied threads of mercy. P.—'Tis a general fault that the most common and frequent, the most obvious and conspicuous favors of God we commonly little mind or regard; and consequently seldom return due thanks for them. Barrow. If one should give me a dish of sand, and tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might feel for them with the finger in vain. But let me take a magnet and sweep through it, and how would that draw to itself the most invisible particles by the mere power of attraction! The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, discovers no mercies. But let the thankful heart sweep through the day, and as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find in every hour some heavenly blessings—only the iron in God's sand is gold. Holmes.—The grateful spirit alone believes, because it alone acknowledges the source of its life and being, the Author and Fountain-head. The grateful spirit alone finds out God; to it alone He reveals Himself. It alone discovers its glorious Maker in its own faculties, its own perceptions, its own capacities of happiness; and with the grateful one out of the ten, it falls down before Him, giving Him thanks. Morley. 3. Forgiveth,** the first and greatest of all the Divine benefits to the soul burdened with a sense of guilt and defilement; therefore also that which calls first for acknowledgment. "God's benefits will not be before our eyes, unless our sins be also before our eyes." (Augustine.) P.—Pardon shines first of the stars of mercy. A main reason for this is the fact that we never enjoy a mercy as a mercy from God till we receive the forgiveness of sins. And well may the Lord place this mercy first, because, when it comes, it insures all the rest Anon. Till iniquity is forgiven, healing, redemption, and satisfaction are unknown blessings. Forgiveness is first in the order of our spiritual experience, and in some respects first in value. The pardon granted is a present one—forgiveth; it is continual, for He still forgiveth; it is Divine, for God gives it; it is far-reaching, for it removes all our sins; it takes in omissions as well as commissions, for both these are in-equi- ties; and it is most effectual, for it is as real as the healing and the rest of the mercies with which it is placed. S. Reflect on this, that the first word which the love of God speaks to sinful men is pardon; and unless that is your notion of God's love, unless you look to that as the first thing of all, you may have before you a very fair picture of a beautiful, tender, good-natured benevolence, but you have not nearly reached the height of the vigor and yet the tenderness of the Scripture notion of the love of God. It is not a love which says: "Put sin on one side, and give the man the blessings all the same," not a love which has nothing to say about the great fact of transgression, which gives it the go-by and leaves it standing; but a love which passes into the heart through the portal of pardon, a love which grapples with the fact of sin first, and has nothing to say to a man until it has said that message to him. A. M. When God forgives, He forgives like Himself. The source, the channel, the power, and the standard of forgiveness are all Divine. When God cancels a man's sins, He does so according to the measure in which Christ bore those sins. Christ bore them "all," and, therefore, God forgives "all." "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." Anon. Three things the true Christian desires with respect to sin: Justification, that it may not condemn; sanctification, that it may not reign; and glorification, that it may not be. Cecil. Healeth thy diseases. Diseases or "sicknesses," primarily of body, as in Deut. 29: 21; 2 Chron. 21: 19; and this agrees with what follows. P.—The body experienceth the consequences of Adam's offence, and is subject to many infirmities; but the soul is subject to as many. What is pride, but lunacy; what is anger, but a fever; what is avarice, but a dropsy; what is lust, but a leprosy; what is sloth, but palsy? Horne. 4. Crowneth.** The love of God not only delivers from sin, disease, and death. He makes His children kings, and weaves their crown out of His own glorious attributes of lovingkindness and tender mercies. P. There are essential moral intentions in us, weakened, it is true, and perverted by sin, but ready to be awakened and to give their response to the Divine Spirit when He breathes upon them. Deepest among these is the conviction that the pure, and merciful, and tender are beautiful, not only in the human, but in the Divine; and it is because the Gospel meets this feeling that we are borne to it on the tide of all our spiritual sympathies. The more profoundly and reverently we study our inner nature and the standard of moral judgment which has been there set up, the more we shall feel the need of the revelation of Jesus Christ to give us this full-orbed view of God. It alone discloses depths of compassion transcending even those heights of power, and points us to a Being who crowns His own nature, as He crowns ours, "with lovingkindness and tender mercy." Ker. Every place I have lived in has its monuments of Divine love. Every year and hour of my life has been a time of love. Every friend, neighbor, and even enemy have been the messengers and instruments of love. Every state and change of my life, notwithstanding my sin, have opened to me the treasures and mysteries of love. And shall I doubt whether the same God loves me? Baxter. 5. The translation "mouth" has no support from Hebrew usage. The word used means elsewhere ornament, adornment. Here, apparently, our highest glory as beings—that which gives us our distinguished pre-eminence among the lower orders of creatures, and well translated soul, in the same way in which the usual Hebrew word for glory sometimes means soul (Psalm 16: 9). Satisfying the soul with good, renews one's youth like the eagle's. A happy heart doeth good like a medicine. It becomes a good, not to the soul only, but through sympathy, to the body as well. C. Who satisfeth thy mouth with good things, rather "filling with good thy soul." No man is ever filled to satisfaction but a believer, and only God Himself can satisfy even him. Many a worldling is satiated, but not one is satisfied. God satisfies the very soul of man, his noblest part, his ornament and glory; and of consequence He satisfies his mouth, however hungry and craving it might otherwise be. Soul-satisfaction loudly calls for soul-praise, and when the mouth is filled with good it is bound to speak good of Him who filled it. Thus is the chain of grace complete. Sin is forgiven, its power subdued, and its penalty averted, then we are honored, supplied, and our very nature renovated, till we are as new-born children in the household of God. S. Renewed like the eagle. The only point of comparison with the eagle is its strength and vigor, as in 2 Sam. 1: 23, and the whole verse may be paraphrased as follows: "So completely does His bounty feed thy strength, that even in old age thou growest young again, and soarest like an eagle." A.—Not meaning a sudden restoration from extreme weakness, but a continued impartation of new life; and the comparison with the eagle is an allusion to the long life through which the early fire and force of the royal bird continue undiminished. De Witt. Thy activity will renew itself like the eagle. That is to say, From day to day he will receive and increase his strength and vigor, so that he may thrive and flourish like the eagle. The comparison with the eagle is not drawn in point of renovation, but in point of vigor and activity continually renewing itself; as Isa. 40 : 31, says, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings as eagles. Venema." 6. Rising from personal blessings to general, the comprehensive fact, evermore to the glory of God, is His sympathy with the suffering and oppressed, and His ready and effective interposition in their case. Who will not praise Him that He careth so kindly and so gloriously for those who suffer cruel wrongs from wicked oppressors? C.—Man's injustice shall receive retribution at the hand of God. Mercy to His saints demands vengeance on their persecutors, and He will repay it. No blood of martyrs shall be shed in vain; no groans of confessors in prison shall be left without inquisition being made concerning them. All wrongs shall be righted, all the oppressed shall be avenged. S. 7. His "ways" He made known to Moses; to the children of Israel, only "His acts." He showed them His wonderful favors to themselves in the wilderness, and that was His righteousness; but He showed them not His ways and the course He held in them; they saw only the events of things, they saw not the reasons of them, as Moses did. R. Baker. 8. God is "slow to anger." When mercy cometh into the world, she driveth winged steeds; but when wrath cometh, it walketh with tardy footsteps; it is not in haste to slay, it is not swift to condemn. God's rod of mercy is ever in His hands outstretched; God's sword of justice is in its scabbard, not rusted in it—it can be easily withdrawn—but held there by the hand that presses it back into its sheath, crying, "Sleep, oh sword, sleep; for I will have mercy upon sinners, and will forgive their transgressions." Plenteous in mercy. All the world tastes of His sparing mercy, those who hear the Gospel partake of His inviting mercy, the saints live by His saving mercy, are preserved by His upholding mercy, are cheered by His consoling mercy, and will enter heaven through His infinite and everlasting mercy. Let grace abounding be our hourly song in the house of our pilgrimage. Let those who feel that they live upon it glorify the plenteous fountain from which it so spontaneously flows. S. 9. He will not always chide. Certainly it is as unpleasing to God to chide, as it is to us to be chidden; and so little He likes of anger that He rids His hands of it as fast as He can; He is not so slow in coming to it as quick in getting from it; for chiding is a bar to mercy, and anger an impediment to compassion; nothing is so distasteful to God as that any block should lie in the way of His mercy, or that His compassion should have any cause of restraint. R. Baker.—He will not always chide, though we always offend and deserve chiding. Though He signify His displeasure against us for our sins by the rebukes of Providence and the reproaches of our own consciences, and thus cause grief, yet He will have compassion and will not always keep us in pain and terror, but after the spirit of bondage will give the spirit of adoption. How unlike are those to God who always chide, who take every occasion to chide and never know when to cease! What would become of us if God should deal so with us? He will not keep His anger forever against His own people, but will gather them with everlasting mercies (Isa. 54 : 8 ; 57 : 16). H. 10. God is never hard—never afflicts willingly or grieves the children of men, never deals with us after our sins, nor rewards us according to our iniquities. "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." When it is "sorrow upon sorrow," it is "strength upon strength;" and those who know most about affliction will be the readiest to confess what lessons it has taught them of the tenderness and faithfulness of God. Thorold. 11. It is proof that the natural man did not invent the Gospel, since he cannot comprehend it. The mercies, like the judgments of God are "far above out of his sight." "As the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward them that fear Him." Ker.—As the lofty heavens canopy the earth, water it with dews and rains, enlighten it with sun, moon, and stars, and look down upon it with unceasing watchfulness, even so the Lord's mercy from above covers all His chosen, enriches them, embraces them, and stands forever as their dwelling-place. All this mercy is for "them that fear Him;" there must be a humble, hearty reverence of His authority, or we cannot taste of His grace. Godly fear is one of the first products of the Divine life in us; it is the beginning of wisdom, yet it fully insures to its possessor all the benefits of Divine mercy, and is, indeed, here and elsewhere, employed to set forth the whole of true religion. S. 12. Removed our transgressions.** The forgiveness of sin (as in v. 3) is the great proof of God's love. "The expression describes, in language which might be that of the New Testament, the effects of justifying grace." (Delitzsch.) Compare Micah 7:19: "Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea;" Isa. 38:17: "Thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back." P.—"As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us." No word even upon the inspired page can excel this! Sin is removed from us by a miracle of love, removed so far that the distance is incalculable. Then we may be sure that the trace, the very memory of it must be entirely gone. S. 13. As a father.** God is our Father because He created and preserves us; He is our Father because He rules us by the loving discipline of His righteous judgment; He is our Father because He is full of love, and forgiveness, and tender, fatherly pity, knowing our frame and remembering that we are dust. Here, then, is a proof of the Divine source whence the inspirations of the Psalmists came. They knew God as their Father because the Spirit of adoption was speaking to their hearts. G. Forbes. As a father pitieth his children. The father pitieth his children that are weak in knowledge, and instructs them; pities them when they are froward, and bears with them; pities them when they are sick, and comforts them; when they are fallen, and helps them up again; when they have offended, and upon their submission, forgives them; when they are wronged, and rights them. Thus "the Lord pitieth them that fear Him." H. The religion of the Psalms and of the Old Testament is no less remarkable for its tenderness than for its severe purity. Heathen poets have sounded the depths of human sorrow, passion, and pity; but nowhere in pagan literature, least of all in the religious books of heathendom, can we catch even the echo of that full-toned tenderness and gracious comfort which rings through the Hebrew Scriptures, assuring us that the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. E. R. Conder. The Christian has the double armor against anxiety—the name of the Father, and the conviction that the Father's knowledge is co-extensive with the Father's love. He who calls us His children thoroughly understands what His children want. And so, anxiety is contrary to the very name by which we have learned to call God, and to the pledge of pitying care and perfect knowledge of our frame which lies in the words "our Father." Our Father is the name of God, and our Father intensely cares for us, and lovingly does all things for us. A. M. "Beloved, now are we children of God." Before Him, we are before our Father. Would not an accused child rather appear before his father than before any other judge? Would not his filial instinct tell him that there he could be sure of all patience, tenderness, and tolerance? Would he not draw comfort and confidence from his knowledge that the father knew him, knew all about his dispositions, his training, his circumstances? That is just the assurance which is given us in the fact of God's Fatherhood. We carry our self-accusing hearts to our Father. We go as children of God. Such we are; and "like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. He knoweth our frame"—how you and I are made up; all our heritages of temper and disposition; all our natural infirmity; all the points where we are weakest against temptation; all our easily-besetting sins. V. There is nothing so fine in its influence or so sweet in its expression as the authority of love. We yielded loving obedience to it when we were children, as we heard its words from the mouth of mother and father. We never doubted their right to speak it. We never thought it was unnecessary. No more should we when God commands us. God is father and mother to us. His commands are wishes in our behalf, suggestions to us, entreaties, prayers, and whatever else is natural for love to feel and do for those it calls its own. This idea of the commands of God gives the mind a right standpoint from which to see the face and to hear the advice of that heavenly Fatherhood which is over us all in its solicitude, anxiety, and deathless love. W. H. Murray. When God calls Himself our Father, the clouds which conceal Him from our sight seem to break and vanish, and we feel that we can love and honor Him. Above all, we can recognize Him as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who in Him, and through His incarnation, has adopted us into the highest condition of sonship, and made us heirs with Him of eternal life. Bishop Goodwin. Christ puts that great word "Father" into all our thoughts. He lifts the light of it over the whole universe. And the knowledge and glory of a living, loving, personal Father stream in upon us from every side. When the soul awakens to spiritual consciousness and finds itself in the presence of this great truth of the Fatherhood of God, the first fact which confronts it is a sense of farness from the Father. It is God's mercy that He has not left us to rest in this depth of strangeness. He has made a way for us in Christ—the new and living way by the blood. God's own Son has died to put our estrangement away. "We are no more strangers and foreigners." The blood has brought us near. A. Macleod. Essentially God is the Father of all men; but practically, subjectively, He is not the Father of the man who forgets His existence, overlooks His providence, disregards His requirements, and, in fact, lives "without God in the world." For there are no filial aspirations in the heart of such a man. He has no child-like trust or communion. To him there is no spiritual life in the motions of the universe, no expression of infinite tenderness upon its face. Worshipping the objects of sense, he does not notice the intense longings of his own soul. Swept in the sounding tide of passion, he hears not "the still, small voice," inviting to a holier and serener course. God's love is over him, and God's mercy waits on him; but, in his sensualism and sin, he does not see the Father. He does not realize his relationship to God, and therefore, so far as it depends upon his action, that relationship is as though it were not. Chapin.—How is it that a father pitieth his children? For long there has been only one son at home, and you might suppose there never had been more than one; all is so complete and orderly, and the new-come servants and the neighbors never speak of any other. But along the high-road there is this instant travelling a haggard figure in tattered clothing, in his looks not much to betoken gentle breeding. But one heart awaits him, and keeps for him the original compartment, warm, ample, and unfilled. Yonder, as he has surmounted the summit of the hill and is gazing down on the long forsaken homestead and hesitating whether he may venture nearer, which quick eye is that which has recognized him a great way off, and what eager step is this which runs so fast to meet him, and who is this that in the folds of his kingly mantle hides the ragged wanderer, and clasps him to his bosom, and weeps upon his neck the tears of enraptured affection, and cuts short his confession with a call for the best robe and a command for instant festival? Oh, what a love is this which the heavenly Father hath unto His children? Hamilton. That one word, Father, spoken in faith is better than a thousand prayers in a formal, lukewarm way. I myself have often found that when I can say but this word Father, it doth me more good than when I call Him by any other Christian name. Bunyan. 14. God "knoweth our frame," for He made it. "He understandeth our thoughts," for the mind from whence they rise is His workmanship. And there is nothing which is a source of pain or uneasiness, of doubt or difficulty, of grief or anguish to His children, which He is not only willing to hear of but desirous that they should tell Him. Champneys. Though God's holiness shames our sinfulness, though God's perfect wisdom dwarfs our folly, nevertheless the safest refuge for the most sinful is perfect holiness; and perfect knowledge joined to perfect love furnishes the strongest assurance to trembling and penitent souls. If that knowledge sees deeper into our sin than we do, it also sees deeper into our weakness. If it weighs the act in more nicely-adjusted scales, it knows what circumstances to throw into the scales. If it knows our most secret faults, it also knows our frame and our frailty. If it discerns aggravations, it equally discerns extenuations. Self-accusing hearts are nowhere so safe as in God's hands; nowhere so sure of justice, but nowhere so sure of tender mercy. V. Maybe when the sincere soul is about a duty he doth it weakly, yet this very willingness of the heart is wonderfully pleasing to God. How doth it affect and take the father, when he bids his little child go and bring him such a thing, to see him not stand at the command as hard, but run to it and put forth his whole strength about it! Though at last maybe he cannot do it, yet the willingness of the child pleaseth him so that his weakness rather stirs up the father to pity and help him, than to provoke him to chide him. Christ throws this covering over His disciples' infirmities, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Oh! this obedience, that like the dropping honey, comes without squeezing, though but little of it, tastes sweetly on God's palate; and such is sincere obedience. Gurnall. 15, 16. "As for man," very frail is he, as the word chosen here for man implies. He is compared to the grass whose natural life is only a few months at longest. As the blossom flowers, so he blossoms for his brief day, the Hebrew beautifully using the same word for the field-blossom and for the man, blossoming. For a breath of air, a gentle wind passes over him and he is gone. It would not be so strange if a tempest, a whirlwind, passing over should sweep him away. The Psalmist means much more than this. The gentlest touch, the whispering breeze, bears him off. He soon becomes a stranger, no more known in the little space he once filled, going out and coming in. C. Worldly men take one view of this, and say that a looking forward and a prophetic tone of mind with respect to death is not natural. And as a counterbalance to and remedy for such presages they take refuge in the matter-of-fact sensation of life which belongs to us. They throw themselves deliberately and systematically upon this world instinct, in order to counterbalance the true prophetic nature of the soul and prevent it from acting, in order to deaden the sense of futurity and annihilate the other world to their minds. Now what is the Scripture way of dealing with the subject of death? It does not allow it to be thus put aside. It makes us view it with steady, calm eye and keep it before us. It tells the soul to reckon beforehand, to see, to prepare; it lengthens its sight; it fixes its aim. Foresight was given us that we might be, not paralyzed and rendered motionless, but sobered and chastened in the exercise of our active faculties, that we should feel that very check of which worldly men are impatient, for they would fain while they do live be going to live forever in their imagination. Mozley. One who has looked upon a Western prairie in June can appreciate the allusions of the Bible to the grass and the flower of the field. Yet the brightest gardens of California hardly rival the grassy plains of Syria in the abundance, variety, and brilliancy of flowers. But when there sweeps over the plains of Syria the "east wind" of the Arabian desert, this sirocco scorches as it goes; it fades the grass, withers the flowers, and turns the fresh field into hay and stubble. So does man fade away in the midst of his pride and luxuries, of his plans and hopes. 17. In contrast with man's weak and perishable frame appears the mercy of the Lord—a mercy that has provided comfort for man's feebleness, solace for his troubles, pardon for his sins; and for all who will commit themselves in humble, holy fear, everlasting peace and joy. Oh that our souls might rise to more worthy praise of this constant, this tender, this unfailing love! J. P. T. The mercy of God is eternal; the eternity of mercy is expressed in the same language as the eternity of God Himself; and, indeed, since it is His nature, it must be as eternal as He Himself is; it is from everlasting, as His love is; which is to be proved by the instances of it, called His tender mercies, which have been ever of old, or from everlasting. And the mercy of God is to everlasting in its fruits and effects; it is kept with Christ and for Him, the Mediator of the covenant; into whose hands are put all the promises and blessings of mercy; called, therefore, "the sure mercies of David." Even temporal blessings which flow from the mercy of God, are new every morning and are daily continued; and spiritual ones always remain; the mercy of God never departs from His people notwithstanding their backslidings; and though He chides them for them and hides His face from them, yet still He has mercy on them. Gill. For the third time God's mercy and loving-kindness is said to be upon "them that fear Him," compare vs. 11, 13, as if to remind us that there is a love within a love, a love which they only know who have tasted that the Lord is gracious, who fear Him and walk in His ways, as well as a love which "maketh the sun to shine, and sendeth rain upon the just and the unjust." In the next verse there is the same limitation, "To such as keep His covenant," and to those who not only know, but "do" His will. The blessings of the covenant are no inalienable right; children's children can only inherit its blessings by cleaving to it. P. Child of God, thou that fearest God, here is mercy nigh thee, mercy enough, everlasting mercy upon thee. This is long-lived mercy. It will live longer than thy sin, longer than temptation, longer than thy sorrows. It is mercy from everlasting to contrive thy salvation, and mercy to everlasting to resist all thy adversaries. And this hath the man that feareth the Lord. Take that other blessed word (v. 11), and thou man that fearest the Lord, hang it like a chain of gold about thy neck: "As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is His mercy to them that fear Him." If mercy as high and as good as heaven itself will be a privilege, the man that feareth God shall have the privilege. Bunyan. 18. Sin sometimes overpowers us for want of remembering. Forgetful hearers are often negligent livers. A godly man has an effective memory; he "remembers" the commandments of God "to do them." It is to be feared that the sins of God's people are usually sins of forgetfulness and inconsideration. Manton.—Most Christians content themselves with a small measure of grace, and do not follow on to spiritual strength and manhood. They believe so weakly, and love God so little, that they can scarce find whether they believe and love at all; like a man in a swoon, whose pulse and breathing is so weak and obscure that it can hardly be perceived whether they move at all, and, consequently, whether the man be alive or dead. The chief remedy for such would be to follow on their duty, till their graces be increased. Ply your work; wait upon God in the use of His prescribed means, and He will undoubtedly bless you with increase and strength. Baxter. 19. The concluding portion of the Psalm extols the greatness and majesty of Him who has thus stooped in pity to His children. The Psalmist had begun by calling upon his own soul to bless Jehovah for His goodness; he had associated with himself, as partakers in that goodness, all who feared the Lord. Now he concludes by calling on the angels and all creation to ascribe blessing, honor, and power to Him who sitteth upon the throne. Lastly, from all that vast congregation of worshippers praising God, he turns to himself, that his voice may not be wanting in the mighty anthem, "Bless thou Jehovah, O my soul." P. 19. The Lord hath prepared His throne.** The word signifies established as well as prepared, and might be so rendered. He hath prepared or established it. It is fixed, not tottering; it is an unmovable dominion; all the struggling of men and devils cannot overturn it, nor so much as shake it. He cannot be deposed from it, he cannot be mated in it. His dominion, as Himself, abides forever. And as His counsel, so His authority, shall stand; and "He will do all His pleasure" (Isa. 46: 10). Charnock. 20,21. These few words descriptive of the angels are by no means exhaustive. Yet the points given are of the first importance; "mighty in strength," i.e., of most exalted powers and capabilities. And evermore obedient to the mandates of the Most High, diligently hearkening to catch every word from His lips and evermore swift to execute it. Upon all these noblest of created beings the Psalmist calls to bless the Lord Jehovah. C.—As in number and order they are huge, mighty, and royal armies, so likewise in perfection of obedience unto that law which the Highest, whom they adore, love, and imitate, hath imposed upon them, such observants they are thereof, that our Saviour, being to set down the perfect idea of that we are to pray and wish for on earth, did not teach to pray or wish for more, than only that here it might be with us, as with them it is in heaven. Hooker.—The chief excellence of the angels, the main cause of their strength and power, and of their immense superiority to mankind, is that they do God's commandments, hearkening to the voice of His Word. For this is the only living source of lasting strength and power. They who do the will of God faithfully and obediently, have God for them; and then what can be against them? Then work itself strengthens them, and is like a tide bearing them onward; because it is His work. They, on the other hand, who run counter to the will of God, have God against them; and then what can be for them? J. C. Hare. The blessedness of angels doth not consist in the endowments of their nature—that they are great in power, light, knowledge, and wisdom; for notwithstanding these things, many of them became devils. But the excellency and blessedness of the angelical state consists in these two things: First, that they are disposed, and able constantly, inseparably, universally, uninterruptedly, to cleave unto God in love. And as they do so unto God, so they do unto the person of Christ; and through Him, as their Head, unto God, even the Father. Second, add hereunto that gracious reflex sense which they have of the glory, dignity, eternal sweetness, and satisfaction, which arise from hence, and we have the sum of angelical blessedness. J. Owen. I stood at the bedside of a most intelligent Christian, waiting for her great change to come. She was full of joyful anticipation. "Oh," said she, "to 'run with willing feet in the way of God's commandments,' what a glad-some promise is that!" It was a most discriminating perception of this very element of future blessedness—His servants shall serve Him—with no drawing back, no urgency, no idea of necessity—moving and obeying because we must, but with cheerful alacrity, and with all the powers of the ransomed soul flaming in one direction of unmixed, uncoerced and unimpeded choice. The angels who do God's commandments are as flames of fire, alert and resplendent in their promptitude. Our daily prayer at last will be accomplished; we shall do the will of God, as it is now done in heaven. The spiritual body shall know no fatigue, and no necessity for recruiting its exhausted strength by sleep. W. Adams. The Bible represents angels as speaking and listening to each other, and God as speaking and listening to them; while they, in their turn, speak and listen to Him. This is not mere empty imagery. It carries silent proof that fleshless spirits, like God and angels, or our own unbodied souls, have an inward, spiritual sense, in the use of which they communicate and receive knowledge or truth. This knowledge and that inward sense, truth known and made known, are grand media of happy and beneficial intercourse between all pure spirits. J. S. Stone. Those glimpses of the supernal world which we catch from the Scriptures have in them, certainly, quite as much of the character of history as of poetry, and impart the idea, not that there is less of business in heaven than on hearth; but more. Unquestionably the felicity of those beings of a higher order, to whose agency frequent allusions are made by the inspired writers, is not incompatible with the assiduities of a strenuous ministry, to be discharged according to the best ability of each. But if there be a real and necessary, not merely a shadowy agency in heaven, as well as on earth; and if human nature is destined to act its part in such an economy, then its constitution, and the severe training it undergoes, are at once explained; and then also, the removal of individuals in the very prime of their fitness for useful labor ceases to be impenetrably mysterious. The mind of man, formed as it is to be more tenacious of its active habits than even of its moral dispositions, is, in the present state, trained, often at an immense cost of suffering, to the exercise of skill, of forethought, of courage, of patience; and ought it not to be inferred, unless positive evidence contradicts the supposition, that this system of education bears some relation of fitness to the state for which it is an initiation? Shall not the very same qualities which here are so sedulously fashioned and finished, be actually needed and used in that future world of perfection? When once with open eye that "excellent glory" has been contemplated, then shall it be understood that the Divine wisdom is incomparably more honored by the skilful and faithful performances, and by the cheerful toils of agents who have been fashioned and fitted for service, than it could be by the bare exertions of irresistible power; and then, when the absolute dependence of creatures is thoroughly felt, may the beautiful orders of the heavenly hierarchy rising and still rising toward perfection, be seen and admired without hazard of forgetting Him who alone is absolutely perfect, and who is the only fountain and first cause of whatever is excellent. I. T. 21. "Bless ye the Lord, all ye His hosts that do His pleasure." The sun, moon, stars, and planets do "His pleasure" unconsciously; the "angels" consciously, and with instinctive love, "hearken unto the voice His Word." Both together constitute the Lord's hosts. Fausset. 22. The last specification is completely comprehensive; "all His works in all places of His wide dominions"—all that He has made, whether intelligent or not intelligent; "in all places" above, beneath, around; in heaven, earth, or hell; let them all fall into this universal chorus of praise and blessing, extolling Jehovah, the One supremely great, supremely good! Nor will he exempt himself; for his personal responsibilities as to his own heart are his highest. Therefore he closes as he began, "Bless the Lord, O my soul." C Oh my soul, bless God my Saviour, and magnify His name; for it is holy, and full of holiest delights. Oh how good, how sweet Thou art, Lord Jesus, to the soul that seeks Thee! Jesus, Redeemer of the lost, Saviour of the redeemed, hope of exiles, strength of the weary, relief of the anxious spirit, crown of those that triumph, Thyself God most high, let all things in heaven above and in earth beneath bless Thee! Bernard. The Psalm ends as it began, without a single word of supplication. All is praise, humble, grateful, rapturous praise. Sincere and earnest praise is a higher spiritual exercise than prayer, however intense and believing, for the latter springs from the sense of personal need, while the former looks away from self and seeks only to have the Lord duly honored. As such it meets the strongest instincts of the godly man's soul, and hence is represented as the chief employment of the just made perfect, who rest not day or night, setting forth the glories of Him who was and who is and who is to come. It is not strange, therefore, that saints on earth have always taken a special pleasure in this Psalm, which is such an exuberant burst of grateful praise. Chambers. How personal is this Psalm! It is personal in its references to God. It is the personal God of the Hebrews, who sees, hears, and feels. It is He that forgiveth, healeth, redeemeth, crowneth. It is He that executeth righteousness, that pitieth, and remembereth. So the mercies in this Psalm are personal. It is "my soul" that is addressed in the first verse, and then it is declared to the soul that He forgiveth all "thine" iniquities, healeth all "thy" diseases, redeemeth "thy" life from destruction, crowneth "thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies." And when we near the end of our pilgrimage, we can say that He knoweth "our" frame, He remembereth that "we" are dust. It is this personality of the Hebrew songs that makes them so valuable. They are songs for our night, lights for our darkness, staves for our weariness, hills of promise for our longing sight. The penitential Psalms are our closets of confession, where we breathe out the story that only God hears. The Psalms of Providence are the windows where we sit and look away upon the green fields of life and still waters of peace to be found near our doors and for our comforting. E. A. Rand. 1. BLESS the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; Thou art clothed with honour and majesty. 2. Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment; Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain: 3. Who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters; Who maketh the clouds his chariot; Who walketh upon the wings of the wind: 4. Who maketh winds his messengers; His ministers a flaming fire: 5. Who laid the foundations of the earth, That it should not be moved for ever. 6. Thou coverest it with the deep as with a vesture; The waters stood above the mountains. 7. At thy rebuke they fled; At the voice of thy thunder they hastened away; 8. They went up by the mountains, they went down by the valleys [or, The mountains rose, the valleys sank down]. Unto the place which thou hadst founded for them. 9. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over; That they turn not again to cover the earth. 10. He sendeth forth springs into the valleys; They run among the mountains: 11. They give drink to every beast of the field; The wild asses quench their thirst. 12. By them the fowl of the heaven have their habitation, They sing among the branches. 13. He watereth the mountains from his chambers: The earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. 14. He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, And herb for the service of man; That he may bring forth food out of the earth: 15. And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, And oil to make his face to shine. And bread that strengtheneth man's heart. 16. The trees of the LORD are satisfied; The cedars of Lebanon, which he hath planted; 17. Where the birds make their nests: As for the stork, the fir trees are her house. 18. The high mountains are for the wild goats; The rocks are a refuge for the conies. 19. He appointed the moon for seasons: The sun knoweth his going down. 20. Thou makest darkness, and it is night; Wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. 21. The young lions roar after their prey, And seek their meat from God. 22. The sun ariseth, they get them away, And lay them down in their dens. 23. Man goeth forth unto his work And to his labour until the evening. 24. O LORD, how manifold are thy works! In wisdom hast thou made them all: The earth is full of thy riches. 25. Yonder is the sea, great and wide, Wherein are things creeping innumerable, Both small and great beasts. 26. There go the ships; There is leviathan, whom thou hast formed to take his pastime therein. 27. These wait all upon thee, That thou mayest give them their meat in due season. 28. That thou givest unto them they gather: Thou openest thine hand, they are satisfied with good. 29. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled; Thou takest away their breath, they die, And return to their dust. 30. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created; And thou renewest the face of the ground. 31. Let the glory of the LORD endure for ever; Let the LORD rejoice in his works: 32. Who looketh on the earth, and it trembleth; He toucheth the mountains, and they smoke. 33. I will sing unto the LORD as long as I live: I will sing praise to my God while I have any being. 34. Let my meditation be sweet unto him: I will rejoice in the LORD. 35. Let sinners be consumed out of the earth. And let the wicked be no more. Bless the LORD, O my soul. PRAISE YE THE LORD! # The Hymn of Creation. PSALM 103 began with "Bless Jehovah, O my soul;" so also does this anonymous Psalm, in which God's rule in the kingdom of nature is the subject of praise, just as His rule in the kingdom of grace was the theme of the former; here also mention is made of the angels in connection with God's government. The poet sings the divinely appointed, continuous existence of the world, having present to his mind the creative beginnings related in Gen. 1 and 2, and closes with the wish that evil may be banished from this good creation, which so thoroughly and so fully reveals the might and wisdom and goodness of God. It is a nature Psalm; but such an one as was possible to no heathen poet. To the Israelitish poet all things in nature appear as brought forth and sustained by the creative might of the One God, as brought into being and preserved in existence, that He may communicate Himself in free, condescending love. D. This Psalm stands without caption. In subject it bears close relations to Psalm 103, a circumstance strongly in favor of referring it to the same author. It enlarges the glorious theme of praise to God by setting forth His wonderful works in the material world. It is God in nature, yet not at all in the pantheistic sense—nature itself a part of God; but in the far nobler sense, a personal God, the Infinite Creator of all material things, forevermore energizing by His present hand to sustain the forces which supply from the material world the wants of all the living. Remarkably the course of thought follows somewhat definitely the order of topics presented in the original account of the creation given by Moses: God the glorious Creator; investing Himself with light; stretching out the broad expanse of the visible heavens; locating the waters that belong above the firmament; the clouds also and the winds; fixing the solid earth and gathering together the waters appropriated to its surface and thus providing for the springs and rivers that supply animal want and insure the fruits of the earth. Thus the author's mind ranges on, as of one whose open eye has traced out the marvellous ways of God in blessing all His vast family of living creatures—themes on which it is sweet to dwell, and which call forth from his grateful, adoring soul praises ever fresh to the great Father of all. C. This Divine ode is a bright and living picture of God's creative power, pouring life and gladness throughout the universe. The distinct recognition of the absolute dependence of the universe, as created, upon the Creator, forms the very basis and main thread of the poem. The great work of creation is here regarded not as a thing of the past merely. He who made, renews the face of the earth. It is the same profound view of the relation of the Cosmos to the Creator which Paul exhibits in his speech on Mars' Hill (Acts 17: 25). In its main outline the poem follows the story of creation contained in the first chapter of Genesis. And yet the Psalm is not a mere copy of the original. Breathing the same lofty spirit, it has a force and an originality of its own. In some respects the Psalm, even more strikingly than the early record, exhibits the infinite greatness, the order, the life of the universe. The creation of Genesis is a creation of the past; the creation of the Psalm is a creation of the present. The one portrays the beginning of the eternal order, the other its perpetual, living spectacle. Hence, too, the ode has far more animation than the record. How vivid are the images which it calls up—the wild ass roaming the sands of the wilderness, stooping to slake his thirst at the stream which God has provided; the birds building their nests, and breaking forth into song in the trees which fringe the margin of the torrent-beds; the wild goats bounding from rock to rock, and finding their home in the inaccessible crags; the young lions filling the forest by night with their roar, and "seeking from God their prey;" and the sea with the same plenitude of life, its depths peopled with huge monsters and swarming myriads of lesser fish, and its surface studded with sails, the image of the enterprise, the traffic, the commerce of the world; and lastly, in fine contrast with this merely animal activity of creatures led by their appetites, the even tenor, the calm, unobtrusive dignity of man's daily life of labor; take all these together, and we have a picture which for truth and depth of coloring, for animation, tenderness, beauty, has never been surpassed. It is not surprising that this great hymn of creation should have called forth the warmest expressions of admiration from those who have studied it. Sanchez says, "The Psalm is delightful, sweet, and instructive, as teaching us the soundest views of nature, and the best method of pursuing the study of it—viz., by admiring with one eye the works of God, and with the other God Himself, their Creator and Preserver." The great naturalist, A. Von Humboldt, writes: "It might almost be said that one single Psalm represents the image of the whole Cosmos. We are astonished to find in a lyrical poem of such limited compass the whole universe—the heavens and earth—sketched with a few bold touches. The contrast of the labor of man with the animal life of nature, and the image of omnipresent, invisible power, renewing the earth at will, or sweeping it of inhabitants, is a grand and solemn poetical creation." "With what an eye of gladness," says Herder, "does the poet survey the earth! It is a green mountain of Jehovah, which He lifted above the waters; a paradise which He established for the dwelling-place of so many living creatures above the seas. The series of pictures which the poet here displays is, in fact, the natural history of the earth." The Psalm is without any strophical division. The poet begins with the light, and the heaven with its cloud and storms (vs. 2-4), corresponding to the works of the first and second days. Then he passes to the earth, first describing its original chaotic state, and the separation of earth and water by the voice of God (vs. 5-9), in accordance with Gen. 1: 9, 10 (first portion of the third day's work); and then the varied adornment of the earth as the dwelling-place of living creatures. The mention of the heavenly bodies follows (vs. 19-23, fourth day's work). Then, after a short exclamation of admiring gratitude (v. 24), the poet, who has already woven into his verse so happily some portion of the creative wonders of the fifth and sixth days, the birds and beasts and creeping things and man, turns back again (vs. 25, 26) to speak of the sea and its life (Gen. 1: 21). Finally, after expressing, in vivid phrase, the absolute dependence of all this vast and manifold creation upon its Maker (vs. 27-30), he longs to see the bright original restored, to find himself and all God's creatures parts of the mighty harmony, that a new sabbath of creation may dawn, a rest of God, in which He shall rejoice in His works and they in Him, and the world become a temple filled with His praise. P. 1. Bless the Lord, O my soul. A good man's work lieth most within doors, he is more taken up with his own soul than with all the world besides; neither can he ever be alone so long as he hath God and his own heart to converse with. Trapp.—A lively sense of God's greatness gives the soul a clear sight of her nothingness; a lively sense of God's holiness, a clear sense of her sinfulness; a lively sense of His goodness, a clear sense of her unworthiness. Horneck. O Lord my God, Thou art very great. Greatness, if you look at it as something separate from you and away, still more if you have a consciousness that it may be against you, is a matter of awe and terror. If you mingle it with yourself, as a part of yourself and yourself a part of it, greatness, becoming a possession, is a grand thought and a pleasant one. So we unite these two clauses. David could not have said the second with gladness unless he could have said the first with confidence: "O Lord my God, Thou art very great." If it is great to be at the same time infinitely comprehensive and exquisitely minute, to fill the widest and yet to be occupied by the narrowest, then what a God is ours! The unspeakably large and the invisibly small are alike to Him. We stand and marvel at the combination of the telescopic glance and the microscopic care; and we confess, "O Lord my God, Thou art very great." Some one has said that continuity is the secret of the sublime; the eye goes on and on, and finds no break, and calls it sublimity. Then what a sublimity there is in Him who century after century, year by year, without the shadow of a turning, has continued the same, "yesterday, to-day, and forever!" Look, too, at the wonderful greatness of His plan of redemption. The length, and the breadth, and the depth, and the height are all passing knowledge; and we have nothing to do but to humble ourselves in the dust and say, "O Lord my God, Thou art very great." J. Vaughan. 2. Coverest Thyself with light as a garment. God weaves His attributes, the tokens of His presence, into all the works of His hands. He spreads His vesture abroad in creation, and brings it close to our touch, instinct with His being, that we may feel and grasp the God in whom we live and move, and know Him to be, not a mere abstraction, but a God near and ever-present. Ker. Light is the most powerful principle in creation; it is the cause of all the order and beauty and life of the universe. It is the most universal of all forces; it paints the flower and the rainbow; it glimmers in the remotest star in space, and it fades away in the dim hue of the smallest organism in the deepest abyss of the ocean. Beyond its influence, everlasting death and silence reign. It is the most necessary of all the forces of the universe. Other forces are needed for a time; light is always needed. Other forces are preparatory or revolutionary; light is the abiding crown and perfection of all things. Other forces make room for themselves by displacement; light dwells with everything except darkness. It interferes with nothing, it requires no room, it clears no space for itself to occupy, but pervades all nature, and shines upon the humblest moss and the greatest mountain. It is the calmest and stillest force in the universe; its mighty pulse-beat is never heard. Though it comes with inconceivable velocity from an inconceivable distance, it stirs not the spider's web on which it glistens, nor pains the sensitive eye which it enables to see. Its nature becomes organized in the things which grow out of the earth, and in the creatures which live upon it; and although it is continually imparting itself, it suffers no loss of substance or diminution of brightness. Need we wonder, then, that, possessing all these remarkable qualities, our Lord should have chosen this principle to be the highest and holiest symbol of Himself. He is the True Light, light in its highest form and fullest significance; the ideal of which sunlight is only an imperfect and partial realization; the substance of which all physical light is only the shadow. The whole universe is the shekinah cloud which He illuminates. H. Macmillan. God "dwells in light;" He is "clothed with it as a garment;" it invests Him with a calm and steady effulgence. One element, at least, of this "excellent glory" is the infinite range, the fulness and perfection of His knowledge; it is this which constitutes Him the sun and centre of the intellectual system, the fountain of intelligence and "the Father of Lights." All minds, in all worlds, with all their faculties, their diversified gifts, their powers of perception, thought, reason, utterance—all these everywhere are but beams and rays which have issued from and are sustained by that luminous orb, that central sun, the God that dwells in the cloudless effulgence of uncreated light, and who is at once the light and the life of angels and men. All knowledge, all science; every conception of the ideal, the beautiful, the perfect; whatever any creature can acquire from without, whatever may appear to originate within; piercing intuition, profound thought, artistic achievement, mechanical invention, eloquence, song—all are but faint and imperfect reflections of what first exists in the Divine mind. There, too, it exists in such infinite and inconceivable opulence, in combination with so much of what is unimaginable and unknown, that, if we could enumerate the entire sum of things which constitute the mental wealth of the universe, we should not only have to say, "These all come forth from the Lord, who is wonderful in counsel," but we should have to add to this the still deeper thought, "and many like things are with Him." T. Binney. With light. The first creation of God in the works of the days was the light of sense; the last was the light of reason; and His Sabbath work ever since is the illumination of the spirit. Bacon. Stretchest out the heavens. This describes briefly the work of the second day. The heavens are the firmament, the expanse (as the Hebrew word literally means) which is spread out to separate the waters. And in the waters above God lays, as it were, the floor of His palace. P. Like a curtain. Because the Hebrews conceived of heaven as a temple and palace of God, that sacred azure was at once the floor of His, the roof of our abode. Yet the dwellers in tents ever loved best the figure of the heavenly tent. They represent God as daily spreading it out, and fastening it at the extremity of the horizon to the pillars of heaven, the mountains; it is to them a tent of safety, of rest, of a fatherly hospitality in which God lives with His creatures. Herder. Nature has two great revelations—that of use and that of beauty; and the first thing we observe about these two characteristics of hers is that they are bound together and tied to each other. The beauty of nature is not, as it were, a fortunate accident, which can be separated from her use; there is no difference in the tenure upon which these two characteristics stand; the beauty is just as much a part of nature as the use; they are only different aspects of the self-same facts. But though the outward face of nature is a religious communication to those who come to it with the religious element already in them, no man can get a religion out of the beauty of nature. There must be for the base of a religion the internal view, the inner sense, the look into ourselves, and recognition of an inward state—sin, helplessness, misery. If there is not this, outward nature cannot of itself enlighten man's conscience and give him a knowledge of God. It will be a picture to him, and nothing more. Mosley. 4. Those events which we ascribe to chance, as the weather, or to nature, as the seasons, are duties done to that God who maketh His angels to be winds, and His ministers a flame of fire. Nature is not inanimate; its daily toil is intelligent; its works are duties. Every breath of air and ray of light and heat, every beautiful prospect, is, as it were, the skirts of their garments, the waving of the robes of those whose faces see God in heaven. Newman. Who maketh His angels spirits. The words, "creating His angels spirits," may either mean "creating them spiritual beings, not material beings," or "creating them winds;" i.e., like the winds, invisible, rapid in their movements, and capable of producing great effects. The last mode of interpretation seems pointed out by the parallelism, "and His ministers," or, "servants," who are plainly the same as His angels, "a flame of fire," i.e., like the lightning. The statement here made about the angels seems to be this, "They are created beings, who in their qualities bear a resemblance to the winds and the lightning." The argument deduced in Heb. 2 : 7 from this statement for the inferiority of the angels is direct and powerful. He is the Son ; they are the creatures of God. "Only-begotten" is the description of His mode of existence ; made is the description of theirs. All their powers are communicated power ; and however high they may stand in the scale of creation, it is in that scale they stand, which places them infinitely below Him who is so the Son of God as to be "God over all, blessed forever." John Brown. 5. The work of the third day in its two great divisions : First, the separation of the land and water (vs. 5-9) ; next, the clothing of the earth with grass, herbs, and trees (vs. 10-18). The poet, however, ranges beyond the first creation, and peoples the earth with the living creatures of the fifth day. It is not a picture of still life, like that in Genesis, but a living, moving, animated scene. 6. The original chaos is described, not according to the heathen notion, as a confused mass, earth and water mingled together, but the earth as already formed, yet completely enveloped in the water (2 Pet. 2 : 5). This vast, swelling, tumultuous sea hears the "rebuke" of God, and sinks to its appointed place ; the earth appears, emerges from her watery covering, and shows her surface diversified with mountain and valley. P. 5,6. There seems to be a recognition of the idea that the earth is established upon a nether deep in v. 3 : "Who layeth the beams of His chambers in the waters." But the inspired writer was not permitted in his statement of the facts to commit an error. He proceeds to say that God "laid the foundations of the earth that it should not be moved forever" (for all the days), and then afterward "covered it with the deep as with a vesture." Here, then, the cosmical history is given as geological science has since projected it, and also the stability of the earth is limited to time, to all the days. And it is not till the fiat has gone forth that time shall be no longer, that the stability of the earth shall cease. The Psalm is magnificent poetry, but the solid facts rise up through it as the granite peaks emerge above the encircling and sun-painted clouds. Interior. 9. Thou hast set a bound that they may not pass over ; that they turn not again to cover the earth. That bound has once been passed, but it shall never be so again. The deluge was caused by the suspension of the Divine mandate which held the floods in check ; they knew their old supremacy, and hastened to reassert it, but now the covenant promise forever prevents a return of that carnival of waters. Destruction lies asleep in the bed of the ocean, and though our sins might well arouse it, yet are its bands made strong by covenant mercy, so that it cannot break loose again upon the guilty sons of men. S.—Wisdom giveth us the like eulogium of the power of God in Prov. 8 : 29, "He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment." Caryl. 10-15. The loving care, the tender sympathy with which God, clothing the earth with beauty, provides at the same time for the wants of all His creatures. Even the wild ass, which shuns the approach of man, and the birds of heaven, which have no keeper, are not left unprovided for. P. 10. He sendeth springs into the valleys ; they run among the mountains.** The incessant murmur of the mountain spring in the solitude speaks to the ear of the thoughtful of the wonderful rhythm of the universe. That spring seems the wayward child of uncertain parents ; and yet it wells up with every beat of the pulse of nature, as it has welled up for thousands of years. As the blood circulates in the body continually, so does the water circulate on the earth. Not more certainly would life terminate in the body if the pulse ceased to beat than would the world be locked in everlasting sleep if the mountain spring ceased to throb. Calm and grand as when the morning stars sang together in the morning of creation, Nature moves in her appointed orbit ; and her blades of grass, and grains of sand, and drops of water tell us that we must be brought into concord with the beneficent law which they all obey so steadfastly and harmoniously or else perish. What nature does unconsciously and willlessly let us do consciously and willingly ; and learning a lesson even from the humble voice of the mountain spring, let us make the statutes of the Lord our song in the house of our pilgrimage. . . . Very mysterious seems the origin of a spring as it sparkles up from the bosom of the mountain, from the heart of the rock, into the sunshine. It stimulates our imagination. It seems like a new creation in the place. Through what dark fissures, through what fine veins and pores of the earth, have its waters trickled up to the central reservoir whose overflowing comes up to view, crystal-clear and crowned with light! The Hebrew name of a prophet was derived from the bubbling forth of the waters of a spring, implying that his utterances were the irresistible overflowings of the Divine fountain of inspiration in his soul. Beside the well of Sychar, incarnate in human form, in visible manifestation to the eyes of men, was the great Reality to whom all myths and symbols pointed, who thirsted Himself that He might give us to drink. And if our eyes be purged with spiritual eye-salve, we, too, shall see beside every spring the true Oracle, the great Prophet, the Divinity of the waters, who "sendeth the springs into the valleys which run among the hills." As the natural spring stands between the living and the dead, between the sterility of desert plains and the bright verdure which it creates along its course, so He stands between our souls and spiritual death, between the desolation of sin and the peaceable fruits of righteousness which He enables us to produce. H. Macmillan. Of all inorganic substances acting in their own proper nature, and without assistance or combination, water is the most wonderful. If we think of it as the source of all the changefulness and beauty which we have seen in clouds; then as the instrument by which the earth was modelled into symmetry, and its crags chiselled into grace; then as, in the form of snow, it robes the mountains it has made with that transcendent light which we could not have conceived if we had not seen; then as it exists in the form of the torrent, in the iris which spans it, in the morning mist which rises from it, the deep crystalline pools which mirror its hanging shore, in the broad lake and glancing river; finally, in that which is to all human minds the best emblem of unwearied, unconquerable power, the wild, various, fantastic, tameless unity of the sea; what shall we compare to this mighty, this universal element, for glory and for beauty? or how shall we follow its eternal changefulness of feeling? It is like trying to paint a soul. Ruskin. 12. Above them the birds of heaven dwell, from between the branches they give voice. The poetical character of the composition is in nothing more obvious than in these minute strokes of exquisite painting, superadded to the more essential parts of the description. At the same time, these are not to be regarded as mere lavish or gratuitous embellishments, since the Psalmist's purpose is to celebrate God's wonderful and bountiful provision for His living creatures, and the running brooks would fail to answer one of their most valuable ends if there were no birds to give voice or sing among the branches of the overhanging trees. The word translated birds is a collective answering to the old English fowl, not as used in the version of this Psalm, where it is plural, but in that of Gen. 1 : 20, 22, 26, 28. That passage furnishes an explanation of the phrase fowl (or birds) of heaven, in the fuller description (Gen. 1 : 20), fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven; i.e., through the air, across the face of the expanse or visible heaven. A. The fowls of the heaven which sing among the branches. How do the blackbird and thrassel (thrush), with their melodious voices, bid welcome to the cheerful spring, and in their fixed months warble forth such ditties as no art or instrument can reach to! But the nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet, loud music out of her little instrumental throat, that it makes mankind to think miracles are not ceased. He that at midnight, when the very laborer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted above earth, and say, "Lord, what music hast Thou provided for the saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music on earth!" Isaak Walton. 13. Watering mountains from His upper rooms; from the fruit of Thy works is the earth filled. He still returns to God as the Author of these merciful provisions, and represents Him, by a beautiful figure, as pouring this abundant supply of water from His upper rooms, the same word that was rendered chambers in v. 3. The fruit of Thy works, the result or product of Thy creative energy. Filled, not in the sense of being occupied, which would require a different Hebrew verb, but in that of being abundantly supplied or saturated. The sudden apostrophe to God Himself enhances the poetical effect. A. 14,15. Thus doubly watered, from above and from beneath, the earth brings forth grass for the cattle, and its various fruits, corn and wine and oil, for the use of men; for the cattle what they need, for man more than he needs, that which makes his heart glad and his countenance bright. P. Arguments against abstinence have been sought in the Bible. Its advocates have simply stood upon the defensive. Whether among the Jews, and in our Saviour's day, there was a wine that contained no alcohol is hard to be determined, although in regard to the significance of the Hebrew yayin and the Greek oinos there can be but little doubt. Ab effervescendo, says Gesenius; but he puts to it fortasse, "perhaps;" and, in truth, he has no authority for it whatever in any of the Shemitic tongues. These words simply meant the liquid that came from pressing the grape. There is no evidence of any further idea associated with it. It was not fermenting fluid, but grape juice. This, it was well known, grew stronger with age. It was at first pleasant and nourishing, then exhilarating, and at last intoxicating. In the Bible the first use is commended, the second mentioned without disapprobation or approval, the third in all cases condemned. Our view of the primary design of a passage in Scripture must control all else. Believing in the full and perfect inspiration of the Bible, I must still in every case inquire what is the thought, precept, emotion, primarily inspired, and what is subordinate to it; what is the leading idea, and what is simply illustration drawn from the writer's own best knowledge, or opinions having their value not in their absolute correctness, as scientific fact, but only as they serve this subordinate purpose. The Scriptures are full of examples. The passages that may be regarded as having a clear bearing on these temperance questions may be arranged in three classes. They are, first, bare historical recitals, without a word to indicate approval or disapproval; secondly, references to wine, etc., used in illustration of other ideas to which they are wholly subordinate; thirdly, the directly ethical, wherein the use and effects of wine form the real subject-matter of the instruction given. The first class requires no discussion. The nature of the second is best shown by an example. Take this one most often quoted: "Who maketh the grass to grow for the cattle, and herh for the use of man; to bring forth food from the earth, and wine that maketh glad man's heart, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread to strengthen man's heart." Gratitude to God for giving unto men abundantly what they suppose to be good for them—this is the subject-matter of the inspiration; all else is subordinate and illustrative, as drawn from things deemed good by the writer, or by those whom he primarily addresses. Praise and thanksgiving, this is the Divine idea, the inbreathed emotion. The soul, full of it, seeks illustrative language for its expression. The vine, the olive, the barley, were the agricultural staples of Palestine. Men are called to praise God for their abundance. There is no more approval of any one use than there is of another. A possible noxious substance made from either is no more covered by a Divine benediction in the one case than in the other. A possible intoxicating wine from the grape is no more blessed than a possible whiskey from the barley. We exegetically infer that if the inspired writer is a good man, he has not in his mind wine as intoxicating, or as a means of intoxicating, or as anything that may tend to it. "Rejoicing the heart," or "making glad," does not express that idea. The other substances, too, "rejoice the heart;" that is, inspire gratitude. This may be called moral inference, but it is none the less legitimate exegesis. This one hundred and fourth Psalm showed a most sublime inspiration. It is full of God and His glory, but it gives the writer no new chemical knowledge, and therefore his language cannot be pressed into the service of either the deniers or the affirmers of alcohol. Intoxication was a moral state. To understand that required no science. It was a bad thing, and a good man, inspired or uninspired, must condemn it, whether in its incipient or its advanced stages. To talk of excess in it is absurd. It is a spiritual disorder, and hence the least degree of it is excess. He must, therefore, have had in view something non intoxicating, though ignorant of its criminal cause, and consequently liable to be mistaken, though his mistake as to illustrative fact could not compromise the spiritual idea. Hence we infer that the wine in this passage could not have been such as is now sold in the saloons of New York and Chicago, or the kind of wine in whose defence this scriptural anti-temperance argument is generally resorted to, and for which purpose alone it has any marketable value. But there certainly were wines, or mixtures, drunk in Judea which did intoxicate. The reasoning, therefore, which insists on some acknowledged distinction, is perfectly sound as moral deduction, which must enter, more or less, into interpretation. On this account it is not to be sneered at as deficient in its philology, which really has less to do with the discussion than is commonly imagined. Instead of being dependent on lexical definitions of yayin and tirosh, the evidence is mainly historical and inferential; and here the temperance advocate is as likely to be right as his ofttimes too contemptuous opponent. He is no more likely to be wrong than the modern traveller in Eastern countries, or than the missionary who is so absurdly appealed to as determining the old wines by the demoralized tastes of the modern Bedouin. Be all this as it may in regard to the chemistry of the question or the possibility of there ever having been any wines that were absolutely unalcoholic, we are safe in adhering to the distinction between the inspired idea and its illustrative language. Men who quote a passage like Psalm 104 : 14 as either an approval or disapproval of wine-drinking per se, or who would regard the writer's language as equally infallible in respect to the supposed physical fact and the spiritual lesson, ought to consider where such a principle of interpretation would lead them if carried out. Psalm 121 : 4 teaches the sleepless providence of God, the safety of those who commit themselves to its protection. This is the inspired idea. It is in itself full and perfect. It might have been presented in general terms. The writer, however, under the suggestive power of the Divine emotion, though not scientifically taught by it, is impelled to the use of vivid examples. He has a rich imagination. On this account, it may be, God chose him for His inspired human medium. His figures are exceedingly rich and beautiful : "Behold, He slumbereth not who keepeth Israel. Jehovah is thy watcher ; Jehovah is thy covering shadow, on the right hand and on the left. By day the sun shall not smite thee, nor the moon by night." Inspiration does not disdain to borrow from inspiration (Rev. 7 : 16) : "Never more shall the sun fall upon them, nor any heat." The second illustration of Psalm 121 is taken from the supposed evil influence of the moon. Now whether this be true or not as scientific fact, does not at all affect its force and vividness, or its fitness as a representative of the Divine idea. The moonbeams streaming by night into the chamber of the sleepless invalid, how vividly might it recall to him the spiritual solace of this assuring language ! To the pure spiritual believer, the sense of protection which it gives would not be in the least impaired by any opinion he might entertain, or might suppose the old Hebrew writer to have entertained, respecting the scientific fact, real or imaginary. On the other hand, he who should treat this as inspired proof that the moon does actually exert a malarious physical influence, or should thus use the Bible to settle a physical question, would be acting precisely like the fanatical anti-temperance man who should cite Psalm 104 : 14 as a Divine testimony to wine-drinking, or a sure proof that alcoholic stimulus must be in itself a good and healthful thing. The cases are alike, whether the religionist uses one or both as a sure attestation to a fact in natural philosophy, or the infidel seizes hold of either as a ground of cavil against the intrinsic truthfulness of the Scriptures. Tayler Lewis. [For the "third class," see Prov. 23 : 29-35. B.] 15. Bread which strengtheneth man's heart.** In hunger not only the strength is prostrated, but the natural courage is also abated. Hunger has no enterprise, emulation, nor courage. But when, in such circumstances, a little bread is received into the stomach, the strength is restored, and the spirits revived. A. Clarke. 16. The trees of Jehovah**, so called as planted, not by human hand, but by God Himself, trees of the forest and the mountain, in opposition to those which come under human cultivation, such as the vine and the olive, which are implied in v. 15. P. Full are the trees of Jehovah ; the cedars of Lebanon which He planted. Full ; i.e., abundantly supplied, saturated as in v. 13. What is first said of trees, or of the noblest trees, in general, is then said of the cedars in particular. The trees of Jehovah, like the cedars of God in Psalm 80 : 10, are those which, by their loftiness, fruitfulness, or beauty, bear the strongest impress of their Maker's hand. The cedars of Lebanon are often mentioned as the noblest and most famous of their kind. A.—The cedars are "trees of the Lord" on account of the peculiarities of their structure. In common with all the pine tribe, they are exceptional in their organization. They reveal a new idea of the creative mind. The cedars are "the trees of the Lord" on account of the antiquity of their type. It was of this class of trees that the pre-Adamite forests were principally composed. The cedars are the "trees of the Lord" on account of the majesty of their appearance. It is the tree, par excellence, of the Bible, the type of all forest vegetation. Hugh Macmillan. 17. Where the (small) birds nestle ; (as to) the stork, the cypresses (are) her house.** He again recurs to the provision made for birds, which is here connected with the trees, as it is in v. 12. The word translated birds is not the one there used, but the same with that in Psalm 84 : 3 ; 102 : 7, where it is commonly translated sparrow, though supposed to be a general term for small birds, so called from their chirping, twittering noise. Here it may represent the smaller and the stork the larger class of birds. The Hebrew name of the stork means merciful, and is supposed to have reference to the natural kindness of that bird, both to its parents and its young. Nestle, or build their nests. A. How one thing fits into another in this fair creation, each link drawing on its fellow; the rains water the fir-trees, and the fir-trees become the happy home of birds. Observe, also, how everything has its use—the boughs furnish a home for the birds; and every living thing has its accommodation—the stork finds a house in the pines. Her nest is called a house, because this bird exhibits domestic virtues and maternal love which make her young to be comparable to a family. S. 18. The high mountains and precipices or “cliffs” are mentioned because they, like the trees, are a shelter for the wild animals. God provides food and God provides shelter for His creatures. P.—The names of the animals here mentioned are not of the slightest exegetical importance, since the only peculiarities involved are those suggested by the text itself—to wit, that the animals intended must be such as inhabit rocks and mountains. A. 19. Transition to the work of the fourth day; but still so contrived as to introduce another picture of life upon the earth, and the contrast between the life of the night and the life of the day. The moon, mentioned first, because to the Hebrew mind the night naturally preceded the day, as throughout Gen. 1, “And there was evening and there was morning.” Hence we have first the night-scene (vs. 20, 21) and then the day-scene (vs. 22, 23). P. He made the moon for seasons; the sun knows his setting. Even the heavenly bodies have a reference to man’s advantage. The moon is a measure of time, and the sun defines the period of active labor. The word translated seasons is here put for all divisions of time, including the succession of day and night, to which there is perhaps a special reference, as in the other clause, where the meaning seems to be that the sun knows when and where to set, and does not make the day with its attendant toils perpetual. This is a strong poetical description of an obvious and familiar fact, and no more presupposes a particular theory or system of astronomy than the similar language of uninspired poets among ourselves. A.—Knoweth his going down. This mention of the sunset prepares the way for the night-picture which follows. 20-23. Even the night has its busy life; the beasts of prey are abroad, and they, too, wait upon the providence of God. The whole picture is finely conceived, and the contrast is perfect between the restless movement and roaring of the wild beasts, and man’s calm life of labor, continued in the quiet light of day from morning till evening. All the other creatures wait upon God, in simple dependence upon Him; man must labor, as well as gather what God gives him, if he would be satisfied with good. P.—“Beasts of the forest creep forth,” not stealthily, but as those who are in their place and on their own time. God made them for night work. “Seek their food from God,” in the way of seeking by instinct what His careful bounty has provided. The Psalmist purposely honors God as the Great Provider for even the powerful lion. C. 23. Forth goes man to his work, and to his labor until evening. This verse presents the day-scene corresponding to the night-scene of the two preceding verses. When night comes on, the beasts of the forest are in motion; when the sun appears, they gather to their lairs, and man comes forth to labor until evening, when the scene is shifted as before. Leaving out of view all higher claims to admiration and respect, the poetical merit of this whole description is of the highest order. A. Man alone, among all creatures, in distinction from the involuntary instruments of the Almighty, has a real daily work. He has a definite part to play in life, and can recognize it. Moll.—God appoints to every one his work, and prepares every one for that work by special training in His providence, and by special gifts through His Spirit. Let every one, then, accept his actual life work as from God, let every one recognize, use, and profit by his daily providential training, actively and wisely employ his gifts, and steadfastly seek the guiding, helping grace of the Divine Spirit. B. Toil is a pleasure. There is no steady-going, every-day reliable pleasure that is superior to that of laying by in store for the future, and seeing in hand and secure the products of that toil. It is the mainstay of hope and of pleasant anticipation. It is a very simple and homely matter, but it would be hard to find anything pleasanter than the sight of a load of hay or grain going into the barn. Any storing away for future use is the same—storing away knowledge and education in the mind, money in the savings bank, apples and roots in the cellar, or laying up treasures in heaven, where moth or rust doth not corrupt, nor thieves break through nor steal. Interior. It is a principle sufficiently evident in the infirmity of man that he cannot give himself incessantly to labor, whether bodily or mental, but must have seasons of repose. We shrink from the thought and mention of suicide, but there are other modes of self-destruction than that of laying hands on one’s own person. There is the suicide of intemperance; there is also the suicide of over-labor. It is as much our duty to relax when we feel our strength overpassed, as to persevere while that strength is sufficient. God has, with tender consideration, provided intervals of repose, and so made it a man's own fault if he sink beneath excessive labor. What a beautiful ordinance is that of day and night! What a gracious appointment is that of Sunday! When the Sabbath is spent in the duties that belong to it, its influence gives fresh edge to the blunted human powers. At last we must all wear away, but our comfort is that, though the outer man perish, the inner man shall be renewed day by day. Melvill. Man goes forth to work and do good. There is the work of every day, which is to be done in its day, which man must apply to every morning, for the lights are set up for us to work by, not to play by, and which we must stick to till evening; it will be time enough to rest when the night comes, in which no man can work. H. Every Christian, whatever he is doing, should be laboring for that which endures to everlasting life. His toil should not have self for its end, but God and Christ, and, in them, the good of suffering, sinful humanity. When others, with every fresh gain, put only the question, What more can I do for myself? he is to ask, What more can I do for Christ and His cause? What more for man? The Christian will not have less security for his own maintenance, but all the more. He will have his daily bread by his Lord's prayer, but then he works for it, not as an absolute owner of himself or of his labor, but as a steward; and all his business, in the dullest cities where he toils, has spires pointing Godward and heavenward. Men may call this ideal and impracticable, but it has been largely realized by some—it is, in a degree, by many—and it is the only thing that can redeem human business from being dreary, degrading toil, and man himself from feeling that he is a mere beast of burden. It will carry comfort and dignity into every day of our life, and every hour of the day, if we bear this precept with us: "Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Ker. To live in a perpetual day and have what we call the hours of business ceaseless, even as the flow of rivers, would leave us no room for reflection. Our soul would be blind to itself by reason of the perpetual seeing of our eyes. God therefore draws a curtain over His light, checks the busy hours of work and the turmoil of trade, and recalls us to moods of silence and meditative thoughtfulness in the depths of our own spirit. Another day is gone, its works are ended. Am- Ambition has spent the fever of another day. Pleasure has exhausted her charms. Idleness itself is weary. And now, as the world grows still and excitement dies away, the mind calls off its activity and turns it inward on itself. It hears no call of God, perhaps, and thinks of doing nothing as a duty. But a pause has come, and something it must think of, for it cannot stand still. Detained by nothing now on hand, it travels far, and makes a large review. It takes in, as it were, by snatches, other worlds. It touches the springs of its own immortal wants, and they answer quick and heavily. Whatever wrong has been committed stalks into the mind with an appalling tread. If God is a subject unwelcome, and guilt another even more unwelcome, the moral nature has so great advantage now, and, withal, so great sensibility that the door of the soul is held open to things not welcome. All those highest and most piercing truths that most deeply concern the great problem of life will often come nigh to thoughtful men in the dusk of their evenings and their hours of retirement to rest. The night is the judgment-bar of the day. Bushnell. Until the evening. Not in the daytime only, lest we begin to run well, but fall away before our course is ended. The end is the proof of the matter. When the sun shines, this earth pleases; but let us look toward that eventide and the cool of the day, when the Lord of the vineyard will walk amid the trees of the garden, and say unto His steward, "Call the laborers, and give them their hire, beginning from the last unto the first." That evening will be the trial, when the heat, and fever, and noise of the noontide are over, and the light fades, and the prospect saddens, and the shades lengthen, and the busy world is still. May that day and that hour ever be in our thoughts. Newman.—There is nothing more impressive than to stand amid a great city at dead of night, when labor rests, "And all that mighty heart is lying still!" Thus is it when life's day is over. Of what pertains to this present time, no more can be done. The season of trial and of labor for our fellows is over; it is the hour of sleep. The time of study, for this life, is over; the time of earthly plans; the time of bold adventure; it is the hour of sleep. "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest." And yet that grave is not so much a tomb as a resting-place, a cemetery. How much more lovely and more Christian would our graveyards be if they had more of heaven and less of earth ; more of rest in that blessed sleep, and less of the restless pursuit of human glory ; more of our oneness in Christ, and less of our earthly caste and separation ! J. W. A. 24. In wisdom Thou hast made them all.** The natural and appropriate reflection from such a survey of God's works in the material world and in His general providence. What wisdom shines forth in all these wonderful adaptations of earth to man and beast ! C.—Every essence created or uncreated hath its final cause, and some positive end both of its essence and operation ; this is the cause I grope after in the works of nature, on this hangs the providence of God ; to raise so beauteous a structure as the world and the creatures thereof was but His art, but their sundry and divided operations with their predestinated ends are from the treasury of His wisdom. Browne.—How many millions of wonders doth the very face of the earth offer me ; which of these herbs, flowers, trees, leaves, seeds, fruits, is there ; what beast, what worm, wherein we may not see the footsteps of a Deity ? wherein we may not read infiniteness of power, of skill ? What shall we say to thee, the Maker of all these ? " O Lord, how wonderful are Thy works in all the world ! in wisdom hast thou made them all." And in all these Thou spakest, and they were done. Thy will is Thy word, and Thy word is Thy deed. Bishop H. The countless numbers, the immense distances, the prodigious magnitudes, and the regular movements of the heavenly bodies, present views of the might, the majesty, and the wisdom of the Supreme Being, such as overwhelm the mind with devout amazement. These views have increased in clearness and extent, in proportion to the progress of science and of astronomical discovery. No faults or blemishes are ever detected ; but as the researches of philosophy have extended, new causes of admiration have been ever presenting themselves in every department of nature that has come under the cognizance of man. R. Wardlaw.—The pure light which gilds the whole world around is not a colorless, nor even a one-colored ray, but is the blending of all the prismatic hues ; and every substance absorbs and rejects these hues in varying degrees, and hence the manifold beauty which surrounds us on every side. Search where we will, every climate has its own varieties of flora and fauna, its own peculiarities of soil and vegetation, its own development of life. And the geologist has disclosed to us vast ages of bygone time teeming with active existence ; animals as perfect as those of the present day, and as well fitted to perform their part in the world's great drama, and yet filling us with astonishment as we notice how unlike they are to everything which exists now. And the vast and gigantic vegetation among which they roamed is of forms which, if they now exist at all, do so only in dwarfed and stunted growth. Wherever we look we feel that variety is the law of creation. In the words of the Psalmist, we exclaim, " O Lord, how manifold are Thy works !" R. P. S. The indications of wisdom are the more perfect and complete in proportion to the extent of the plan, the diversity and complicated nature of the operations to be performed, and the greatness of the exigencies to be provided for, in effecting a given result. The plan of the Almighty's works has no limits ; His operations are infinitely diversified ; exigencies without end have to be provided for ; but Divine wisdom comprehends the whole, meets every exigency, and secures the ultimate fulfilment of all His purposes. If we look through the economy of nature we shall see these features of wisdom illustrated in all God's works. W. Cooke. The earth is full of Thy riches. As of old, at the foundation of the earth, the submerging waters at His word fled " above the firmament," or " hasted" into the channels prepared for them, so still, within the narrower " bound" that He has set lest they " cover the earth" again, " they go up by the mountains, they go down by the valleys." The cloud-wains are overturned upon the heights where they have climbed, for He " watereth the hills from His chambers"—those same " chambers" in the salted sea—the " springs go through the valleys," they " run among the hills" and " the earth is satisfied." Considering that even in our day the " actual process of producing rain is not yet fully known ;" considering the variety of the powers that conjoin in the process described—gravitation, light, heat, electricity, elastic diffusion ; considering the tremendous energy involved, since " to evaporate water enough to cover one hundred miles surface with one inch of rain requires force equal to the combustion of half a million tons of coal," do not these words that follow seem most fit : " O Lord, how manifold are Thy works ! in wisdom hast Thou made them all ; the earth is full of Thy riches." J. B. Thomas. 25. Here is the sea, great and wide on all hands ; there are moving things, and without number, small animals with great. The exclamation or reflection in the preceding verse affords a transition to the survey of other parts of the creation, no less striking in themselves and as proofs or illustrations of the Maker's wisdom. Such is the sea, or here, for instance, is the sea, are the phrases which would probably be used in our idiom to introduce the first example. The same thing was probably intended by the Hebrew phrase, this (is) the sea, as if the speaker at the same time pointed to it. A. Things innumerable, both small and great. The number of minute forms of animal life is indeed beyond all reckoning; a single phosphorescent wave may bear millions of infusoria, and around a fragment of rock armies of microscopic beings may gather. Nor are these tiny creatures the only tenants of the sea, for it contains gigantic mammals which exceed in bulk those which range the land, and a vast host of huge fishes which wander among the waves, and hide in the caverns of the sea. S. 26. There the ships go—leviathan—this (that) Thou hast formed to play therein. While the ships connect the sea with man's activity and interests, leviathan, the standing representative of aquatic monsters, may be here put for the population of the sea itself. To play therein, as in his native element. (Compare Job 40 : 20.) A.—Leviathan is made to "play in the sea;" he hath nothing to do as man hath, that "goes forth to his work;" he hath nothing to fear as the beasts have, that lie down in their dens; and therefore he plays with the waters. It is pity any of the children of men, that have nobler powers and were made for nobler purposes, should live as if they were sent into the world like the leviathan into the waters, to play therein, spending all their time in pastime. H. 28. Thou givest to them, they gather; Thou openest Thy hand, they are filled (with) food. The point of the significant antithesis is this, that God as easily bestows as they receive. He has only to give, they have only to gather. He has but to open His hand, and they are instantly provided, even to satiety. Filled, satisfied, abundantly supplied, as in v. 13. A. God is a bountiful Benefactor. He gives the creatures their meat; He opens His hand, and they are filled with good. He is open-handed in the gifts of his bounty, and is a great and good Housekeeper, that provides for so large a family. They are patient expectants from Him. They all wait upon Him; they seek their food according to the natural instinct God has put into them, and in the proper season for it; and affect not any other food or at any other time than nature has ordained; they do their part for the obtaining of it; what God gives them they gather, and expect not that Providence should put it into their mouths; and what they gather they are satisfied with; they are filled with good; they desire no more than what God sees fit for them, which may shame our discontent and dissatisfaction with our lot. H. To make our reliance upon Providence both pious and rational, we should in every great enterprise we take in hand prepare all things with that care, diligence, and activity, as if there were no such thing as Providence for us to depend on; and again, when we have done all this we should as wholly and humbly depend upon it as if we had made no preparations at all. And this is a rule of practice which will never fail or shame any who shall venture their all upon it. South. 29. Thou hidest Thy face, they are confounded; Thou withdrawest their breath, they expire, and to their dust return. The hiding of God's face here means the suspension or withdrawing of the various benefits before described. They are troubled is, in every case, a feeble version of one of the strongest words in the language. Even confounded, though much stronger, does not perfectly convey the idea, which is that of being agitated, terror-stricken, or convulsed. A. 29, 30. The preservation of the world rests continually on the same foundation as the creation—viz., on God's word of command, which He utters continually, or, as it is also expressed, sends forth; and it rests just as continually on the Divine Spirit, which He causes ever to go forth. The main passage for this Divine communication of the Spirit which continues in the preservation of the world is this: "Thou takest away their (the creatures') spirit, and they die, and turn again to their dust; Thou sendest forth Thy Spirit, and they are created; and Thou renewest the form of the earth." Oehler.—That is a true axiom in divinity, Providence is creation continued. Now the Spirit of God, who created at first, creates to this day: "Thou sendest forth Thy spirit, they are created." The work of creation was finished in the first six days of the world, but the work of creation is renewed every day, and so continued to the end of the world. Successive providential creation as well as original creation is ascribed to the Spirit. "And Thou renewest the face of the earth." God makes a new world every year, sending forth His Spirit, or quickening power, in the rain and sun to renew the face of the earth. And as the Lord sends forth His power in providential mercies, so in providential judgments. Caryl. As creation is the will of God that things should exist and begin to be, so providence is the will of God that things should continue to be. The created world continues by the very same power which caused it to begin. This preservation of all things is the first act of Providence, and that without which other acts would have been impossible. None but God, the infinite One, can be conceived of as competent to so great a work. It demands for its execution omniscience, to know the universe which is to be preserved, and to know how to preserve it; omnipresence, to apply this Divine knowledge in every place; and omnipotence, to carry out the amazing work on the immensity of things. J. W. A. 30. Thou renewest the face of the earth.** The first voice we hear speaks directly for God, for the Divine existence and presence with us in His works. "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God." Nature says in her heart, and in every color and feature of her flushing face, "There is a God, and He is here!" The spring sings a clear song of the Divine faithfulness. Every spring is with God the keeping of covenant. He is, as it were, conducting an argument as to His own fidelity. The season tells us softly and melodiously of Divine tenderness. God takes this season of the year to tell us especially what tenderness, what delicacy, what colorings of exquisite beauty there are in His nature. In Him are all the archetypes of beauty and all the fountains of tenderness; we may therefore commit ourselves and all we have to His keeping. Spring has a voice of good cheer to all who are serving God faithfully and seeking good ends for themselves or for others, although as yet with little apparent result. For when does it come? Immediately after the winter. This tells us never to despair, never to despond. God needs the winter for souls to prepare for the spring; but He never forgets to bring the spring when the time has come. The spring has a voice which sounds away into the far future, and foretells "the time of the restitution of all things." Spring gives announcement of the general resurrection from the dead, while it tells us that all our earthly time is the spring season of our existence. A. Raleigh. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 1892. Preliminary: Points of Reminder and of Connection with Previous History, and of Suggestion and Explanation Touching the History Covered by this Volume. The Books Included in this Volume: Collectively; Joshua; Judges; First and Second Samuel; Kings; Chronicles. The Chronology. bread, and the heavens in shedding their sweet influences on your path. For you the morning will dawn and the evening descend. For you "the winds will blow, earth rest, heavens move, and fountains flow." You will be able to claim a peculiar property in the works of your Father's hand and the bounties of your Father's providence. You will have served yourself heir to Him who is the Universal Proprietor, and become "heir of God, and joint heir with Christ." And so "the world" and the fulness thereof will become "yours," because "ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." Caird. We see everywhere emblems of Him. Every day we walk amid the "outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace," and in that meaning of the word sacrament, the true and Christian view of this wonderful world is that it is all one great sacrament. All the elements stand as types of spiritual things. The sunshine is to speak to us of the "light of the world," the life of men. The wind blows, an emblem of that Spirit which, though He comes low and soft as befits a "Comforter," can rise and wax into a tempest against all "the lofty and lifted up." The water speaks of the stream of life and the drink for thirsty souls; and the fire of His purity and of His wrath. All objects are consecrated to Him. The trees of the field, in a thousand places, speak of the "root of David," and the vine of which we are all branches. The everlasting mountains are His "righteousness," the mighty deep His "judgments." All the processes of nature have been laid hold of by Him. The gentle dew falls a promise, and the lashing rain forebodes another storm, when many a sand-built house shall be swept away. Every spring is a prophecy of the resurrection of the dead, every harvest a promise of the coming of His kingdom and the blessed issues of all service for Him. All living things, in like manner, testify of Him. In that sense, as in others, He is Lord over the fish of the sea, and over the fowls of the air, and over the beasts of the field. All relations between men testify of Him. Father and mother, brother and friend, husband, parent and children, they are all consecrated for this purpose. In a word, every act of our life sets forth some aspect of our Lord and of our relation to Him, from the moment when we open our eyes in the morning, all through the busy day, when our work may speak to us of Him that worketh continually, and our rest may prophesy to us of the "rest that remaineth for the people of God;" and our journeyings may tell of the journey of the soul to God, and our home may testify of the home which is above the skies—up to the hour when night falls, and sleep, the image of death, speaks to us of the last solemn moment, when we shall close the eyes of our body on earth, to open those of our soul on the realities of eternity; when we shall no more "see through a glass darkly, but face to face." All things, and all acts, and this whole wonderful universe, proclaim to us the Lord our Father, Christ our love, Christ our hope, our portion, and our joy! A. M. 1. O GIVE thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name; Make known his doings among the peoples. 2 Sing unto him, sing praises unto him; Talk [or, meditate] ye of all his marvellous works. 3 Glory ye in his holy name: Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD. 4 Seek ye the LORD and his strength; Seek his face evermore. 5 Remember his marvellous works that he hath done; His wonders, and the judgments of his mouth; 6 O ye seed of Abraham his servant, Ye children of Jacob, his chosen ones. 7 He is the LORD our God: His judgments are in all the earth. 8 He hath remembered his covenant for ever, The word which he commanded to a thousand generations; 9 The covenant which he made with Abraham, And his oath unto Isaac 10. And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a statute, To Israel for an everlasting covenant :11 Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, The lot of your inheritance :12 When they were but a few men in number ; Yea, very few, and sojourners in it ;13 And they went about from nation to nation, From one kingdom to another people.14 He suffered no man to do them wrong ; Yea, he reproved kings for their sakes ;15 Saying, Touch not mine anointed ones, And do my prophets no harm.16 And he called for a famine upon the land ; He brake the whole staff of bread.17 He sent a man before them ; Joseph was sold for a servant.18 His feet they hurt with fetters ; He was laid in chains of iron :19 Until the time that his word came to pass ; The word of the LORD tried him.20 The king sent and loosed him ; Even the ruler of peoples, and let him go free.21 He made him lord of his house, And ruler of all his substance :22 To bind his princes at his pleasure, And teach his senators wisdom.23 Israel also came into Egypt ; And Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.24 And he increased his people greatly, And made them stronger than their adversaries.25 He turned their heart to hate his people, To deal subtilly with his servants.26 He sent Moses his servant, And Aaron whom he had chosen.27 They set among them his signs, And wonders in the land of Ham.28 He sent darkness, and made it dark ; And they rebelled not against his words.29 He turned their waters into blood, And slew their fish.30 Their land swarmed with frogs, In the chambers of their kings.31 He spake, and there came swarms of flies, And lice in all their borders.32 He gave them hail for rain, And flaming fire in their land.33 He smote their vines also and their fig trees ; And brake the trees of their borders.34 He spake, and the locust came, And the cankerworm, and that without number,35 And did eat up every herb in their land, And did eat up the fruit of their ground.36 He smote also all the firstborn in their land, The chief of all their strength.37 And he brought them forth with silver and gold : And there was not one feeble person among his tribes.38 Egypt was glad when they departed ; For the fear of them had fallen upon them.39 He spread a cloud for a covering ; And fire to give light in the night.40 They asked, and he brought quails, And satisfied them with the bread of heaven.41 He opened the rock, and waters gushed out ; They ran in the dry places like a river.42 For he remembered his holy word, And Abraham his servant.43 And he brought forth his people with joy, And his chosen with singing.44 And he gave them the lands of the nations ; And they took the labour of the peoples in possession :45 That they might keep his statutes, And observe his laws. PRAISE YE THE LORD ! PSALM 104 expatiates upon the works of God in the material world, its creation and its agencies ; this Psalm gives a corresponding view of God's hand in history, His ways with His covenant people from the promise of Canaan to Abraham and the patriarchs to its fulfilment under Joshua in locating the tribes safely in that land of promise. C. This Psalm, like the seventy-eighth and the one hundred and sixth, has for its theme the early history of Israel, and God's wonders wrought on behalf of the nation ; but it differs from both those Psalms in the intention with which it pursues this theme. The seventy-eighth Psalm is didactic ; its object is to teach a lesson ; it recalls the past, as conveying instruction and warning for the present. The one hundred and sixth Psalm is a Psalm of penitential confession. The history of the past appears in it only as a history of Israel's sin. In this Psalm, on the other hand, the mighty acts of Jehovah for His people from the first dawn of their national existence are recounted as a fitting subject for thankfulness, and as a ground for future obedience. Those interpositions of God are especially dwelt upon which have a reference to the fulfilment of His promise, which exhibit most clearly His faithfulness to His covenant. Hence the series begins with the covenant made with Abraham, tracing all the steps in its fulfilment to the occupation of the Promised Land. This is commenced, as the theme of the Psalm, in vs. 8-11. The first fifteen verses are found in 1 Chr. 16:8-22 (with some slight variations), as the first portion of the festal song which, on the day when the ark of God was brought to its resting-place on Zion, was delivered by David into the hands of Asaph and his brethren, "to give thanks unto Jehovah." P.—The first fifteen verses tell that it is sovereign grace that ruleth over all—it is a sovereign God. Out of a fallen world He takes whom He pleases—individuals, families, nations. He chose Israel long ago, that they might be the objects of grace, and their land the theatre of its display. A. Bonar. 1-6. The greatness of God's love, as manifested to His people in their history, calls for the fullest acknowledgment. The Psalmist would have Israel sound forth His praises among all nations. They are not to sit down in idle satisfaction with their own privileges. His "doings" (v. 1), His "wondrous works" (vs. 3, 5), His "tokens," "the judgments of His mouth" (v. 5), "His holy name" (v. 3), as the revelation of His character and attributes—all these are to form the subject of loud thanksgiving—all these are to become, through Israel, the heritage of the world. P. 1. Call upon His name. The original meaning of the phrase is, call (Him) by His name, i.e., give Him the descriptive title most expressive of His Divine perfections; or more specifically, call Him by His name Jehovah, i.e., ascribe to Him the attributes which it denotes—to wit, eternity and self-existence, together with that covenant relation to His people which, though not denoted by the name, was constantly associated with it, and therefore necessarily suggested by it. A. 4. Seek His face evermore. Seek to have His favor to eternity, and therefore continue seeking it to the end of the time of your probation. Seek it while you live in this world and you shall have it while you live in the other world, and even there shall be forever seeking it in an infinite progression, and yet be forever satisfied in it. H.—Such is our dependence upon God, that we are obliged not only to do everything for His sake, but also to seek from Him the very power so to do. And this happy necessity of having recourse to Him in all our wants, instead of being grievous to us should be our greatest consolation. What a happiness it is, that we are allowed to speak to Him with confidence; to open our hearts and hold familiar conversation with Him by prayer! Fénelon. The God whom men need and can know and love, the God who is a Spirit, comes near to us in descriptions cast in the mould of humanity, and loses none of His purely spiritual essence, nor any of His infinitude, because we have learned to speak of the eye, and arm, and the hand, and the heart, and the face of the Lord. The eye of the Lord is His all-seeing knowledge; the arm and the hand of the Lord are substantially the same, though with certain shades of difference in the ideas which they suggest, and may be said to express the active energy of the Divine nature. The face of the Lord, we may say, is that aspect or side of the Divine nature which is turned to man, and is perceptible by him. There is no limit to our consciousness of God's loving presence and help, except that drawn by ourselves. He fills the vessels we bring, be they large or small. And there is no possibility of any longing after Him remaining unsatisfied. No hunger of heart, no aching emptiness, no eyes failing with looking for the visitor who never comes, no pining away in sick disappointment, have any place in the relation of the soul to God. So sufficient is He, so near, so infinitely desirous to impart Himself, that He needs but the narrowest opening to pour His fulness into the heart. To seek is to find, to wish for God is to have God. "Seek His face evermore," and your life will be bright because you will walk in the light of His countenance always. That face will brighten the darkness of death, and "make a sunshine in that shady place." A. M. 5,6. Because they are Abraham's seed, because they are God's chosen, because they are Jacob's children, heritors of the covenant and the promises, they are bound beyond all others to "remember" what God has done for them. On the other hand, God, who made the covenant with their fathers, "remembers" it (v. 8), "for His part will surely keep and perform" it. 7. The Psalmist begins himself that praise of God to which he has exhorted his people. And first he extols "the covenant," "the word" (or promise), the "oath" by which God had bound Himself to the patriarchs, and which He "remembered," i.e., fulfilled when He brought them into the land of Canaan. Our God, by covenant, but also Judge and Ruler of all nations. P. 8. He hath remembered His covenant forever.** Here is the basis of all His dealings with His people; He had entered into covenant with them in their father Abraham, and to this covenant He remained faithful. The exhortation to remember (in v. 5) receives great force from the fact that God has remembered. To us it should be matter for deepest joy that never in any instance has the Lord been unmindful of His covenant engagements, nor will He be so world without end. S. 15. Mine anointed. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had no external anointing. They were, however, called “anointed,” because they were separated by God from the multitude of wicked men, and endowed with the Spirit and His gifts, of which the oil was an emblem, Mollerus.—Prophets.** The prophet is the forth-speaker; the term laying stress on the utterance, and not upon the vision. The Hebrew word comes from a root which means to bubble up and overflow as from a full fountain. But the fulness of the true prophets of Jehovah was of the Divine Spirit within them. “The prophecy came not in old time by the will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” The first application of the word is to Abraham (Gen. 20 : 7); although, long before Abraham, “Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied” (Jude 14). D. Fraser. 16. From this point, as far as v. 38, the history of the nation in Egypt is followed, with a recognition of the Divine hand fashioning it at every step, and at every step accomplishing the fulfilment of the promise. 16-22. First, the preliminary steps in the history of Joseph. The famine in Canaan was no chance occurrence; God called for it. Joseph’s position in Egypt was no accident; God had sent him thither; so he himself traces the hand of God. P. 16. And He called (for) a famine on the land; every staff of bread He brake. The Psalmist passes from the Patriarchal to the Egyptian period of the history, by stating the occasion of Israel’s migration into Egypt. The meaning of the first clause seems to be, that He summoned famine, as His instrument or servant, to come down upon the land, as sent from above—that is to say, from Himself. The meaning of the last clause is, that the people were deprived of every customary means and source of subsistence. The figure of a staff or stay is a Mosaic one. It is near akin to the description of food as staying or sustaining the heart. 19. Until the time that his word came (to pass), the saying of Jehovah tried him. The last verb properly denotes the assaying of metals, but is figuratively applied to moral trial and purgation. The most probable meaning is, that during the two years which intervened between Joseph’s explanation of the prisoners’ dreams and the favorable issue to which it ultimately led, his faith in the Divine promise, both to himself and to his people, was severely but favorably tried. A.—The story of Joseph is to all men forever the best proof of the working of the hand of Providence. As through the life of Joseph, so through our life, there are threads which connect the different scenes and bind together the destinies of the different actors. This history and the inspired commentary on it in Psalm 105 teach us the wonderful continuity of God’s plan and the oneness of the thread that binds together the histories of Israel and of Egypt. C. H. Butcher. 24. What follows to v. 38 is a résumé of the history as given in the first twelve chapters of Exodus, and especially of the plagues. The fifth and sixth plagues, however, are omitted altogether, and the plague of darkness is placed first; in other respects the order of Exodus is observed. P. 34. Without number.** A swarm [of locusts], which was observed in India in 1825, occupied a space of forty English square miles, contained at least forty millions of locusts in one line, and cast a long shadow on the earth. And Major Moore thus describes an immense army of these animals which ravaged the Mahratta country: “The column they composed extended five hundred miles; and so compact was it when on the wing, that, like an eclipse, it completely hid the sun, so that no shadow was cast by any object.” Brown, in his travels in Africa, states that an area of nearly two thousand square miles was literally covered by them; and Kirby and Spence mention that a column of them was so immense that they took four hours to fly over the spot where the observer stood. Kalisch. 37. It was of the Lord’s justice that these bondmen were not allowed to go forth empty-handed. He directed them to borrow (the Hebrew is simply ask) of the Egyptians. The last plague made them willing to lend or give. It was but moderate wages for their lifelong services (Ex. 11 : 2 ; 12 : 35, 36). “Not one halting, tottering one in their tribes”—unable to march. C. 38. Glad was Egypt at their going forth, for their fear had fallen upon them. This panic terror, which followed the last plague and facilitated the escape of Israel, accounts for the readiness with which the Egyptians gave whatever was demanded, and completely vindicates the children of Israel from the charge of borrowing what they never meant to pay. The terms used in the history denote the acts of asking and giving, not those of borrowing and lending. A. 39-41. Three of the principal miracles in the wilderness, which sum up the period between the departure from Egypt and the entrance into the promised land. P. 42. Because He remembered His holy word with Abraham His servant This brings us back to the statement in vs. 8, 9, in proof of which this long array of facts has been presented. Nothing of all this would have taken place if God had been forgetful of His covenant. This covenant is here meant by His holy word, which is therefore followed by the preposition with, as in Ex. 9 : 24, where the covenant is expressly mentioned. A. 44,45. He put them in possession of Canaan, not that they might live in plenty and honor and might make a figure among the nations, but that they might observe His statutes and keep His laws; that, being formed into a people, they might be under God's immediate government, and revealed religion might be the basis of their national constitution; that, having a good land given them, they might out of the profits of it bring sacrifices to God's altar; and that, God having thus done them good, they might the more cheerfully receive His law, concluding that also designed for their good, and might be sensible of their obligations in gratitude to live in obedience to Him. We are therefore made, maintained, and redeemed, that we may live in obedience to the will of God; and the hallelujah with which the Psalm concludes may be taken both as a thankful acknowledgment of God's favors, and as a cheerful concurrence with this great intention of them. H.—The chosen nation was to be the conservator of truth, the exemplar of morality, the pattern of devotion; everything was so ordered as to place them in advantageous circumstances for fulfilling this trust. Theirs was a high calling and a glorious election. It involved great responsibilities, but it was in itself a distinguished blessing, and one for which the nation was bound to give thanks. Most justly then did the music close with the jubilant but solemn shout of hallelujah—“Praise ye the Lord!” S. The condition of the Israelites in the wilderness ness and in Canaan alike represent our present state as Christians. Our Christian life is a state of faith and trial; it is also a state of enjoyment. It has the richness of the promised land; it has the marvellousness of the desert. It is a “good land, a land of brooks,” etc. And it is still a land which to the natural man seems a wilderness, a “great and terrible wilderness,” etc.; where faith is still necessary, and where “man doth not live by bread only, but by every word out of the mouth of the Lord.” Newman. The journey of the people through the wilderness represented our pilgrimage through this world; and the land of Canaan was a shadow of the heavenly rest. The present life is a way; it is not the end of our being, it is not our rest, it is not our abode; but the place of our pilgrimage, a passage to eternity. There is much intricacy in the Christian's pilgrimage. There were no paths in the wilderness; the Israelites could not have explored their way but by the direction of the pillar of fire and of the cloud, so the Christian knows not how to explore his path. There are doctrinal difficulties by which we are perplexed, and errors to which we are continually exposed, and which we know not how to escape but by attention to “the light that shineth in a dark place.” There are voices that are heard in the wilderness, crying, “Lo here,” and “Lo there;” but we must not go after them; we must “search the Scriptures,” and ask the guidance of the Spirit, or we shall never have the comfort that arises from right views of truth, nor hear the “voice behind us saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.” The way lies through a hostile country, and is therefore discouraging. We pass through an enemy's land. The Israelites were obliged to unite the courage of the military with the assiduity of the pilgrim's life; they had to fight as well as travel. And so must we; on our pilgrimage we must gird on “the whole armor of God, taking the sword of the Spirit, and the shield of faith;” we must conquer as well as advance; we must fight our way or die. The false steps that are taken in the pilgrimage, and the consequent displeasure of God are discouraging; there are so many errors and iniquities for which the Lord chastens His people, though He pardons sin as to its eternal consequences. But with all its discouragements the way of the believer is “a right way.” Infinite Wisdom has ordained it, and if you reach the end, you will be well repaid for all your toil and will admire the whole of the pilgrimage; no sorrow will appear to have been too heavy; no path too gloomy. There was no bitter ingredient in your cup that could have been spared; no affliction but what operated to promote the "far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." You will look back and acknowledge that Infinite Wisdom directed the darkest path, and caused it to terminate in joy and glory unutterable. R. Hall. 1. PRAISE ye the LORD. O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: For his mercy endureth for ever. 2. Who can utter the mighty acts of the LORD, Or shew forth all his praise? 3. Blessed are they that keep judgment, And he that doeth righteousness at all times. 4. Remember me, O LORD, with the favour that thou bearest unto thy people; O visit me with thy salvation: 5. That I may see the prosperity of thy chosen, That I may rejoice in the gladness of thy nation, That I may glory with thine inheritance. 6. We have sinned with our fathers, We have committed iniquity, we have done wickedly. 7. Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; They remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; But were rebellious at the sea, even at the Red Sea. 8. Nevertheless he saved them for his name's sake, That he might make his mighty power to be known. 9. He rebuked the Red Sea also, and it was dried up: So he led them through the depths, as through a wilderness. 10. And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, And redeemed them from the hand of the enemy. 11. And the waters covered their adversaries: There was not one of them left. 12. Then believed they his words; They sang his praise. 13. They soon forgat his works; They waited not for his counsel: 14. But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, And tempted God in the desert. 15. And he gave them their request; But sent leanness into their soul. 16. They envied Moses also in the camp, And Aaron the saint of the LORD. 17. The earth opened and swallowed up Dathan, And covered the company of Abiram. 18. And a fire was kindled in their company; The flame burned up the wicked. 19. They made a calf in Horeb, And worshipped a molten image. 20. Thus they changed their glory For the likeness of an ox that eateth grass. 21. They forgat God their saviour, Which had done great things in Egypt; 22. Wondrous works in the land of Ham, And terrible things by the Red Sea. 23. Therefore he said that he would destroy them, Had not Moses his chosen stood before him in the breach, To turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy them. 24. Yea, they despised the pleasant land, They believed not his word; 25. But murmured in their tents, And hearkened not unto the voice of the LORD. 26. Therefore he lifted up his hand unto them, That he would overthrow them in the wilderness: 27. And that he would overthrow their seed among the nations, And scatter them in the lands. 28. They joined themselves also unto Baal-peor, And ate the sacrifices of the dead. 29. Thus they provoked him to anger with their doings; And the plague brake in upon them. 30. Then stood up Phinehas, and executed judgment: And so the plague was stayed. 31. And that was counted unto him for right-cousness, Unto all generations for evermore. 32 They angered him also at the waters of Meribah, So that it went ill with Moses for their sakes : 33 Because they were rebellious against his spirit, And he spake unadvisedly with his lips. 34 They did not destroy the peoples, As the LORD commanded them; 35 But mingled themselves with the nations, And learned their works: 36 And they served their idols; Which became a snare unto them: 37 Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto demons, 38 And shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, Whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan; And the land was polluted with blood. 39 Thus were they defiled with their works, And went a whoring in their doings. 40 Therefore was the wrath of the LORD kindled against his people, And he abhorred his inheritance. 41. And he gave them into the hand of the nations; And they that hated them ruled over them. 42 Their enemies also oppressed them, And they were brought into subjection under their hand. 43 Many times did he deliver them; But they were rebellious in their counsel, And were brought low in their iniquity. 44 Nevertheless he regarded their distress, When he heard their cry: 45 And he remembered for them his covenant, And repented according to the multitude of his mercies. 46 He made them also to be pitied Of all those that carried them captives. 47 Save us, O LORD our God, And gather us from among the nations, To give thanks unto thy holy name, And to triumph in thy praise. 48 BLESSED BE THE LORD, THE GOD OF ISRAEL, FROM EVERLASTING EVEN TO EVERLASTING. AND LET ALL THE PEOPLE SAY, AMEN. PRAISE YE THE LORD. THIS is the first of the sixteen Hallelujah Psalms. The others are 111, 113, 117, 135, 141-150. It is retrospective like the preceding, but, unlike it, is penitential. It must probably be assigned to the time of the exile. De Witt. The first of a series of Hallelujah Psalms-Psalms of which the word "hallelujah" is the inscription. As in the last Psalm, so here, the history of Israel is recapitulated. In that it was turned into a thanksgiving; in this it forms the burden of a confession. There God's mighty acts for His people were celebrated with joy; here His people's sin is humbly and sorrowfully acknowledged. Nothing is more remarkable in these great historical Psalms than the utter absence of any word or sentiment tending to feed the national vanity. All the glory of Israel's history is confessed to be due, not to her heroes, her priests, her prophets, but to God; all the failures which are written upon that history, all discomfitures, losses, reverses, the sword, famine, exile, are recognized as the righteous chastisement which the sin of the nation has provoked. This is the strain of such Psalms as the seventy-eighth, the one hundred and fifth, the one hundred and sixth. This is invariably the tone assumed by all the divinely instructed teachers of the people, by the prophets in their great sermons, by the poets in their contributions to the national liturgy. There is no other poetry in the world of a popular and national kind so full of patriotic sentiment, and yet at the same time marked by so complete an abstinence from all those themes which are commonly found in poetry written for the people. There is not a single ode in honor of Moses or Aaron or Joshua or David; there is not one which sings the glory of the nation, except as that glory is given it of God. The history of the nation, whenever referred to, is referred to almost invariably for the purpose of rebuke and upbraiding, certainly not for the purpose of commendation or self-applause. The Psalm consists of an introduction (vs. 1-5). It then follows the history of Israel as a history of perpetual transgressions, first from Egypt through the wilderness (vs. 7-33), and then in the Holy Land (vs. 34-46), and concludes with prayer for deliverance from the present calamity-viz., the captivity in Babylon (v. 47). P. I. We have here two arguments for praise, "for He is good; for His mercy endureth forever;" and these two arguments are themselves praises. This first verse is the text of all that which follows; we are now to see how from generation to generation the mercy of God endured to His chosen people. S. 1-5. The first verse is of the nature of a doxological formula, such as we find in some other of these later Psalms. But the second and third verses have an immediate bearing on what follows. What so fitting to introduce the confession of a nation's sin and ingratitude, as the rehearsal of God's goodness manifested to it, and the acknowledgment of the blessedness of those who, instead of despising that goodness, as Israel had done, walked in the ways of the Lord, keeping judgment and doing righteousness (v. 3)? Or, again, what more natural than that the sense of the national privilege, the claim of a personal share in that privilege, should spring in the heart and rise to the lips of one who felt most deeply the national sin and ingratitude? P. 3. Blessed are they that keep judgment. That are of right principles and upright practices; this is real and substantial praising of God. Thanks-doing is the proof of thanksgiving; and the good life of the thankful is the life of thankfulness. Those that say God-a-thank only and no more are not only contumelious, but injurious. Trapp. 7. Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Thy wondrous works, they did not remember the abundance of Thy mercies, and rebelled upon the sea, at the Red Sea. The general confession in v. 6 is now followed by a more detailed acknowledgment, beginning with the exodus from Egypt. The wondrous works of God, the things done wonderfully by Him for the deliverance of His people, the great body of them did not understand. Even those who referred them to their true source and author did not fully appreciate the end for which they were performed, or enter into the majestic plan in executing which they were permitted to be God's coworkers. The truth of this charge is abundantly established by the narrow, grovelling, selfish views and feelings so repeatedly betrayed by the generation which came out of Egypt, showing clearly that they did not practically understand God's dealings with them. A. 12,13. The manifestation of the Almighty on their behalf in dividing the sea, in making a dry path, and overwhelming their enemies in destruction, seemed to arouse their religious natures into enthusiasm. But how soon did this gust of religious faith and feeling pass away! D. Thomas. 13-33. This is an abridgment of the history of Israel's provocations in the wilderness, and of the wrath of God against them for those provocations; and this abridgment is abridged by the apostle with application to us Christians (1 Cor. 10: 5, etc.), for these things were written for our admonition, that we sin not like them, lest we suffer like them. H. 15. He gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul. It is an awful circumstance, and yet it is true, that our mercies may be our curses. One of the dangers which always beset us is that of placing our confidence in things that are in our sight and within the reach of our hand. And the more these things multiply around us, the greater our danger becomes. Grace is needed by every man, but great grace is needed by the man who gets his request. The eclipsing power of success is fearful. Another symptom of spiritual leanness, and one of the results of having our request, is self-pleasing. It is no calumny to say that pleasure is the god of our times, and that men are shrinking more and more from everything which involves self-oblivion and self sacrifice. But this spirit defeats itself. Pleasure sought for its own sake is difficult to find, more difficult still to retain, and becomes more coy and unattainable the more the pursuit of it becomes the aim and the business of life. More than this, there follows a loss of sympathy with all that helps to build up the spiritual life. There is no life save that of God Himself which possesses a self-perpetuating power; and though the life which is begotten in us by faith is the highest on earth, even that is not immortal if it be denied the food which has been provided for it. Our text speaks to us as with the voice of a trumpet, and rings out the great and impressive truth that we cannot be too guarded in our petitions or in our desires for merely temporal things. Beyond necessaries all else should be sought in very humble and willing subordination to the will of God. For who of us knows what beyond these is good for us? Mellor. 16. And they were envious at Moses in the camp, at Aaron, the holy one of Jehovah. This is another of their wilderness sins (Num. 16). Aaron is not called the saint of the Lord in reference to his personal holiness, which does not seem to have been eminent, but his holy (or consecrated) one, in reference to his sacerdotal dignity. A. The saint. The word saint, from sanctus, means nothing but an holy person; and an holy person, in the Scripture account, is a believer, and no other. The Word of God knows no such distinctions as virtuous and vicious men, moral and immoral; but ranks the whole world into two classes—namely, believers and unbelievers; children of light and children of darkness; sinners and saints; those that are after the flesh and those that are after the Spirit. The one accepted in Christ Jesus; the other having the wrath of God abiding on them. Hill. 24. They despised the pleasant land, not absolutely in itself, for it was “the glory of all lands,” abounding with things for the support and delight of man; but considering its distance, a wilderness waste and wild interposing, and the enemies to be encountered, they did not think it worthy of undergoing such hazards and difficulties. The land of Canaan was a type of heaven, both with respect to its pleasantness and the manner of the Israelites obtaining it; their title to it was derived from the rich bounty of God, therefore it is called the “land of promise;” but it was to be possessed by conquest. Thus the celestial Canaan is the pure gift of God; but the actual enjoyment of it is obtained by victorious resistance against the enemies of our salvation. And carnal men despise this pleasant land, the promise being inseparably joined with precepts of duty and obedience, from which they are averse. But he that chooses sincerely is joyful and vigorous in the use of means for acquiring his most desired good. Bates. The pleasant land was a type of heaven, the good land afar off; the better country, the land of promise and rest; in which is fulness of provisions and where there will be no hunger and thirst; where flows the river of the water of life, and stands the tree of life bearing all manner of fruits; where there is fulness of joy and pleasures forevermore; the most delightful company of Father, Son, and Spirit, angels and glorified saints, and nothing to disturb their peace and pleasure neither from within nor from without. And yet this pleasant land may be said to be despised by such who do not care to go through any difficulty to it; to perform the duties of religion; to bear reproach for God’s sake; to go through tribulation; to walk in the narrow and afflicted way which leads unto it; and by all such who do not care to part with their sinful lusts and pleasures, but prefer them and the things of this world to the heavenly state. Gill. 25. But murmured.** Murmuring! As we proceed with the narrative we are constantly meeting it. They lift up their eyes, and as the Egyptians pursue, the people murmur. They come to a fountain, the water is bitter, and once more they murmur. Then no bread; murmurings redoubled. Moses is no longer in the mount; murmurs. He takes too much upon him; more murmurs. When shall we reach that promised land?—murmurs extraordinary, loud murmurs. We are close to the land, but its inhabitants are giants, and their towns walled up to heaven; and the last breath of the last survivors of that querulous race goes forth in a hurricane of reproach and remonstrance—a perfect storm of murmurs. Hamilton. 27. And to make their seed fall in the nations, and to scatter them in the lands. As the appointed punishment of the older generation was to die in the wilderness, so that of their descendants was to die in dispersion and captivity among the Gentiles. (See Lev. 26: 33, 38, and compare Deut. 28: 32, 36, 64, 68.) The recollection of this threatening must have been peculiarly affecting to the Jews in Babylon. 31. And it was reckoned to him for righteousness, to generation and generation, even to eternity. What is here meant is evidently not a justifying act by which Phinehas was saved, but a praiseworthy act for which he, a justified or righteous man already, received the Divine commendation and a perpetual memorial of his faithfulness. The particular reward promised (Num. 26: 13), that of a perpetual priesthood, is not here mentioned, but was familiar to the mind of every Hebrew reader. A.—This act of zeal for Jehovah was counted unto him for righteousness, inasmuch as he was rewarded for it with the perpetual priesthood. It was indeed an act that had its origin in the faithfulness that had its root in faith, and which for the sake of this its ultimate ground gained for him the acceptance of a righteous man, inasmuch as it proved him to be such. D.—The same thing is said of the faith of Abraham (Gen. 15: 6); a striking instance of the fearlessness of expression which is to be found in the Scriptures, as compared with the dogmatic forms of modern controversial theology. P. 34-38. The miracles and mercies which settled them in Canaan made no more deep and durable impressions upon them than those that fetched them out of Egypt, for by that time they were well warm in Canaan; they corrupted themselves and forsook God. They spared the nations which God had doomed to destruction. The next news we hear is, they “were mingled among the heathen,” made leagues with them, and contracted an intimacy with them so that they “learned their works.” “They served their idols” in the same manner and with the same rites that they served them; and that sin drew on many more and brought the judgments of God upon them, which they themselves could not but be sensible of, and yet knew not how to recover themselves. “They sacrificed their sons and daughters,” pieces of themselves “to devils;” and added murder, the most unnatural murder, to their idolatry; one cannot think of it without horror; they “shed innocent blood,” the most innocent, for it was infant blood; nay, it was the “blood of their sons and their daughters.” See the power of the spirit that works in the children of disobedience, and see his malice. The beginning of idolatry and superstition, like that of strife, is as the letting forth of water, and there is no villainy which they that venture upon it can be sure they shall stop short of, for God justly “gives them up to a reprobate mind.” H. 39. And they were polluted by their own doings, and went a whoring by their own crimes. They defiled not only the land of promise, but themselves. The figure of spiritual adultery is often used to signify the violation by the chosen people of their covenant with God, which is constantly described as a conjugal relation. This is not stated as an additional offence, but as an aggravating circumstance attending the iniquities already mentioned. A. 44. The Psalmist turns now to the other side of God’s dealings with His people. It was not all anger. If they forgot His covenant, He remembered it. Even in the land of their captivity He softened the hearts of their captors. P. At length they cried unto God, and God returned in favor to them (vs. 44–46). They were chastened for their sins but not destroyed, cast down but not cast off; God appeared for them; looked upon their grievances, regarded their affliction, beheld when distress was upon them, remembered for them His covenant, and made good every word that He had spoken; and, therefore, bad as they were, He would not break with them, because He would not break His own promise. He made them to be pitied even of those that carried them captives, and had ruled them with rigor. He not only restrained the remainder of their enemies’ wrath that it should not utterly consume them, but He infused compassion even into their stony hearts, and made them relent. God can change lions into lambs, and when a man’s ways please the Lord will make even his enemies to pity him and be at peace with him. When God pities, men shall. A God at peace with us makes everything else at peace. H. 47. The moral force of the whole Psalm culminates in this closing prayer. We have sinned with our fathers; we have been a sinning nation all along the ages of our national history; let us repent deeply and most humbly before the God of our national covenant, and beseech Him to gather us to our fatherland again, to give thanks to His name and to triumph in His praise. C. 48. Blessed (be) Jehovah, God of Israel, from eternity even to eternity. And all the people says Amen. Hallelujah! Some interpreters regard the Psalm as closing with the preceding verse, and the one before us as a doxology added to mark the conclusion of the Fourth Book. But here, as in Psalm 72: 19, it is far more probable that this doxology was the occasion of the Psalm’s being reckoned as the last of a book, notwithstanding its intimate connection with the one that follows. This probability is strengthened, in the case before us, by the addition of the words, and all the people says Amen, which would be unmeaning, unless the doxology formed part of the Psalm itself. A. Amen. The literal signification, “So be it,” is known to all; yet few consider the deep meaning, the great solemnity, and the abundant consolation treasured up in this word, which has formed for centuries the conclusion of the prayers and praises of God’s people. A word which is frequently used without due thoughtfulness and unaccompanied with the feeling which it is intended to call forth, loses its power from this very familiarity, and though constantly on our lips, lies bedridden in the dormitory of our soul. But it is a great word this word “Amen;” and Luther has truly said, “As your Amen is, so has been your prayer.” A. Saphir. 1. O GIVE thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: For his mercy endureth for ever. 2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, Whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the adversary; 3 And gathered them out of the lands, From the east and from the west, From the north and from the south. 4 They wandered in the wilderness in a desert way; They found no city of habitation. 5 Hungry and thirsty, Their soul fainted in them. 6 Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, And he delivered them out of their distresses. 7 He led them also by a straight way, That they might go to a city of habitation. 8 Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, And for his wonderful works to the children of men! 9 For he satisfieth the longing soul, And the hungry soul he filleth with good. 10 Such as sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, Being bound in affliction and iron; 11 Because they rebelled against the words of God, And contemned the counsel of the Most High: 12 Therefore he brought down their heart with labour; They fell down, and there was none to help. 13 Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, And he saved them out of their distresses. 14. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, And brake their bands in sunder. 15. Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, And for his wonderful works to the children of men! 16. For he hath broken the gates of brass, And cut the bars of iron in sunder. 17. Fools because of their transgression, And because of their iniquities, are afflicted. 18. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat; And they draw near unto the gates of death. 19. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, And he saveth them out of their distresses, 20. He sendeth his word, and healeth them, And delivereth them from their destructions. 21. Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, And for his wonderful works to the children of men! 22. And let them offer the sacrifices of thanksgiving, And declare his works with singing. 23. They that go down to the sea in ships, That do business in great waters; 24. These see the works of the LORD, And his wonders in the deep. 25. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, Which lifteth up the waves thereof. 26. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: Their soul melteth away because of trouble. mean when we speak thus! And how unable we are to trace the chain! We cannot see God's Spirit prompting the prayer or suggesting the remedy which shall be the answer to the prayer. But the antecedent and the consequent are as really there; the links of the chain are as essential as they are in any of the phenomena of the material world which present themselves to our bodily senses. And thus the answer comes, not by direct interference with the laws of nature, but in accordance with the laws of the spiritual world—by the Divine action on the heart of man. If so, then the answer may be acknowledged with devout thanksgiving, and men may praise the Lord for His goodness. The Psalm consists of six groups, with a preface (vs. 1-3) and a conclusion (v. 43). The preface and the conclusion alike give the theme or keynote of the Psalm. The first four groups are marked by the double refrain; the two last have but a slight connection with the others. P. 2-7. The people of God are "redeemed," redeemed from the curse of the law, the powers of darkness, and the bondage of corruption. They are "gathered," gathered by His grace out of all the diversities of the human race; "out of all nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues." Whatever this world is to others, they find it to be "a wilderness," when they are often tried; but their trials urge them to prayer, and prayer brings them relief. And being divinely conducted, they at length reach their destination; and this is the conclusion of the whole, and it applies to each of them: "And He led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation." Jay. 4. The first example: The caravan which has lost its way in the desert. They wandered. The subject of the verb may be "men" generally. The incident described was doubtless not uncommon. The usual track of the caravan is lost, obliterated, perhaps, by the sandstorm. 6. Then they cried. So it ever is; only the pressure of a great need forces men to seek God. Prayer is not only the resource of good men, but of all men in trouble. P. 7. God for us, God with us, God in us, these are the ideas which describe our religion. For they explain its motive, they declare its meaning, they define its doctrine. The motive is, that God being for us, all things shall work together for our good, if we are for Him. The meaning is, that God being with us, His providence is ever ready to lead us on by the right way. The doctrine is, that an indwelling God is our salvation. Thorold. — God's way, though to us it seems about, will appear, at last, to have been the right way. It is applicable to our condition in this world; we are here as in a wilderness, have here no continuing city, but dwell in tents as strangers and pilgrims; but we are under the guidance of His wise and good providence, committing ourselves to which we shall be led in the right way to the city that has foundations. H. A heart that waits and watches for God's direction, that uses common sense as well as faith to unravel small and great perplexities, and is willing to sit loose to the present, however pleasant, in order that it may not miss the indications which say, "Arise! this is not your rest," fulfils the conditions on which, if we keep them, we may be sure that He will guide us by the right way, and bring us at last to the city of habitation. A. M. 4-7. The children of Israel, when they came out of Egypt, instead of entering into the Holy Land, passed through the wilderness. There were many intricacies, many privations, and "but for the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night," they would have lost their way. Thus it is with the children of God. There are great intricacies in the journey of life, and many privations, but they have a constant communication of Divine wisdom to guide them, if they supplicate for it. If left to ourselves we should fall by the right hand and by the left; but He has promised to guide us by His counsel, and to lead us by the way we should go. "The Lord God is a sun and shield, He will give grace and glory;" He will supply wisdom for direction in answer to prayer. Although the spiritual Israel have not a miraculous direction, they have a real one; it is the path of duty, the path of safety, and of happiness. The Israelites were fed with manna, by a Divine and supernatural production; thus the people of God are conducted through the world; they have many natural and spiritual enemies to combat, and many privations to endure, yet they are sustained, in a supernatural manner, by the Word of God and by the Spirit. They are nourished by the Word and ordinances, and sustained by the Spirit. R. Hall. 12. They fell down, and there was none to help. Affliction is then come to the height and its complete measure, when the sinner is made sensible of his own weakness, and doth see there is no help for him save in God alone. Dickson. — They could not help themselves, nor was there any creature that could. There is salvation in no other than in Christ; when He saw there was none to help Him in that work, His own arm brought salvation to him; and when sinners see there is help in no other, they apply to Him. Gill. 13. Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble. Not a prayer till then. While there was any to help below they would not look above. No cries till their hearts were brought down and their hopes were all dead; then they cried, but not before. So many a man offers what he calls prayer when he is in good case and thinks well of himself, but in very deed the only real cry to God is that which is forced out of him by a sense of utter helplessness and misery. S. 17-22. Third example: sick persons brought by their sickness to the edge of the grave. P. —Bodily sickness is another of the calamities of this life which gives us an opportunity of experiencing the goodness of God in recovering us: and of that the Psalmist speaks in these verses. H. 17. Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. Many sicknesses are the direct result of foolish acts. Sin is at the bottom of all sorrow, but some sorrows are the immediate results of wickedness; men by a course of transgression afflict themselves and are fools for their pains. Worse still, even when they are in affliction they are fools still; and while under the rod they add sin to sin. S. 19. Then is a proper time for prayer; Then they cry unto the Lord. Is any sick? Let him pray; let him be prayed for; prayer is a salve for every sore. H. —In all the changes of this mortal life the Psalmist sees no real chance, no real change, but the orderly education of a just and loving Father whose mercy endureth forever, who chastens men as a father chastens his children, for their profit, that they may be partakers of His holiness, in which alone are life and joy, health and wealth. He sees that God is our Father, that God is educating us, that God hath neither parts nor passions, and that therefore God's wrath is not different or contrary to His love, but that God's wrath is His love in another shape, punishing men just because He loves men. Kingsley. 20. He sent His Word and healed them. This may be applied to the miraculous cures which Christ wrought when He was upon earth, by a word's speaking; He said, Be clean, Be whole, and the work was done; it may also be applied to the spiritual cures which the Spirit of grace works in regeneration; He sends His Word and heals souls; convinces, converts, sanctifies them, and all by the Word. H. 23-32. Fourth example: Seafarers tossed and driven by the tempest and brought at last safe into port. It is the most highly finished, the most thoroughly poetical of each of the four pictures of human peril and deliverance. It is painted as a landsman would paint it, but yet only as one who had himself been in "perils of waters" could paint the storm, the waves running mountains high, on which the tiny craft seemed a plaything, the helplessness of human skill, the gladness of the calm, the safe refuge in the haven. Addison remarks that he prefers this description of a ship in a storm before any others he had ever met with, and for the same reason for which "Longinus recommends one in Homer, because the poet has not amused himself with little fancies upon the occasion, as authors of an inferior genius, whom he mentions, had done, but because he has gathered together those circumstances which are the most apt to terrify the imagination, and which really happened in the raging of a tempest." By the way, he adds, "How much more comfortable as well as rational is this system of the Psalmist, than the pagan scheme in Virgil and other poets where one deity is represented as raising a storm, and another as laying it! Were we only to consider the sublime in this piece of poetry, what can be nobler than the idea it gives us of the Supreme Being thus raising a tumult among the elements, and recovering them out of their confusion, thus troubling and becalming nature?" P. No language can be more sublime than the description of a storm at sea in this Psalm. It is the very soul of poetry. The utmost simplicity of diction is employed to convey the grandest thoughts. The picture is not crowded; none but the most striking circumstances are selected; and everything is natural, simple, and beyond measure interesting. The whole is an august representation of the providence of God, ruling in what appears the most ungovernable province of nature. It is God who raises the storm; it is God who stifleth it. The wise men of this world may look no farther than the physical laws by which God acts; but the Holy Spirit, by the Psalmist, views the awful conflict of the elements as the work of God. Carson. The liquid acres of the deep, tossing themselves evermore to the winds and rolling their mighty anthem round the world, are among the most valuable and productive acres God has made. Great emotions and devout affections are better fruits than corn, more precious luxuries than wine or oil. And God has built the world with a visible aim to exercise His creatures with whatever is lofty in conception, holy in feeling, and filial in purpose toward Himself. All the trials and storms of the land have this same object. To make the soul great, He gives us great dangers to meet, great obstacles to conquer. Deserts, famines, pestilences, regions of cold and wintry snow, hail and tempest, none of these are elements of waste and destruction, because they go to fructify the moral man. As related to the kingdom of God, they are engines of truth, purity, strength, and all that is great and holy in character. The sea is a productive element of the same class. How many here have bowed who never bowed before to the tremendous sovereignty of God? How many prayers have gone up to fill the sky and circle the world, from wives and mothers, imploring His protecting presence with husbands and sons they have trusted to the deep? H. B. 28-30. All this is true of our individual lives, as well as of the history of the Church. Storms will come, and He may seem to be heedless. He is ever awakened by our cry, which needs not to be pure faith to bring the answer, but may be strangely intertwined of faith and fear. "The Lord will help, . . . and that right early;" and the peace that He brings is peace indeed. So it may be with us amid the struggles of life. So may it be with us when "the voyage on this storm-tossed sea of time is done!" "They cry unto the Lord in their trouble. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so He bringeth them unto their desired haven." A. M. By storms and by favorable breezes, through tempest and fair weather, the great Pilot and Ruler of the sea brings mariners to port and His people to heaven. We should long ago have been wrecked if it had not been for His preserving hand, and our only hope of outliving the storms of the future is based upon His wisdom, faithfulness, and power. Our heavenly haven shall ring with shouts of grateful joy when once we reach its blessed shore. S. There is in the Bible no recognition of the difficulties raised by philosophy respecting prayer. On this point the instinct of the race has been manifested unequivocally. Universally, or nearly so, when, as the Psalmist says, men "draw near unto the gates of death," when "they that go down to the sea in ships" "mount up to the heaven," and "go down again to the depths," "and are at their wits' end," "then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble." Not only speculative questioners of the efficacy of prayer, but professed atheists have often been brought to extremities in which this instinct has so asserted itself that they have cried unto God. Not only from the Bible, but from the analogy of our earthly life, from our whole nature as practical, and from its necessary relation to our highest wants, we infer the efficacy of asking. M. H.—Providence is the natural and necessary development of the existence of God; it is the constant presence and permanent action of God in creation. The universal and undying instinct which impels man to prayer is in harmony with this ultimate fact; he who believes in God cannot but have recourse to Him in prayer. Guizot. In times of action and of peril, the daily experience of the Christian effectively teaches him (far more effectively than can be done by abstract explanations) that the Divine providence and the spiritual economy, which are the objects of his faith, do not in any wise interfere with the ordinary course of events; in other words, that the latter is not broken in upon or disturbed by the former. With this evidence of experience constantly pressed upon him his faith ascends into its proper sphere; while he confidently reposes upon the Divine declaration, "That all things shall work together for good to those who love God." I. T.—Providential and natural law is a discipline for us—our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; our teacher, introducing us to spiritual wisdom, and to God, the Fountain, the Inspirer, and the Executor of all Law. The lessons of providential and natural law throw us directly upon God, and powerfully teach us the importance and blessedness of a daily recognition of the Divine providence in all things. They are happy and secure, and they alone, who have learned to say, If the Lord will, Cheever. 33-42. The Psalmist, having given God the glory of the providential reliefs granted to persons in distress, here gives Him the glory of the revolutions of Providence, and the surprising changes it sometimes makes in the affairs of the children of men. H.—The character of the Psalm changes at this point. Instead of fresh examples of deliverance from peril, and thanksgiving for God's mercies, we have now instances of God's providential government of the world exhibited in two series of contrasts. The first of these is contained in vs. 33-39, and expresses a double change, the fruitful, well-watered land smitten, like the rich plain of Sodom, with desolation, and changed into a salt-marsh; and anon, the wilderness crowned with cities, like Tadmor, and made fertile to produce corn and wine; the second is contained in vs. 40, 41, and expresses the changes in the fortunes of men (as the last series did those of countries), viz., how the poor and the humble are raised and the rich and the proud overthrown. P. 33-39. The central idea here is that God has such absolute control over the realm of nature that He can utterly reverse its course, and so reverse the circumstances of our lot: changing rivers to dryness; the fruitful land to barrenness; or, again, the drought to copious waterings, and the barren soil to exuberant fertility. All is in His hand. C. 37. And sow the fields, and plant vineyards, which may yield fruits of increase. Men work when God works. His blessing encourages the sower, cheers the planter, and rewards the laborer. Divine visitations bring great spiritual riches, foster varied works of faith and labors of love, and cause every good fruit to abound to our comfort and to God's praise. When God sends the blessing it does not supersede, but encourages and develops human exertion. Paul plants, Apollos waters, and God gives the increase. 39. Again they are minished and brought low through oppression, affliction, and sorrow. As they change in character, so do their circumstances alter. Under the old dispensation this was very clearly to be observed; Israel's ups and downs were the direct consequences of her sins and repentances. Trials are of various kinds: here we have three words for affliction, and there are numbers more; God has many rods and we have many smarts, and all because we have many sins. S. 40,41. So, also, high station and great power, as men count things great, cannot save the wicked from His judgments. He can lay princes low, and exalt the poor to a state of manifold blessings. C. 41. He setteth the poor on high from affliction. High above the reach of the curse, which shall never touch him; above the power of Satan, which shall never ruin him; above the reigning influence of sin, which "shall not have dominion over him;" above the possibility of being banished from His presence, for "Israel shall be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation." This is the way God sets His people on high, instructing them in the mysteries of His Word, and giving them to partake the joys that are contained therein. J. Irons. Such surprising turns as these are of use: For the solacing of saints; they observe these dispensations with pleasure; The righteous shall see it, and rejoice in the glorifying of God's attributes, and the manifesting of His dominion over the children of men. For the silencing of sinsinners; All iniquity shall stop her mouth; it shall be a full conviction of the folly of atheists, and of those that deny the Divine providence; and forasmuch as practical atheism is at the bottom of all sin, it shall in effect stop the mouth of all iniquity. H. 43. The remarkable appearances of Divine providence to persons in distress; the various changes and vicissitudes in the world; the several afflictions of God's people, and their deliverances out of them; the wonderful works of God in nature, providence, and grace—these will be taken notice of, laid up in the mind, and kept by such who are truly wise, who know how to make a right use and proper improvement of them. "Even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the LORD;" every one of the wise men; they will perceive the kindness of God unto men, in the several dispensations of His providence toward them, and His special love and kindness toward His own people; even in all their afflictions they will perceive this to be at the bottom of every mercy and blessing; they will understand more of the nature and excellency of it, and know more of the love of God and Christ which passeth knowledge. Gill. These mighty doings of our God in delivering His feeble creatures from the trackless wilderness of error; from the noisome chain of carnal lust; from the deadly sickness of a corrupt nature, and from the wild tempest of earthly passion, deserve the thoughtful joy of all who would be faithful servants of their Lord. The mouth of unbelief and the excuses of iniquity are stopped by the sight of the marvels of that mercy which endureth forever. The truly wise will ponder these things, for in the knowledge of them is true wisdom; and so pondering, there shall open before them, ever plainer, fuller, clearer, brighter, the revelation of that mighty love of their Eternal Father which surpasses all understanding, and is vaster than all thought. Plain Commentary. How great a volume might be written concerning the observable things of Divine providence. I can never look upon it, I can never take the motions of it into my thoughts, but some new observation tendereth itself into my thoughts, I must turn my eyes from this wonderful work, for I see they will not be satisfied with seeing, my mind will never be filled with observation. When we speak of the love and favor of God to His people, we are prone to understand by it nothing but pleasing providences, grateful to our senses; now the "loving-kindness" of God is not only seen in pleasing dispensations, but in adverse providences also: "Whom He loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every child whom He receiveth;" "all things are yours," saith the apostle. This knowledge must be gained by observation. John Collinges. Every follower of Christ may believe that he is never more reasonably engaged than when he is casting himself on the Divine providence. Instead of shuddering in chilly doubt as to particular providence, he assured you cannot conceive of a providence more particular than that which is. Superstition may take that for providence which is only its own morbid fancy. Presumption may rely on Providence, in idle, insolent neglect of means. But true faith will still cling to the belief that the sparrow's fall is not too particular for God's plan. It is our privilege, not only to hope in Providence with regard to the lesser affairs of life, but to recognize it—to see God's hand in our daily walk, with wonder and love. "They that observe providences, shall have providences to observe." J. W. A. The design of this instructive Psalm is to impress the fact of God's universal providence. The cases referred to are general illustrations of God's acting in relation to every form of trial and peril, and are followed by explicit general declarations of His agency in the increase or barrenness of fields and vineyards, and in the affairs of rich and poor; the whole distinctly intimating that His providence extends equally to every estate and produces every event. There is evidence in this Psalm also that, although God acts thus minutely and universally, yet so far as His providence affects man's moral actions it is not ordinarily irrespective of these actions. It is an ennobling as well as a grateful and warning truth that His conduct toward man is, in measure, directed and determined by man's conduct toward Him. This truth is seen in the fact that in response to the cry of the wandering and famished, the helpless and hopeless, the Lord relieves and delivers them. It is here unqualifiedly shown that God's providential dealings are to a certain extent influenced by man's conduct, especially by active, prayerful confidence in Him. And this plainly revealed fact removes much of the difficulty pertaining to His providences. It takes away entirely from His doings the character of arbitrariness, while it sustains and grandly illustrates His sovereignty and benevolence. Thus the whole Psalm inculcates, explains, and commends the doctrine of God's minute and universal providence. B. It is certainly by general laws that the providence of God directs the course of the world. It would be more correct to give these general laws another name. They are the permanent will of God, continuously acting on the world; for the Legislator, like His laws, is always present in the world. But when God created man He made him not like the material world, but a free moral agent; and hence is necessitated a radical difference in the kind of agency which He exerts upon man and upon the material world. The freedom of man, his free determinations in his moral acts, being admitted, it will not do to say that God governs man altogether by general and permanent laws; for that would be to ignore and abolish liberty as a part of man's life; i.e., to ignore and mutilate the work of God. Man determines freely, and so effectuates, in his own proper life, events which are not the result of general laws exterior to himself. Divine providence takes cognizance of human liberty. It does not manage men as it does the stars of heaven and the waves of the ocean, which neither think nor will. It has different relations with man and with nature, and a different mode of acting upon them. How is it in the human family? The father and the mother while managing the child recognize his active development. They watch over him with authority and with tenderness. Without destroying his liberty they give that liberty rules and limits. They hear his prayers, sometimes grant, and at others refuse, them, just as reason dictates, and in view of his general and future interest. The child, on his part, without premeditation or design, but by the spontaneous instinct of his nature, recognizes the authority and feels the tenderness of his parents. In the course of his development he obeys and resists them in turn, using his natural liberty well or ill; but, through all these troubles of the will, he asks and prays with confidence, joyful and grateful when he receives from them, and ready to ask and beg again when he has been refused, and always with confidence. Such are the facts in the natural and good government of the family. And they are the imperfect but true image, the obscure and yet faithful shadowing forth of Divine providence. The Christian doctrine of providence presents and describes the action of God on the life of man qualified in just this way. It represents God as always present and accessible to men, as the father is to the child. It exhorts, encourages, invites men to pray to God and trust in Him. It reserves to God absolutely the answer to prayer. He bestows or denies. We may not see into His reasons, for "God's ways are not our ways." But yet with prayer "without ceasing" the Christian doctrine always connects hope; for "nothing is impossible with God." The Christian doctrine of providence is in full and intimate harmony with the nature of man. In recognizing his liberty it does homage to his greatness; in giving to him access to God in prayer it provides for his weakness. As a question of science, it leaves the mystery as one incapable of solution; but in actual life and experience it resolves the problem of natural religion which burdens the soul. Guizot. Nothing is or can be properly accidental to God; but accidents are so called in respect of the intention or expectation of second causes, when things fall out beside their knowledge or design. And there is nothing in which Providence so much triumphs over the profoundest wisdom of men as in the stable, certain knowledge and disposal of all casual events, in respect of which the clearest mortal intellect is wholly in the dark. And upon this account, as loose as these events seem to hang upon one another, yet they are all knit and linked together in a firm chain, and the highest link of that chain is held and managed by an unerring Providence; the chain, indeed, may wave and shake this way and that way, but still the hand that holds it is steady, and the eye that guides it infallible. South.—In all Divine works the smallest beginnings lead assuredly to some result; and the remark in spiritual matters, that "the kingdom of God cometh without observation," is also found to be true in every work of Divine providence; so that everything glides quietly on without confusion or noise, and the matter is achieved before men either think or perceive that it is commenced. Bacon. Devout attention to the dealings of Providence is equally consonant to the dictates of reason and of Scripture. He who believes in the superintendence of an Eternal Mind over the affairs of the universe is both irrational and indevout in neglecting to make the course of events the subject of frequent meditation; since the knowledge of God is incomparably more important than the most intimate acquaintance with our fellow-creatures; and as the latter is chiefly acquired by an attentive observation of their conduct, so must the former be obtained in the same way. The operations of providence are marked with a character as expressive of their great Author as the productions of human agency; and the same Being who speaks like Himself in His Word, acts like Himself in the moral economy of the universe. To us who have access to both these sources of information they serve to illustrate each other; the obscurities ties of providence are elucidated by Scripture; the declarations of Scripture are verified by providence. One unfolds, as far as it is suitable to our state, the character and designs of the mysterious agent; the other displays His works; and the admirable harmony which is found to subsist between them strengthens and invigorates our confidence in both. R. Hall. God is the Lord of Hosts; He is the great commander of heaven and earth; He it is that directs the conflicts, neither are any put to try mastery, no field pitched, no battle fought, but by His special order and commission, and all for the accomplishment of His glory. But men which behold the state of the world with eyes dim by reason of the weakness of their judgments and affections, think all things are out of order, that there is nothing but confusion and disorder; that the worse men are the better they fare; and they fare the worse the better they are. But if they did but once ascend into the sanctuary of God and judge of occurrences by heavenly principles, then they would confess that no army on earth can be better marshalled than the great army of all the creatures of heaven and earth; and that, notwithstanding all appearance to the contrary, all is well and will end well; that God who is the God of order will bring light out of darkness and order out of the greatest confusion, could they have but patience and let Him alone with His own work. Spencer. The world is not a vessel which is suffered to drift about, without a pilot, mast, or sail; but one in which an Almighty hand guides the helm. The human race is not an unbridled, ungoverned mass, but an immense flock, fed by an all-satisfying Shepherd. History is not a web of human will and blind chaos, but a work of art, for which He who orders all things twists the thread of all human doings and undertakings. And if it does not everywhere manifest itself as such a work of art, we must bear in mind that it is still only a fragment, and that our eyes are obscured with regard to the ways of God. Wait till the Lord Almighty reaches the end of His great designs, and till eternity removes every veil, and sharpens the eye and the understanding. Oh, how shall we then sink down in adoring astonishment before the feet of the Eternal, when we perceive how everything, even that which was the most opposed and inimical to His holy will, was obliged to submit, become subservient to and even promote under His all-powerful hand the exalted plans of His rule and government! Krummacher. God, as the God of providence, is also the God of grace; He is the God of grace in order that His providence may be the blessedness of His creatures, and he is the God of providence in order that His grace may be put in their power, may be made available by them, may be applied to them, may be used by them for eternal life. For the accomplishment of the purposes of His grace all His providential laws in this world are constituted and carried into operation. All arrangements are made for this result, with reference to the plan of redemption. All the vast and almost confounding lines and cycles of events, eras, and experiments, apparently contradictory and entangled, the mighty movements of Divine providence that seem crossing and conflicting, have one and the same purpose and end, God's glory in Christ Jesus. Cheever. You can open your Bibles; learn to open the volumes of creatures and providences, to read there also of God and glory. Thus we might have a fuller taste of Christ and heaven in every common meal than most men have in a sacrament. If thou prosper in the world, let it make thee more sensible of thy perpetual prosperity. If thou art weary with labor, let it make the thoughts of thy eternal rest more sweet. If things go cross, let thy desires be more earnest to have sorrows and sufferings forever cease. Is thy body refreshed with food or sleep? Remember the inconceivable refreshment with Christ. Dost thou hear the raging noise of the wicked and the confusion of the world? Think of the blessed harmony in heaven. Thus every condition and creature affords us advantages for a heavenly life, if we had but hearts to improve it. Baxter. God has been and is working in this world to regenerate, purify, cement, and build up human character. All the world is His storehouse, all time and all events His instruments. He works through all things, and in all His true friends, to secure their real, eternal good. The office of faith is to take God at His word; it is with love in our hearts to go out calmly into the future so dark to us, believing that God is our Guardian, and that in ways to us unknown the darkest calamities of life will conspire with its brightest scenes to do us good. J. Drummond.—It should be enough to reconcile us to every event, that it befalls us agreeably to the wisdom and justice and mercy of God. What misery, what weakness, what consumption of health, what decay of spirits, what paralysis of effort, what sourness and morose care might have been avoided if we had learned to live in a continual submission to Providence as to every particular of our lives. J. W. A. Man has been placed in this world in the midst of concentric circles of Divine attributes, which become charged with deeper interest as they press in closer toward him. The most distant is power, girdling the universe with its rings of stars and constellations. Within it comes the sphere of harmonious wisdom in the orbits of the planets and the revolutions of sun and moon, with signs and seasons. When we touch our own world we can discern goodness in the varied tribes of being in earth, and air, and sea. Justice enters in the field of human history, inspiring confidence, and yet exciting awe when it shows us the rise or the ruin of nations, as they abide by, or depart from, the principles of rectitude. But the inmost circle of fatherly love and forgiving mercy remains in the approach of God to the individual soul. Such a circle there must be, and when we feel its clasp on our hearts we learn, in the language of the poet, "that the world is made for each of us." The universe gathers round each single eye like a broad rainbow arch, to let us see, not the world alone, but God, power the outmost color, mercy the nearest, that every one may be able to look up to Him without dismay. Ker. 1. My heart is fixed, O God; I will sing, yea, I will sing praises, even with my glory. 2 Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake right early. 3 I will give thanks unto thee, O LORD, among the peoples: And I will sing praises unto thee among the nations. 4 For thy mercy is great above the heavens, And thy truth reacheth unto the skies. 5 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: And thy glory above all the earth. 6 That thy beloved may be delivered, Save with thy right hand, and answer us. 7 God hath spoken in his holiness; I will ex-ult: I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth. 8. Gilead is mine; Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the defence of mine head; Judah is my sceptre. 9 Moab is my washpot; Upon Edom will I cast my shoe: Over Philistia will I shout. 10 Who will bring me into the fenced city? Who hath led me unto Edom? 11 Hast not thou cast us off, O God? And thou goest not forth, O God, with our hosts. 12 Give us help against the adversary: For vain is the help of man. 13 Through God we shall do valiantly: For he it is that shall tread down our adversaries. THIS Psalm consists of portions of two others; the first half of it being taken from the fifty-seventh Psalm, vs. 7-11, and the latter half from the sixtieth, vs. 5-12. There are a few not very important variations of the text. For the interpretation at large, the notes on the other two Psalms may be consulted. P.—The best solution which has been proposed is that David himself combined these passages to be the basis of a trilogy (Psalms 108-110), adapted to the use of the Church at a period posterior to the date of Psalms 57 and 60. A. 1-5. (Taken from Psalm 57: 7-11.) With the Hebrew poets there is not merely the potent enunciation of moral truth which comes home to the conscience, not merely the aggregation of noble images borrowed from the treasury of external nature, but more than all this, the revelation of a new and spiritual world, which owes nothing for its beauty to the fairest images of this material universe, and which, in fact, is as far above it as the heavens are above the earth. This is really the exclusive glory of the Old Testament poets, who stand alone in their knowledge of God, their dependence on God, and their trust in God. Take these verses as an instance. Here is the revelation of the nature of a Being who can inspire the heart with the liveliest gratitude, to whom the devotion of all the powers is an inadequate offering, who has inspired the mind of the speaker with a sense of unmerited mercy that is as glorious as it is omnipotent, and whose majesty is only equalled by His truth. But without postulating the existence of this Being it is not possible to deduce His existence from the contemplation of nature; and yet, if that existence is a fact, of what infinite insignificance are all other facts and existences compared with it? If the world of the invisible is a reality, and man's relation to it real, as depicted in the Psalms, what a field is opened out for the poetic imagination, and how far more glorious must be its beauties than the fairest and loveliest of the images of earth! Leathes. 1. My glory. My soul, with all the faculties and powers which belong to the rational being, as created in the image of God. P.—As the glory of man above the brute creatures is that from a reasonable mind he can express what is his will by his tongue, so the glory of saints above other men is to have a tongue directed by the heart for expressing of God's praise: "I will sing and give praise, even with my glory." Dickson. 4, 5. The greatness of the attributes "mercy and truth" we have in v. 4; and there is an an swerable greatness in his praises of God for them, v. 5: "Be Thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; and Thy glory above all the earth." He wisheth and endeavoreth to exalt Him as high in his praises as He is in Himself; to exalt Him above the earth, above the heaven and the clouds. H. Jeanes. 4. The discoveries of astronomy have added no attribute to the Divine Being. They have simply rendered the feeling of His greatness more vivid. From the earliest times pious men have believed in the existence of multitudes of intelligent beings who are superior to man, of "the army of heaven" as well as "the inhabitants of earth." Nowhere is the Divine power set forth with deeper fervor than in the Psalms. But the moment that you grasp the idea of an Infinite Being all His works seem to be nothing in the presence of their Creator. The great and the small are alike atoms in His sight, the one not more than the other entitled to His notice. When the telescope unveiled a universe above us, so vast as to overpower the imagination, the microscope, at the same time, was uncovering a universe beneath us, finished in every part and not less full of wonders. The natural attributes of the Creator, moreover, are never to be allowed to veil from sight His moral perfections. "His mercy," like His power, "is great above the heavens." His condescension is equal to His might. Therefore He is said to crown man with His loving-kindness. G. P. Fisher. 6-13. Taken from Psalm 60: 5-12. 9. Over Edom will I cast my shoe. David overthrew their army in the "Valley of Salt," and his general, Joab, following up the victory, destroyed nearly the whole male population, and placed Jewish garrisons in all the strongholds of Edom. J. L. Porter. 10,11. It is not conclusive evidence that we are not called to undertake a given work or perform a certain duty, because it is very difficult or even impossible for us to succeed without special help from God. If God calls David to take Petra, he shall take Petra. Plumer.—His hand shall lead him even to Petra, which seems unapproachable by human strength. That marvellous rock-city of the Edomites is surrounded by rocks some of which are three hundred feet high, and a single path twelve feet in width leads to it. The city itself is partly hewn out of the cloven rocks, and its ruins, which, however, belong to a later period, fill travellers with amazement. Tholuck. 12. Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man. This prayer has often fallen from the lips of men who have been bitterly disappointed by their fellows, and it has also been poured out unto the Lord in the presence of some gigantic labor in which mortal power is evidently of no avail. Edom cannot be entered by any human power, yet from its fastnesses the robber bands come rushing down; therefore, O Lord, do Thou interpose and give Thy people deliverance. We ought to pray with all the more confidence in God when our confidence in man is altogether gone. 13. God's help shall inspire us to help ourselves. Where praise and prayer have preceded the battle we may expect to see heroic deeds and decisive victories. "Through God" is our secret support; from that source we draw all our courage, wisdom, and strength. S. 1. HOLD not thy peace, O God of my praise; 2. For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of deceit have they opened against me: They have spoken unto [or, against] me with a lying tongue. 3. They compassed me about also with words of hatred, And fought against me without a cause 4. For my love they are my adversaries: But I give myself unto prayer. 5. And they have rewarded me evil for good, And hatred for my love. 6. Set thou a wicked man over him: And let an adversary stand at his right hand. 7 When he is judged, let him come forth guilty; And let his prayer be turned into sin. 8. Let his days be few ; And let another take his office. 9 Let his children be fatherless, And his wife a widow. 10 Let his children be vagabonds, and beg ; And let them seek their bread out of their desolate places. 11 Let the extortioner catch all that he hath ; And let strangers make spoil of his labour. 12 Let there be none to extend mercy unto him ; Neither let there be any to have pity on his fatherless children. 13 Let his posterity be cut off ; In the generation following let their name be blotted out. 14 Let the iniquity of his fathers be remembered with the LORD ; And let not the sin of his mother be blotted out. 15 Let them be before the LORD continually, That he may cut off the memory of them from the earth. 16 Because that he remembered not to show mercy, But persecuted the poor and needy man, And the broken in heart, to slay them. 17 Yea, he loved cursing, and it came unto him ; And he delighted not in blessing, and it was far from him. 18 He clothed himself also with cursing as with his garment, And it came into his inward parts like water, And like oil into his bones. 19 Let it be unto him as the raiment wherewith he covereth himself, And for the girdle wherewith he is girded continually. 20 This is the reward of mine adversaries from the LORD, And of them that speak evil against my soul. 21 But deal thou with me, O GOD the Lord, for thy name's sake : Because thy mercy is good, deliver thou me, 22 For I am poor and needy, And my heart is wounded within me. 23 I am gone like the shadow when it de- clineth : I am tossed up and down as the locust. 24 My knees are weak through fasting ; And my flesh faileth of fatness. 25 I am become also a reproach unto them : When they see me, they shake their head. 26 Help me, O LORD my God ; O save me according to thy mercy : 27 That they may know that this is thy hand ; That thou, LORD, hast done it. 28 Let them curse, but bless thou : When they arise, they shall be ashamed, but thy servant shall rejoice. 29 Mine adversaries shall be clothed with dis- honour, And they shall cover themselves with their own shame as with a mantle. 30 I will give great thanks unto the LORD with my mouth ; Yea, I will praise him among the multitude. 31 For he shall stand at the right hand of the needy, To save him from them that judge his soul. THIS is the last of the Psalms of imprecation, and differs from the ninety-sixth in being lev- elled against one enemy chiefly, not against many. This circumstance may partly account for the even more intensely-wrought and de- tailed character of the curse. Who the per- son was who was thus singled out for execration it is in vain to conjecture. P. This Psalm consists of three parts : A com- plaint of slanderous and malignant enemies (vs. 1-5) ; a prayer for the punishment of such (vs. 6-20), and a prayer for the sufferer's own de- liverance, with a promise of thanksgiving (vs. 21-31). This Psalm is remarkable, first, as containing the most striking instances of what are called the imprecations of the Psalms ; and then, as having been applied in the most ex- plicit manner to the sufferings of our Saviour from the treachery of Judas, and to the miser- able fate of the latter. These two peculiarities are perhaps more closely connected than they may at first sight seem. Perhaps the best solu- tion of the first is that afforded by the second, or at least by the hypothesis that the Psalmist, under the direction of the Spirit, viewed the sufferings of Israel which furnished the occasion of the Psalm, as an historical type of the Mes- siah's sufferings from the treachery of Judas, and that with this view he expresses his abhor- rence of the crime, and acquiesces in the justice of its punishment in stronger terms than would have been, or are elsewhere, employed in refer- ence to ordinary criminals. A. What is to hinder our acceptance of the fact that the Holy Ghost allowed the natural ex- pression of a righteous indignation against the persistently ungodly to take this form of wither- ing anathema in order to set forth by the fearful details that are given the dreadful doom of the ungodly ? Is it said that we could not, or at least would not, use these terms in reference to any violent oppressor of Christians now? Certainly not, but why? Because we have no inspiration to direct us. But we can read these awful imprecations and study them with profit as indications of the vindicatory justice of God. Nay, at times circumstances compel a hearty sympathy with them. Nothing less seems adequate to the occasion. An eminent Christian scholar who has spent his life in Syria told me that any man who lived among the Mohammedans would have no difficulty with the imprecatory Psalms. Dr. Duff said the same in regard to the Sepoy rebellion. Did not the same man who wrote the exquisite hymn to love in the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians conclude that epistle with the solemn words, "If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be Anathema Maranatha?" The one word anathema wraps up in it far more than all the imprecations to be found in the Psalter. Chambers. 4. In requital for my love to them, they play the part of Satan against me. The Hebrew for "my adversaries" is a verb, the same from which the word Satan is derived. The last clause is strikingly concise: "but I . . . prayer." As for me, my heart is all prayer. I cry to God for help constantly, to strengthen me against temptation and shield me from this hot and malign persecution. Christians have need, under such circumstances, to pray without ceasing that God would help them keep their heart right. C.—I prayer, so it is in the original; "I am for prayer, I am a man of prayer, I love prayer and prize prayer, practise prayer and make a business of prayer, and am in my element when I am at prayer." A good man gives himself to prayer. H. 5. They have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love. Evil for good is devil-like. The revenge which pays a man back in his own coin has a kind of natural justice in it; but what shall be said of that baseness which returns to goodness the very opposite of what it has a right to expect? S. 6. Leaving the mass of his enemies, the Psalmist suddenly singles out one on whom he pours forth the terrible curse which follows. See a similar transition in chap. 55:12. Vs. 1-5 do not give the whole grounds for the curse; they are resumed in vs. 16-18. P. 6. Set Thou a wicked man over him. The first thing that the Psalmist asks is that his foe might be subjected to the evil of having a man placed over him like himself, a man regardless of justice, truth, and right. It is, in fact, a prayer that he might be punished in the line of his offences. It cannot be wrong that a man should be treated as he treats others; and it cannot be in itself wrong to desire that a man should be treated according to his character and deserts, for this is the object of all law, and this is what all magistrates and legislators are endeavoring to secure. Barnes. An adversary; or, "Satan." Let him have not only an unrighteous judge, but a malicious accuser. P.—Wicked one and adversary (Satan), although here used as appellatives or common nouns, are the very terms applied, in the later Scriptures, to the evil spirit or the devil. See Job 1:6; 2:1; 1 Chron. 21:1; Zech. 3:1, 2. In the place last cited he stands too at the right hand of the sinner to accuse him. A.—The sentiment is: Let him who acts the part of Satan toward me know in his own case what it is to have a Satan at his right hand, over him, with the heart to hate and the power to harm. C. 7. Let his prayer become sin. Evidently his prayer that he might be acquitted and discharged. A prayer offered for a murderer or violator of the law, that he might escape or not be punished, would be wrong, or would be a "sin;" and so, in his own case, it would be equally true that a prayer for his own escape would be "sin." The Psalmist asks that, by the result of the trial, such a prayer might be seen to be in fact a prayer for the protection and escape of a bad man. A just sentence in the case would demonstrate this; and this is what the Psalmist prays for. Barnes. 8. Let his days be few. Who would desire a persecuting tyrant to live long? If he will do nothing but mischief the shortening of his life will be the lengthening of the world's tranquillity. "Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days;" this is bare justice to them, and great mercy to the poor and needy. S. Let another take his office. So every man acts and practically prays, who seeks to remove a bad and corrupt man from office. As such an office must be filled by some one, all the efforts which he puts forth to remove a wicked man tend to bring it about that "another should take his office," and for this it is right to labor and pray. The act does not of itself imply malignity or bad feeling, but is consistent with the purest benevolence, the kindest feelings, the strictest integrity, the sternest patriotism, and the highest form of piety. Barnes. His office, implying that the person held a position of some importance. In Acts 1:20 the passage is applied to Judas. In this verse a double loss is imprecated, the loss of life, "let his days be few," and the loss of honor, "let another take his office;" in v. 11 a third is added, the loss of property. P. When, under the old covenant, earthly prosperity was the portion of the wicked, and earthly adversity of the pious, the whole moral government of God seemed to be veiled in clouds and darkness. The very fact that immortality was not clearly discovered to him made the pious Israelite long more passionately for the speedy shining forth of God's power and justice. We must interpret every book by the mind of the author. If so, we must apply this to the Bible and to the Psalms. Their real author is the Holy Spirit. It is remarkable that in the first chapter of the Acts the very strongest of these imprecations is applied as a prophecy to the betrayer of our Lord. Bishop Alexander. 10-13. These are very terrible petitions; but it is God, not man, who has appointed these calamities as the ordinary consequences of persistence in wickedness. It is God, not man, who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generations. It is because this is the ordinary portion of the transgressors, and that thus in God's wonted way His abhorrence of the transgressions of His enemies might be marked, that the Psalmist prays for these calamities. He asks God to do what He had declared He would do, and this for public ends, for he says: "I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth; yea, I will praise Him among the multitude. For He shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save him from those that condemn his soul" (vs. 30, 31). R. A. Bertram. 14. Let the guilt of his fathers be remembered by Jehovah, and his mother's sin not blotted out. This is perhaps the most fearful imprecation in the Psalm, as it extends the consequences of transgression not merely to the children, who might naturally be expected to partake of them, but to the parents. It is not to be forgotten, however, that in all such cases the personal guilt of the implicated parties is presupposed, and not inferred from their connection with the principals. A. 14,15. The ground of these imprecations bespeaks them very just, though they sound very severe. To justify the imprecations of vengeance upon the sinner's posterity, the sin of his ancestors is here brought into the account, the iniquity of his fathers, and the sin of his mother. These God often visits, even upon the children's children, and is not unrighteous therein; when wickedness has long run in the blood, justly does the curse run along with it. Thus all the innocent blood that had been shed upon the earth, from that of righteous Abel, was required from that persecuting generation who, by putting Christ to death, filled up the measure of their fathers, and left as long a train of vengeance to follow them as the train of guilt was that went before them, which they themselves agreed to by saying, His blood be upon us and on our children. H. 16. Because they would show no mercy, let no mercy be shown them. Because they chased down (Hebrew) the afflicted and heartbroken, even to slaughter, let their retribution be just and thorough, following their name and their posterity till their memory is blotted from the earth. These conceptions, a sinner punished in his posterity; punished also by the sin of his father and of his mother coming down upon him, are deeply tinged with the Oriental character. They are peculiar, not merely as being terribly strong, but as involving the sentiment that a man lives in the glory of his ancestry and in the glory of his posterity, and therefore his punishment may be knit together with theirs. 17,18. Here we come upon grammatical forms which are simply historical, and not at all imperative or optative, i.e., which are not prayer, nor even prediction. The only proper rendering is on this wise: "And he even loved cursing, and consequently [or, then] it came upon him; and he did not love blessing, and consequently it kept aloof from him." As he lived in an atmosphere of cursing (we might say), but the Oriental mind puts it, he girt it about him as his robe, therefore he had his fill of it, as water might fill his stomach and oil his bones. That is, God has impressed the law of retribution upon the soul of man, so that it helps to work out this result; upon human society, so that man's social nature and relations help forward this result, and upon the agencies of his own providential government, so that they bring up toward completeness and fulness the results of righteous and terrible retribution. "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." The historic fact is the thing affirmed in these verses. C.—Deep down in every man's soul the justice of the lex talionis is established. Retaliation, not for private revenge, but as a measure of public justice, is demanded by the Psalmist and deserved by the crime. S. 18. And he has put on cursing as his garment, and it has come like water into his inside, and like oil into his bones. There is an obvious climax in this verse. That which is first described as the man's exterior covering is then said to be within him, first as water, then as oil or fat, first in the vessels of his body, then in his very bones. The general idea is that the curse, which he denounced and endeavored to inflict on others, has taken possession of himself both within and without. A. 20. Those who answer the manifestations of love on the part of the righteous with hostility in word and deed, commit a Satanic sin for which there is no forgiveness. The curse is the fruit of their own choice and deed. D. 21. BUT THOU. He turns from his adversaries to God, from their curses to His loving-kindness. The emphatic pronoun, and the double name of God, both mark the earnestness of the appeal. P.—Do Thou for me, O God, the Lord; appear for me, act for me. If God be for us, He will do for us, will do more abundantly for us than we are able either to ask or think. He does not prescribe to God what He should do for him, but refers himself to His wisdom; “Lord, do for me what seems good in Thine eyes.” H. For Thy name’s sake. He does not say, For my name, that it may be vindicated from reproach and shame, but for Thy name; as if he would say, whatever I may be, O Lord, and whatever may befall me, have respect to Thy name, have regard to it only. We learn here with what passion for the glory of the Divine name they ought to be animated who are peculiarly consecrated to the name of God. He does not say, “Because my case is good,” but “Because Thy mercy is good.” Note also he does not simply say, Because Thou art good or because Thou art merciful; but because Thy mercy is good. He had experienced a certain special goodness in the Divine mercy; i.e., such timeliness, kind readiness in all afflictions, and help for every kind of affliction prepared and provided. On this he rests hope and confidence, in this takes refuge. All those are truly happy who have had experience of this mercy, and can depend on it with firm hope and confidence. 22. For I am poor and needy. Note here how beautifully he unites these arguments. He had said, “Because Thy mercy is good;” and he adds, “Because I am poor and needy.” He could not have added anything more appropriate; for this is the nature of goodness and mercy, even in the human heart, much more in God, the best and most merciful of all beings, that nothing more easily moves it to give succor than the affliction, calamity, and misery of those by whom it is invoked. Musculus. 23. Shadow declineth. The shadows of objects at sunset lengthen every instant and grow faint as they lengthen; and in the instant that they shoot to an immeasurable length disappear. Bishop Horsley.—Tossed up and down.** A Christian is often tossed and shaken, yet is as Mount Zion; he is a lamb and a lion; a reed and a cedar. He is sometimes so troubled that he thinks nothing to be true in religion; yet, if he did think so, he could not at all be troubled. He thinks sometimes that God hath no mercy for him, yet resolves to die in the pursuit of it. He believes, like Abraham, against hope, and though he cannot answer God’s logic, yet, with the woman of Canaan, he hopes to prevail with the rhetoric of importunity. Bacon. 26-29. A joyous prospect of the end of the affliction. In v. 27 God’s hand stands opposed to accident, the work of men, and man’s own doing. When God at last interposes, all will undeniably perceive that it is His hand which here performs that which was impossible in the eyes of men, and that it is His work which has been accomplished in this affliction and its issue. He blesses him whom men curse; these arise and are confounded, whereas His servant can rejoice in the end of his affliction. D. 28,29. It is better here to translate with grammatical precision, on this wise: “They will curse, but Thou wilt bless; they have risen up” [as mine enemies], “and consequently were confounded; but Thy servant” [myself, because I am Thy servant] “will rejoice. My haters will be clothed with shame; they will cover themselves with their own disgrace as with a mantle.” 30,31. The tenses throughout these verses are future, as they were throughout vs. 28, 29. Here [not there] our English version has rendered them accurately. C.—The contrast between this concluding thought and v. 6 is unmistakable. Satan stands accusing at the right hand of the tormentor; God stands vindicating at the right hand of the tormented one; he who delivered him over to human judges is condemned, and he who was delivered over is “taken away from oppression and judgment” (Isa. 53: 8) by the Judge of the judges, in order that, as we now hear in the following Psalm, he may sit at the right hand of the heavenly King. D. 31. He shall stand at the right hand of the poor. One of the oldest rabbinical commentaries has a very beautiful gloss on this passage. “Whenever a poor man stands at thy door, the Holy One, blessed be His Name, stands at his right hand. If thou givest him alms, know that thou shalt receive a reward from Him who standeth at his right hand." A. E. If any part of the Bible belongs to a past age, it would seem to be the imprecatory prayers of the Psalms. At least it might be said a later revelation has abrogated their use. And yet there are times now, and men now, and transactions now taking place upon the earth, and wrongs and enormities still heard of, in reference to which these prayers would seem to be still wanted as the most appropriate language. All other speech fails to express the righteous indignation so different from the personal revenge. It demands its own appropriate language, and the ethical want finds its true relief in these portions of the Church's immutable liturgy. T. Lewis. The gentlest hearts burn with indignation when they hear of barbarities to women and children, of crafty plots for ruining the innocent, of cruel oppression of helpless orphans, and gratuitous ingratitude to the good and gentle. We wish well to all mankind, and for that very reason we sometimes blaze with indignation against the inhuman wretches by whom every law which protects our fellow-creatures is trampled down, and every dictate of humanity is set at nought. S. It now remains to speak of the imprecations in this Psalm. In my view our English version gives the imprecatory sense in several passages where the original does not. The true mission of the translator, as of the expositor, is to meet the demands of the original tongue with the utmost possible precision, it being the function of God only to speak the Word; of His servants honestly to interpret. There is real imprecation in this Psalm, and we are now to inquire into its moral character considered as the utterance of the author: Is it, or is it not, consistent with Christian love, with the spirit of the Gospel of Christ? The solution of this great question turns on a power of mind common to all intelligent moral agents by which we are able to contemplate any other moral agent variously, holding him before our mind, now in one light, now in another, according to the features which are prominent in his case, as thus: We are able to love the man and hate the sinner; to love him thought of as man; but to hate, not his conduct only but himself, its responsible author, thought of simply as a destroyer of other's happiness. Thinking of him as a sentient being, capable of happiness and of misery, we desire his happiness, we deprecate his misery; but thinking of him as the deliberate and sworn foe and destroyer of all happiness, even to his utmost power, we wish and pray that God's retribution may seize upon him, arrest his career of mischief, and make his sufferings exemplary for the restraint of others like-minded toward evil. The traitor in arms against his country we shoot down and spare not; the same rebel, wounded, disarmed, and at our mercy, we spare and lift up as swiftly as we smote him when in arms. Thinking of man as a fellow-creature, as one whose sensibilities to joy or woe are like our own, we love his welfare and mourn over his fall; but thinking of him as the enemy of God, as the determined foe of all real, high, and noble blessedness in the universe, our indignation is bound to rise against him; we cannot suppress it; we are false to the highest interests of truth and right if we disapprove or restrain it. The necessity and the responsibilities of civil government in this world of crime furnish apt illustration. The men of largest, purest benevolence are the best men to frame criminal law; the best men to administer it from the bench; the best men to execute it in prison, in penitentiary, or upon the scaffold. Solemnly and firmly, with tender compassion, yet with unflinching fidelity, they may love the culprit, but they must inflict the penalty he deserves. In the righteous demands of law they acquiesce simply because there is a greater good behind which must be protected by the lesser sacrifice of the guilty criminal. Under the stress of a necessity which they deplore, they say from the bottom of their heart, The guilty man must die; we should deprecate his escape; in behalf of all society and of universal good, we feel a sense of relief when justice exacts the murderer's life, blood for blood. The tribunal of the Supreme Judge of the universe differs from this only as being perfect and universal. Justice is the same thing there as here. Benevolence is the same. The ultimate question, therefore, is reduced to this: Shall God reign, or shall Satan? Shall the right triumph, or the wrong? Shall the innocent be protected, or the guilty; the good in heart, or the evil? And to our present point, Where shall our sympathies be; with God, or with His enemies? This is the ultimate question, beyond which we have no occasion to go. C. Anger against sin and a desire that evil-doers may be punished, are not opposed to the spirit of the Gospel, or to that love of enemies which our Lord both enjoined and exemplified. If the emotion or its utterance were essentially sinful, how could Paul wish the enemy of Christ and the perverter of the Gospel to be accursed (1 Cor. 16 : 22 ; Gal. 1 : 8) ; and especially, how could the spirit of the martyred saints in heaven call on God for vengeance (Rev. 6 : 10), and join to celebrate its final execution (Rev. 19 : 1-6)? Kitto. Imprecations of judgment on the wicked on the hypothesis of their continued impenitence are not inconsistent with simultaneous efforts to bring them to repentance ; and Christian charity itself can do no more than labor for the sinner's conversion. The law of holiness requires us to pray for the fires of Divine retribution ; the law of love to seek meanwhile to rescue the brand from the burning. The last prayer of the martyr Stephen was answered not by any general averting of doom from a guilty nation, but by the conversion of an individual persecutor to the service of God. Thrupp. 1. THE LORD saith unto my lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool. 2. The LORD shall send forth the rod of thy strength out of Zion : Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies. 3. Thy people offer themselves willingly in the day of thy power : In the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, Thou hast the dew of thy youth. 4. The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever After the order of Melchizedek. 5. The Lord at thy right hand Shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath. 6. He shall judge among the nations, He shall fill the places with dead bodies ; He shall strike through the head in many countries. 7. He shall drink of the brook in the way : Therefore shall he lift up the head. THE words of our Saviour recorded in Matt. 22 : 41-46 ; Mark 13 : 35-37 ; Luke 20 : 41-44, preclude any other view than that this Psalm is a direct prophecy of Himself. In accordance with these words there is no reference here to David, or to any king of Israel, as a type of Christ. The Psalm is thus raised to a higher plane than most other Messianic Psalms. There is indeed a typical groundwork in the two offices held by men divinely appointed under the Old Testament, and especially by Melchizedek, King of Salem, and priest of the Most High God, but in the Psalm Christ only is addressed or described. De Witt. # Paraphrase of the Psalm. 1. " Thus saith Jehovah—it is His revelation that I hear ; it is His Word addressed to One who, though He be My Son, is yet my Lord —' I give Thee honor and dignity equal to My own, I associate Thee with Myself in kingly rule and dominion, until I have subdued every enemy who shall dare to lift himself against Thee.' " 2,3. Then turning to the King who has thus been solemnly placed on the throne of Jehovah, and who rules as His vicegerent in Zion, the Psalmist says : " From Zion, Thy royal seat, shall Jehovah Himself, on whose throne Thou sittest, stretch out the sceptre of Thy dominion, So close shall be the fellowship between Him and Thee. Thou shalt sit on His throne ; He shall wield Thy sceptre ; His might shall be Thy might, His kingdom shall be Thy kingdom, and Thou shalt not only subdue Thine enemies, but before they are yet vanquished Thou shalt rule in the midst of them. When Thou goest forth to war, Thine own people shall flock with glad and willing hearts to Thy standard. They shall come clad, not in armor, but in holy vestments as ministering priests, for Thou hast consecrated them to be Thy priestly soldiers. They shall come, a youthful host, in numbers numberless as the dew, bright and fresh as the dew from the womb of the morning. 4. "Yet another solemn word concerning Thee have I heard. It is a word confirmed by an oath, the oath of the Most High, which cannot be broken. By that oath He hath made Thee Priest as well as King; King Thou art, Priest thou shalt be henceforth; Priest not after the law of a carnal commandment, or by descent through the Levitical priesthood, but after the order of Melchizedek; Priest, therefore, not of the Jew only, but of the Gentile also; Priest not for a time, but forever." 5-7. Then, looking on the leader, the host, the conflict, the poet exclaims: "The Lord, the God of hosts who is with Thee, O King, who is at Thy right hand to succor and give Thee the victory in the battle, hath already crushed the rival monarchs that dispute Thy sway. Thou shalt be a judge and ruler among the nations whom He has given Thee as thine inheritance. The vast battlefield is strewn with the corpses of Thy foes. Far and wide hast Thou extended Thy conquests, vanquishing one leader after another; and Thou shalt reap the fruit of Thy victories, like a warrior who, pressing hotly on the rear of his enemies as they flee before him, scarcely pauses for a moment to snatch a hasty draught from the wayside brook, and then with renewed ardor, with head erect and kindling eye, continues the pursuit. Thus shall victory be crowned, and not a foe remain." P. This is the counterpart of the second Psalm, completing the prophetic picture of the conquering Messiah. The progressive development of the Messianic doctrine lies in this, that the kingship of Messiah, there alleged and confirmed by a Divine decree, is here assumed at the beginning, and then shown to be connected with His priesthood, which is also solemnly proclaimed and its perpetuity insured by a Divine oath. This constitutes the centre of the Psalm (v. 4), to which all the rest is either introductory (vs. 1-3), or supplementary (vs. 5-7). The repeated, explicit, and emphatic application of this Psalm in the New Testament to Jesus Christ is so far from being arbitrary, or at variance with the obvious import of the Psalm itself, that any other application is absurd. A. This Psalm is a step in advance in the progress of doctrine in respect to the person and work of the Great Messiah. It appears in the later Prophet Zechariah (6 : 13), and may be foreshadowed in Isa. 53. This Psalm is applied to the Messiah by the Jewish fathers; by the very early Syriac version in the words: "A prophecy of Christ's victory over His enemies;" and, higher than all other testimony, by Jesus Himself (Matt. 22 : 41; Mark 12 : 35; Luke 20 : 41). These passages show that the Jews of that age recognized their expected Messiah in this Psalm, and also that Jesus applied the Psalm to Himself in an argument which none of His opponents could resist. Furthermore, the New Testament writers repeatedly recognize and honor this Psalm as referring to Christ by their application to Him of the words, "Sit at My right hand." No special emphasis should be given to the word "sit" as compared with any other posture; position at the right hand is the main thing. Hence Stephen saw Him "standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7 : 56), and Paul (Rom. 8 : 34) has it simply, "is at the right hand," etc. Sitting, however, is the usual posture of royalty; a king sits on his throne. See other New Testament references, in Matt. 26 : 64; Eph. 1 : 20; Heb. 1 : 3, 13; 8 : 1; 10 : 12; 1 Pet. 3 : 22; Rev. 3 : 21. Another corresponding class of New Testament passages indorses the words, "Make thine enemies thy footstool;" e.g., 1 Cor. 15 : 25; Eph. 1 : 22; Heb. 10 : 13. To these should be added the strong support given to the Messianic interpretation of this Psalm by the allusion to His priesthood as taught here in v. 4. The writer to the Hebrews makes this point strikingly emphatic (Heb. 5 : 6-10; 6 : 20; 7 : 1-8). C. If the solemn address, "Sit thou at my right hand," is equivalent to saying, "Be thou associated with Me in my kingly dignity, in My power and universal dominion," then the best comment on the passage is to be found, as even some of the Jewish interpreters have seen, in Dan. 7 : 13, 14, where "One like the Son of Man comes with the clouds of heaven, and is brought unto the Ancient of Days, and there is given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should serve Him." The two passages, the one from the Psalm and the other from Daniel, are, in fact, combined by our Lord Himself, when standing before the high-priest He says, "Hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of God, and coming in the clouds of heaven." The same interpretation is given by Peter (Acts 2 : 34-36). P. This Psalm claims emphatically to be the fruit and record of a Divine revelation. It is an oracle, an utterance of Jehovah which he has heard, and which he is to declare to others. It is an oracle which concerns a King who reigns in Zion; it is addressed to One to whom the poet does homage, calling Him "Lord;" it assures Him of the high favor of Jehovah, who lifts Him to a share in His own regal dignity, giving Him the victory over all His enemies. The poet then pictures the King going forth to battle, surrounded by His youthful warriors, bright and numberless as the dew-drops on a summer's morn, willing to shed their heart's blood in His service, each one robed as a priest, each one a soldier of God. As he gazes on the vision which has been called up by the first word from heaven, another Divine Word sounds in his ear, the Word confirmed by the oath of Jehovah that the King shall also be "a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek." Then he follows the King in imagination to the war, sees Him winning victory after victory with great slaughter, aided by God Himself in the fight, and securing the fruits of His victories by a pursuit of His enemies, which knows no check even in the burning heat of an Eastern sun. From Matt. 22 : 41-45 and Mark 12 : 35-37, it appears, first, that David himself wrote the Psalm, and next, that in writing he was moved by the Holy Ghost. David himself, in a confessedly Messianic Psalm, is speaking not of himself, but of his great Descendant, and, so speaking, calls Him his Lord. David was able to do this, was able in faith to recognize the true Divine greatness of One who, according to the flesh, would be his Son, because he spake as the organ of a Divine revelation, as "he was moved by the Holy Ghost." This is clearly the scope of our Lord's argument. And if so, then it is plain that there can be no lower reference of the Psalm to David or any other Jewish monarch. It is a prediction, and a prediction of the Christ as the true King, as the everlasting Priest after the order of Melchizedek. It seems to me, then, that we are shut up to the conclusion, that in this lofty and mysterious Psalm, David, speaking by the Holy Ghost, was carried beyond himself, and did see in prophetic vision that his Son would also be his Lord. Nor is it altogether strange, altogether inconsistent with the course of God's providence, that such a vision should be vouchsafed to one to whom so clear a promise was given that the Messiah should come of his seed, and who in his "last words" pictured in such glowing terms the Righteous Ruler and the blessings of His righteous reign. While, however, we maintain what our Lord's argument compels us to maintain, that the Psalm is a prediction, we cannot tell to what extent it was a conscious prediction. We do not know how far David himself needed an interpretation of the vision in which he saw the majestic figure of the priestly King. P. [For a full discussion of the manifold points involved, see Perowne, vol. 2, p. 282. B.] 1,2. He begins with the solemn words with which a prophetic message is wont to be announced, thus at the outset stamping on the Psalm its true character. The "oracle" or "Word of Jehovah unto my Lord," which he heard, is a new revelation made to him from the heavens. He is taken up and listens to the Divine voice calling to His right hand, to the most intimate communion with Himself, and to wielding the energies of omnipotence, Him whom David knew to be his Lord. And when that Divine voice ceases, the prophetic spirit in the seer hymns the coronation anthem of the Monarch enthroned by the side of the majesty in the heavens. "The sceptre of Thy strength will Jehovah send out of Zion. Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies." In singular juxtaposition are the throne at God's right hand, and the sceptre, the emblem of sovereignty, issuing from Zion, a dominion realized on earth by a Monarch in the heavens, a dominion the centre of which is Zion and the undefined extent universal. A. M. 1. A seat at the right hand of a king is mentioned in the Scriptures as a place of honor, not arbitrarily, but as implying a participation in His power, of which the right hand is a constant symbol. The participation in the Divine power thus ascribed to the Messiah is a special and extraordinary one, having reference to the total subjugation of His enemies. The idea running through the whole Psalm is, that it is in and through Him that Jehovah acts for the destruction of His enemies, and that for this very end He is invested with almighty power, as denoted by His session at the right hand of God. This session is to last until the total subjugation of His enemies, that is to say, this special and extraordinary power of the Messiah is then to terminate; a representation which agrees exactly with that of Paul in 1 Cor. 15 : 24-28, where the verse before us is distinctly referred to, although not expressly quoted. This verse is more frequently quoted or referred to in the New Testament than any other in the Hebrew Bible. It lies at the foundation of all those which represent Christ as at the right hand of the Father. A. 2. His kingdom is set up not by destroying them, but by subduing them, so that they become His willing servants. They yield to Him, and He rules over them. It is not here a commission to cut them off, but to make them His friends and dispose them to submit to His authority. Here power may crush men; it requires more than that to make rebels willingly submissive, and to dispose them voluntarily to obey. Barnes. The rod of the Lord's strength is to be "sent forth out of Zion;" the meaning is, the Gospel which is to subdue the world to Christ shall go forth into the world first from Jerusalem where the hill of Zion stood. Other prophecies foretell this. "Out of Zion," says Isaiah, "shall go forth the law," the new law of grace which is to convert the Gentiles, "and the Word of the Lord," he adds, "from Jerusalem." "It shall be in that day," says another prophet "that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem." And the fact corresponded with these predictions. C. Bradley. — Nor would one err who should call the Cross the rod of power; for this rod converted sea and land, and filled them with a vast power. Armed with this rod, the apostles went forth throughout the world, and accomplished all that they did, beginning at Jerusalem. Chrysostom. The omniscience of God is displayed in the wonderful fact that in the very land of the covenant, in the very midst of that people who rejected and crucified the Saviour, the first Church of Christ on earth was established. Israel scattered among the nations, and the Church of Christ having begun in Zion at Jerusalem, are the most wonderful and enduring monuments, and incontestable witnesses of the truth of Christianity. B. Weiss. 3. Thy people.** In the midst of His enemies, the King has His own faithful adherents. God, who holds the sceptre of His Anointed, and assures Him of victory, has also given Him a willing people, working in their hearts by His Spirit joyfulness and courage and ready self-sacrifice. P. Thy people (are) free-will-offerings in the day of Thy power, in holy decorations, from the womb of the dawn, to Thee (is) the dew of Thy youth. Every member of this very obscure verse has been a subject of dispute and of conflicting explanations. The common version of the first words (Thy people shall be willing) is entirely inadmissible as an exact translation. The idea, however, is the same, but expressed with far more strength and beauty. The plural noun just mentioned is the one used to denote spontaneous gifts, or free-will-offerings, under the law of Moses. By supplying the correlative verb, we obtain the sense, Thy people (offer) voluntary gifts. But by supplying the substantive verb, which is far more natural and common, we obtain the still more striking sense, Thy people are themselves such gifts, they freely consecrate themselves to God. The day of Thy power is the day in which it is exerted and displayed in the subjugation of Thine enemies. The next phrase literally means in beauties (or, ornaments) of holiness, which may either have its obvious spiritual sense, as in Psalm 29 : 2, or that of holy decorations with allusion to the sacerdotal dress, which is expressly called garments of holiness (Lev. 16 : 4). The last is the sense put by the modern interpreters upon the phrase, which then means that the people, when they make this solemn offering of themselves to God, appear clothed in sacerdotal vestments as the servants of a priestly King (v. 4 below), and themselves a "kingdom of priests" (Ex. 19 : 6.) The womb of the dawn (or, daybreak) is a very strong poetical description of the origin or source of the dew which immediately follows, and the sense of which must determine that of the whole clause. Free from objections is the supposition that the clause relates not to the numbers or the beauty of Messiah's people, but to their perpetual succession, expressed by a fine poetical comparison with dew engendered afresh daily from the womb of the morning. Youth will then have its proper sense as denoting the perpetual youth of the Messiah, whose body is thus constantly renewed by the successive generations of His people. A. All the people, without distinction, wear holy festive garments. Thus they surround the Divine King like dew born out of the womb of the morning. It is a priestly people whom He leads forth to holy battle, just as in Rev. 19 : 14 heavenly hosts upon white horses follow the Logos of God, a new generation, wondrously born as it were out of heavenly light, numerous, fresh and vigorous like the pearly dew, the children of the dawn. The thought that it is a priestly people leads over to v. 4. The King who leads this priestly people is, as we hear in v. 4, Himself a Priest. The priesthood is united with the kingship in Him, the One that rules out of Zion, just as it had been in Melchizedek, the King of Salem, and that, too, forever. D. God's people are willing in believing, loving, obeying, adhering, living piously and justly in this world; so that they do not need the constraint of laws or threats, because they are led by the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. Musculus. — Here is "leading, but no force; conduct, but no compulsion." How spontaneously does the person led follow him that leads him! So it is here. This and all other workings of the Spirit are admirably suited to the nature of reasonable and free agents. T. Jacomb. The simple term "willing" denotes the condition of creatures who suffer themselves to be wrought upon and moved, according to the will of God. They suffer God to work in them to will and to do. They are willing to be weaned from their own thoughts and purposes, that the thoughts and purposes of God may be fulfilled in them. God will beautify them with salvation, because there is nothing in them to hinder His working. They will be wise, they will be good, they will be like God, for they are "willing;" and there proceeds from God a mighty spirit, the whole tendency of which is to make His creatures like Himself. J. Pulsford. There is a general power which goes along with the Gospel to all, proper to make them willing to be Christ's people, arising from the supreme authority of its great Author and the intrinsic excellency of the things themselves contained in it, beside the undeniable miracles that were wrought for the confirmation of it. And there is also a particular power, the power of the Spirit, going along with the power of the Word, to the people of Christ, which is effectual to make them willing. The former leaves sinners without matter of excuse, this leaves saints without matter of boasting. H. Into the world of spiritual darkness and death there must come a Life-Power from above, a Power greater than the soul, and adequate to compass its condition and necessities, a Power knowing how to reach the soul through its own nature, and, in the delicate and sensitive sphere of moral causes, to change the law of action without impairing the acting power, the personality of the soul itself; a Power to quicken, enlighten, renew, restore, by bringing the soul again into its true and normal relations with God, and by bringing God nigh to the soul, that His presence, His truth, His holiness, His love, might act upon it as realities. Christ embodying the truth, the righteousness and the love of God in a living expression that men could see and feel, and bringing home to their hearts the reconciling grace of God by the sacrifice of Himself upon the cross, was this Life-Power; a Power which, having in the Atonement gained a leverage against the law of sin and death, can move the world; and which moving ever from that fulcrum, carries on through the ages the work of restoration, till reversing the old law of history it shall make all things new. Anon. It is not true that the Holy Spirit works conversion by a direct, soul-renewing fiat or silent thunder-stroke of omnipotence. He works not by any short method of absolute will. Working efficiently and, in a certain sense, immediately in the man, or subject, He still circles round the will, doing it respect by laying no force upon it, and only raising appeals to it from what He puts in the mind, the conscience, the memory, the sense of want, the fears excited, the aspirations kindled. He moves upon it thus by a siege and not by a fiat—carries it finally by a process of circumvallation. And when it is really born of God, it will be the result of what the Spirit has wrought by a long, and various, and subtle, and beautiful process, too delicate for human thought to trace. H. B. There are many ways of compendiously expressing the Gospel, but a better it would be hard to find than this, that it is the good will of God overcoming the evil will of man. By means no doubt: wondrous means! By His own self-sacrifice; by suffering love; by revelation of truth; by donation of the Spirit, because these and the like things are necessary elements for the case, the nature of man being such as to forbid the hope of any change being wrought in it by mere strength, by what we call omnipotence. Yet all these—written revelation, manifested Christ, Atonement, Comforter, powers of the world to come—are instruments of the good will of God seeking to change, and, in many instances, happily, actually changing the evil will of man. "Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power." God worketh in men, "to will and to do of His good pleasure." Then the question of questions to a man must be this: "Am I now, with my will, doing the will of God? Doing it feebly, imperfectly, no doubt, but still doing it, by preference, in choice, with determination, with an honest and supreme desire that I may come to do it more and yet more perfectly, until, on some calm, bright day, the first day of accomplished salvation, I shall begin to do it without defect, intermission, or weariness, like the saints and angels in heaven?" Whoso thus doeth the will of God has entered the world of reality and permanence as one belonging to it. He is now already in the ever-abiding state. Raleigh. If Paul had simply bid us work out our own salvation for ourselves he would have bid us do what was impossible; we might go on trying hard all our lives, and at the end of them we should find our salvation just as much out of our reach as ever. On the other hand, if he had simply told us that it is God that works in us both to will and to do according to His own pleasure, without telling us what we have to do in consequence, then he would have given us a direct encouragement to go on standing idle all our lives, in the expectation that God will come and save us, in spite of our doing nothing toward securing our salvation; a thing which God has never promised to do, and never will do. We must go on working as incessantly and laboriously as if we had to earn our salvation by our own efforts; and all the while we must feel, and freely confess, that our salvation must come to us as a free gift from God. And so working, and so confessing, we may look confidently forward to the day when our work will be ended, and our salvation secured. And we shall look forward to it in confidence, for the very reason that it is God alone, and not we, who is doing all the work. Henry Harris. We begin God's service because He calls us to it, we end by loving the service for its own sake. And this is an advanced stage of the Divine life. It implies a greater likeness to God, who doth that which is good, not from any outward obligation, but from the free and unalterable propensity of His eternal nature toward that which is good. We thus cease to be servants, and grow into the life and liberty of sons. Our obedience to God has brought us in happy advance toward His presence. We have been doing the will of the Father, and the consequence is that our own will has become identified with His. Inclination and duty now go hand in hand. The sense of bondage has disappeared, and a sweet sense of free choice has come in its place. We have learned what it is to be holy as God is holy. By serving Him we have found our fruit unto holiness. W. L. Alexander. In the beauties of holiness. In holy vestments as priests. They are at once warriors and priests; meet for the service of Him who was King and Priest. Neander remarks on the connection between these two sides of the Christian character. God's soldiers can only maintain their war by priestly self-consecration. Conversely: God's priests can only preserve their purity by unintermitted conflict. W. Kay. Beautiful in holiness—that is the character of all who are made partakers of His grace and Spirit—their character now; "the beauty of the Lord" is already upon them; it will be more visibly, more brightly upon them in a brighter world. C. Bradley.—Godliness is our spiritual beauty. Godliness is to the soul as the light to the world, to illustrate and adorn it. It is not greatness that sets us off in God's eye but goodness; what is the beauty of the angels but their sanctity? Godliness is the curious embroidery and workmanship of the Holy Ghost; a soul furnished with godliness is damand enamelled with purity. Godliness sheds a glory and lustre upon the saints. T. Watson. Holiness is the chiefest excellency of man, his highest advantage above inferior beings. It is the supreme beauty of the soul, the resemblance of angels, the image of God Himself. In this the perfection of the reasonable nature truly consists, and glory naturally results from it. As a diamond, when its earthy and colorless parts are taken away, shines forth in its lustre: so when the soul is freed from its impurities and all terrene affections, it will appear with a Divine brightness. The Church shall then be glorious when cleansed from every spot and made complete in holiness. Bates.—The holiness of a covenant soul is a resemblance of the holiness of God, and formed by it, as the picture of the sun in a cloud is a fruit of His beams, and an image of its Author. The fulness of the perfection of holiness remains in the nature of God as the fulness of the light does in the sun; yet there are transmissions from the sun to the moon, and it is a light of the same nature both in the one and in the other. The holiness of a creature is nothing else but the reflection of the Divine holiness upon it. Charnock. Holiness is the only means by which holiness can be diffused. It is the wise man that can impart wisdom to others, it is the good man that can diffuse goodness, and it is only the holy man that can diffuse holiness. Every man can bring forth to others only out of the treasures deposited first in his own heart. Jenkyn.—Holiness is the end for which we were made, for which we were redeemed, for which God the Holy Ghost is sent down and shed abroad in the hearts that will receive Him. God did not will to create us as perfect. He willed that we, through His grace, should become perfect. But what He willed that we should be, that, if our will fail not, we must become. His almighty will vouchsafes to depend on ours. What God commands, what God wills, what God so willed that He made us for this alone, that we should be holy, and being holy, should share His holiness and bliss, that must be within our reach if we will. The mistake of mistakes is to think that holiness consists in great or extraordinary things beyond the reach of ordinary men. It has been well said: "Holiness does not consist in doing uncommon things, but in doing common things uncommonly well." Few can ever do great things, and the few who can do them can each do but few. But every one can study the will of God, and can give great diligence to know it and to do what he knows. Your daily round of duty is your daily path to come nearer unto God. Pusey. Men talk about holiness and pray for it as if it were something entirely apart from their every-day life, something that has nothing whatever to do with their conduct in their domestic, social, and business relations. They sing, "Nearer, my God, to Thee," with glowing fervor, but do not think that the prayer can be answered only by the lifting up of their own lives to the plane of God's requirements. Holiness is not a mere sentiment, not a vague vision of glory overhanging us like a heavenly cloud; not a rapture or an ecstasy; not something which God sends down to wrap us like a garment in its radiant folds. It is the most real and practical thing in this world. If being holy means anything at all, it means being true, honest, upright, brave, pure, gentle, patient, unselfish. It is not all prayer and church-going and hymn-singing; it is life. It is not a Sabbath mood, but a week-day habiliment. We really have no more religion than we get into our every-day life, at home, in business, in all our conduct. We are Christians only so far as the Christ living in us is manifested in Christliness before men. J. R. Miller. The conquering King whom the Psalm hymns is a Priest forever; and He is followed by an army of priests. The soldiers are gathered in the day of the muster, with high courage and willing devotion, ready to fling away their lives; but they are clad not in mail, but in priestly robes; like those who wait before the altar rather than like those who plunge into the fight; like those who compassed Jericho with the ark for their standard and the trumpets for all their weapons. We can scarcely fail to remember the words which echo these and interpret them. "The armies which were in heaven followed Him on white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean"—a strange armor against sword cut and spear-thrust. . . . But this one thing is obvious, that the great power which we Christian men are to wield in our loving warfare is—character. Purity of heart and life, transparent, simple goodness, manifest in men's sight, these will arm us against dangers, and these will bring our brethren glad captives to our Lord. We serve Him best, and advance His kingdom most, when the habit of our souls is that righteousness with which He invests our nakedness. Be like your Lord, and as His soldiers you will conquer, and as His priests you will win some to His love and fear. Nothing else will avail without that. Without that dress no man finds a place in the ranks. The image suggests, too, the spirit in which our priestly warfare is to be waged. The one metaphor brings with it thoughts of strenuous effort, of discipline, of sworn consecration to a cause. The other brings with it thoughts of gentleness, and sympathy, and tenderness, of still waiting at the shrine, of communion with Him who dwells between the Cherubim. And while our work demands all the courage and tension of every power which the one image presents, it is to be sedulously guarded from any tinge of wrath or heat of passion, such as mingles with conflict, and is to be prosecuted with all the pity and patience, the brotherly meekness of a true priest. We are to be gentle, long-suffering, not doing our work with passion and self-will, but remembering that gentleness is mightiest, and that we shall best adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour when we go among men with the light caught in the inner sanctuary still irradiating our faces, and our hands full of blessings to bestow on our brethren. We are to be soldier-priests, strong and gentle, like the ideal of those knights of old who were both, and bore the cross on shield and helmet and sword-hilt. A. M. 4. Melchizedek's order Thy type.** Hebrew, after the description of. In Heb. 7: 15 we find the alternative expression, according to the likeness of, which is the exact meaning, the writer there claiming that Christ was "made like to Melchizedek"—that is, that the priesthood of Melchizedek was a divinely instituted, prophetic figure or type of the priesthood of Christ, especially in its combination with His royal dominion. He is not descended from Levi, but from Judah, and is a King on the throne of David, yet He is a Priest, a High-Priest in the temple of God. See the important parallel passage, though Melchizedek is not mentioned, Zech. 6: 12, 13. There are other typical resemblances exhibited in the epistle, in reply to Jews who questioned whether Christ, as descended from Judah, could be a priest; principally that Melchizedek's name, parentage, birth, and death were not to be found in any priestly genealogy, and that he owed his position to direct Divine appointment on personal grounds, and not to descent from an hereditary line; and further, that he had no successor in his priesthood, but held it till the object of his appointment was accomplished. The writer proves in this and other ways, not only that Christ was truly a priest, but that His priesthood was superior to that of Aaron; and still further, that the introduction, under the Divine promise and oath, of a priest after the prophetic similitude of Melchizedek and not of Aaron, proves the insufficiency of the latter, supersedes and annuls it, and so virtually abrogates the whole Levitical law, which was founded upon the priesthood, and could not subsist without it (7 : 11-19). There is no mystery connected with Melchizedek or his priesthood. The Revised Version has rendered an important service in substituting "without genealogy" for "without descent" in chap. 7 : 3. De Witt. This verse contains the great central revelation of the Psalm. How weighty it is, and of how vast import, may be inferred from the solemnity of the introduction, "Jehovah hath sworn," and this is carried to the very highest pitch by the addition of the words, "And will not repent," i.e., the decree is absolutely immutable. It is the solemn inauguration of the Messiah in time to the priestly office. It is the first intimation of the union of the kingly and priestly functions in His person. See the latter typical representation of the same truth in Zech. 6 : 12, 13. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews dwells on the significance of each expression in this verse: "With an oath," "forever," "after the order of Melchizedek." He lays stress on the fact that this solemn inauguration into the priestly office was by an oath, which was not the case with the institution of the Levitical priest. This, he observes, is a proof that Christ is Mediator of a better covenant than that of Moses (Heb. 7 : 20-22). He argues that as the priesthood rests on an unchangeable foundation, so it is in its nature unchangeable; a priest forever. "He, because He abideth forever, hath His priesthood unchangeable" (7 : 23, 28). He enlarges upon all those points in which Melchizedek, rather than Aaron, was the most fitting type of Christ; passing over, however, in entire silence that which in the Patristic and Romish expositors holds a prominent place—the bringing forth of bread and wine. Another and essential feature of the type which is implied in Heb. 7 is too often overlooked, viz., that the priesthood of Melchizedek was not only before the law, but was a Gentile priesthood, and therefore the most fitting type of a universal priesthood. P. This name appears before only in a brief incident in the history of Abraham. That incident, however, is of great significance. Melchizedek stands in the covenant made with Noah, Abraham in the more special covenant made with himself. In these two persons the two forms of the covenant with God meet, the one about to set in the obscurity of tradition, the other about to rise in the light of a written revelation. The one excels in breadth, embracing all mankind; the other in depth, extending to the antitype as well as the type. The antitype, however, exhibits all the breadth of the Noahic combined with the depth of the Abrahamic. He is therefore after the order of Melchizedek. Moreover, as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews shows, the Messiah is the King of righteousness, King of peace, without beginning of days or end of life. He appoints bread and wine as the great symbols of salvation, and especially of Himself, as the atoning Sacrifice. He is truly a Priest-King. These are the striking and significant characteristics of the priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. M. These things concerning him are certain: That he was a mere man and no more. That he came not to his office by the right of p-imogeniture, or by any way of succession, but was raised up and immediately called of God thereunto, for in that respect Christ is said to be a Priest after his order. That he had no successor on the earth, nor could have, for there was no law to constitute an order of succession, and he was a priest only after an extraordinary call. These things belong unto faith in this matter, and no more. The first personal, instituted type of Christ was a priest: this was Melchizedek. There were before real instituted types of His work, as sacrifices; but the first person who was solemnly designed to teach and represent Him by what He was and did, was a priest. And God taught herein that the foundation of all the Lord Christ had to do in and for the Church was laid in His priestly office, whereby He made atonement and reconciliation for sin. Everything else that He doth is built on the supposition of His priesthood. And we must begin in the application where God begins in the exhibition. An interest in the effects of the priestly office of Christ is that which in the first place we ought to look after. This being attained, we shall be willing to be taught and ruled by Him. J. Owen. At his coronation we hear nothing but the Lord said: "Sit thou on My right hand." But at the consecration of Christ we have a great deal more of ceremony and solemnity, God His Father taketh an oath, and particularly expresseth the nature and condition of His office, a priesthood after the order of Melchizedek; and He confirmeth it unto Him forever, saying, "Thou art a priest forever." D. Featley.—What doctrine doth the Scripture afford more comfortable than that God hath sworn His Son a Priest forever, to sanctify our persons and purge our sins, and tender all our petitions to His Father? What sin is so heinous for which such a Priest cannot satisfy by the oblation of Himself? What cause so desperate in which such an Advocate, if He will plead, may not prevail? We may be sure God will be entreated of us, who Himself hath appointed us an Intercessor to whom He can deny nothing; and to that end hath appointed Him to sit at His right hand to make intercession for us. A. Wright. He who fulfilled the destiny of man under the conditions of the present world, He who interpreted the discipline of suffering, He who bore humanity through death to the presence of God, not as one man of men, but as the Head of the whole race, did all this that He might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest, that He might apply to those whom He was not ashamed to call brethren the virtue of His life and passion, and reconcile in a final harmony the inexorable claims of law and the infinite yearnings of love. A Priest and yet a King. For, indeed, at first and at last, the kingly and priestly offices cannot be kept apart. He who makes atonement must be a king. He who demands the complete service of every power must hallow the powers of which he claims the ministry. The ruler who consecrates, the priest who rules, must, in the words already quoted, be merciful and faithful; he must have absolute authority and perfect sympathy; authority that he may represent God to man; sympathy that he may represent man to God. And such is Christ, made known to us King and Priest, Priest after the order of Melchizedek, in whose mysterious person the old world, on the edge of a new dispensation, met and blessed the Father of the faithful Anon. Christ in His priestly office is appointed to bless. Our better Melchizedek is gone in, in His human form, "into the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man;" a little space He tarries for His Church's sake within the veil, and presently we shall behold Him coming forth in His perfect beauty; and standing on the clouds of heaven, at the portals of glory, He will pronounce benediction on His Church. J. Vaughan. Christ's Intercession. There arises from all parts of the world at the morning and the evening, and through the labors of the day, a perpetual incense of adoration and of petition; it contains the sum of the deepest wants of the human race in its fears and hopes, its anguish and thankfulness; it is laden with sighs, with tears, with penitence, with faith, with submission; the broken heart, the bruised spirit, the stifled murmur, the ardent hope, the haunting fear, the mother's darling wish, the child's simple prayer—all the burdens of the soul, all wants and desires nowhere else uttered, meet together in that sound of many voices which ascends into the ears of the Lord God of hosts. And mingled with all these cravings and utterances is one other voice, one other prayer, their symphony, their melody, their accord; deeper than all these, tenderer than all these, mightier than all these, the tones of One who knows us better than we know ourselves, and who loves us better than we love ourselves, and who brings all these myriad fragile petitions into one prevalent intercession, purified by His own holiness and the hallowing power of His work. H. B. Smith. 5-7. The martial strain of vs. 2-4 is resumed. There the might of the King and His army were described, here the conflict and the victory. P.—Some suppose this to be addressed to Jehovah and "the Lord" to mean Messiah, on the ground that they could not each be on the "right hand" of the other. See v. 1. That they could be so, however, only shows that the whole description is a figurative one, and that the principal figure has a twofold meaning. On the right hand has precisely the same meaning here as in Psalm 109: 31, where it denotes the place of protection or assistance, the figure being probably derived from the usages of war, in which one who succors or protects another may be said to strengthen his right hand, as the member which he uses in his own defence. In one sense, therefore, the Lord is at the right hand of Jehovah; in another sense, Jehovah is at His. This assistance, far from excluding, presupposes His own action, or rather, what Jehovah is described as doing for Him He does through Him. A. As there is a time of grace and patience, so there is also an appointed time of wrath and vengeance of God. Frequent mention is made in the sacred Scriptures that the wicked will not be left always unpunished, because they condemn the patience of God and provoke His anger; but there will be a time when they will experience the wrath of God. Musculus. 6. He will judge among the nations; He has filled (them) with corpses—He has smitten the head over much land (or over the wide earth). By another sudden change of form the Messiah is again spoken of as a third person. The judgment here ascribed to Him is only another name and figure for the conquest just described. The general idea is universal conquest on the part of the Messiah, extending to all earthly powers. A.—Literally understood all this seems very terrible and inconsistent with the spirit of the Gospel. Under such figures the triumphs of grace are often exhibited. The sword of the Spirit does not destroy men, but saves them. It is their enmity that is slain. The victory of the Son of God is over their stubborn hearts. Those who have been in arms against Him yield to His gracious rule. De Witt. 7. Of the brook,** or, "torrent." The victorious leader, who has made so terrible a slaughter that the field of battle is covered with corpses, is now seen pursuing his enemies. Wearied with the battle and the pursuit, he stops for a moment on his way to refresh himself by drinking of the torrent rushing by, and then "lifts up his head," derives new vigor to continue the pursuit. P. This Psalm has the rhythm and tone of a triumphal march. In words of majestic beauty and of sustained fervor it celebrates the kingdom, the priesthood, the conquests, and the exaltation of Christ. It is the magnificent panorama of the Revelation by John given in miniature, with every principal scene suggested by some leading feature. David, in spirit foreseeing the glory of Christ, calls Him his Lord and hears the voice of Jehovah inviting the Messiah to share His throne. As an Oriental conqueror used the necks of captives for his footstool, the absolute triumph of Christ is represented by His putting all enemies under His feet. He shall tread upon death and rise victorious from the grave. But the Church shall be the seat of His gracious power. Gladly owning this redeeming King, His people shall follow His standard with willing hearts; their ranks shall be recruited from rising generations till His hosts, brilliant as the dew in the beauty of holiness, shall also be innumerable as the drops that burst into splendor with the coming of the dawn. More copious even than these liquid jewels from the womb of the morning shall be the myriads of new-born souls bright with the dew of their consecration. This King shall unite in Himself also the priestly functions of no human order or pedigree, but as the spiritual antetype of that royal Priest, the King of peace, who blessed Abraham and receive his homage. All kings shall bow or bend to His authority; all nations shall be gathered before Him in judgment. If at times His triumph seems to be checked, He but pauses, as it were, to refresh Himself by the way, and again lifts up His head. How blessed and glorious it is to follow such a King! How sad and ruinous to be found among His enemies! J. P. T. Israel had possessed, so to speak, the three crowns separately. It had the priesthood in Aaron, the royal dignity in David and his line, and the prophetic office. But in the "last days" the triple crown of priest, king, and prophet has been united upon Him whose it really is, even Jesus, a "Prophet like unto Moses," the eternal Priest "after the order of Melchizedek," and the real and ever-reigning "Son of David." And in Him all the promises of God, which had been given with increasing clearness from Adam onward to Shem, then to Abraham, to Jacob, in the law, in the types of the Old Testament, and, finally, in its prophecies, have become "Yea and amen," till at the last all nations shall dwell in the tents of Shem. A. E. The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews presents the reasons, relations, and effects of the office which Christ sustains as the High-Priest of His Church. He describes our Lord and Redeemer as the PRIEST, the Great Priest, the High-Priest, sole, supreme; divinely appointed in a manner consonant with His unrivalled dignity; standing in an assumed relation to mankind for the purpose of making a sacrificial and consecrating offering; effecting a real propitiation and expiation for the sin of mankind; rich in power and grandeur, and equally so in compassion and tenderness; taking as His own and occupying as His indisputable right a station of glory and dignity which only Deity could assume; reigning with an invincible dominion over all created beings, to the happiness and joy of the holy, and to the restraint and just punishment of the rebellious; and bestowing on sinful and undeserving men the greatest blessings, real, substantial, enduring, and boundless; the pardon of sin, the favor of God, conformity to the holiness of the Divine nature and everlasting blessedness. Other august and instructive titles are also given to our Lord Jesus Christ in relation to His priesthood. He is held forth to us as the Messenger, sent by the Eternal and most merciful Father, and fulfilling the great moral design of the Levitical institution; the Minister of the most holy place, presiding over the universal worship of His people and rendering it acceptable to the Throne of perfect purity; the Lord who spake by the prophets and now by His apostles concerning the great salvation acquired by His sufferings; the Sanctifier, who by His blood consecrates and presents to God all His true followers; the Brother of those for whom He came to die, and whom He condescends to nominate into this endearing relation to Himself; the Surety, a pledge of salvation from God to man, and of obedience from man to God; the Mediator, transacting the most important concerns between the Righteous Ruler of the world and His revolted subjects, in order to their reconciliation and restoration, and accomplishing this great work by means of His sacrificial blood; the Princely Author of life, faith, and salvation, achieving His great purpose by His sufferings and death; a Saviour to the uttermost, because He offered up Himself and hath an unchangeable priesthood; an Intercessor and Advocate, faithfully and powerfully maintaining our infinite interests, upon the ground and reason of the propitiation by His blood; the Forerunner, securing to His followers the heavenly inheritance, by virtue of His priestly obligation; the Great Shepherd, conferring the blessings of the everlasting covenant through the efficacy of His blood; the Son of God, partaking the flesh and blood of the children of Adam, that through His own death He might accomplish their redemption; and to depreciate whose blood is the most dreadful of offences. Besides these declarations concerning the personal character of our Divine High-Priest, and His qualities in the discharge of His office, the sacred writer furnishes additional illustrations of the office itself, and its necessary adjuncts. It stands alone and unrivalled; it is perfect, for all the purposes of Divine mercy and wisdom; it is a real priesthood, all others being but emblems and representations of it; it contained the essential quality of a priesthood, the offering of an immolated sacrifice; this sacrifice is efficacious by a continual presentation in the heavenly world; and it produces the most happy effects, the ratification of the promulgated covenant of grace; Christ's mediatorial right of conferring infinite blessings; the reconciliation of sinners to their justly offended Sovereign; entitling to the full benefits and enjoyments of the great salvation; it is the great instrument by the efficient grace of the Holy Spirit, in producing personal holiness; by it Christians have the most favored access to the throne of grace. Anon. This Psalm is one of the fullest and most compendious prophecies of the person and offices of Christ in the whole Old Testament. Indeed there are very few of the articles of that creed which we all generally profess, which are not either plainly expressed or by most evident implication couched in this little model. First, the Doctrine of the Trinity is in the first words, "The Lord said unto my Lord." There is Jehovah the Father, and my Lord, the Son, and the consecrating of Him to be David's Lord which was by the Holy Ghost, by whose fulness He was anointed unto the offices of King and Priest; for so our Saviour Himself expounds this word "said," by the sealing and sanctification of Him to His office (John 10 : 34, 35, 36). Then we have the Incarnation of Christ in the words, "my Lord," together with His dignity and honor above David (as our Saviour Himself expounds it, Matt. 22 : 42, 45). Mine, that is, my Son by descent and genealogy after the flesh, and yet my Lord too, in regard of His higher Sonship. We have also the Sufferings of Christ, in that He was consecrated a Priest (v. 4) to offer up Himself once for all. We have His Completed Work and conquest over all His enemies and sufferings; His Resurrection, "He shall lift up His head;" His Ascension and Intercession, "Sit Thou on My right hand." We have here also a Holy Catholic Church gathered together by the sceptre of His kingdom. We have the Remission of sins comprised in His priesthood, for He was to offer sacrifices for the remission of sins, and "to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Eph. 1 : 7; Heb. 9 : 26). We have the Resurrection of the body, because He must "subdue all enemies under His feet, and the last enemy to be destroyed is death," as the apostle argues out of this Psalm (1 Cor. 15 : 25, 26). And lastly, we have life everlasting, in the everlasting merit and virtue of His priesthood, "Thou art a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek," and in His sitting at the right hand of God, whither He is gone as our forerunner, and to prepare a place for us (Heb. 6 : 20; John 14 : 2); and therefore the apostle from His sitting there and living ever inferreth the perfection and certainty of our salvation. E. Reynolds. God can abide in His eternity, His immutability, His sublimity, and yet humble Himself and take the form of man and the thought of man. He thus comes down to us in the written Word, so full of the Divine majesty, the Divine holiness, and yet so purely, so intensely human. He comes still nearer to us in the incarnate Word, "the Word that became flesh and dwelt among us;" and nearer still when Christ took upon Himself our sins, and carried our sorrows, making Himself our Sacrifice, and thus becoming our "Great High-Priest," who, even now, "in the highest heavens," can be touched with a fellow feeling of all our infirmities. Ineffable is the mystery involved in all this, but the fact can be clearly stated, and reason must assent to the glory of the truth, even where it utterly fails to comprehend. We cannot ascend to heaven, but God can come down to us; we cannot become Divine, but it is within His almighty power to become human, and thus lift us up to communion with Himself while we still remain human. T. Lewis.—To exalt Christ is to ennoble ourselves. To venerate the Prophet is to open the mind to His wisdom. To thrill with faith in the heavenly Priest is to yield the heart to the power of His love. To behold the King's majesty is to let the will find joy in obedience. All life will be simpler for this reverence; the world more beautiful; religion more real. F. D. H. Our Psalm shows us Christ gathering His army in array. He is calling each of us to a place there, in this day of His power and day of His grace. Take heed lest the day of His power should for you darken into that other day of which this Psalm speaks, the day of His wrath, when He strikes through kings, and bruises the head over many countries. Put your trust in that Saviour, my friend, cleave to that Sacrifice, then you will not be among those whom He treads down in His march to victory, but one of that happy band of priestly warriors who follow Him as He goes forth conquering and to conquer. A. M. 1. PRAISE ye the LORD. I will give thanks unto the LORD with my whole heart, In the council of the upright, and in the congregation.2 The works of the LORD are great, Sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.3 His work is honour and majesty : And his righteousness endureth for ever.4 He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered : The LORD is gracious and full of compassion.5 He hath given meat unto them that fear him : He will ever be mindful of his covenant. 6. He hath shewed his people the power of his works, In giving them the heritage of the nations.7 The works of his hands are truth and judgment ; All his precepts are sure.8 They are established for ever and ever, They are done in truth and uprightness.9 He hath sent redemption unto his people ; He hath commanded his covenant for ever : Holy and reverend is his name.10 The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom ; A good understanding have all they that do thereafter : His praise endureth for ever. THIS Psalm and the next are both alphabetical Psalms. In both, the letters of the alphabet mark not only the beginning of verses, as in other Psalms, but the beginning of each several clause of the verses. In both, there are exactly twenty-two lines, each line consisting usually of three words, and in both the order of the alphabet is strictly preserved, which is not the case in other alphabetical Psalms. Finally, so exactly does the structure of the two Psalms correspond, that the first eight verses in both consist each of two lines, and the last two verses of three lines. But the Psalms answer to one another not only in structure, but in thought. The same significant phrases occur in both, and occur in such a way as to mark the mutual relation of the two poems. In the one hundred and eleventh the mighty deeds, the glory, the righteousness of Jehovah are celebrated in the assembly of the upright. In the one hundred and twelfth the righteousness, the goodness, the blessedness of the upright themselves is described and enlarged upon. The one sets forth God, His work and His attributes; the other tells us what are the work and character of those who fear and honor God. Thus in Psalm 111 : 3 it is said of Jehovah that "His righteousness standeth fast forever;” in Psalm 112:3 the same thing is affirmed of the man that feareth Jehovah. In Psalm 111:4 it is declared of Jehovah that “He is gracious and of tender compassion;” in Psalm 112:4 the same character is given of the upright. In the one hundred and eleventh Psalm the faithfulness of Jehovah to His covenant is magnified (vs. 5, 9), in the one hundred and twelfth the faithfulness of the righteous man, his trust in Jehovah is exhibited (vs. 7, 8). P. 1. Jehovah is to be praised, not only with the voice and the understanding, but with the heart, with all its affections turned to a song of gratitude and love. Solitary devotion hath its beauties and excellencies; but how glorious is it to hear the voices of a whole Christian congregation break forth into hallelujahs, like the sound of many waters and the noise of mighty thunderings, while each one provokes another to continue the blessed employment with unremitted attention and unabated fervor. Bishop Horne. Does any man wish to forget God? Does any man wish to live in sin without being disturbed by the painful thought of judgment? We can tell him how he may insure that—for a time at least. Let him attempt to be wiser than his Maker; let him say, “I can read my Bible at home, and worship God in the open beauties of nature, as well as in a church;” let him give up private prayer, and never attend the Lord’s table, giving up all that is symbolical in religion. Let him do this, and we will insure him most terrible success; for so “judgment to come” will be to him only an hypothesis, and God’s own existence merely a perhaps. F. W. R. 2. The works of the Lord are great. Their greatness is equally manifest when we turn from the immensity to the variety of His works. How great are the works of Him who gives to every plant its leaf and flower and fruit; to every animal its faculties and functions; to every man his understanding, affections, and will. What an accumulative idea of the magnitude of His works do we gather from the innumerable multitudes and endless diversities of being called into existence by His powers. S. Summers. The most holy men are the most excellent students of God’s works. Your studies of physics and other sciences are not worth a rush, if it be not God by them that you seek after. To see and admire, to reverence and adore, to love and delight in God appearing to us in His works, and purposely to peruse them for the knowledge of God—this is the true and only philosophy, and the contrary is mere foolery, and so called again and again by God Himself. Baxter. The eminent Christian, other things being equal, is the most diligent student of the works and of the Word of God. Such study is well fitted to enlarge and liberalize the mind. We are placed in a creation adapted to awaken the deepest interest. The works of God are marvellous; they are sought out by all who have pleasure therein. And who can refrain from having this pleasure? Who can be an indifferent spectator amid the changes which are going on around him? Instead of wonder that some men are willing to toil a life long in the study of the works of God, the wonder is that all men are not captivated with the pursuit. These studies are called the natural sciences; they are rather Divine sciences; they are fitted to move the mind of man to its lowest depths. Whoever hath an ear may hear. The dull rock has a voice; the dry leaf has a sound; the shell on the ocean’s shore is not dumb. It is made according to certain laws. It fulfils its destiny with unerring precision. We may be lost in general admiration while gazing on it; or we may scientifically analyze it as a piece of consummate art. Now the earth is full of such objects. The common Christian may become acquainted with them, and through them adore their Creator. The Christian scholar will find in these objects inexhaustible themes for delightful contemplation. God invites him, and a thousand voices from His works reiterate the invitation. The doors of universal nature are before him. Has he not a key in his own mind to unlock them all? No assignable limit can be set to the material universe. Can any assignable limit be placed on the powers of the contemplating agent? B. B. E. 3. His work is honor and majesty, i.e., all that he does is noble and majestic, worthy of the great King, to whom these epithets are often applied elsewhere. His work means specifically here what He does for the protection and deliverance of His people. In the last clause, as in many other places, this work is referred to His righteousness, not His justice, in the technical and strict sense, but His rectitude, including His fidelity to His engagements, and securing the exercise of His covenanted mercy. A. 3-5. Primarily the thought here is of those gracious works of Providence which had so adorned and distinguished the ancient history of the covenant people. It was inspiring to the returned exiles to recall those ancient works, to think of the mercy that shone forth in them, and of their being impressed on the national heart for everlasting remembrance. C. Reverend is His name. The name of God is not God Himself, neither is it our idea of God, but it is that expressed idea of Him which He Himself would have us to possess, and which may be gathered from His own revelation. If the conception which God would have us to cherish of Him can be summed up in one word, then that word is the name of God. Dods.—Holy and reverend is His name, and therefore never to be used by us but in a serious manner. Whether we pray or praise, the heart must be deeply possessed with a sense of His excellency; and we must admire Him above all created or imaginable greatness, and mingle reverence with our most delightful addresses. Holy angels and sanctified men, who of all creatures have nearest access to God, most adore and reverence Him, because they are best acquainted with Him, and have the clearest sight of Him. Anon. Since we are baptized, consecrated, and sanctified in this name, and as this name is now made our name, it follows that all the sons of God are, and ought to be called, kind, merciful, chaste, just, true, simple, benevolent, peaceable, and sweetly affectionate in heart toward all men, even toward those who are their enemies. Behold, then, you here see what it is to sanctify God's name and be a saint. Even as a church is dedicated, and set apart for the use of Divine worship only, so also we ought to be sanctified in the whole of our lives, that there may be found in us no use of anything but of the name of God—that is, of kindness, righteousness, truth. Therefore the name of God is either sanctified or profaned, not by the tongue only, but by all the powers of the soul and the body. Luther.—We must really and in act will that sanctity which we desire in our prayers. Otherwise, to pray and to sit still; to pray for holiness, and run on in the ways of profaneness; to pray that God's name may be hallowed, and not strive to sanctify it, is rather a feint than a devout prayer, and makes us guilty of a kind of blasphemy, even when we pray "Hallowed be Thy name." Farindon.—When we pray for the hallowing of God's name, we pray implicitly for all things necessary and conducing to it; we pray for the agent and for the instrument; we pray for the time and place; we pray for the speaker and for the hearer; and, in one word, we pray for the propagation of the Gospel, that doors may be opened to all men of faith, that so the building may go up of the new Jerusalem. That laborers may be sent into God's harvest, that so the weeds may be plucked up, and the good corn brought into the barn; that there may be joy in Zion and peace within her walls; that not the trumpet of war, but the trumpet of praise and thanksgiving may be heard among us; that all ears may be circumcised, and all tongues touched with coals from the altar; that so nothing be spoken, nor anything be heard; but tending all to the honor and glory of God's name. R. Baker. 10. This is the conclusion drawn from all that goes before. Since all God's dealings with His people are in faithfulness and truth, and His commands not only are but must be right, then the first step in wisdom, its first principle or element, is reverence for such a Being, proved by obedience to His will. The same sentiment occurs in Prov. 1:7; 9:10; Job 28:28. A. The beginning of wisdom—that is, the principle whence it springs and the fountain from which it flows. W. Walford.—Men never begin to be wise till they begin to fear God; all true wisdom takes its rise from true religion and has its foundation in it. It is the principal wisdom, and the principle of wisdom, to worship God and give honor to Him, as our Father and Master. They manage well who always act under the government of His holy fear. H.—The fear of the Lord is not only the beginning of wisdom, but the middle and the end. It is surely wisdom to love that which is most lovable, and to occupy our hearts with that which is most worthy of our attachment, and the most capable of satisfying us. Superville. This holy fear of God is appropriate and native to the highest and holiest creative intelligence. There is in it no apprehension. It becomes an instant impulse to obedience. It becomes a constant inspiration and stimulant to the augmentation of that holiness in the created heart which recognizes and reveres holiness in God. It becomes not merely a stimulant to virtue, but a positive expanding power of the whole spiritual nature. Reverence is the necessary condition of high attainment. Homage and worship are the beginnings of the highest mental force and culture as well as of the highest moral and spiritual gain. The grandest thought the human mind can take into its compass is that of a personal, sovereign and holy God, the light and joy of the universe, filling it with His intense vitality, presiding over it in His undimmed wisdom with His perfect and eternal holiness. Where that thought comes in to any human soul that soul is expanded and ennobled by it. R. S. S. 1. PRAISE ye the LORD. Blessed is the man that feareth the LORD, That delighteth greatly in his command- ments. 2 His seed shall be mighty upon earth : The generation of the upright shall be blessed. 3 Wealth and riches are in his house : And his righteousness endureth for ever. 4 Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness : He is gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous. 5 Well is it with the man that dealeth gra- ciously and lendeth ; He shall maintain his cause in judgment. 6. For he shall never be moved ; The righteous shall be had in everlasting remembrance. 7 He shall not be afraid of evil tidings : His heart is fixed, trusting in the LORD. 8 His heart is established, he shall not be afraid, Until he see his desire upon his adversaries. 9 He hath dispersed, he hath given to the needy ; His righteousness endureth for ever : His horn shall be exalted with honour. 10 The wicked shall see it, and be grieved ; He shall gnash with his teeth, and melt away : The desire of the wicked shall perish. ANOTHER alphabetical Psalm of precisely the same character, coinciding with the one before it, even in the number of verses and the num- ber of clauses in each verse. This Psalm be- gins precisely where the one before it ends, i.e., with the happiness arising from the fear of God (v. 1), the blessed effects of which are then re- counted under several particulars (vs. 2-9), and finally contrasted with the fate of the ungodly (v. 10). A.—As in the preceding Psalm, so here also v. 1 sets forth the theme of what fol- lows. What v. 3 there said of the righteous- ness of God, v. 3 says here of the righteousness of him who fears God ; this also endureth for- ever ; it is indeed the copy of the Divine right- eousness, it is an operation and a gift of God, inasmuch as God's redemptive doing and be- havior, when apprehended in faith, works a similar doing and behavior in man, the essen- tial character of which, as v. 9 says, is love. D.—This Psalm is a praising of God for blessing the believer, and the whole Psalm doth prove that the believer is blessed ; which propo- sition is set down in v. 1, and confirmed with as many reasons as there are verses following. Dickson. 1. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, because this duty of fearing of God is an act of the mind, and may be done by the man that is destitute of all things but that holy and blessed mind. Blessed, therefore, is that man ; for God hath not laid the comfort of His people in the doing of external duties, nor the salvation of their souls, but in believing, loving, and fearing God. Bunyan. The fear, which is thus the parent of true felicity, is not the dread of personal evil conse- quences coming from the object of fear, but is simply the reverence of love, that looks up and knows no deeper joy than to gaze upon and be near Him whom it fears. That attitude of the mind, the lowly bowing in the contemplation of transcendent excellence and supreme and perfect sweetness, brings with it necessarily an elevation, a calm, an aspiration, which are con- ditions of all true joy. No blessedness that earth can bring is worthy for a moment of comparison with the blessedness of sitting quietly at the foot of the Throne, and looking upward to so much of the light as we can dis- cern. The mighty spirits that stand there have triple pairs of wings. "With twain they cover their faces," and yet through the white plumes they can catch glimpses of the glory. "With twain they cover their feet," in reverently hid- ing their own corporeal inferiority ; and there- fore "with twain they do fly" in joyous activ- ity of energetic obedience to the commandment of Him whom they fear. This is blessedness, to blend together in one inseparable band the faith that trusts and the fear that adores and submits. And such fear brings blessedness, because it brings with it the armor against dread, and he that thus fears the Lord without terror is delivered from the possibility of being afraid of anything besides. All earth's threat- enings and dangers become dim and shadowy and contemptible to him whose happy eye is fixed on the infinite goodness, greatness, and sweetness of his Father God. If you would walk in the world with courage, dauntless and noble, fear Him with the fear that knits you to Him, and nothing else shall be your dread. A. M. That delighteth greatly in His commandments — defining what constitutes the true “fear of the Lord,” which was termed “the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111 : 10). He who hath this true “fear” delights (Psalm 111 : 2) not merely in the theory, but in the practise of all “the Lord’s commandments.” Such fear, so far from being a “hard” service, is the only “blessed” one. True obedience is not task-work, as formalists regard religion, but a “delight” (Psalm 1 : 2). Worldly delights, which made piety irksome, are supplanted by the new-born delight in and taste for the will and ways of God. Fausse. — When we cheerfully practise all that the Lord requireth of us, love sweeteneth all things, and it becomes our meat and drink to do His will. The thing commanded is excellent, but it is sweeter because commanded by Him—“His commandments.” A man is never thoroughly converted till he delighteth in God and His service, and his heart is overpowered by the sweetness of Divine love. A slavish kind of religiousness, when we had rather not do than do our work, is no fruit of grace, and cannot evidence a sincere love. Manton. 1-3. The fact that “fearing the Lord” and “delighting greatly in His commandments” are common elements in the same character, suffices to show that this fear is not servile, but filial—is not that of the driven slave, but that of the loving child. The real slave never has “great delight” in his master’s commandments. Let the reader note that this Psalm aims to show that fearing the Lord is true wisdom, and to show it by the absolute success of a life so ordered. Wisdom being the best adjustment of means to secure the desired end, the truest test of wisdom is success. That life is a wisely ordered one which brings the best results of blessedness. Hence the scope of this Psalm. The first points made here are : That the wise man is blessed in his children and his children’s children ; in the wealth of his house, made sure under the ancient economy by his abiding integrity and beneficence (“righteousness”). Noticeably the very same words affirm the enduring righteousness of this just man that were used of God in v. 3 of the previous Psalm, suggesting that the good man becomes a follower of God as a dutiful child follows his father. C. 2. His seed shall be mighty upon earth.** That is to say, successive generations of God-fearing men shall be strong and influential in society, and in the latter days they shall have dominion. The true seed of the righteous are those who follow them in their virtues, even as believers are the seed of Abraham because they imitate his faith ; and these are the real heroes of their era, the truly great men among the sons of Adam. The generation of the upright shall be blessed. The race of sincere, devout, righteous men is kept up from age to age, and ever abides under the blessing of God. Their children also are under the special care of heaven, and as a rule it shall be found that they inherit the Divine blessing. S. 3. His righteousness endureth.** It seems a bold thing to say this of anything human, and yet it is true ; for all human righteousness has its root in the righteousness of God. It is not merely man striving to copy God. It is God’s gift and God’s work. There is a living connection between the righteousness of God and the righteousness of man, and therefore the imperishableness of the one appertains to the other also. Hence the same thing is affirmed here of the human righteousness which, in Psalm 111 : 3, is affirmed of the Divine. P. —His character stands the test of examination, overcomes the temptations of wealth, survives the assaults of slander, outlives the afflictions of time, and endures the trial of the last great day. The righteousness of a true saint endureth forever, because it springs from the same root as the righteousness of God, and is, indeed, the reflection of it. So long as the Lord abideth righteous He will maintain by His grace the righteousness of His people. They shall hold on their way and wax stronger and stronger. S. 4. Light. Darkness.** While we are on earth we are subject to a threefold “darkness ;” the darkness of error, the darkness of sorrow, and the darkness of death. To dispel these God visiteth us, by His Word, with a threefold “light ;” the light of truth, the light of comfort, and the light of life. G. Horne. Unto the upright there ariseth light in the darkness. The great lesson taught by this simile is the connection which obtains between integrity of purpose and clearness of perception, inasmuch that a loyal conformity to what is right is generally followed up by a ready and luminous discernment of what is true. It tells us that if we have but grace to do as we ought, we shall be made to see as we ought. It is a lesson repeatedly affirmed in Scripture, and that in various places both of the Old and New Testament: "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day;" "The righteousness of the upright shall deliver them;" "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart;" or still more specifically, "To him that ordereth his conversation aright will I show the salvation of God." Chalmers. Every Christ-like effort, every Christian grace resolutely carried into practice, not only emits light, but multiplies the light at every point where it touches. Faith nerves itself for a timid venture and throws out its one feeble ray toward a hard task or a hard trial or a hard problem; and behold the thing brightens, and in its own brightening throws light on some other duty or trial, on some great snowfield of lonely sacrifice and patience. Success in the first venture of faith has robbed the larger venture of some of its darkness, and thus the pilgrim of faith walks in ever-growing light. In short, the more faithfully and persistently one addresses himself to doing God's will, the more points his experience affords from which the goodness and love and faithfulness and power of God are reflected. And these points enlighten each other. One part of Christian experience illuminates another part. Each experience takes up the light furnished by the smallest, and reflects and helps to distribute it over the whole area. Thus "light is sown for the righteous and gladness for the upright in heart." V. Sincerity, an honest desire to know the truth, readiness to make any sacrifice in order to the knowledge, obedience to the truth so far as it is known already—these will bring the light when nothing else will bring it. Outward human authority utterly fails; can never make light arise in the darkness. Reason cannot—reason, which is the inward authority. It is a very powerful, and it is a very feeble, instrument. Within its own sphere, when favorably conditioned, it can do much. In the pure discovery of truth, and especially of the truth we most need to know, it can, of itself, do very little. But when you put all your mind and heart into the truth you know, and resolve in the strength of the grace you already believe in, to be true to that truth in all its requirements, and to seek the higher and further truth until you find it—then you turn your face eastward, and, erelong, the morning you look for will be on your face. When intellectual acuteness, and philosophic thought, and all the wisdom of this world can do little or nothing to make things which are obscure, or almost unknown, plain and clear, moral honesty and moral earnestness will sometimes shoot like beams of light through dark clouds, and the day breaks and the shadows flee away. "Unto the upright light ariseth." "He that doeth the will of God shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." Inward loyalty to truth, the fine, pure temper of sincerity, the habit of obedience—these are wonderful revealers. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." A pure heart is better to a man than prophet's message or apostle's miracle, or even outward word of Christ; for this is Christ within; and where "the light of the world" is, where "the truth" is, at least no death-darkness can settle. There may be still some darkness left. But the same inward integrity which helps so much in the discovery of truth, consoles and compensates for truth as yet undiscovered and unknown. The upright man can be content to wait. He, of all men, has the least need to work his heart into the fever of haste and impatience. He has done all that lies in his power; the unattained, the unknown, he can leave trustfully with God. Raleigh. Let what will happen to him, the upright man is full of peace and joy; for he hath met with no disappointment of his designs. His great aim was to please God; and his conscience, from God's Word, assures him that he has done it; and he hath nothing to do further but to wait for the happy time when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, and every man's counsels and actions shall be made manifest, and then he doubts not to receive approbation and praise, and a great reward in that day of the Lord Jesus. Archbishop Sharp. Human life is a mixed and checkered scene, a variation of light and shade, an interchange of bitter and sweet, of joy and sorrow. The storms of adversity do not prevail through the whole period of the most afflicted life; they are relieved by intervals of calm and sunshine. With regard to individuals, it will be found that their sufferings are not uninterrupted, not continuous. Often, amid the darkest dispensations, suddenly the sun arises, dispels the clouds, and the light of joy returns. R. Hall. Whenever God engages in afflicting, He commonly pursues His work until He has prevailed, and His design on the afflicted party be accomplished. He will not cease to thresh and break the bread-corn until it be meet for His use. Give up yourselves, then, to His will; let go everything about which He contends with you; follow after that which He calls you unto; and you will find light arising unto you in the midst of darkness. Has He a cup of affliction in one hand?—lift up your eyes, and you will see a cup of consolation in the other. And if all stars withdraw their light while you are in the way of God, assure yourselves that the sun is ready to rise. Owen.—You are not called on to believe till you are fully able to do so; but you are called on to trust. To trust is in your power. To resign yourself lovingly to God in the full confidence that His love will do all that you need, and that out of darkness He will be sure to bring light; to walk to the utmost of your power by the light that you already have; to hold fast by God's hand, and to trust the promises that He whispers in your conscience—that you can do, and that you ought to do. Norton. The sense of the vastness of the universe, and of the imperfection of our own knowledge, may help us in some degree to understand—not, indeed, the origin of evil and of suffering, but, at any rate, something of its possible uses and purposes. We look around the world and we see cruel perplexities: the useless spared, the useful taken; the young and happy removed, the old and miserable lingering on; happy households broken up under our feet, disappointed hopes, and the failure of those to whom we looked up with reverence and respect. We go through these trials with wonder and fear; and we ask whereunto this will grow. But has nothing been gained? Yes, that has been gained which nothing else, humanly speaking, could give. We may have gained a deeper knowledge of the mind of God and a deeper insight into ourselves. Truths which once seemed mere words, received without heed and uttered without understanding, may have become part of ourselves. Humility for ourselves, charity for others, self-abasement before the Judge of all mankind, these are the gifts that men, the best men, and even the worst men, may gain by distrust, by doubt, and by difficulty. The perplexity, the danger, the grief often brings with it its own remedy. On each bursting wave of disappointment and vexation there is a crown of heavenly light which reveals the peril, and shows the way, and guides us through the roaring storm. Out of doubt comes faith; out of grief comes hope; and "to the upright there ariseth up light in the darkness." With each new temptation comes a way to escape; with each new difficulty comes some new explanation. As life advances, it does indeed seem to be as a vessel going to pieces, as though we were on the broken fragments of a ship, or in a solitary skiff on the waste of waters; out as long as our existence lasts we must not give up the duty of cheerfulness and hope. He who has guided us through the day may guide us through the night also. The pillar of darkness often turns into a pillar of fire. Let us hold on though the land be miles away; let us hold on till the morning break. That speck on the distant horizon may be the vessel for which we must shape our course. Forward, not backward, must we steer—forward and forward, till the speck becomes a friendly ship. Have patience and perseverance; believe that there is still a future before us; and we shall at last reach the haven where we would be. Stanley. Righteousness is light and gladness though its way lie through sorrow and sacrifice, and you who are pursuing that road in faith and hope may take this for your comfort that you are going forward to inevitable gladness. God has already wrought out great goodness before your eyes; but that is nothing to the goodness which He has laid up for them that fear Him. If there is assurance of harvest in the buried seed, there is even firmer assurance in the temporary hiding of God's light. If the promise of nature is sure, the promise of faith is no less sure; for "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him." V. Gracious, and full of compassion, and righteous—attributes usually applied to God, but here said of "the upright." The children of God, knowing in their own experience that God our Father is "gracious, full of compassion, and righteous," seek themselves to be the same toward their fellow-men from instinctive imitation of Him. Fausset. 5. Dealeth graciously.** Giving means growth. Giving cultivates the faith and love which it manifests. Receiving is passive. A stagnant pool can receive, but a fountain is always giving. True, the fountain is not self-existent and independent. It must be filled by rain from heaven. It must be always receiving, but it gives as freely as it receives. As fast as it is filled it overflows. It is a type and symbol of a true life. God is giving all the time. He gives freely and abundantly. We who receive His gifts are His stewards. We are to use them for Him. That which we have gathered beyond our personal need is not ours. It is given to us in trust. We are to distribute it. The calls upon us for that surplus are many. They are pressing. They are not the calls of our fellow-men merely, but the calls of God through them. If we respond cheerfully, and if we give according to our ability, God will bless us. He credits us on the books before the throne with all our donations. He accepts them as loans to Him, to be repaid in heavenly treasures. Babb. 6. What doth the text say? "The righteous (that is, the bountiful) shall be in everlasting remembrance." God remembers our good deeds, when He rewards them (as He does our prayers, when He hears them). If to remember, then, be to reward, an everlasting reward is our everlasting remembrance. Now in those who are to be partakers of mercy, the Divine wisdom requires that they be such as have been ready to show mercy to others. Mede.—Those who by patient continuance in well-doing, those who by persuasive eloquence turned men from sin to righteousness, those who taught no lessons but in toil and suffering, unrequited perhaps then, and those who made it the great object of their lives to visit the sick and the prisoner—all who in any form conspicuously exhibited the spirit of Christ do never die even on earth. The fragrance of their memories shall never be exhaled. B. B. E. A true Christian may travel in life under troubles and contempts; but mark his end, and you shall find (as peace, so) honor. Life is death's seed-time; death life's harvest. As here we sow, so there we reap. He that spends himself upon God and man shall at last have all the honor that heaven and earth can cast upon him. R. Harris.—In the Christian life men are not influenced so much by abstract precepts as by living models. And in some respects goodness is more vital and influential when the grave has covered its defects, and time has mellowed its features. Tender and sweetly hallowed influences come from the past. Qualities that might have injured or neutralized the benign effects of the example when the subject of them was living, fade from the memory, while the virtues endure and are in everlasting remembrance. B. B. E. The good never die. Influence, like the soul itself, is immortal. Example continues to preach when the tongue is silent. Even nature furnishes examples of this truth. The cedar is most useful when dead. There is no timber like it. Firm in the grain, and capable of the finest polish, the tooth of no insect will touch it, and time itself can hardly destroy it. It will diffuse a perpetual fragrance through the chambers which it cells. The worm will not corrode the book which it protects, nor the moth eat the garment which it guards. Every true Christian is useful in his life; but the goodly cedars are most useful when cut down and cut up. Luther is dead; but the Reformation he begun lives four hundred years after him, and was never more vital. Calvin is dead; but his vindication of God's free and sovereign grace will never die. Knox, Melville, and Chalmers are dead; but Scotland still retain a Sabbath and a Christian peasantry, a Bible in every house, and a school in every parish. Bunyan is dead; but his bright spirit still walks the earth in his "Pilgrim's Progress." Baxter is dead; but souls are still quickened by his "Saint's Rest" and "Call to the Unconverted." Cowper is dead; but his "Olney Hymns" go on their way rejoicing. Eliot, Carey, Brainerd, Judson, are all dead; but the missionary cause is going forward to victory. Henry Martyn, Mrs. Judson, and Harriet Newell are dead; but who can count the apostolic spirits who have risen up to call them blessed? Anon. 7,8. The epithets "established," "trusting," "upheld," are all strikingly descriptive of the true attitude of faith, as that which leans upon and is supported by God. P. 7. Not be afraid of evil tidings: his heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. A man that puts his confidence in God, if he hears bad news of mischief coming toward him, as suppose a bad debt, a loss at sea, accidents by fire, tempests, or earthquakes, as Job had his messengers of evil tidings, which came thick and threefold upon him, yet he is not afraid, for his heart is fixed on God; he hath laid up his confidence in God, therefore his heart is kept in an equal poise; he can say, as Job, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the name of the Lord." His comforts did not ebb and flow with the creature, but his heart was fixed, trusting in the Lord. Manton.—His heart is fixed, or prepared, ready, and in arms for all services; resolved not to give back, able to meet all adventures and stand its ground. God is unchangeable; and therefore faith is invincible, for it sets the heart on Him; fastens it there on the rock of eternity; then let winds blow and storms arise, it cares not. Leighton. Times of trouble should be times of confidence; fixedness of heart on God would prevent fears of heart. How? "Trusting in the Lord, His heart is established, he shall not be afraid." Providence would seem to sleep unless faith and prayer awaken it. The disciples had but little faith in their Master's accounts, yet that little faith awakened Him in a storm, and He relieved them. Unbelief doth only discourage God from showing His power in taking our part. Charnoek. Anxiety is all vain. After all your careful watching for the corner of the heaven where the cloud is to come from, there will be a cloud, and it will rise somewhere, but you never know in what quarter. To-morrow will have its cares, spite of anything that anxiety and foreboding can do. It is God's law of providence that a man shall be disciplined by sorrow; and to try to escape from that law by any forecasting prudence is utterly hopeless and madness. And what does your anxiety do? It does not empty to-morrow, brother, of its sorrows; but, ah! it empties to-day of its strength. It does not make you escape the evil, it makes you unfit to cope with it when it comes. It does not bless to-morrow, and it robs to-day. For every day has its own burden. Sufficient for each day is the evil which properly belongs to it. Do not add to-morrow's to to-day's. Do not drag the future into the present. The present has enough to do with its own proper concerns. We have always strength to bear the evil when it comes. We have not strength to bear the foreboding of it. As thy day, thy strength shall be. Then fill the present with quiet faith, with patient waiting, with honest work, with wise reading of God's lessons of nature, of providence, and of grace, all of which say to us, Live in God's future, that the present may be bright; work in the present, that the future may be certain! They may well look around in expectation, sunny and unclouded, of a blessed time to come, whose hearts are already "fixed, trusting in the Lord." He to whom there is a present Christ, and a present Spirit, and a present Father, and a present forgiveness, and a present redemption, may well live expatiating in all the glorious distance of the unknown to come, sending out (if I may use such a figure)—sending out from his placid heart over all the weltering waters of this lower world, the peaceful, seeking dove, his meek hope, that shall come back again from its flight with some palm-branch broken from the trees of Paradise. And he that has no such present, has a future, dark, chaotic, heaving with its destructive ocean; and over it there goes forever—black-pinioned, winging its solitary and hopeless flight, the raven of his anxious thoughts, and finds no place to rest, and comes back again to the desolate ark with its foreboding croak of evil in the present and evil in the future. Live in Christ, "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever," and His presence shall make all your past, present, and future—memory, enjoyment, and hope—to be bright and beautiful, because all are centred in Him! A. M. 9. Kindness, benevolence, and generosity are essential to the perfect character; to be strictly just is not enough, for God is love, and we must love our neighbor as ourselves; to give every one his due is not sufficient, we must act upon those same principles of grace which reign in the heart of God. The promises of establishment and prosperity are to bountiful souls who have proved their fitness to be stewards of the Lord by the right way in which they use their substance. S. Where were the Greek or Latin words for "charity" till Christianity created them, and stamped them with her own Divine image, and made them current amid the coins of a debased mintage, like pure and solid gold? Eros, indeed, and amor were words which Greek and Latin did possess, but they so reeked with heathen associations that Christianity could not rescue them from the mire in which they lay; but agapa and caritas, with all the mighty revolution which they have effected, and all the angelic utterances which they have inspired, are the glory of Christianity alone. Farrar. Charity is a noble, Divine virtue, the reflex image of our Maker on the soul, and, beyond any other, shadows forth that likeness to God in which man was originally created. It is beautiful and perfect, because it is free from selfishness; for all virtues are more or less excellent in proportion as they are distinguished by self-denial and disinterestedness. "True charity," says Barrow, "is the imitation and copy of that immense love which is the fountain of all being and all good; which made all things, which preserveth the world, which sustaineth every creature. Nothing is more admirable, more venerable, even in the common eye and opinion of men; it hath in it a beauty and a majesty to ravish every heart; even a spark of it, in generosity of dealing, breedeth admiration; a glimpse of it, in formal courtesy of behavior, procureth much esteem, being deemed to accomplish and adorn a man." It is the overflowing of the innate goodness of the soul, and, when genuine and sincere, its loftiest aspirations are for the well-being of man. It is not displayed only in giving to the poor, in relieving distress, or in any of all its manifold functions, with regard to the miseries of our fellow-creatures; but it breathes the sigh of sympathy and compassion, of love and tenderness, to every living thing; and turns not away because man is criminal, or an outcast, or of a different creed from ourselves. It is a philanthropic, and therefore a universal virtue. No object is too abject or too mean for its capacious bounty; no human being, however bad, is beneath its notice; none beyond the limits of its love and sympathy. Book of Symbols.—It is heaven upon earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth. Bacon. 10. The desire of the wicked shall perish.** By the silent laws of God working out surely and silently their deep and awful issues, the consequences of indulgence will become plain to experience. If reason, Scripture, the Spirit's testimony, companions, history, the holy dead did not teach us, time shall. For then, as habit grows obstinate, as the abused spirit begins to turn and prey upon itself, as a perverted imagination wreaks its revengeful retribution, as age or an opening eternity shall displace fleeting fancies with everlasting realities—then will not all these illusions pass away, and the sternest self-denial appear our happiest wisdom? Then we shall look back on every familiar tampering with vice with infinite disgust and unavailing remorse. F. D. H. The character which the Psalmist here gives of good men is, that they fear the Lord; that they take great delight in His commandments; that they are just and sincere; that they conduct all their affairs with uprightness; that they are kind and full of compassion, and love to give alms to the poor. He teaches us that those who live thus are happy; that God blesses them in their persons, in their posterity, and in their possessions; that they enjoy peace of conscience; that they fear no evil, always trusting in the Lord; and that their righteousness and their memory shall remain forever. Ostervald.—It is they who glorify, who shall enjoy Him; they who deny themselves, who shall not be denied; they who labor on earth who shall rest in heaven; they who bear the cross, who shall wear the crown; they who seek to bless others, who shall be blessed. Guthrie. Some doubts are sinful. They are so when born of irrational prejudices, or bred of an unregulated life. But doubt, of its own nature, cannot be sinful. For what is it? It is a certain fluctuation of the mind, this way and that way, while as yet, in the matter in question, it has no convincing evidence. Until such evidence is in the possession of the hesitating individual, the continuance of doubt in him is altogether inevitable, and can therefore be no sin. Do not, then, be afraid to doubt, i.e., to think, to compare, to question, to search, to hesitate, to wait—to wait until the question is honestly settled, and the thing appears as it is. And this is said as a part of religious teaching. We do not need to ask leave of "free thought," or "rational religion," to entertain doubts and questionings, even on the highest subjects, if they are honestly entertained. If the doubt is purely intellectual, then there must be applied to it an expressly intellectual solvent. There are questionings and uncertainties which will yield to nothing else. You cannot believe them down; the very question is, What to believe? You cannot pray them down; you can pray only for truth and light. You cannot force them down by acts of will; such "violence" is not sanctioned in the kingdom. You cannot go round about them and pass on your way. There they are, waiting the honest consideration of your thought, and that settlement which true thinking, sufficient knowledge, and right judgment alone can bring. And if that settlement does not soon come, or does not come easily and all at once, then do not say that the doubts are resolved, or make believe even to your own mind as if they were. But just let them stand, and, meantime, go along the path of duty and obedience as far as it lies plainly before you, not doubting that, soon or late, there will be to you also a fulfilment of the promise, "unto the upright light ariseth in the darkness." A. R. 1. PRAISE ye the LORD. Praise, O ye servants of the LORD, Praise the name of the Lord. 2 Blessed be the name of the LORD From this time forth and for evermore. 3 From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same The LORD's name is to be praised. 4 The LORD is high above all nations, And his glory above the heavens. 5 Who is like unto the LORD our God, That hath his seat on high, 6 That humbleth himself to behold The things that are in heaven and in the earth? 7 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, And lifteth up the needy from the dunghill; 8 That he may set him with princes, Even with the princes of his people. 9 He maketh the barren woman to keep house, And to be a joyful mother of children. PRAISE YE THE LORD. IN the Jewish Liturgy the so-called Hallel (Psalms 113-118), also called the Egyptian Hallel, as distinguished from the Great Hallel (Psalm 136), begins with this Psalm. This first Psalm of the series continued to be sung while the temple stood, and is still recited in Palestine eighteen times a year, apart from its customary, though not legal use, at the new moon. Outside of Palestine it is now yearly recited twenty-one times, on account of the addition of three great feast-days. At the family celebration of the Passover, Psalms 113 and 114 were sung before the emptying of the second cup, and Psalms 115-118 after the meal, and after the filling of the fourth cup. Moll.—This last, probably, was “the hymn” which our Lord and His apostles are said to have sung after His last Passover. P.—Tradition shows that the ancient Jews perceived in these six Psalms some link of close connection. They all sing of God the Redeemer, in some aspect of His redeeming character; and this being so, while they suited the paschal feast, we can see how appropriate they would be in the lips of the Redeemer, in His upper room. A. Bonar. The Psalm may be said to be a connecting link between the song of Hannah and the “Magnificat” of the Virgin. P. 3. The believer's heart is formed for and his soul delights to praise the Lord at all times; for he sees himself infinitely and entirely indebted to the grace of God for all he is, all he enjoys, and all he hopes for. It is his grief that he cannot praise the Lord as he would; for worthy is the Lord of unceasing praise. His mercies are renewed every morning, continued unto evening, and repeated in the night-season. W. Mason. 4. High above all nations (is) Jehovah; above the heavens (is) His (glory). The two clauses are declaratory of His infinite superiority both to the animate and inanimate creation, each being represented by its noblest part; the former by mankind, and that considered not as individuals but nations; the latter by the heavens. A.—His glory is above the nations, and above the heavens, and yet neither is neglected by Him; God is great, yet He despises not any (Job 36 : 5). He humbles Himself to behold all His creatures, all His subjects, though He is infinitely above them. Considering the infinite perfection, sufficiency, and felicity of the Divine nature, it is an act of wonderful condescension that God is pleased to take into the thoughts of His eternal counsel, and into the hand of His universal providence, both the armies of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth (Dan. 4 : 35). H. 5,6. The more we know of the extent of creation the loftier is our conception of Him who sits in high authority over the concerns of so wide a universe. But is it not adding to the bright catalogue of His other attributes, to say that, while magnitude does not overpower Him, minuteness cannot escape Him and variety cannot bewilder Him; and that at the very time while the mind of the Deity is abroad over the whole vastness of creation, there is not one particle of matter, there is not one individual principle of rational or of animal existence, there is not one single world in that expanse which teems with them, that His eye does not discern as constantly, and His hand does not guide as unerringly, and His Spirit does not watch and care for as vigilantly as if it formed the one and exclusive object of His attention. Chalmers. We can no more fathom the depth of the Divine condescension than we can measure the height of the Divine greatness. It is the infinite grandeur of God that magnifies His condescension. It does more than adorn and augment it; it makes it infinite. In both cases our finite understanding fail us. Like men standing on the shore of a wide ocean, we can see a vastness that surprises and fills the mind, but there is beyond our sight a boundless, immeasurable expanse, which no eye can reach. The goodness of God is as great as His majesty; as much exceeding all our conceptions of it as the glory that fills heaven and earth passes our understanding. It is not such mercy as we expect, or desire, or need; it is such mercy as corresponds with the grandeur of Jehovah, such mercy as even towers above His grandeur, and becomes the chief glory of His wonderful name. C. Bradley. Two opposite results spring from the same order of thoughts with respect to the Divine Being. Among men of the world, wise as they are, in proportion as they have had high and exalted views of God, those lofty ideas tend to distrust; while just in proportion as we are enlightened on the very same subjects by the Scriptures of truth, rightly and spiritually understood, we as well as the authors of these sacred books, in proportion as we see the glory and the grandeur of God, are excited to a filial and comforting trust. There are two propositions in the text which human reason could never unite. "Who dwelleth on high," but yet He "humbleth Himself to behold the things that are in heaven, and in the earth." And the reason why unassisted human faculties could never unite these two ideas is, that they could not, in the nature of things, be united but by a third discovery, which must have come from God Himself and show the two in perfect harmony, the discovery that "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Richard Watson. If it be such condescension for God to behold things in heaven and earth, what an amazing condescension was it for the Son of God to come from heaven to earth and take our nature upon Him, that He might seek and save them that were lost! Here indeed He humbled Himself. H. 7. From among those things that make God worthy to be praised the Psalm gives prominence to His condescension toward that which is lowly. What is meant is the humility of God, which stoops down for the exaltation of the lowly, and which performs its utmost in the work of redemption. This explains why it is that Mary, in her "Magnificat," breaks forth into the same strain as the song of Hannah (1 Sam. 2) and this Psalm. D. Almighty God cannot look above Himself, having no superiors; nor about Himself, having no equals; He beholds such as are below Him, and therefore the lower a man is, the nearer unto God; He resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble (1 Pet. 5 : 5). He pulls down the mighty from their seat, and exalteth them of low degree. The Most High hath special eye to such as are most humble; for, as it followeth in our text, "He taketh up the simple out of the dust, and lifteth the poor out of the dirt." Boys. —Great faith, then, ought to be exercised toward such a God. It is a lessening of His honor to allow either sins, or troubles, or wants to sink us into despair. He can stoop lower than we can fall. He can raise the meanest and poorest higher than the most heavenly-minded can conceive. He can succor where human kindness would abandon, comfort where the tenderest earthly friend would forsake, pardon where the most merciful of His creatures would condemn. Our firmest confidence, our most enlarged expectations, can never equal His love. C. Bradley. 9. Make the barren woman a joyful mother of children. He governs all things in the private family, as well as in the public weal. Children and the fruit of the womb are a gift and heritage that cometh of the Lord. It is God only who makes the barren woman "a mother," and that "a joyful mother." Boys. The historical allusion here is to Hannah who, with other long childless mothers mentioned in the sacred history, was a type of the Church in its low estate, and more especially in exile. A. —The curse of barrenness was so bitter a thing in Jewish eyes that its removal was hailed as a special mark of Divine favor. The allusion to it here was suggested, doubtless by Hannah's history, and by the strain of Hannah's song, quoted in vs. 7, 8. P. Praise ye the Lord. We may look abroad and see abundant occasion for praising God in His condescension to human affairs; but, after all, if we wish to find occasions of praise that most tenderly affect the heart, they will be most likely to be found in the domestic circle; in the mutual love, the common joy, the tender feelings which bind together the members of a family. Barnes. Praise ye the Lord. The music concludes upon its keynote. The Psalm is a circle, ending where it began, praising the Lord from its first syllable to its last. May our life-psalm partake of the same character, and never know a break or a conclusion. In an endless circle let us bless the Lord, whose mercies never cease. Let us praise Him in youth, and all along our years of strength; and when we bow in the ripeness of abundant age, let us still praise the Lord who doth not cast off His old servants. Let us not only praise God ourselves, but exhort others to do it, and join with them in extolling the name of Him whose mercy endureth forever. S. 1. WHEN Israel went forth out of Egypt, The house of Jacob from a people of strange language; 2 Judah became his sanctuary, Israel his dominion. 3 The sea saw it, and fled; Jordan was driven back. 4 The mountains skipped like rams, The little hills like young sheep. 5. What aileth thee, O thou sea, that thou fleest? Thou Jordan, that thou turnest back? 6 Ye mountains, that ye skip like rams; Ye little hills, like young sheep? 7 Tremble, thou earth, at the presence of the Lord, At the presence of the God of Jacob; 8 Which turned the rock into a pool of water, The flint into a fountain of waters. THE date and author of this Psalm are unknown. Its energy and fire; its abruptness, brevity, rapidity; its realization of miracles as acting; the astonishment of the Psalmist at the terror of the sea, the flight of Jordan northward, the quaking of the mountains and all hills; and the conclusion, that a look of the God of Jacob did these miracles, and turned the rock, not into water, but a pool of water, and the flint into a springing fountain, make up, says Herder, a picture of sublimity to which no parallel can be found. No other language could, with propriety and simplicity, express the images contained in the Psalm; and no other history (it is needless to say) could furnish truths for the foundation of it. G. H. S. J. This is perhaps the most beautiful of all the Psalms which touch on the early history of Israel. It is certainly the most graphic and the most striking in the boldness of its outlines. In structure it is singularly perfect. This rests upon the common principle of pairs of verses, and thus we have four strophes, each consisting of two verses; each of these verses, again, consists of two lines, in which the parallelism is carefully preserved. The effect is produced not by minute tracing of details, but by the boldness with which certain great features of the history are presented. A singular animation and an almost dramatic force are given to the poem by the beautiful apostrophe in vs. 5, 6, and the effect of this is heightened in a remarkable degree by the use of the present tenses. The awe and the trembling of nature are a spectacle on which the poet is looking. The parted sea through which Israel walks as on dry land, the rushing Jordan arrested in its course, the granite cliffs of Sinai shaken to their base, he sees it all, and asks in wonder what it means? Then it is that the truth bursts upon his mind, and the impression of this upon the reader is very finely managed. The Name of God, which has been entirely concealed up to this point in the poem (even the possessive pronoun being left without its substantive, "Judah was His sanctuary, Israel was His dominion"), is now only introduced after the apostrophe in vs. 5, 6. "The reason seems evident, and the conduct necessary, for if God had appeared before, there could be no wonder why the mountains should leap and the sea retire; therefore, that this convulsion of nature may be brought in with due surprise, His name is not mentioned till afterward; and then, with a very agreeable turn of thought, God is introduced all at once in all His majesty" (Spectator). P. This gem of Hebrew poetry serves to show how beautifully they could weave into their songs for the sanctuary the grand facts of their nation's early history. The prayer of Nehemiah (chap. 9) witnesses to the use made of those same grand facts in their historical point of view, to inspire faith, to encourage prayer, and to suggest the great moral lessons taught there concerning their nation's God and His people. C. —There is here the highest poetry; but the poetry is the offspring of adoring faith, the rapt religious inspiration of which it is an outburst. And, as it could only have been written by one whose soul was penetrated by the historic reality of the Exodus, and before whose eye it stood up as one stupendous series of supernatural events fresh as those of yesterday, so the inspiration of this exalted lyric cannot possibly penetrate the soul that has discarded the Exodus as an historical event, nor can even its poetry seem otherwise than turgid. D. Brown. 1,2. The introduction sets forth at once both the great redemptive act and also the end of the redemption; viz., that God Himself might dwell among and rule His people. This sanctifying of the nation, as a nation to Himself, took place in the wilderness before the law was given: "Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Ex. 19 : 6). P.—The whole people at the coming out of Egypt were separated unto the Lord to be a peculiar people, a nation of priests whose motto should be, "Holiness unto the Lord." The nation was peculiarly Jehovah's dominion, for it was governed by a theocracy in which God alone was King. It was His domain in a sense in which the rest of the world was outside His kingdom. S. 3. The passage of the Red Sea and of the Jordan are combined, not only as miracles of a similar character, but as marking the beginning and the end of the great deliverance, the escape from Egypt, the entrance into the Promised Land. P. 3,4. The foundation of that new beginning in connection with the history of redemption was laid amid majestic wonders, the world of nature being enlisted in God's service and being made to sympathize with His aims. The dividing of the Red Sea commences, and the dividing of the Jordan closes, the journey through the wilderness to Canaan; the sea turned aside, the Jordan halted and was dammed up to the north, in order that the redeemed people might march through. And between these two great wonders of the Exodus from Egypt and the entrance into Canaan there stands out the not less great wonder of the giving of the law. The skipping of the mountains like rams and of the hills like lambs depicts the quaking of Sinai and its environs. D.—The same power that fixed the fluid waters and made them stand still, shook the stable mountains and made them tremble; for all the powers of nature are under the check of the God of nature. H. 5-7. When the poet asks, "What aileth thee, O sea, that thou fleest?" he is living as it were in that olden time as if he were a contemporary, or the present and that far-off past fuse together in his mind; and therefore the answer he gives himself to his own question assumes the form of a triumphant summons. It is the Lord, the God of Jacob so mighty in wonders, before whom the earth must tremble. D. 8. These miracles at Horeb and Kadesh are selected as the most striking proofs of "God's absolute creative omnipotence, and of the grace which changes death into life." They are, moreover, parallel miracles, like the two mentioned in v. 3, and thus the poetical effect is heightened. P. The rock into a pool of water. The same almighty power that turned waters into a rock to be a wall to Israel, turned the rock into waters to be a well to Israel. As they were protected, so they were provided for, by standing miracles; for such was the standing water, that fountain of waters into which the flinty rock was turned, "and that rock was Christ." For He is a fountain of living waters to His Israel, from whom they receive grace for grace. H. The flint into a fountain of waters. The causing of water to gush forth out of the flinty rock is a practical proof of unlimited omnipotence and of the grace which converts death into life. Let the earth then tremble before the Lord, the God of Jacob. It has already trembled before Him, and before Him let it tremble. For that which He has been He still ever is; and as He came once He will come again. D. Our deliverance from under the yoke of sin is strikingly typified in the going up of Israel from Egypt, and so also was the victory of our Lord over the powers of death and hell. The Exodus should therefore be earnestly remembered by Christian hearts. Did not Moses on the mount of transfiguration speak to our Lord of "the exodus" which He should shortly accomplish at Jerusalem; and is it not written of the hosts above that they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and of the Lamb? Do we not ourselves expect another coming of the Lord, when before His face heaven and earth shall flee away and there shall be no more sea? We join then with the singers around the Passover table and make their Hallel ours, for we, too, have been led out of bondage and guided like a flock through a desert land, wherein the Lord sup- plies our wants with heavenly manna and water from the Rock of Ages. Praise ye the Lord. S. 1. Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, But unto thy name give glory, For thy mercy, and for thy truth's sake. 2 Wherefore should the nations say, Where is now their God? 3 But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever he pleased. 4 Their idols are silver and gold, The work of men's hands. 5 They have mouths, but they speak not; Eyes have they, but they see not; 6 They have ears, but they hear not; Noses have they, but they smell not; 7 They have hands, but they handle not; Feet have they, but they walk not; Neither speak they through their throat. 8 They that make them shall be like unto them; Yea, every one that trusteth in them. 9 O Israel, trust thou in the Lord: He is their help and their shield. 10. O house of Aaron, trust ye in the Lord: He is their help and their shield. 11 Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord: He is their help and their shield. 12 The Lord hath been mindful of us; he will bless us: He will bless the house of Israel; He will bless the house of Aaron. 13 He will bless them that fear the Lord, Both small and great. 14 The Lord increase you more and more, You and your children. 15 Blessed are ye of the Lord, Which made heaven and earth. 16 The heavens are the heavens of the Lord; But the earth hath he given to the children of men. 17 The dead praise not the Lord, Neither any that go down into silence; 18 But we will bless the Lord From this time forth and for evermore. Praise ye the Lord. THIS Psalm was probably composed for the service of the second temple, while yet the taunts of their heathen adversaries were ringing in the ears of the returned exiles, and while yet contempt for the idolatries which they had witnessed in Babylon was fresh in their hearts. The Psalm opens with a confession of unworthiness, and a prayer that God would vindicate His own honor against the scoff of the heathen (vs. 1, 2). It exalts Him, the invisible, omnipotent, absolutely Supreme Ruler of the universe, and pours contempt upon the idols and their worshippers (vs. 3-8). It bids all Israel, both priests and people, put their trust in Him who is alone worthy of trust, the help and shield of His people (vs. 9-11). It promises that Jehovah shall give His blessing to them that thus trust in Him, and calls upon them in return to give Him thanks forever (vs. 12-18). P. 1. Not unto us. The repetition of these words expresses the more vividly the deep sense of unworthiness, the unfeigned humility which claims nothing for itself. P.—Give glory, for thy mercy, for thy truth. The glory meant is not that of former, but of future deeds. The implied petition is, that God would interpose for the deliverance of His people, not to do them honor, but to glorify Himself, and especially to vindicate His mercy and fidelity, which seemed to be dishonored by His desertion of the chosen people. The favor sought is the completion of the work of restoration, still imperfect, though auspiciously begun. A. This is not an exhortation to men to ascribe glory to God, but a prayer to God that He would glorify Himself for His own name's sake. The address is to the Lord, and the imperative, "Give glory," is prayer that He would secure it for Himself. This by no means conflicts with the delightful duty devolving on God's people to give Him all glory; it rather assumes this, and goes still further, even to the prayer that God would do the great things we ask of Him, not to glorify us, but Himself. C.—This is not a doxology or form of thanksgiving, but a prayer. Not for our safety or welfare so much as for Thy glory, be pleased to deliver us. Not to satisfy our revenge upon our adversaries; not for the establishment of our own interest, but for the glory of Thy grace and truth do we seek Thine aid, that thou mayest be known to be a God keeping covenant; for mercy and truth are the two pillars of that covenant. Manton. "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord." Though all outward discipline, and labor, and sorrows, and disappointments, and struggles, the efforts that we make after victory, though all these prepare Christians, and make us capable of receiving the gift, yet the gift comes only out of His infinite and undeserved, and, God be thanked! inexhaustible forgiving goodness and mercy. Though there is no heaven except to the victor, yet the victor does not fight his way into heaven, but Christ gives it to him. And when we stand as, God be thanked! we may hope to stand before that throne, we shall forget all about rewardableness and reward, and say, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name" we give glory. Thou dost give me the grace to fight; Thou dost teach my hands to war; Thou dost cover my head in the day of battle; it is Thine own grace in me that thou dost crown. Thou art first, and last, and all—the motive and the strength of the conflict, the reward and the rewarder of the victory. All, Lord! all that I have is Thine, and mine is only weakness, and sin, and defeat. A. M. Men see not one half of the realities of life. The true, real world is the unseen. The great transactions are wrought in the inner man. We are often led by a hand we do not see, and drawn on by a sweet influence we cannot define. Only the more spiritual, saintly souls discern God. But we at last come to see what God hath wrought. That will be a wondrous recognition of the all-working Spirit when a vast redeemed race shall, in review of life's checkered course, sing the new song, and exclaim with deep significance, "Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory." Chapman. The noble host of reformers that have stood between old abuses and their victims are His army. The conquerors of oppression, of crime, of poverty, of superstition, of oceans that lay this side of heathenism, have all conquered in the name of Him who came to open prison-doors, and set the bruised at liberty. The valiant priests of labor have been but servants of that great High-Priest, passed into the heavens, who sanctified all lawful industry when he said: "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." And all the lengthening train of redeeming charities and philanthropies lift their accordant anthem to the one Redeemer, "Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory!" F. D. H. 1,2. He assigns three reasons why God should seek the glory of His name in preserving His people: Because He is merciful; because He is true and faithful in observing His promise; that the Gentiles may not see God's people in a state of destitution and find cause for blaspheming Him or them. He therefore says, "for Thy mercy, and for Thy truth's sake," show thy glory, or give glory to Thy name. Bellarmine. 3. The answer to the taunt of the heathen, who, seeing no image of Jehovah, mocked at His existence. First, He is in heaven, invisible indeed, yet thence ruling the universe; next, He doeth what He will, in fine contrast with the utter impotence of the gods of the heathen. P.—It would be folly to assert the like concerning idols; therefore, if the heathen say, Where is your God? we reply, He is in heaven, but where are your idols? In the earth, not making the earth, but made from the earth. Geier. 4-8. Turning the tables and retorting their reproaches, the Psalmist says, "Their gods are nothing but a variety of manufactures; man-made things; at best, but silver and gold; often of wood only. See the same way of exposing the folly of idol worship (Isa. 40: 18-20; 44: 9-20; 46: 5-7; Jer. 10: 3-15). They are made with mouths, but these are only mere imitations, with no power to speak. As the Hebrew has it, they will not speak (future tense); they never will, never can, say the first word. So in all these specifications, the future means not only that they cannot now, but that they never will or can. They have hands, but they handle nothing; never use them; never even touch with those useless hands. "Neither speak they through their throat"—means they never make even the inarticulate, guttural noises common to the lower animals, which fall far short of the articulate voice. No less void of sense than these senseless idols are all their makers and their worshippers. This very worship proves their miserable folly. O.— They have mouths, but they speak not for our direction; eyes have they, but they see not our condition; they have ears, but they hear not our supplication; they have hands, but they work not our redemption. These were not the gods that made men, but the gods that men made. W. Seker. They have hands, but they handle not. Even their artist therefore surpasseth them, since he had the faculty of moulding them by the motion and functions of his limbs, though thou wouldest be ashamed to worship that artist. Even thou surpassest them, though thou hast not made these things, since thou doest what they cannot do. Augustine.—Do not mutter in their throat. The meaning is, that they cannot even make the faintest and most inarticulate guttural noise, like the lower animals; much less speak as men. A. 8. They that make them images show their ingenuity and doubtless are sensible men; but they that make them gods show their stupidity and folly, and are like unto them, as senseless, blockish things; they see not the invisible things of the true and living God in the works of creation; they hear not the voice of the day and the night, which in every speech and language declare His glory. By worshipping these foolish puppets they make themselves more and more foolish like them, and set themselves at a greater distance from everything that is spiritual, and withal they provoke God to give them up to a reprobate mind, a mind void of judgment (Rom. 1: 28). They that trust in them act very absurdly and unreasonably; are senseless, helpless, useless, like them; and they will find it so themselves to their own confusion. We shall know where our God is, and so shall they, to their cost, when their gods are gone. H. Every one is just what his God is; whoever serves the Omnipotent is omnipotent with Him; whoever exalts feebleness in stupid delusion, to be His god, is feeble along with that god. This is an important preservative against fear for those who are sure that they worship the true God. Hengstenberg.—It belongs to the essential nature of religious worship to assimilate the moral attributes of the worshippers to those of the object of worship. The heathen themselves recognize this principle. “The sum of religion,” said Pythagoras, “is to be like him whom thou worshippest.” “Think of Buddha,” say the priests of that pretended deity, “and you will be transformed into Buddha.” This is consonant to the highest reason. The heart seeks to be in favor with its god; and what more natural means to that end than the imitation of his qualities and actions—the assimilation of our character to his? The god whom we worship must constitute our ideal of perfection; and the nearer we approach our ideal, the higher, in our own estimation, will be the degree of excellence which we have reached. Every act of worship, therefore, every prayer, every devout aspiration, every serious thought of the Divine nature, must tend to make us one with our God, and to transfer to ourselves the impress of His character. E. C. Wines. “They that make them,” says the Psalmist, “are like unto them.” The man that makes a god is sure to resemble him. Selfishness, avarice, cupidity, are all idolized in Mammon. The man that puts Mammon in the place of the Eternal God becomes assimilated to the god to whom he bows; and more and more, as years roll on, the higher and nobler qualities of his nature are eliminated before the baser and viler. Thus the intended process of education is practically inverted; instead of learning to be men and rising to be Divine, the process of development sets in exactly the opposite direction, and men in this world learn to be more and more unmanlike, until the revolting consummation is reached, when the man seems to be transformed into the fiend, and the human seems lost in the devil. Aitken. We may make a special application to the times in which we are now living. The god of modern thought is the creation of the thinker himself, evolved out of his own consciousness, or fashioned according to his own notion of what a god should be. Now, it is evident that such a being is no god. A god who can be fashioned by our own thoughts is no more a god than the image manufactured or produced by our own hands. The true God must of necessity be His own revealer. S. It is evidently to be seen that the heathen religions are nothing but an abuse of the natural inclination which all men have to worship God, whom, because they know not, they guess at in the dark; for that they know there is and ought to be something that hath the care and providence of their affairs. But their religions were made lasting by policy and force, by ignorance and the force of custom, by the preferring an inveterate error and loving of a quiet and prosperous evil, by the arguments of pleasure and the correspondencies of sensuality, by the frauds of oracles and the patronage of vices, and because they feared every change as an earthquake, as supposing overturnings of their old error to be the destruction of their well-established governments. Bishop Taylor. 9-11. Trust in Jehovah, in contrast with the "trust" of v. 8. Trust in Jehovah, for He is not like the idols, He is the living God, "the help and the shield" of them that trust in Him. Trust in Jehovah, for He hath been mindful of us in times past, He will bless us in time to come (v. 12). The threefold division—Israel, house of Aaron, they that fear Jehovah—is the same as in Psalm 118 : 2, 3, 4. P. "He is the help" of His people; they are helpless, and vain is the help of man; there is no help but in the Lord, and He is a present, seasonable, and sufficient help. Jehovah the Father has promised them help, and He has laid help upon His Son for them; and has set up a throne of grace, where they may come for grace to help them in time of need. Christ has helped them out of the miserable estate they were fallen into by sin; He helps them on in their way to heaven, by His power and grace, and at last brings them thither. The Spirit of God helps them to the things of Christ; to many exceeding great and precious promises; and out of many difficulties, snares and temptations; and He helps them in prayer under all their infirmities, and makes intercession for them, according to the will of God; and therefore they should trust in the Lord, Father, Son, and Spirit. Gill. 11. Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord.** An exhortation in general to trust in Him, is a privilege great and glorious; but for a man to be singled out from his neighbors, for a man to be spoken to from heaven, as it were, by name, and to be told that God has given him a license, a special and peculiar grant to trust in Him, this is abundantly more; and yet this is the grant that God has given that man that feareth the Lord. Banyan. 12. The Lord hath been mindful of us; He will bless us. God hath, and therefore God will, is an ordinary Scripture argument. Trapp.—He has already shown His gracious recollection of us by beginning to bless us, and He will still go on to bless us; an idea simply but beautifully expressed by the repetition of the verb. A.—The repetition of the word "bless" adds great effect to the passage. It is His nature to bless, it is His prerogative to bless, it is His glory to bless, it is His delight to bless; He has promised to bless, and therefore be sure of this, that He will bless and bless and bless without ceasing. S. 13. He will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great. Art thou in thine own thoughts or in the thoughts of others, of these small ones, small in grace, small in gifts, small in esteem upon this account? Yet if thou fearest God indeed, thou art certainly blessed with the best of saints. The least star stands as fixed as the brightest of them all in heaven. "He shall bless them that fear him, small and great." He shall bless them with the same blessing of eternal life. For the difference in degrees of grace in saints doth not make the blessing, as to its nature, differ. It is the same heaven, the same life, the same glory, and the same eternity of felicity, that they are in the text promised to be blessed with. Banyan. 15. The Lord which made heaven and earth.** Christ fills all the space between God and man. There is no need for a crowd of shadowy beings to link heaven with earth. Jesus Christ lays His hand upon both. He is the head and source of creation; He is the head and fountain of life to His Church. Therefore He is first in all things, to be listened to, loved, and worshipped by men. A. M. 17. (It is) not the dead (that) are to praise Jehovah, and not all (those) going down to silence. This may be regarded as a further reason for expecting the Divine protection. God has chosen a people from among the nations of the earth, to praise Him not when dead but living, not in the silence of the grave, but with their voices in the present life. Thus understood, the verse teaches nothing as to the employments of the disembodied spirit, or of soul and body in the future state. All that is affirmed here (and perhaps in other places like it) is that the praises of the chosen people, as such, must be limited to this life. A.—Into silence. Into the grave—the land of silence. Nothing is more impressive in regard to the grave than its utter silence. Not a voice, not a sound, is heard there. Perfect stillness reigns and the first sound that shall be heard there will be the archangel's trump. Barnes. 17,18. The Psalm thus closed was one of the songs of the second temple. What we hear in it is the voice of the Church rather than of an individual soul. And this may assist us in perceiving its entire harmony with faith in the heavenly glory. It much concerns the honor of God that there be continued on the earth a visible Church, in which His name may be recorded from generation to generation. That is a work which cannot be performed by the dead. Since, therefore, the uppermost desire of the Church ought ever to be that God's name may be hallowed, His kingdom advanced, and His will done in the earth; it is her duty to pray for continued subsistence here, on the earth, to witness for God. And it is to be carefully observed, that not only in this passage, but in all the parallel texts in which the Psalmists seem to speak doubtfully or disparagingly of the state of the departed, it is in connection with the interest of God's cause on the earth. The thought that is uppermost in their hearts is, that "in death there is no commemoration" of God—no recording of His name for the salvation of men. This single circumstance might, I think, suffice to put the reader on his guard against a precipitate fastening on them of a meaning which would exclude the hope of eternal life. It goes far to show that what the Psalmist deprecates is not death simply considered, but premature death. Their prayer is, "O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days" (Psalm 102 : 24). And I do not hesitate to say that there are men so placed in stations of eminent usefulness that it is their duty to make the prayer their own. W. Binnie. 1. I LOVE the LORD, because he hath heard My voice and my supplications. 2 Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, Therefore will I call upon him as long as I live. 3 The cords of death compassed me, And the pains of Sheol gat hold upon me : I found trouble and sorrow. 4 Then called I upon the name of the LORD ; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul. 5 Gracious is the LORD, and righteous ; Yea, our God is merciful. 6 The LORD preserveth the simple : I was brought low, and he saved me. 7 Return unto thy rest, O my soul ; For the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee. 8 For thou hast delivered my soul from death, Mine eyes from tears, And my feet from falling. 9 I will walk before the LORD In the land of the living. 10 I believe, for I will (or, when I) speak : I was greatly afflicted : 11 I said in my alarm, All men are a lie. 12 What shall I render unto the LORD For all his benefits toward me ? 13 I will take the cup of salvation, And call upon the name of the LORD. 14 I will pay my vows unto the LORD, Yea, in the presence of all his people. 15 Precious in the sight of the LORD Is the death of his saints. 16 O LORD, truly I am thy servant : I am thy servant, the son of thine hand- maid ; Thou hast loosed my bonds. 17 I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanks- giving, And will call upon the name of the LORD. 18 I will pay my vows unto the LORD, Yea, in the presence of all his people : 19 In the courts of the LORD's house, In the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. PRAISE YE THE LORD ! In this Psalm one who has been in peril of death (vs. 3, 9, 15) gives thanks to God with a full heart for the deliverance which has been vouchsafed to him. Beginning with the expression of a love to God called forth by His mercy, the Psalmist then passes in review all God's goodness, till he feels that it surpasses infinitely not only all his deserts, but all adequate power of acknowledgment (v. 12) ; and he concludes by declaring that, in the most public manner, before the assembled congregation, he will confess how great the debt he owes, and bind himself solemnly to the service of Jehovah. The Psalm is evidence of the truth and depth of the religious life in individuals after the return from the exile ; for there can be little doubt that it must be assigned to that period. Many words and turns of phrases remind us of earlier Psalms, and especially of the Psalms of David. His words must have laid hold in no common degree of the hearts of those who were heirs of his faith, and have sustained them in times of sorrow and suffering; and nothing would be more natural than that later poets should echo his strains, and mingle his words with their own when they poured forth their prayers and praises before God. P.—The Psalm exhibits a power and depth of spiritual life not exceeded in any part of Israelitish history. This has been appreciated in the Christian Church, and has made the Psalm very precious to those who have had like experience of suffering and relief. De Witt. 1,2. All the tenses have an eye to the present, thus: I have loved the Lord and do still love Him, because He not only hears my supplications now, but will hear in all my future life. Because He has bent His ear low to my feeble voice, therefore will I call upon Him in both prayer and praise throughout my days of life. The calling upon God, thought of here, manifestly included praise. This is the grateful utterance of the convalescent who has felt the pains and prostrations of disease, but now looks out once more upon the joys of active life and usefulness. C. 1. I love the Lord.** Love, the true love of God, is the love of His truth, of His holiness, of His whole will; the true love is that which reflects itself in obedience; the true love is that which stirs and purifies the conscience. Vinet.—Love begets love. 'Tis a flame that communicates itself. They that have much forgiven them, much done for them, much laid out for them, and much laid up for them, will love much. Our love to God is the reflection of His love to us. We love Him because He first loved us. J. Mason. 'Because He first loved us,' the effect follows that we love, we love Him, we love all men. We cannot help it. Because He loved us, we love, we love everybody. Our heart is slowly changed. Contemplate the love of Christ, and you will love. Stand before that mirror, reflect Christ's character, and you will be changed into the same image from tenderness to tenderness. There is no other way. You cannot love to order. You can only look at the lovely object, and fall in love with it, and grow into likeness to it. And so look at this Perfect Character, this Perfect Life. Look at the great Sacrifice as He laid down Himself, all through life, and upon the Cross of Calvary; and you must love Him. And loving Him, you must become like Him. H. Drummond. We cannot love by commandment, or because we think it duty. There is but one way of loving, and that is to see the lovely. The disciple who loved Jesus was 'the disciple whom Jesus loved.' Generalize that, and it teaches us that, they love who know that Christ loves them. His Divine and eternal mercy is the foundation of the whole thing. Our love can never be anything else than the echo to His voice of tenderness, than the reflected light upon our hearts of the full glory of His affection. No man loveth God except the man who has first learned that God loves him. We have a Gospel that is worth the preaching when we can come to men with no love in their hearts and say, Listen to this: you have to bring nothing, you are called upon to originate no affection; you have nothing to do but simply to receive the everlasting love of God in Christ His Son, which was without you, which began before you, which flows forth independent of you, which is unchecked by all our sins, which triumphs over all our transgressions, and which will make us—loveless, selfish, hardened, sinful men—soft and tender and full of Divine affection, by the communication of its own self. A. M. When a man's prayers are answered, love is the natural result. According to Alexander the text may run, 'I love because Jehovah hears my voice, my supplications.' This also is true in the case of every pleading believer. Continual love flows out of daily answers to prayer. S.—It is a striking remark, ascribed to Augustine, that prayer is the measure of love. A remark which implies that those who love much will pray much, and those who pray much will love much. This remark is not more scripturally than philosophically true. It is the nature of love to lead the person who exercises this passion out of himself. His heart is continually attracted toward the beloved object. He naturally and necessarily exercises, in connection with the object of love, the communion of the affections. And this communion of the affections is the essential characteristic, and it may be said, the essence and sum of prayer. In acceptable prayer the soul goes forth to God in various acts of adoration, supplication, thanksgiving, and praise—all of which imply feelings of trust and confidence, and particularly love to Him who is the object of prayer. Accordingly he who loves much cannot help praying much. And on the other hand, when the streams of holy communion with God fail in any considerable degree, it is a sure sign that there is a shallowness and drought in that fountain of love from which they have their source. Anon. All the graces of the Spirit are stirred and exercised in prayer; and, by exercise, strengthened and increased. Faith, in applying the Divine promises which are the very ground that the soul goes upon to God; Hope looking out to their performance, and Love particularly expressing itself in that sweet converse, and delighting in it as love doth in the company of the person loved. And as the soul delights in freedom of speech with its beloved Lord, so it is continually advanced, and grows by each meeting and conference, beholding the excellency of God, and relishing the pure and sublime pleasures that are in near communion with Him. Looking upon the Father in the face of Christ, and using Him as a Mediator in prayer, it is drawn to further admiration of that bottomless love which found that way of agreement, that new and living way of our access, when all was shut up, and we to have been shut out forever. And then the affectionate expressions of that reflex love, finding that vent in prayer, do kindle higher; and being as it were fanned and blown up, rise to a greater, and higher, and purer flame, and so tend upward the more strongly. Leighton. He who loves Christ unselfishly is ever in the spirit of communion with Christ, and with all who are dear to Christ. Because he loves Christ he is ready to serve Christ, and is ready to serve those whom Christ makes His own representatives. No matter what he is doing, whether he is at work or at worship, or at recreation, he is in the attitude of readiness for service at the call of Him whom he loves. His communion with his Lord, in this sense of readiness for service, is no more real in one place or in one occupation than in another, even though he recognizes his duty and his privilege to be in one place or in one occupation for the time being, as alone consistent for that time with the service he owes to his Master. Bound to his Lord more closely than a loving mother is bound to her child, or than a loving friend is bound to his friend, the disciple of the Lord Jesus is by this binding love in constant and unfailing communion with Him in whom he lives and moves and has his being. And here, as in no other sphere of being, he who enjoys this spirit of communion may be sure that it is recognized, welcomed, and reciprocated by Him toward whom it is lovingly exercised. This communion is ever intercommunion. S. S. T. Because He hath heard my supplications. It is the design and manifest working of all our painful experience to purify and strengthen love as the pure element of heaven within us. I know not how to speak of the beauty and resources of that goodness which worketh in us a passion in which we not only resemble perfection, but may go on to possess it. There are limits to our advancement in everything but love. Whatever else we can possess or know is no protection against sorrow and despair, but this sheds a light and a cheering about the heart which no calamity can expel. Out of the greatest distresses it comes a victor, laden with the spoils of every foe. From the dust our bed, and the flesh our prison, it enables us to rise and soar as in a heaven of our own. H. H. 2. David saith: I love the Lord, because He hath granted me that which I supplicated to Him for. But did this grant of what he had asked take him off from asking more? The next words show us what his resolution was upon that grant. "Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live." Caryl.—A godly man will seek God's face evermore; he calleth upon God as long as he liveth. Breathing heavenward in prayer is the beginning and ending of his spiritual life upon earth, as we see in Paul and Stephen. Paul begins his life with prayer, and Stephen ends his with it. He never taketh his leave of prayer till he is entering into the place of praise. Prayer is his element; he cannot live without it and communion with God in it. Prayer is the vessel by which he is continually trading into the Holy Land; he sendeth it out fraught with precious graces—faith, hope, love, desire, godly sorrow, and the like—and it cometh home many times richly laden with peace, joy, and increase of faith. Swinnock. Awe and love combined are perfect adoration, and in that adoration the soul is satisfied, earth is glorified, heaven is in our hearts, and all our human love raised into something more intense and pure when it breathes this air of the Eternal. Prayer is the expression of this adoring love, as necessary to man as the adoring love is necessary; and till awe ceases to exalt the soul, and love to be its food, the soul of man must pray. Men may call prayer an absurdity, deny its work, banish its influence, but nature and God will be too strong for them. These men will glide into the absurdity they laughed at when their heart is passionate with sorrow; and as to banishing its influence, they must banish veneration and love from the heart, and then tear away the heart itself, ere they can banish prayer. Its force is here, within us, here in the depth of our want. S. A. Brooke. 5. The Lord is gracious in hearing, He is "righteous" in judging, He is "merciful" in pardoning, and how, then, can I doubt of His will to help me? He is righteous to reward according to deserts; He is gracious to reward above deserts; yea, He is merciful to reward without deserts; and how, then, can I doubt of His will to help me? He is gracious, and this shows His bounty; He is righteous, and this shows His justice; yea, He is merciful, and this shows His love; and how, then, can I doubt of His will to help me? If He were not gracious I could not hope He would hear me; if He were not righteous, I could not depend upon His promise; if He were not merciful, I could not expect His pardon. R. Baker. 6. He helped me.** Helped me both to bear the worst and to hope the best; helped me to pray, else desire had failed; helped me to wait, else faith had failed. H. 7. The deliverance vouchsafed in answer to prayer stills the tumult of the soul. The rest is the rest of confidence in God. P.—“Return unto thy rest, O my soul,” to thy rest in calm and cheerful submission to God’s will, delight in His service, satisfaction in His presence, and joy in communion begun with Him here below which is to be perfected above in its full fruition. Holy souls rest in God and in His will; in Himself as their God, their portion, and their chief good, in whom they shall have all that they can need, or are capable of enjoying to complete their blessedness forever. D. Wilcox. Satisfied that he owes his deliverance to God, the Psalmist encourages his own soul to be tranquil once more. Thou hast been disturbed with the sorrows of death, and thy rest has been rudely broken. But God hath delivered thee, return unto thy rest, O my soul. We cannot doubt where that soul’s point of rest would be found. It simply goes back to God who has dealt bountifully and rests in Him. Rests lovingly; “I love the Lord because He hath heard my voice.” Rests obediently; “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” Rests adoringly; “I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.” Rests thankfully; “I will offer to Thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving.” Rests believingly; “I believed, therefore have I spoken.” God is to that soul the permanent centre of love, obedience, adoration, thanksgiving, and faith. A religion in which God is not the rest of the soul, in which God is not the fixed foundation of joy, the goal of hope, the prime impulse to duty, the supreme source of comfort and wisdom, is a contradiction of terms. “Religion is the maintenance of a real relation with the personal God, or with a Divine Person really incarnate in Jesus Christ. Accordingly religion, both Jewish and Christian, is described as a covenant; it is a bond or understanding between the nation or the soul and God; or, still more, it is personal communion with God. ‘That which we have seen and heard,’ says John, ‘declare we unto you, that ye also may have communion with us; and truly our communion is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.’” (Whittier.) This is the very spirit of this verse. The Psalmist exhorts his soul to return unto its rest; not because it has heard of God, or has seen His power in nature; not because he recognizes Divine order in the universe, not because his poetical feeling is kindled by the thought of Divine majesty and glory, but because he has had personal dealings with God. That this point of rest may be clearly, sharply defined to us, God presents Himself in Christ as the soul’s rest. In Christ He stands, saying to a restless world, “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The Incarnate Rest comes down to man. The God of rest becomes man, and the life and the words of the Son of Man are a thousandfold echo of the words, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul.” V. The rest of which the text speaks is the rest of a being who has found his proper and congenial sphere. In reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ the soul finds the centre of repose for which it had been sighing in vain. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden,” is the invitation of Incarnate Love, “and I will give you rest.” And in the soul that yields to this invitation there rises the response of its deepest nature, the instinctive throb of a new yet natural affection, the calm sense of existence fulfilled and unexplained hope and desire solved in fruition, the witness in its own inmost consciousness that its true rest is found at last. This rest is attainable through Christ alone. “No man cometh unto the Father but by Him.” He offers pardon to the guilty, purity to the defiled, peace, joy, hope, heaven to the wretched, or that which includes them all, that strange, unearthly blessing, rest, to the weary and heavy-laden soul. Caird. 8. For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. The triune God has given us a trinity of deliverances; our life has been spared from the grave, our heart has been uplifted from its griefs, and our course in life has been preserved from dishonor. Salvation, joy, and holiness must go together, and they are all provided for us in the covenant of grace. Death is vanquished, tears are dried, and fears are banished when the Lord is near. S. 9. He that rests in God cannot but walk before Him, and by walking before, we come to rest in God. Returning to rest is an act of confidence, since there is no rest to be had but in God, nor in God but by believing reliance on Him. Walking before God is an act of obedience; when we disobey we wander and go astray, only by obedience we walk. Now these two are companions and ever go together; confidence being a means to quicken obedience, and obedience to strengthen confidence. N. Hardu 10. I believed, for (thus) I speak. I must have exercised faith, or I could not thus have spoken. The Septuagint version, retained in the New Testament (2 Cor. 4 : 13), clothes the same essential meaning in a different form, I believed, therefore have I spoken. It was because his faith enabled him to speak, so that his speaking was a proof of faith. A.—I have retained faith when I spoke. D.—I have faith when I speak. The former of these verbs is in the perfect tense, which indicates firmly established and permanent confidence, in distinction from transient emotion. Literally, I believe when I speak. The second verb in the imperfect tense expresses a passing present, with reference to what he is now saying about the goodness of Jehovah in his great trouble. The emphatic pronoun I in v. 10 and repeated in v. 11, is in both cases in apposition to the subject of the preceding verbs, and that both clauses are virtually relative, giving a reason for his confidence. He learned to trust God's faithful grace, not from the testimony of others, but from his own personal experience of anguish and sorrow, as described in vs. 3, 4. In his danger and alarm he had looked to men for sympathy and aid, and had to testify that all their promises were falsehood. The contrast between man's treachery and God's faithfulness as thus personally tested and attested is very striking, and would be much less effective in the absence of the emphatic pronoun. De Witt. The Psalmist declares that he stays himself upon God ("I believe"), for he had looked to himself, and there had seen nothing but weakness; he had looked to other men, and found them all deceitful, treacherous as a broken reed. P. Faith is the only good reason for religious speech. The difference between belief and faith is only this: By the former we hold the truth; by the latter it holds us. The former has no determining influence on the character, but faith, in proportion as it is real, commands the entire life. The truths we hold are grand and awful enough to sweep every thought, affection, and purpose before them. We believe glorious and dreadful things, so glorious, so dreadful, the world could not resist a life that would faithfully reproduce them. Let us hide the Word of God in our hearts till it melts into our experience, till it reappears in new forms in our prayers, our actions, the tenor of our lives, and then we will understand that the depth of our faith measures the breadth of our influence. Interior. A higher tone of spiritual life would prove that the Gospel was mighty to mould and ennoble character. If our own souls were gleaming with the glory of God, men would believe that we had met more than the shadow of our own personality in the secret place. If the fire of faith were bright in us, it would communicate itself to others, for nothing is so contagious as earnestness. If we believed, and therefore spoke, the accent of conviction in our tones would carry them deep into some hearts. If we would trust Christ's cross to stand firm without our stays, and, arguing less about it, would seldom try to prop it, and oftener to point to it, it would draw men to it. A. M. 11. I said in my terror, All mankind (are) false. The form of expression in the first clause is borrowed from Psalm 31 : 22. But instead of being a confession of error it is here rather a profession of faith. Even in the midst of his excitement, terror, panic, he could turn away from all human aid and trust in God alone. The proposition, all mankind are false, i.e., not to be trusted or relied upon, implies as its complement or converse, therefore God alone is to be trusted. 12. How shall I requite to Jehovah all His bestowments upon me? Between this verse and that before it, we must supply the thought that his faith was rewarded and justified by the event. This is indeed implied in the interrogation now before us. A. What shall I render? Love and thankfulness are easily resolved into each other. He begins with, "I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice;" and to enkindle this grace into a greater flame he records the mercies of God in some following verses; which done, then he is in the right mood for praise, and cries: "What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits?" Gurnall.—What reward shall we give unto the Lord for all the benefits He hath bestowed? From non-existence He waked us into being; He ennobled us with understanding; He taught us arts to promote the means of life; He commanded the prolific earth to yield its nurture; He bade the animals to own us as their lords. For us the rains descend; for us the sun sheddeth abroad its creative beams; the mountains rise, the valleys bloom. For us the rivers flow; for us the fountains murmur; the sea opens its bosom to admit our commerce; the earth exhausts its stores; each new object presents a new enjoyment; all nature pouring her treasures at our feet, through the bounteous grace of Him who wills that all be ours. Basil. No one will affirm that the manna was the less bountiful proof of the care of God, because, in order to suit the convenience of the Israelites, it did not fall irregularly, but at periodical intervals, and was gathered every morning, that those who partook of it might be strengthened for the journey of the day. And will any one maintain that our daily food is less the gift of God because it is sent not at random, but in appointed ways and at certain seasons, that we may be prepared to receive it? Does it not appear as if it were the very frequency of the gift, and the regularity of its coming which lead mankind to forget the Giver? M' Cosh. We owe more to God for redeeming us than for making us; His Word made us; but when He came to redeem us that Word must be made flesh, and that flesh must suffer. In our creation He gave us ourselves, but in our redemption He gave us Himself; and, by giving Himself for us, gave us ourselves again, that were lost; so that we are ourselves, and all that we have, twice told; and now, what shall we give unto thee, O thou Preserver of men, for ourselves thus given and redeemed? If we could give ourselves a thousand times over, yet what are we to God? And yet, if we do give ourselves to Him and His service, such as we are, and such as we can, He accepts it, and will reward it. I will never grudge God His own. I have nothing that is not His; and if I give it to Him, He will restore it again with interest; never any man was a loser by God. Bishop Henshaw. We honor God most, we make the fittest requital to Him for His benefits, not by giving to Him, but by receiving from Him. Love wants no return for what it gives or does. God does not show favors in order to receive as much again. He gives because His heart is full of love, because He yearns to bless us. The only requital He wants is the glad acceptance of what He offers. He wants only love in return. Consecration? Yes, but the consecration of love, and not as recompense or repayment. J. R. M.—If we sought to give back some actual return, what should it be which is ours to give or withhold, and not already His? But we can gratify the Divine heart with thanksgiving and praise. With nothing but the gifts we have received there is still the fulness of a loving and thankful spirit we can offer as ours. We can feel, we can speak our gratitude. We can bring and lay at God's feet, as a free-will offering, that which shall swell the volume of the Divine emotions and minister to the blessedness of the Infinite mind—our poor but honest and hearty thanks. . . . Praise should be a larger element in all our worship, public, social, domestic, and private. We should habitually call to each other in those triumphal chants of Israel's royal harper: "Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto Him with Psalms!" A. L. Stone 13. The apostle styleth the sacramental cup the cup of blessing. Here the prophet useth the plural number, thus: "Cup of salvations," whereby, after the Hebrew elegancy, he meaneth many deliverances, one after another; or some great and extraordinary deliverance which was instead of many, or which comprised many under it. W. Gouge.—Upon the table of infinite love stands the cup full of blessing; it is ours by faith to take and partake of it, and then with joyful hearts to laud and magnify the gracious One who has filled it for our sakes that we may drink and be refreshed. We can do this figuratively at the sacramental table, we can do it spiritually every time we grasp the chalice of the covenant, realizing the fulness of blessing which it contains, and by faith receiving its Divine contents into our inmost soul. S. We honor God by taking the full cup of salvation which He commends to our lips, and by calling, while we drink, upon the name of the Lord. Our true response to His Word, which is essentially a proffer of blessing to us, is to open our hearts to receive, and, receiving, to render grateful acknowledgment. The echo of love which gives and forgives is love which accepts and thanks. We have but to lift up our empty and impure hands, opened wide to receive the gift which He lays in them, and though they be empty and impure, yet "the lifting up of our hands is as the evening sacrifice;" our sense of need stands in the place of all offerings. The stained thankfulness of our poor hearts is accepted by Him who inhabiteth the praises of eternity, and yet delights in the praises of Israel. He bends from heaven to give, and all He asks is that we should take. He only seeks our thankfulness, but He does seek it. And wherever His grace is discerned and His love is welcomed, there praise breaks forth. A. M. 15. Precious in the eyes of Jehovah (is) the death of His gracious ones (or saints). In Psalm 72 : 14 the same thing is said of their blood. The word for death has the same peculiarity of form as that for presence in v. 14, and is construed in the same way with the preposition to, the death to His saints, i.e., the death belonging to them, which they die. A. When we have done that we came for it is time for us to be gone. This earth is only made for action, not for fruition ; the services of God's children should be ill-rewarded if they must stay here always. It is our folly that we would have good men live forever, and account it a hard measure that they were. He that lends them to the world owes them a better turn than this earth can pay them. It were injurious to wish that goodness should hinder any man from glory. So is the death of God's saints precious, that it is certain. Bishop H.—The Lord values the lives of His saints. They shall not die prematurely ; they shall be immortal till their work is done ; and when their time shall come to die, then their deaths shall be precious. The Lord watches over their dying beds, smooths their pillows, sustains their hearts, and receives their souls. Almighty God watches over, and sets a high value upon the holy and useful lives of His people, and will not lightly allow these lives to be abbreviated or destroyed. The circumstances of their death are under His special arrangement. Let the weakest believer among you be quite sure, be " confident of this very thing," that He will never suffer your great enemy to take advantage of anything in the manner of your death to do you spiritual harm. When the saints are dying, the Lord looks upon them, and is merciful unto them. Never does He fail to support by the whispers of His love, by the witness of His Spirit, by the assurance of His presence, by the preparatory revelation of heavenly glory. W. M. Bunting. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints ; precious and also beautiful. It is to them the most blessed of experiences. They are never so well situated to glorify God as in their dying hours. Then they can display the tenderness of His care, the truth of His promises, the supports of His everlasting love, as they can in no other circumstances. While the eye of the body is closing to the beauties of earth, the eye of the soul is opening to the glories that are to be revealed in them ; while their hold of all that life holds dear is relaxing, they cling with a firmer grasp of faith, and a closer embrace of love, to the things that are unseen and eternal in the heavens ; while the outward man perishes, the inward man is renewed more and more. The day of their death is indeed better than the day of their birth, for, rich with all their treasures of spiritual knowledge and experience, the growth and accumulation of a whole lifetime of discipline, they come to their last hour like the mellow fruit that gathers into itself all the life of the tree, and all the dew and sunshine of summer, and at last bends and breaks the branch from which it hangs. Macmillan. In nature's final hour, though the work of human friendship is over, there is another Friend who is busy, and another work which is going rapidly forward in that hushed and shadowy room. With busy but noiseless process the Comforter is giving the last finish to the sanctifying work, and making the heir of glory meet for home, till, at signal given, the portal opens, and even the numb body feels the burst of blessedness as the rigid features smile and say, " I see Jesus," then leave the vision pictured on the pale but placid brow. Hamilton. If there is on earth a spot where His covenant mercies are especially shown, it is the dying chamber. There, when friends have fallen back because they cannot help ; when earthly sights have failed before the glassy eye ; when earthly sounds, even of devotion and love, have ceased to reach the ear ; when the soul almost free from the body is already forsaken of all that is created, a gentle, well-remembered whisper is saying to the inward sense, " I will never, never leave thee ; I will never, never, never forsake thee." And the accomplishment of all is just at the door ; for when the last breath is wasted that spirit, nearer to God than ever before, is rapt forever in the embrace of love, no more to fear, to sorrow, or to sin. Oh, ye who have no God, and who know ye are afraid to die, it is worth your instant labor and importunate prayer ; it is worth toils and sufferings of a lifetime to be prepared for such a departure. This, indeed, is vast and glorious ; but is this all ? Does God conduct His beloved child to the gate of bliss, and then cancel His promise, and abandon it ? Oh, no ! All that precedes is but a single momentary breath before a lifetime. We have arrived at the true birth of the soul. Now it emerges into tracts of endless expansion, where there is no danger, because there is no evil. Perfect holiness is perfect bliss, and both are increasing forever. Now the union of the soul with God, often sighed for, is consummated ; and so shall they " be ever with the Lord." J. W. A. See the yearning love of kindred, the meek humility, the loss of self, the confession of unworthiness, the patient waiting for release, the whispered promises of the New Testament, the lips too faint to speak still moving in prayer, the clear smile and upward look when the glories of the other world begin to shine out and take form as the veil grows thin, the calm parting with the best beloved, the visible light on the face when the name of the Saviour is spoken; the simple phrases, "Christ is all," "Come, Lord Jesus," "Rock of ages, cleft for me," "I know whom I have believed." Either there is reality here, a reality of which faith alone is witness, or there is no reality anywhere; and nature, history, the world, and life, and thought, and time, and love, are all a delusion and a dream! So have the true believers overcome. F. D. H. I believe that the souls of such as die in the Lord are blessed, and rest from their labors, and enjoy the sight of God, yet so, as they are in expectation of a further revelation of their glory in the last day. Bacon.—The souls of believers are at their death made perfect in holiness. O grave, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting? The dead child of God has grasped the victory and eluded the sting. Neither sorrow nor sighing any more. We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. The last gasp of earthly air will be followed by the first inspiration of perfect freedom. That is the old doctrine and it is precious. Interior. We think of death ending; let us rather think of life beginning, and that more abundantly. We think of losing; let us think of gaining. We think of parting; let us thing of meeting. We think of going away; let us think of arriving. And as a voice whispers, "You must go," let us hear the voice of Jesus saying, "I will come and receive you to Myself." If Jesus comes for us, we do not go forth alone into a world of darkness. We simply go with Jesus into the world of light. N. Macleod.—Into that immortal life in those realms above we are to pass when we step beyond the limit of life on earth. Not into the dark of death; oh, no! that is the heathen's fear! into the celestial realms we are to pass if we are Christ's. We shall hear the voices of heavenly hosts; we shall hear heavenly bells chiming as we enter in; we shall catch the echo of seraphic song; we shall meet our friends; perhaps the little child that went away from us will come out to meet us; we shall see the Master and the disciples, and with them we shall be for evermore. R. S. S.—It is not darkness the Christian goes to at death, for God is light. It is not lonely, for Christ is with him. It is not an unknown country, for Jesus is there; and there the vast company of the just made perfect, who shall be one with Him in the fellowship and blessedness of heaven forever! C. Kingsley. Christ takes us from sin to sinlessness, from perfect weakness to perfect strength, from restlessness to rest, from faith to sight, from cold prayers to the song that ceases not day nor night, from a world lying in wickedness to the just made perfect in sight of the throne. If Christ cannot, or will not do all this for us, then He is nothing to us, and why do we believe on Him? If He can, and will, to die is pain. Thorold.—We are only "delivered from this body" by the act of dying; and when Christ is with us, this is all that we mean by dying. That part of our nature which believes in Jesus can never die. Sickness cannot dissolve, nor fever waste, nor fracture mutilate thought, fidelity, and love. Stanford.—What have faith, love, aspiration, resignation, fellowship with God to do with death? They cannot be cut through with the stroke that destroys physical life, any more than you can divide a sunbeam with a sword. It unites again, and the impotent edge passes through and has effected nothing. Death can shear asunder many bonds, but that invisible bond that unites my soul to God is of adamant, against which his scythe is turned. Death cannot touch communion, and the consciousness of communion with God is the earnest of the inheritance. A. M. They that are in God, being united to Him through Christ, can never by any power be separated from Him. Death, that is the great dissolver of all other unions, civil and natural, is so far from untying this, that it consummates it; it conveys the soul into the nearest and fullest enjoyment of God, who is its life, where it shall not need to desire as it were from a distance; it shall then be at the spring-head, and shall be satisfied with His love forever. Leighton.—There are few intimations of the condition of the saints departed, but these few breathe of profound repose, tranquillity whose stillness nothing further can disturb. They are "asleep in Jesus." The bodies that arose at the crucifixion were "the bodies of the sleeping saints." They are blessed, "for they rest from their labors." These are the franchised of Christ and of death; dust has returned to dust that the spirit might return unto God; they have died into His eternal life! Such is the story of the dying saint, such his oblivion of the past; his glory ever growing and gathering for the future! Such is his entrance into a new world, serene and lofty as the heavens spread above the storms, changeless and eternal as the heart of God. W. A. B. Religion teaches us to cherish our earthly attachments in the hope that they will be perpetuated in heaven. When the fibres of the soul are woven around the beings who reciprocate its love, its prompting is that they be nurtured for a fairer soil beyond the tomb. Thither we may look amid the endearments of earth, and hope for a higher and more blissful consummation in heaven. Here is the crowning beauty of religion, in the social character. The thought of eternity imparts a grandeur and a depth to the affections in their ordinary exercise. In the trials and anxieties of the domestic circle the thought of heaven will communicate serenity and calmness, and drown each gloomy foreboding. And in those dark hours, when the hearth becomes desolate, and the mourners go about the streets, it is that blessed whisper of the Gospel, "We shall go to them, but they shall not return to us," which assuages the bitterness of grief, and confirms the shattered faith, and inspires the heart with new and holy purposes. Homer. The Lordship of the risen Christ over the living and the dead provides the only solid and satisfactory assurance of the future reunion and recognition of His followers. The question that rises oftener than any other to the lips of the bereaved touches this point of reunion: Shall I see him again, my brother, my child, my friend? Will the hand that lies there white upon the breast be reached out to me when we meet? Will the eyes of my mother, whose light opened on me with my life, welcome my coming? Each dear and trusted face, by some celestial sense will its mysterious meanings and attractions be felt as they were here, "Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same?" He who rose and lives again is the Lord of the living and the dead. They are not two families, but one, because they are all in Him. F. D. H. By the light of faith a Christian traces his deceased friends into an eternal world. The period of their trial is closed; they have entered into rest, where, sheltered from the storms of life and the dangers of temptation, their happiness is forever fixed and unalterable. Their separation is neither final nor complete. The pious living and the pious dead are still one family, under one Head; and, when He "who is their life shall appear, they shall appear together with Him in glory." The friendships which have had virtue and religion for their basis will survive all human ties, outlive the habitable globe, and form, in all probability, a principal part of the happiness of the blessed. R. Hall. We have great cause to think, by many scriptural expressions, that our heavenly union and communion will be nearer and more extensive, and that all the glorified shall know each other. It is a pleasant thought to me, and greatly helps my willingness to die, to think that I shall go to all the holy ones, both Christ, and angels, and pious separate spirits. Many are better than one, and the perfect whole than a sinful part, and the new Jerusalem is the glory of the creation. God has given me a love to all that are holy for their holiness, and a love to the work of love and praise which they continually and perfectly perform; and a love to His celestial habitation, to His glory shining there. My old acquaintance with many a holy person gone to Christ make my thoughts of heaven the more familiar to me. And it is no small encouragement to one that is to enter upon an unseen world, to think that he goes no untrodden path, nor enters into a solitary or singular state, but follows all that have passed by death, from the creation to this day, into endless life. Oh how emboldening to consider that I am to go the same way, and to the same place and state with all the believers and saints that have ever gone before me! I now delightfully converse with my pious friends, in a firm persuasion that I shall converse with them forever; and I take comfort in those that are dead or absent, believing that I shall shortly meet them in heaven, and love them with a heavenly love. Baxter. The personal tenderness of immemorial attachment shall go along with all spirits, through interminable eras. The redeemed of the earth, known perhaps on all the plains of joy, and at once distinguishable by the specific contour of their celestial forms, shall be companions of eternity. May we not then, while forgetting the imperfections, and the obscurity, and the feebleness, that attach to this present wintry season of the heart, fairly impute to our Christian friendships a value drawn from the treasures of futurity? This at least is certain, how much soever we may err in matters of particular conjecture, that while earth and its ephemeral interests are hastening to oblivion whatever is Divine, whatever partakes of the nature of the immutable attributes of God, must be indestructible, and must grow until it attains perfection. Every article of human knowledge may be deemed untrue sooner than this, "That love is of God," and "shall never fail." I. T. It oftentimes comes that the very tenderest and richest memories of a home are the memories of its sorrows. They are golden chains that bind hearts together in strongest clasp. Then when Christian faith rules in the heart the mementoes of grief and loss become inspirers of new hopes. We are richer for having loved, although we have lost. We are richer, also, for having suffered, if we have suffered with resignation and trust in God. Then we are richer in immortal possessions. Our dead are not lost to us; they have only passed into a higher, fuller, safer life, where they are secure forever from danger and trial, and kept safe, also, for us. J. R. Miller.—The sainted dead shall finish for us the blessed work which they began. They tarried with us, and nurtured a human love; they depart from us, and kindle a Divine. Cease, then, our complaining hearts, and wait in patience the great gathering of souls! Jas. Martineau. When we can hold our dead in our hearts without pain, we have recovered them. They ascend, as the Lord did, and sit in our thoughts in heavenly places with Him, calm and bright, and the tender grace of a bygone day puts on also the glory of a day to come. That such a day-spring even here can visit the darkest gloom of trial, let not any mourner doubt who believes that Christ has left His own grave empty and that He will come to open ours. Ker. The dead possess all the consciousness of the living, and much more. We dwell in the suburbs of the eternal city, they are in the kingly metropolis. We are in abasement, they are in the royal chambers of state. We are under clouds, they are in a light so radiant that if it should fall upon us at mid-day, "the earth would seem to suffer an eclipse." Townsend. In the deep sorrow and anguish which come when the tender ties of love are severed, and when the heart in its anguish cries out, "What and where are now my beloved ones?" no answer falls on the listening ear of the heart so full of celestial beauty as this: "They are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes." That is the final vision; that is the inevitable, fadeless vision of perfected, long-separated humanity, a new Eden at the end, as Eden was at the beginning of human history. M. D. Hoge. If the mere conception of the reunion of good men in a future state infused a momentary rapture into the mind of Tully; if an airy speculation—for there is reason to fear it had little hold on his convictions—could inspire him with such delight, what may we be expected to feel who are assured of such an event by the true sayings of God! How should we rejoice in the prospect, the certainty rather, of spending a blissful eternity with those whom we loved on earth; of seeing them emerge from the ruins of the tomb and the deeper ruins of the fall, not only uninjured, but refined and perfected, "with every tear wiped from their eyes," standing before the throne of God and the Lamb in white robes and palms in their hands, crying with a loud voice, Salvation to God that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb forever and ever! What delight will it afford to renew the sweet counsel we have taken together, to recount the toils of combat and the labor of the way, and to approach, not the house, but the throne of God in company, in order to join in the symphonies of heavenly voices, and lose ourselves amid the splendor and fruitions of the beatific vision! Robert Hall. 16. O Lord, truly I am Thy servant. Thou hast made me free, and I am impatient to be bound again. Thou hast broken the bonds of sin; now, Lord, bind me with the cords of love. I owe my liberty, my life, and all that I have, or hope, to Thy generous rescue; and now, O my gracious, my Divine Friend and Redeemer, I lay myself and my all at Thy feet. S. Lavington.—If for us duty is joy, and all our soul's desires flow with an equable motion parallel to the will of God, then there is no sense of restraint in keeping within the limits beyond which we do not seek to go. The willing spirit sets us free, free from the "ancient solitary reign" of the despot self, free from the mob rule of passions and appetites, free from the incubus of evil habits, free from the authority of men's voices and example. Obedience is freedom to them that have learned to love the lips that command. We are set free that we may serve: "O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; Thou hast loosed my bonds." We are set free in serving: "I will walk at liberty, for I keep Thy precepts." A. M. Great mercies should engage to great obedience. God begins the Decalogue with a memorial of His mercy in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt, "I am the Lord thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt." How affectionately doth the Psalmist own his relation to God as His servant, when he considers how God had loosed his bonds: "O Lord, truly I am Thy servant; Thou hast loosed my bonds!" When we remember what wages we have from God, we must withal remember that we owe more service and more liveliness in service to Him. When we remember that all we have or are is the gift of God's liberality, we should think ourselves obliged to honor Him with all that we have, for He is to have honor from all His gifts. It is a sign we aimed at God's glory in begging mercy, when we also aim at God's glory in enjoying it. It is a sign that love breathed the remembrance of mercy into our hearts, when at the same time it breathes a resolution into us to improve it. It is not our tongues, but our lives must praise Him. Charnock. Love's quality is measured by what it will do, what it will give, what it will suffer. God so loved the world that He gave, gave His only-begotten Son, gave all, withheld nothing. That is the measure of the Divine love for us; it loves to the uttermost. If you are Christ's, every energy of your mind, every affection of your heart, every power of your soul, every fibre of your body, every particle of your influence, every dollar of your money is Christ's, and all of these are to be used to bless your fellow-men and to make the world better and happier. If we love, we will give, we will suffer, we will sacrifice. If we would be like God, we must live to minister, giving our life without reserve to service in Christ's name. J. R. M. The son of Thine handmaid. David's design here is to represent his piety as hereditary; and he mentions his mother because to her especially, in all probability, his religious convictions and impressions were instrumentally due. If this were the case, how much does the Church owe, under God, to the kindly wisdom of that godly mother, for it is the mother, after all, that has most to do with the making or the marring of the man. For a mother's teachings have a marvellous vitality in them; there is a strange, living power in that good seed which is sown by a mother's hand in her child's heart in the early dawn of the child's being; and there is a deathless potency in a mother's prayers and tears for those whom she has borne, which only God can estimate. W. L. A. 18. It is an inconsiderate and foolish haste of Christians to make more occasions of vowing than God doth make for them. Make your vows and spare not, so often as God bids you; but do not do it oftener. Your extraordinary bond for every ordinary mercy He requires not; He is content with ordinary security of gratitude for ordinary mercies; when He calls for extraordinary security and acknowledgment by giving extraordinary mercies, then give it and do it. Henry Hurst. In the presence of all His people. Be bold, be bold, ye servants of the Lord, in sounding forth the praises of your God. Wicked men are over-bold in pouring forth their blasphemies to the dishonor of God. Shall they be more audacious to dishonor God, than ye zealous to honor Him? Assuredly Christ will show Himself as forward to confess you, as you are or can be to confess Him. This holy boldness is the ready way to glory. W. Gouge. That "the Lord buried Moses" assures us Christians of things more clear, tells us that the dust of God's servants is dear in His sight, and that His hand keeps it safe against the day of the redemption of the body. They may sleep in desert sands or frozen wreaths, in the crowded city or the ocean's bed, "their ashes may fly no marble tells us whither," but His eye watches over them as carefully as it did over this grave, which His own hand, in some mysterious way, formed and closed; and He will bring them forth every one when "He writeth up the people." Ker.—The very dust of Christ's saints is dear to Him. He guards their very graves with a deeper and tenderer care than that wherewith earthly affection watches over the spot where a loved one rests. Caird—There is no land of forgetfulness. The grave is vital now. It is a region of soft and pleasant slumbers. There is an almighty and an omniscient Watcher over all these sleepers. B. B. E. The gloom of the grave has been dispelled by the Gospel of our dead and risen Lord. He stands in the place of our beloved. Where He is, they are. What He declares, they would tell us. They speak to us through Him, and if we will but heed the message, our faces will become radiant as we weep. He has made an end of our ignorance, for we know now that death is operative only within and upon the body, incapable of pushing its way into the sanctuary of the soul's life. It is the scaffolding that collapses; the temple remains, and casts its fair outlines against a clearer sky. And He has made an end of our impotence, because in His own resurrection we have the infallible pledge that even the physical power of death is only temporary. Behrends. The taking down of thine earthly tabernacle is in order that it may be set up anew, infinitely more lasting, beautiful, and glorious. Didst thou believe how rich and splendid He intends to make it, which cannot be unless taken down, thou wouldst contentedly endure the present toil and trouble, and be thankful to Him for His care and cost. He takes down thy vile body that He may fashion it like to the glorious body of His own Son. Is it the untying of the knot betwixt body and soul which perplexeth thee? It is true they part; but, as friends going two several ways, shake hands till they return from their journey, they are as sure of meeting again as of parting; so thy soul shall return laden with the wealth of heaven and join its old companion in the participation of all its joy and happiness. Swinnock. One does not, perhaps, fear so much the pains of death as he does the launching out on an unknown sea alone; plunging into darkness, entering into a boundless space where there is nothing tangible, local, or visible, where the soul leaves behind all the warm sympathies of life, all which can communicate with other beings. However fortified by faith, it seems to be a dread experiment. We cling instinctively to some sure support, some familiar surrounding objects. But is it not a thought full of comfort that, to the believer his Redeemer stands at the very threshold of death, the other side of that thin curtain which hides mortality from life; stands there, not as an impalpable vision, but as a dear friend, with His heart overflowing with human sympathies? It is like meeting on a foreign shore our best earthly friend, perfectly familiar with the language and all the objects there, a guide most intelligent, most faithful, who will anticipate every desire, and in whose society we find the sweetest contentment, and the largest accessions of knowledge and delight. B. B. E. Though you see not the world to come that you are passing to, yet as long as you know that you are in the hands of Love itself, what cause have you of disquiet or distrust? Moreover you know that He is wise as well as good, and almighty as well as wise; and, therefore, as He meaneth you no harm (if you are His children), so He will not mistake nor fail in the performance. You need not fear lest your happiness should miscarry for want of skill in Him that is omniscient, or for want of will in Him that is your Father, or for want of power in Him that is omnipotent. You may far better trust God with your lives than yourselves, for you have not wisdom enough to know what is best for you, nor skill to accomplish it, nor power to go through with it; nay, you love not yourselves so well as God doth love you. Baxter. Our view of death will not always be alike, but in proportion to the degree in which the Holy Spirit is pleased to communicate His sensible influence. We may anticipate the moment of dissolution with pleasure and desire in the morning, and be ready to shrink from the thought of it before night. But though our frames and perceptions vary, the report of faith concerning it is the same. The Lord usually reserves dying strength for a dying hour. When the time shall arrive which He has appointed for our dismissal, He will overpower all our fears, and give us a comfortable, triumphant entrance into His kingdom. Newton. #### Christ Within the Veil. Jesus is our High-Priest. He has not gone far away, though He has gone to heaven. He is only within the veil (Heb. 6 : 19). And hence we know that heaven itself is very near us. Death is not "a leap in the dark," or a long journey to some far-off sphere. It is only going through the veil which God draws aside for us. This was Paul's idea, for he writes of "being absent from the body and present with the Lord," as if the body itself was the veil, and the moment he was out of it he would see his Lord. If we could realize that Christ is just within the veil, that He is near to us though we cannot see Him, and that death is merely following Him in passing through, that it is the transition of a moment, we would not shrink, as many of us do, from that transition. An eloquent writer says: "A veil is the thinnest and frailest of all conceivable partitions. The veil that hides heaven from our eyes is only our embodied existence, and though fearfully and wonderfully made, it is only wrought out of our frail mortality. In a bound, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, in the throb of a pulse, in the flash of a thought, we may start into disembodied spirits, glide unabashed into the company of great and mighty angels, pass into the light and amazement of eternity, know the great secret, gaze upon splendors which flesh and blood could not sustain, and which no words lawful for men to utter could describe. Brethren, there is but one step between you and what lies behind that curtain; between you and heaven there is but a veil." How solemn and yet how interesting is our position in this life, with only a veil between us and heaven! Suppose that we were in the palace of some earthly monarch, that there was a curtain across the apartment in which we stood, that we knew it was transparent to those on the other side, and that the king and all his court were there. They could see all that we did. They could hear all that we said. Any moment the curtain might be drawn aside, and we find ourselves in their midst! Such is our mortal life, and yet how unconcerned we live. Paul writes to the Ephesians about the "whole family in heaven and earth," and tells them that God has gathered together in one all things in Christ, "both which are in heaven and on earth." There are not two worlds, but one, with a curtain separating the inhabitants for a time. The kingdom of God is here as truly as it is up there. It is the same temple, though there is a veil between the holy place and the holy of holies. And our High Priest is not only near us in the upper sanctuary, but He is there "for us," there waiting to welcome us. When the time comes for us to depart, His nail-scarred hand will draw the veil aside, and His voice will say, "Come unto Me. Come and be with Me where I am, that ye may behold My glory." Interior. #### The Thought of Death Salutary and Helpful. As Christian believers we should cherish the thought of death: as coming, in regard to its time and circumstances, in accordance with the appointment of our loving, heavenly Father; as in itself the personal coming of Jesus to take us unto Himself; as terminating the experience of painful toil, temptation, sin, and grief, and as ushering us into a boundless, endless life of holy activity and joy. This is the direction our thought should take if we would rationally and properly contemplate it. And such thought of death may prove one of the best preparatives for all the events and duties of life. Rightly cherished and justly applied, that thought touches and healthfully affects every possible experience through which we pass. It stimulates to Christian activity, while it instructs us in the wisest, best modes of that action. It perpetually utters in low, deep, earnest tone, "Work while it is called day." It chastens our too earnest pursuit of things lawful, of this world's interests, pursuits, and pleasures by reminding us that the "fashion of this world," all that is connected with the world, passeth away. It checks that proneness to inordinate, immoderate attachment even to the beings whose lot is linked most closely and tenderly to us by the remembrance that the links will all one day be broken. It enables us to hold all the good that God gives us with an easily loosened grasp by bringing into view the richer, better blessings He holds in reserve. It sustains us, too, in trial and adversity; stays us under the little discomforts which wear so constantly and deeply upon us; moderates excessive grief, and enables us to abide patiently under all disquiet and affliction by the soothing assurance that "our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." And it leads us habitually to strive after holiness in heart and life, after an increasing conformity to the Divine character; to seek first and supremely that kingdom which is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, by reminding us that the sublime end of our being is to awake in the perfect likeness of God, to live forever in the unrestrained possession of a kingdom, a fellowship, and service of inconceivable purity, glory, and blessedness. B. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ In the third place, the life of the sainted dead is a life of wide and holy and happy fellowships. They are all with each other, because they are all with Christ. They constitute a great, compact, and blessed community from which all sin and discord are excluded. For them the battle has forever ended, and eternal felicity has begun. Who can picture the happy surprises, the joyful greetings, the earnest conferences, the jubilant songs, the resounding hallelujahs, the praises and the prayers of that innumerable host, among whom the Christ walks as King, and whose own name He has written on their foreheads? O Paradise of God! how my heart doth long and beat for thee! But your poor heart cries out: "Am I, then, forgotten in this flood of joy?" Forgotten? No! a thousand times, No! They know you are coming, though they know not when; and at every knock upon the death portals they wonder whether you have come. They know you are coming, nor will you need to wait for them long when your heart has ceased its beating, and your surprises under their loving guidance will be a new joy to them. They know you are coming, coming from toil and tears to rest and gladness; from loneliness and heartaches to blessed fellowships and a Divine guidance. Your coming will increase their blessedness. For they are not perfect without us. On Thanksgiving day, in many of our homes, the children and grandchildren come from near and far to renew the greetings of the early time. Each new arrival is greeted with a shout, with hurrying feet, and hearty grasp, and joyful tears, and merry laughter, and uncounted kisses. But only when the last guest has been welcomed, and has exchanged his dusty garments for the robe of feasting is the grace spoken and the meal begun, while the homestead rocks upon the waves of joy! We shall all wait for each other. So the apostle declared, when he said that at the sounding of the trumpet we shall all be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, and to be forever with Him. Together shall we mount from Paradise to the City of God; for Paradise is only the vestibule where the increasing host is rapidly marshalling to enter at last in solid ranks, with radiant faces, and unfurled banners, and shouts that rend the skies, the city of pearly gates and of golden streets. The final coronation is one for which they that have preceded us shall wait, until we all shall have joined them, when God's work on earth shall have been done, and time shall be no more. There is to be a last death-bed, as once there was a first. And when the last grave shall have been filled, while the bereaved perchance stand about it in chastened grief and hope, the great and eternal transfiguration shall chase away the night forever. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! Behrends. 1. O PRAISE the LORD, all ye nations; Laud him, all ye peoples. 2 For his mercy is great toward us; And the truth of the LORD endureth for ever. Praise ye the LORD. Praise Jehovah, all ye peoples, Laud Him, all ye nations! For His grace is mighty over us, And Jehovah's truth endureth for ever, Hallelujah. D. THIS, the shortest of all the Psalms, is a hallelujah addressed to the heathen world. In many Hebrew Mss. it is made the close of Psalm 116 or the commencement of Psalm 118. But precisely in its brevity it is one of the grandest witnesses to the might with which, in the midst of the Old Testament, the universal calling of the religion of revelation is under- mining the national barriers. The call is based upon the might of Jehovah's grace, which proves itself mighty over Israel, i.e., superabundantly covering human sin and weakness by its intensity and fulness; it is also based upon His truth, in virtue of which history even on into eternity issues in the verifying of His promises. Grace and truth are the two Divine powers which are one day to reveal and disclose themselves fully in Israel, and are from thence to conquer the whole world. D. 1. There is a great deal of Gospel in this Psalm. The apostle has furnished us with a key to it (Rom. 15 : 11), where he quotes it as a proof that the Gospel was to be preached to, and would be entertained by the Gentile nations, which yet was so great a stumbling-block to the Jews. Why should that offend them, when it is said, and they themselves had often sung it, Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles, and laud Him, all ye people. H. This is an exhortation to the Gentiles to glorify Jehovah, and a clear proof that the Old Testament spirit differed widely from that narrow and contracted national bigotry with which the Jews of our Lord's day became so inveterately diseased. The nations could not be expected to join in the praise of Jehovah unless they were also to be partakers of the benefits which Israel enjoyed; and hence the Psalm was an intimation to Israel that the grace and mercy of their God were not to be confined to one nation, but would in happier days be extended to all the race of man. S. 2. Mercy, truth. These two great attributes of God, as manifested to Israel, "toward us," are to be the subject of praise for the heathen, an indication of those wider sympathies which appear to have manifested themselves after the exile. Hence the first verse is quoted by Paul (Rom. 15 : 11, together with Deut. 32 : 43), "Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with His people," as showing that in the purpose of God the Gentiles were destined to be partakers, together with the Jews, of His mercy in Christ. P. 1. O GIVE thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: For his mercy endureth for ever.2 Let Israel now say, That his mercy endureth for ever.3 Let the house of Aaron now say, That his mercy endureth for ever.4 Let them now that fear the LORD say, That his mercy endureth for ever.5 Out of my distress I called upon the LORD: The LORD answered me and set me in a large place.6 The LORD is on my side; I will not fear: What can man do unto me?7 The LORD is on my side among them that help me: Therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me.8 It is better to trust in the LORD Than to put confidence in man9 It is better to trust in the LORD Than to put confidence in princes. 10. All nations compassed me about: In the name of the LORD I will cut them off.11 They compassed me about; yea, they compassed me about: In the name of the LORD I will cut them off.12 They compassed me about like bees; they are quenched as the fire of thorns: In the name of the LORD I will cut them off.13 Thou didst thrust sore at me that I might fall: But the LORD helped me.14 The LORD is my strength and song; And he is become my salvation.15 The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tents of the righteous: The right hand of the LORD doeth valiantly.16 The right hand of the LORD is exalted: The right hand of the LORD doeth valiantly.17 I shall not die, but live, And declare the works of the LORD.18 The LORD hath chastened me sore: But he hath not given me over unto death. 19 Open to me the gates of righteousness : I will enter into them, I will give thanks unto the LORD. 20 This is the gate of the LORD : The righteous shall enter into it. 21 I will give thanks unto thee, for thou hast answered me, And art become my salvation. 22 The stone which the builders rejected Is become the head of the corner. 23 This is the LORD's doing ; It is marvellous in our eyes. 24 This is the day which the LORD hath made ; We will rejoice and be glad in it. 25 Save now, we beseech thee, O LORD : O LORD, we beseech thee, send now pros- perity. 26 Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the LORD : We have blessed you out of the house of the LORD. 27 The LORD is God, and he hath given us light : Bind the sacrifice with cords, even unto the horns of the altar. 28 Thou art my God, and I will give thanks unto thee : Thou art my God, I will exalt thee. 29 O give thanks unto the LORD ; for he is good : For his mercy endureth for ever. WHAT the close of Psalm 117 says of God's truth, that it endureth forever, the beginning of Psalm 118 says of grace, its sister. It is the closing Psalm of the Hallel, which begins with Psalm 113. It was Luther's favorite Psalm : his beautiful Confitemini. He occupied himself in the loneliness of his Patmos with the exposi- tion of this his noblest jewel, his defence and treasure. D. This is my Psalm, my chosen Psalm. I love them all ; I love all Holy Scripture, which is my consolation and my life. But this Psalm is nearest my heart, and I have a peculiar right to call it mine. It has saved me from many a pressing danger, from which nor emperor, nor kings, nor sages, nor saints could have saved me. I am not jealous of my property ; I would divide it with the whole world. And would to God that all men would claim the Psalm as especially theirs ! It would be the most touch- ing quarrel, the most agreeable to God, a quar- rel of union and perfect charity. Luther. The ideal speaker, throughout the Psalm, is Israel, as the Church or chosen people. The deliverance celebrated cannot be identified with any one so naturally as with that from the Babylonish exile. A.—It is evident that this Psalm was designed to be sung in the temple worship, and was composed for some festal occasion. Its general character, and the many passages in it borrowed from earlier writers, render it probable that it is one of the later Psalms, and we may assume that it was com- posed after the return from the captivity. The most probable conclusion is that the Psalm was composed for the first celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles, after the completion of the sec- ond temple (Neh. 8). P. The Psalm falls into two divisions. The first division (vs. 1-19) is sung by the festive proces- sion which is led up by priests and Levites, and which goes up to the temple with sacri- ficial animals. With v. 19 the procession stands at the entrance. The second part (vs. 20-27) is sung by the body of Levites who receive the festive procession. Then v. 28 is the answer of those who have arrived, and v. 29 the con- cluding song of all of them. D. 1-4. His covenant mercy is the burden of these first four verses. Neither is there any idle repetition, but a notable expression of the saints' insatiableness of praising God for His never-failing mercy. These heavenly birds having got a note, sing it over and over. In the last Psalm there are but six verses, yet twelve hallelujahs. A. Wright. 2. It is as if he had said, the reason for thus urging man to praise Jehovah is because His mercy endureth forever, and oh that Israel would join in affirming this reason. Oh that Israel would say (I will give thanks), for His mercy endureth forever. A. 5. The Lord answered me, and set me in a large place. It may be rendered, The Lord an- swered me largely ; as He did Solomon when He gave him more than he asked for ; and as He does His people when He gives them a suffi- ciency and an abundance of His grace ; not only above their deserts, but above their thoughts and expectations. Gill.—What a large place is that in which the great God has placed us ! All things are ours, all times are ours, all places are ours, for God Himself is ours ; we have earth to lodge in and heaven to dwell in—what larger place can be imagined ? S. 6. I will not fear: what can man do unto me? Let him do his worst—frown, threat, plot, arm, strike; the Lord is on my side, He hath a special care for me, He is a shield unto me; I will not fear, but hope; as it is in the next verse, “I shall see my desire on them that hate me,” I shall see them changed or ruined. Our help is in the name of the Lord, but our fears are in the name of man. W. Greenhill. 7. Literally, “The Lord is for me or to me as mine own God. What can man, frail man of the earth do unto me,” protected by such a Defender? “The Lord is for me with my helpers,” and “I shall look upon my haters,” i.e., look down upon them fearlessly. C. 7-9. During the building of the temple the Jewish people had experienced this helpful assistance of Jehovah in opposition to the enmities of the Samaritans and the satraps; and at the same time they had also learned that trust in Jehovah proves true, and that trust in man, on the contrary, and more especially in princes, is deceitful; for under Pseudo Smerdis the work begun under Cyrus and brought under suspicion even in the reign of Cambyses was interdicted. But under Darius the interdict was removed; Jehovah showed that He can dispose secular events and the hearts of men to the advantage of His people. D. 8. It is better because man is weak, but God is Almighty; because man is selfish, but God is benevolent; because man is often faithless and deceitful, God never; because there are emergencies, as death, in which man cannot aid us, however faithful, kind, and friendly he may be, but there are no circumstances in this life, and none in death, where God cannot assist us; and because the ability of man to help us pertains at best only to the present life, the power of God will be commensurate with eternity. Barnes.—Oftentimes God blesseth not means, because we are so apt to trust in them, and rob God of His glory, not waiting for a blessing at His hands. This causeth the Lord to cross us and to curse His own benefits, because we seek not Him, but put confidence in outward means. A. Wright. This eighth verse of this Psalm is the middle verse of the Bible. There are, I believe, 31,174 verses in all, and this is the 15,587th. Though we may generally look upon such calculations as only laborious idleness—and they certainly have been carried to the most minute dissection of every part of Scripture—yet I believe that the integrity of the holy volume owes a vast deal to this scruple-weighing of these calculators. Whatever their reasons were, I cannot but think that there was an overruling Providence in thus converting these trifling and apparently useless investigations into additional guards and fences around the sacred text. Bouchier. 9. It is good to confide in Jehovah (more) than to trust in nobles. This merely strengthens the foregoing declaration, by rendering it more specific and emphatic. The Lord is more to be confided in, not merely than the mass of men, but than their chiefs. Nobles is a better translation than princes, because it keeps up the association with the adjective sense noble, generous, liberal, spontaneous, which is otherwise lost sight of. Even the Persian patrons and protectors of the Jews had not deserved their confidence in comparison with Jehovah their covenanted God. A. 12. In Eastern countries it was common to burn over their fields in the dry time of the year, and thus to clear them of thorns and briars and weeds. Of course, at such a time they would kindle quickly, burn rapidly, and soon be consumed. So the Psalmist says it was with his enemies. Barnes. 14. The Lord is my strength and song, and is become my salvation. “My strength,” that I am able to resist my enemies; “my salvation,” that I am delivered from my enemies; “my song,” that I may joyfully praise Him and sing of Him after I am delivered. W. Nicholson.—Good songs, good promises, good proverbs, good doctrines are none the worse for age. What was sung just after the passage of the Red Sea is here sung by the prophet, and shall be sung to the end of the world by the saints of the Most High. Plumer. 15,16. The great event in special view was God’s hand uplifted to take them out of their bondage in Babylon and bring them safely home to their fatherland. There was abundant reason for magnifying this glorious “right hand.” C. 15. Tents.** We can imagine with what special force the words (of this verse) would come to those who then were, or had but recently been, keeping their Feast of Tabernacles, dwelling in the temporary huts which they constructed of the branches of the olive and the fir-trees, the myrtle, and the palm, and rejoicing in the great deliverance which God had given them. Plumptre. The voice of joy and the acclamations of genuine and holy pleasure were heard in that “Tabernacle of the righteous;” and nowhere else. Could any one dare affirm that it was joy that dwelt in the temples of the demon-gods of Philistia, Phoenicia, Syria, Assyria, Egypt, or that filled the courts of Chemosh, of Ashtaroth, of Dagon, of Baal, of Mithra? What did the grove conceal? Lust — blood — imposture. What sounds shook the fane? alternate screams of anguish and the laughter of mad votaries. What was the priest? the teacher of every vice of which his god was patron and exemplar. What were the worshippers? the victims of every woe which superstition and sensuality can gender, and which cruelty can cherish. It was not then a blind national prejudice, it was not spiritual arrogance that made the prophet and poet of Israel exult in the distinction of his people. He turned toward the hill of God, the habitation of Jehovah, graced then, perhaps, with the solemn joys of its annual feasts. “Thither the tribes had gone up,” from the glens of the vine and olive, from the valleys of corn—of milk, and honey—they had advanced “from rest to rest,” and every one, every head of the thousands of Israel, was then “appearing before God in Zion.” The harp and the viol were heard there; and the tabret and cymbal—“stringed instruments and organs”—the responsive anthem also, which taught as much as it cheered the people. And in sight of all, the smoke of the propitiatory sacrifice ascended direct to heaven—innocent sacrifice! The priest made intercession for the people “within the veil;” but that veil concealed no shame, no cruelty, no fraud; he came forth charged with a blessing, in the pregnant terms of which were condensed more of sacred science than all the rest of the world beside possessed. The congregation dispersed, and as they returned to their inheritances the joy of the Lord was their strength. I. T. 17. I shall not die but live, and recount the works of Jehovah.** The existence thus to be preserved is that of Israel, and the last clause describes the final cause of that existence, which is here stated as a ground of confidence, and is elsewhere urged as an argument in prayer. The original construction of the first clause is, I shall not die, for I shall live. A. While there is a testimony for God to be borne by us to any one, it is certain that we shall not be hurried from the land of the living. The Lord’s prophets shall live on till they have uttered all the words of their prophecy; His priests shall stand at the altar unharmed till their last sacrifice has been presented before Him. 18. The Lord hath chastened me sore.** This is faith’s version of the former passage, “Thou hast thrust sore at me;” for the attacks of the enemy are chastisements from the hand of God. The devil tormented Job for his own purposes, but in reality the sorrows of the patriarch were chastisements from the Lord. “Chastening, Jehovah hath chastened me,” says our poet. Chastisement is sent to keep successful saints humble, to make them tender toward others, and to enable them to bear the high honors which their heavenly Friend puts upon them. “But He hath not given me over unto death.” They are “chastened, but not killed;” their pains are for their instruction, not for their destruction. By these things the ungodly die, but gracious Hezekiah could say, “By these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit.” S. 19. The gates of righteousness.** The gates of the temple are so called with reference to the service of God and the character He requires of His worshippers. This is evident from the next verse, “The righteous shall enter into it.” The demand “open to me” may be understood either literally, in which case it is best explained as the words of the singers in the festal procession when they reach the temple gates; or figuratively, as implying the readiness and alacrity with which the Psalmist will go to the house of God, there to offer his sacrifices and to utter his thanksgivings. Compare Isa. 26: 2: “Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation may enter in,” where righteousness is made the condition of entrance into “the strong city,” or God’s building, as here into the holy place. P. 21. The Psalmist says, “I will praise Thee; for Thou hast heard me;” he praised not only because he had received, but also because he had been heard—because the living God, as a hearing God, was manifested in His mercies. And when we know that God has heard us, let us not delay our praise; God loves a quick return for His blessings; one sentence of heartfelt thanksgiving is worth all the formalism of a more labored service. P. B. Power. 22. The stone (which) the builders rejected has become the head of the corner. This is a proverbial expression, and as such applicable to any case, in which what seemed to be contemptible has come to honor. This mode of expressing the idea was most probably suggested by the founding of the temple. The sight of the stone, or the act of laying it, would be sufficient to suggest the proverb, and its application to the happy change experienced by Israel, so lately blotted from the list of nations, and regarded by the heathen as unworthy even of an humble place in the proud fabric of consolidated empire, but now restored not only to a place but to the highest place among the nations, not in point of power, wealth, or worldly glory, but as the chosen acts peculiar people of the Most High God. As this Psalm was sung by the people at the last Jewish festival attended by our Saviour, He applied this proverb to Himself, as One rejected by the Jews and by their rulers, yet before long to be recognized as their Messiah, whom they had denied and murdered, but whom God had exalted as a Prince and a Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and remission of sins (Acts 5 : 31). This, though really another application of the proverb in its general meaning, has a certain affinity with its original application in the verse before us, because the fortunes of the ancient Israel, especially in reference to great conjunctures, bore a designed resemblance to the history of Christ Himself, by a kind of sympathy between the body and the head. Even the temple, which suggested the original expression, did but teach the doctrine of Divine inhabitation, and was therefore superseded by the advent of the Son Himself. The head of the corner means the chief or corner-stone of the foundation, even in Zech. 4 : 7, where it is translated head-stone. The application of the verse before us made by Christ Himself (Matt. 21 : 42) is renewed by Peter (Acts 4 : 11). A. In the primary meaning of the Psalm the illustration seems to have been drawn from one of the stones—quarried, hewn, and marked away from the site of the temple (Kings 6 : 7)—which the builders, ignorant of the head architect's plans, had put on one side, as having no place in the building, but which was found afterward to be that on which the completeness of the structure depended, that on which, as the chief corner-stone, the two walls met and were bonded together. The Psalmist saw in this a parable of the choice of David to be king over Israel; perhaps, also, of the choice of Israel itself out of the nations of the world. Elsewhere, as in Eph. 2 : 20, and in the language of later ages, Christ Himself is the chief corner-stone. Ellicott. Israel had been despised by their heathen masters, but now, by the good hand of their God upon them, they had been lifted into a place of honor. They, rejected of men, were chosen of God as a chief stone of that new spiritual building which Jehovah was about to erect; the temple of the world, the foundation of which was to be laid in Zion. In Matt. 21 : 42-44 (Mark 12 : 10, 11; Luke 20 : 17) our Lord applies the words of this and the next verse to Himself. The quotation was, it would seem, purposely taken from the same Psalm from which the multitude had just before taken their words of salutation (see on vs. 25, 26), as they went forth to meet Him and conduct Him in triumph into Jerusalem. But there is more than an application of the words. Israel is not only a figure of Christ; there is an organic unity between Him and them. Whatever, therefore, is true of Israel in a lower sense, is true in its highest sense of Christ. Is Israel God's "firstborn son"? the name in its fulfilment belongs to Christ (Matt. 2 : 15); if Israel is "the servant of Jehovah," he is so only as imperfectly representing Him who said: "My meat is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work." If Israel is the rejected stone made the head of the corner, this is far truer of Him who was indeed rejected of men, but chosen of God and precious; the corner-stone of the one great living temple of the redeemed, whether Jews or Gentiles. Compare Eph. 2 : 20. The passage which forms the connecting link between this Psalm and the New Testament quotations is Isa. 28 : 16, "Behold, it is I who have laid securely in Zion a stone, a tried, precious corner-stone, most securely laid: he that believeth (i.e., resteth thereon) shall not flee (through fear of any evil)." In this passage the Messianic reference is still more direct. In marked contrast with this, it is said of Babylon (Jer. 51 : 26): "They shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for a foundation." P. Whatever was the occasion of the Psalm, Jesus lays His hand on it and claims it as speaking of Him. Lower, typical meanings it no doubt had, and was rooted in some unknown historical fact; but for us its meaning is fixed by Him. There are other prophecies about the foundation-stone, and the stone cut out without hands, which are all smelted together here, to teach the one great truth, that Jesus Christ is the foundation (and, subordinately, that He is the bond of union between the two divergent walls, which represent Jew and Gentile) laid by God; and though rejected by those to whom the task of building up God's house had been intrusted, still is in history and fact what He was from of old intended to be. The husbandmen's killing of the Son is not the end of the Son. God's purpose works through opposing agents, and is accomplished by apparent defeat. If, then, opposition is futile, judgment is sure. What can become of the builders who flung the foundation-stone aside, when it is set in its place? Nothing but destruction. So our Lord's last words give grave warning to us all, and declare the universal law regulating the relations to Him of all men who hear the Gospel. A. M. 23. Now all this "is the Lord's doing," done without any intervention on the part of man, and therefore, "it is wonderful in our eyes." For who is there that must not look upon it as a wonderful thing to find a man crucified, dead and buried, rising, after three days, from the dead, immortal, with unbounded power, and declared Prince of men and angels, and a way opened through Him for mortal man to the kingdom of heaven, to the society of the angels, to a happy immortality? Bellarmine.—It never ceases to astonish us, as we see, even here below, God by means of weakness defeating power, by the simplicity of His Word baffling the craft of men, and by the invisible influence of His Spirit exalting His Son in human hearts in the teeth of open and determined opposition. It is indeed "marvellous in our eyes." In the Hebrew the passage reads, "It is wonderfully done;" not only is the exaltation of Jesus of Nazareth itself wonderful, but the way in which it is brought about is marvellous; it is wonderfully done. S. 24. This is the day Jehovah has made, we will rejoice and triumph in it. By the day we are here to understand the happier times which Israel, through God's grace, was permitted to enjoy. This day He is said, as the Author of this blessed revolution, to have made, created. In a still higher sense the words may be applied to the new dispensation, as a glorious change in the condition of the Church, compared with which the restoration from captivity was nothing, except as a preliminary to it and a preparation for it. A. Compare this place with Matt. 21 : 22, 23 and Acts 4 : 11, and you will find that the preceding verses are a prophetic prediction of Christ's resurrection, and so this verse foretells the Church's joy upon that memorable and glorious day. Swinnock.—Of the day on which Christ rose from the dead, it may with more propriety than of any other day be affirmed, "This is the day which the Lord hath made." Then it was that the rejected stone became "the head of the corner;" a morning then dawned which is to be succeeded by no evening. Bishop Horne.—There was no day before; it was not day to an apostate and darkened creation till the Sun of righteousness rose on it in His strength; and His rising was virtually the rising from the dead. Metvill. This, therefore, is "the day which the Lord hath made," higher and brighter than all days; the day on which our Lord rose again, on which He acquired a new people by the Spirit of regeneration, on which He filled the minds of all with an exulting joy. This day of Christ's resurrection is life to the dead, pardon to sinners, glory to saints; since by working virtue in men it raises them from the depths, places them on high, perfects the righteous, confirms the doubtful, condemns the unbelieving. For it was to this end that our Lord rose again, that He might show to us an image of the future resurrection. Let us, therefore, be glad and rejoice on this day, on which Christ by His resurrection overthrew death and brought in salvation. Augustine. The whole of this Psalm applies to Jesus the Messiah, and so we ask, What was the day in His life which He made His own beyond all others? The day of days in Christ's life was the day of resurrection. And the resurrection should provoke a joy in Christian hearts greater than any other event in the life of our Lord. For it is the joy of a great certainty. The resurrection of our Saviour is the fact which makes an intelligent Christian certain of the truth of his creed and the reality of his salvation. It is the joy of a great hope. The resurrection sets before us the completeness of our life after death. As the apostle says, "We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." The resurrection of Christ has quickened and expanded our perceptions of the unseen and of the future. The hope of meeting those we have loved and lost, the hope, above all, of seeing and being welcomed by Him, their Lord and ours, who in His human body is set at God's right hand, this glorious, most inspiring hope springs directly from the resurrection morn. And we may exclaim that God has "begotten us again to a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead." II. P. L. It may very fitly be understood of the Christian Sabbath, which we sanctify in remembrance of Christ's resurrection, when the rejected stone began to be exalted; and so, First, here is the doctrine of the Christian Sabbath; It is the day which the Lord has made, has made remarkable, made holy, has distinguished it from other days; He has made it for man, it is therefore called the Lord's day, for it bears His image and superscription. Second, the duty of the Sabbath; the work of the day that is to be done in His day. We will rejoice and be glad in it; not only in the institution of the day, that there is such a day appointed, but in the occasion of it, Christ's becoming the head of the corner. This we ought to rejoice in both as His honor and our advantage. Sabbath days must be rejoicing days, and then they are to us as the days of heaven. See what a good Master we serve, who, having instituted a day for His service, appoints it to be spent in holy joy. H.—On this day we are called to rejoice in that sure and certain prospect which the resurrection of Christ affords to all true believers, of ascending with Him to heaven, and of there partaking with Him of His glory. As He was the substituted representative of true believers, what was accomplished in Him at His resurrection will erelong be accomplished in them; the victory over death which He acquired He will impart to them; the glory which He has received He will give to them; the eternal rest into which He has entered at His ascension He hath prepared for them. R. Hall. Observe it with a free, loving, jubilant spirit, saying, "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." What is wanted is neither a latitudinarian nor a Pharisaic Sabbath; but a blessed, joyous, hallowed, Christian Sabbath; a peaceful, serene day of rest; a Sunday of free and fervent consecration to God's worship, of spiritual culture and growth, and of deeds in the service of our fellow-men. J. H. Martin. 25. Ah, now, Jehovah, save, we beseech Thee! Ah, now, Jehovah, prosper, we beseech Thee! The circumlocution, we beseech Thee, is the only form in which the force of the supplicatory particle can be expressed, without the risk of its being mistaken for an adverb of time. The whole phrase, save, we pray, became a standing formula of supplication with reference to great public interests or undertakings, and reappears in the New Testament under the form Hosanna. See Matt. 21: 9, where we find it, in the acclamations of the multitude, combined with other expressions from this same Psalm which they were accustomed to sing at their great festivals. A. The English word "now," repeated in each member of this verse, is not a particle of time, but a particle of entreaty, as in Eccl. 12: 1, "Remember, I beseech thee, thy Creator." B.—The word "now" is best translated, "Save, I pray." These two Hebrew words are transferred (not translated) into our version in Hosanna, as in Matt. 21: 9, where the multitudes who preceded and followed our Lord in His triumphal entry into Jerusalem seized upon the very words of this passage. No words could have been more appropriate. Of Him pre-eminently was it said in this prophecy (v. 26), "Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." (See Matt. 23: 39.) "He that should come," the great "coming One," became His special designation, as we see in Matt. 11: 3; John 6: 14; 4: 25. Compare also Malachi 3: 1. 27. The mighty God ("El") is our "Jehovah," in the sense of our faithful, covenant God; He hath shed upon us this glorious prophetic light as to "Him that cometh in the name of the Lord." Now, therefore, bind the sacrificial animal with cords and lead him safely up to the horns of the altar. The sense is not, Tie him to the horns of the altar, but lead him bound up to the very altar, there to be offered in sacrifice. There is no emphasis on horns as distinct from the altar itself. It is only a poetic definiteness, for the sake of stronger impression. C.—Our knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ came not by the light of nature, nor by reason, nor did we receive it of men; but the mighty God alone hath showed it to us. Therefore, unto Him be all the honor of our enlightenment. S. Showed us light: bind the sacrifice. Here is somewhat received; somewhat to be returned. God hath blessed us, and we must bless God. His grace and our gratitude are met in the text; let them as happily meet in your hearts, and they shall not leave you till they bring you to heaven. T. Adams —The sacrifice we are to offer to God in gratitude for redeeming love is ourselves; not to be slain upon the altar, but "living sacrifices" (Rom. 12: 1) to be bound to the altar; spiritual sacrifices of prayer and praise in which our hearts must be fixed and engaged, as the sacrifice was bound "with cords to the horns of the altar." H. Nothing short of complete self-surrender, perfect obedience, and unwavering, unfaltering love can characterize the walk that corresponds with our profound obligations to Him. Surely there can be no stronger cord with which to bind us as sacrifices to the horns of the altar than the cords of love. This is the unique glory and power of Christian ethics, that it brings in this tender personal element to transmute the coldness of duty into the warmth of gratitude. Repugnant duties become tokens of love, pleasant as every sacrifice made at its bidding ever is. The true Christian spirit says, Thou hast given Thyself wholly for me; help me to yield myself to Thee. Thou hast loved me perfectly; help me to love Thee with all my heart. A. M. makes the goal of hope near, and gives the confidence of success. J. V. the prospect of injured souls. The man who devotes his property to the service of the Church is not tempted to revel in earthly vanities, or to cling to his treasures with a miser's grasp. And through the whole course of Christian action there is not a duty which does not receive its corresponding reward. But in the man who looks coldly and infrequently upon his Bible, who is a stranger in his closet, who shuns the company of Christ's flock, who has no love for souls, no devotion to the cause of charity, in such a one the principle of holy love is famished for want of nutriment. Homer. first verse of this section that God was his portion; now he saith that all the saints of God are his companions. These two go together, the love of God and the love of His saints. W. Cowper.—Those that love the Lord's service naturally associate with kindred spirits, with those that fear Him, and keep His precepts. These two features identify the same character, as cheerful obedience is always the fruit of filial fear. These, then, are the Lord's people, and union with Him is companionship with them. The communion of saints is the fruit and effect of communion with God. C. B.—Our love to the saints is then sincere when we love them for the sake of what we see of God in them, and the service they do to Him. H. regeneration of the individual, the Word of God conducts us, by easy and inevitable stages, to that truth which becomes its own witness to a Christian believer, that the civilization of the future and the triumph of Christianity are identical. A. Phelps. exercised, and that life possessed, there, with all diversities, own a brother. Wheresoever these things are not, loyalty to your Lord demands that the strength of your love for His among the immortal realities of heaven—this is an art which the Spirit that inspired the Scriptures alone can teach to the man who reads them. W. A. B. 28. God.** The original for "God" gives force to this passage, Thou art my "El"—the Mighty One; therefore will I praise Thee; my "Eloah"—a varied form with substantially the same sense, "and I will extol Thee"—lift Thee high in glory and honor. C. 29. O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good: for His mercy endureth forever. The Psalm concludes as it began, making a complete circle of joyful adoration. We can well suppose that the notes at the close of the loud hallelujah were more swift, more sweet, more loud than at the beginning. To the sound of trumpet and harp, Israel, the house of Aaron, and all that feared the Lord, forgetting their distinctions, joined in one common hymn, testifying again to their deep gratitude to the Lord's goodness, and to the mercy which is unto eternity. What better close could there be to this right royal song? S. VERSE 15. The Voice of Rejoicing and Salvation is in the Tents of the Righteous. Add to all other sources of joy another, and the craving of the immortal nature is filled. It is the conviction, fastened in the soul by God's unalterable promise, that the new life which is begun is a principle that can never be extinguished, that the new relations of adoption, childship with God, can never be sundered, that the new home can never be broken up, the inheritance never fail or be lessened by the enjoyment. And this, too, is God's own assurance, upon which as completing all possible or conceivable sources of delight, He bids us, "Rejoice evermore!" Upon His covenant, well-ordered, sure, and everlasting, the believing soul rests expectant. He knows that all things shall work together for good here and forever, that all things of this and the coming life are His, by a pledge that cannot be broken. The good work begun in the soul will be completed. The new life once begotten by the Spirit, the life once hid with Christ in God will be perpetuated, with all its blessed fruits, by the same Divine power, so long as the life of the Godhead is perpetuated. So long as the Father endures shall the child endure, sharing all the joy of the Father's home and heart. So long as the Son remains enthroned King shall His redeemed dwell in His presence, rejoice in His love, and share His throne. So long as holds the might of the Infinite new-creating Spirit, shall the spirits of the just He has made perfect be held in faultless being, with every energy of thought and will and affection full strung in holy activity. So long as the Godhead lives, reigns, acts, God's children shall love and obey, God's redeemed ones shall praise, God's sanctified ones shall serve. So long, even to everlasting, shall God Himself dwell with them and in them as their exceeding glory and joy. Then rejoice evermore, ye who, through God's grace and by His promise, hold in your hearts such sources of joy! Let the voice of joy and rejoicing be in the tabernacles of the righteous. Rejoice that to you there is no longer condemnation! Rejoice that you are the children of God, joint-heirs with Christ, to the inheritance that is incorruptible and unfading. Rejoice in your comfort and your toil. Rejoice even in tribulation, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Might it brings to you to do or to bear. Heed, then, His bidding, who bids you, rejoice evermore. B. 1. BLESSED are they that are perfect [or, up-right] in the way, Who walk in the law of the LORD. 2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, That seek him with the whole heart. 3. Yea, they do no unrighteousness; They walk in his ways. 4 Thou hast commanded us thy precepts, That we should observe them diligently. 5 Oh that my ways were established To observe thy statutes! 6 Then shall I not be ashamed, When I have respect unto all thy commandments. 7. I will give thanks unto thee with uprightness of heart, When I learn thy righteous judgments. 8. I will observe thy statutes: O forsake me not utterly. 9. Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed thereto according to thy word. 10. With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. THE one hundred and nineteenth Psalm is the appropriate sermon, after the Hallel, on the text which is its epitome (Psalm 1:1, 2), "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly; but his delight is in the law of the Lord." Except in two verses (122, 132), the law is expressly extolled in every verse. Fausset.—God has not only commanded us to learn; He has promised to teach. He who wrote the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm knew that well, and therefore his Psalm is a prayer for teaching and a prayer for light. C. Kingsley. This is the longest and the most elaborate of the alphabetical Psalms. It is arranged in twenty-two stanzas according to the number of letters in the Hebrew alphabet. Each stanza is composed of eight verses, each verse consisting of two members only, and each beginning with the same letter of the alphabet. Thus each of the first eight verses begins with the letter Aleph, each of the next eight with the letter Beth, and so on throughout the alphabet. The great subject of the Psalmist's praise is the law of God. In this respect the Psalm may be said to be an elaborate expansion of the latter part of Psalm 19. The date of the Psalm cannot be fixed with anything like certainty, though it may probably be referred to a time subsequent to the return from the Babylonish captivity. The law of which he speaks as his daily study, as his delight and his counsellor, must obviously have been the written law, and it may be inferred that it was now in the hands of the people. Whether this was the case to any extent before the exile, we have now no means of ascertaining. After the exile, copies of the Scriptures were multiplied. The efforts of Ezra and Nehemiah, which were directed in the first instance to the collection of the sacred books (2 Macc. 2:13), must have been di 11. Thy word have I laid up in mine heart, That I might not sin against thee. 12 Blessed art thou, O Lord: Teach me thy statutes. 13 With my lips have I declared All the judgments of thy mouth. 14 I have rejoiced in the way of thy testimonies, As much as in all riches. 15 I will meditate in thy precepts, And have respect unto thy ways. 16 I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word. rected eventually to their dissemination. Accordingly, we find that copies of the "books of the law," or of "the book of the covenant," were in the possession of the people at the time of the Maccabees (1 Macc. 1:55, 56). P. It is inconceivable that such a Psalm as this could have been written if there had not been at the time a code of laws in existence which were commonly acknowledged as of Divine origin and authority. The law of Moses was such a code, and there is no trace of any other. At the time then when the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm was written this code must have been in existence. The Psalm itself is at once a witness to it and the creation of it. Moreover, the spiritual character of the Psalm shows that the writer was imbued with the spirit of Deuteronomy, or the second law. It is no mere ceremonial rites that he will observe, but the requirements of Him who demanded the circumcision of the heart. Had the first four books of Moses alone existed, it is scarcely too much to say that the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm could not have been written; another element must have operated in its production, which was the influence of the latest words of the great Lawgiver. Leathes. To the design of popular instruction, and especially to that of constant repetition and reflection, the Psalm is admirably suited by its form and structure. The alphabetical arrangement, of which it is at once the most extended and most perfect specimen, and the aphoristic character, common to all alphabetic Psalms, are both adapted to assist the memory, as well as to give point to the immediate impression. It follows, of course, that the Psalm was rather meant to be a storehouse of materials for pious meditation than a discourse for continuous perusal. At the same time, the fact of its existence in the Psalter is presumptive proof that it was used in public worship, either as a whole, or in one or more of the twenty-two stanzas into which it is divided, corresponding to the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, all the eight verses of each paragraph beginning with the same Hebrew letter. A. The things contained in Scripture and drawn from it are here called, First, God's law, because they are enacted by Him as our Sovereign. Second, His way, because they are the rule both of His providence and of our obedience. Third, His testimonies, because they are solemnly declared to the world, and attested beyond contradiction. Fourth, His commandments, because given with authority, and (as the word signifies) lodged with us as a trust. Fifth, His precepts, because prescribed to us, and not left indifferent. Sixth, His Word, or saying, because it is the declaration of His mind, and Christ the essential, eternal Word is all in all in it. Seventh, His judgments, because framed in infinite wisdom, and because by them we must both judge and be judged. Eighth, His righteousness, because it is all holy, just, and good, and the rule and standard of righteousness. Ninth, His statutes, because they are fixed and determined, and of perpetual obligation. Tenth, His truth, or faithfulness, because the principles upon which Divine law is built are eternal truths. Henry. According to this alphabetical series of eight stanzas, the Word is the source of happiness to those who walk by it (aleph), of holiness to those who give heed to it (beth), of truth to those whose eyes the Lord opens by His Spirit (gimel), of law to those whose heart He renews (daleth), begets perseverance by its promises (he), reveals the mercy and salvation of the Lord (cau), awakens the comfort of hope in God (zayin), presents the Lord as the portion of the trusting soul (cheth), makes affliction instructive and chastening (teth), begets a fellowship in the fear of God (jod), and a longing for the full peace of salvation (kaph), is faithful and immutable (lamed), commands the approval of the heart (mem), is a light to the path (nun), from which to swerve is hateful (samek), warrants the plea of innocence (ayin), is a testimony to God's character and will (pe), is a law of rectitude (tsade), warrants the cry for salvation (qoph), and prayer for deliverance from affliction (resh), and from persecution without a cause (shin), and assures of an answer in due time (tau). There is here as much order as could be expected in a long alphabetical acrostic. M. In the German translation of the Bible it has the admirable title: The Christian's golden A B C of the praise, love, virtue, and usefulness of the Word of God; for here there is set forth in inexhaustible fulness what the Word of God is to man, and how man has to bear himself in relation to it. D. —This Psalm is a prolonged meditation upon the excellence of the Word of God, upon its effects, and the strength and happiness which it gives to a man in every position. These reflections are interspersed with petitions, in which the Psalmist, deeply feeling his natural infirmity, implores the help of God for assistance to walk in the way mapped out for him in the Divine oracles. In order to be able to understand and to enjoy this remarkable Psalm, we must, like its author, have learned to love and practise the sacred Word. For this Psalm is in some sort a touch-stone for the spiritual life of those who read it. A. de Mestral. I know of no part of the Holy Scriptures where the nature and evidences of true and sincere godliness are so fully and largely insisted on and delineated as in the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm. The Psalmist declares his design in the first verses of the Psalm, keeps his eye on it all along, and pursues it to the end. The excellency of holiness is represented as the immediate object of a spiritual taste and delight. God's law—that grand expression and emanation of the holiness of God's nature, and prescription of holiness to the creature—is all along represented as the great object of the love, the complacency, and the rejoicing of the gracious nature, which prizes God's commandments "above gold, yea, the finest gold;" and to which they are "sweeter than honey and the honeycomb." Edwards. The constant repetitions found in this and other Psalms has formed a source of perplexity to many. Is it not accounted for by the fact that they stand as the pre-eminent interpreters of the heart? Truth repeated in statement grows old and wearisome, truth repeated in experience is forever new and interesting. Hence the necessity of repetitions. The sense of sin, of the Divine love, longing or aversion, hope or fear, returns to the heart from time to time, and with every return the heart is moved by a repetition of its experience and led to a repetition of its utterance. Christian shame and penitence, and Christian joy and hope never grow old. The saved will not weary of crying through the heavenly ages, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain," because at every repetition of the song, there will throb in the heart the renewed feeling of gratitude and joy that called it forth at the first. So this and other Psalms simply speak for the soul, touched again and again by each of a thousand influences from within and without, and responding under every impulse with a renewed expression of its experience. The child's nature in a thousand different circumstances and connections cries, "I love you, I love you," and the father never wearies of the words. So it may speak repeatedly of its father's strength or goodness—one utterance is not enough. Heart language is always tautological. Anon. It is strange that, of all the pieces of the Bible which my mother taught me, that which cost me most to learn, and which was to my child's mind chiefly repulsive—the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm—has now become of all the most precious to me in its overflowing and glorious passion of love for the law of God. Ruskin. 1. Blessed.** The Psalmist beginneth with a description of the way to true blessedness, as Christ began His Sermon on the Mount, and as the whole Book of Psalms is elsewhere begun. Blessedness is that which we all aim at, only we are either ignorant or reckless of the way that leadeth to it, therefore the holy Psalmist would first set us right as to the true notion of a blessed man, "Blessed are the perfect in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord." Manton. In the way. They are blessed who are in the way, not a way, any chance or uncertain road, but "the King's Highway;" that path which the Lord Himself has declared to us, saying, "I am the way." Hilary.—In this way there must be no standing, sitting, or reclining, but walking, so that all our movements may be regular, going on unto perfection. Geier. Blessedness is ascribed to walking in God's way. If we have not the habit of doing anything, we do it with difficulty and are ready to cease from doing it. Thence it is that the saints find their estate miserable till they form the habit which maketh them with facility and constancy walk with God. They count it of all things most blessed to have attained some degree of permanent habit in godliness. P. Bayne.—He who walks in God's law walks in God's company, and he must be blessed; he has God's smile, God's strength, God's secret with him, and how can he be otherwise than blessed? S. 2. Testimonies.** The Word of God is called His testimony, not only because it testifies His will concerning His service, but also His favor and goodwill concerning His own in Christ Jesus. If God's Word were no more than a law, yet were we bound to obey it because we are His creatures; but since it is also a testimony of His love, wherein as a Father He witnesseth His favor toward His children, we are doubly inexcusable if we do not most joyfully embrace it. W. Cowper. Keep His testimonies. Faith, which is the reliance on a person and therefore trust in his word, passes into both forms of confidence in the word as promise and obedience to the word as command. We cannot cut faith in halves, and exercise the one aspect without the other. Some people's faith says that it delights in God's promises, but does not delight in His commandments. That is no faith at all. Whoever takes God at His word will take all His words. There is no faith without obedience; there is no obedience without faith. A. M. Seek Him. There is so much said about men seeking pardon, and seeking peace, and seeking acceptance with God that we are apt to fall into a belief that these are in themselves the ultimate ends of our religion. But the Bible never represents them in that light, nor does it dwell upon them. It brings them forward as means to an end. Having found these inestimable blessings, we are not to rest there; there is something higher and better to which they are designed to lead us. In them we lay the foundation of the Divine life, but they are not that life itself. That life is in God, and it is only as we seek Him with our whole heart that we can enjoy that life. W. L. A. Love makes long service short and hard service easy. Nothing is pain which love does. And this is Gospel obedience. It is faith working by love which refines duty into grace—the commandments are exalted into privileges—the ordinances become happy means of fellowship with God. The believer meets God in them, and by free converse he exercises and improves his love. He draws near to God, and God draws near to him in prayer, in praise, in hearing the Word, and the Lord's Supper, and in all Sabbath duties. In these ways God manifests His gracious presence, and the believer rejoices in it. God communicates His grace, and the believer receives it with thankfulness. W. Romaine. 3. They do no unrighteousness**—that is, they make not a trade and common practice thereof. Slip they do, through the infirmity of the flesh, and subtlety of Satan, and the allurements of the world; but they do not ordinarily and customably go forward in unlawful and sinful courses. Greenham.— To the doing of iniquity these three things must concur: First, a purpose to do it; next, a delight in doing it; thirdly, a continuance in it; which three in God's children never concur; for in sins done in them by the old man, the new man makes his exceptions and protestations against them. It is not I, says he; and so far is he from delighting in them, that rather his soul is grieved with them. In a word, the children of God are rather sufferers of sin against their wills than actors of it with their wills, like men spiritually oppressed by the power of their enemy; for which they sigh and cry unto God, "Miserable man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" And in this sense it is that the apostle saith, "He who is born of God sinneth not." W. Cowper. They walk in His ways. Habitually, constantly, characteristically. They are not merely honest, upright, and just in their dealings with men; but they walk in the ways of God. Barnes. 4, 5. Thou hast commanded us to keep Thy precepts diligently (v. 4); this is God's imperative, "O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes!" (v. 5); this should be our optative. T. Adams.—We are bound to obey the commands of God whether we can or not. What, then, remains for us but to return the mandate to heaven, accompanied with an earnest prayer that the Lord would write upon our hearts those statutes to which He requires obedience in His Word? "Thou hast commanded us to keep Thy statutes diligently." We acknowledge, Lord, our obligation, but we feel our impotency. Lord, help us; we look unto Thee. "O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes!" Bridges. 5. "O that my ways were directed"—but the Hebrew word means established, confirmed—a very suitable thing to pray for. He longs to attain fixed, settled habits, in which his ways should, as the word suggests, become solid in the right. C. The apprehension of spiritual realities, in their beauty and glory, does not come all at once, but it infallibly comes in the course of Christian experience. And not more truly and earnestly does the blind man express the topmost wish of his heart, "Lord, that I might receive my sight!" than the believer his longing, "O that my ways were directed to keep Thy statutes!" J. W. A. 6. Most men perhaps can look at some of the precepts with comparative freedom from reproof. But who can so look unto them all? Yet this, also, the godly heart aspires to. In this verse we find the Psalmist consciously anticipating the truth of a word in the New Testament, "He that offendeth in one point is guilty of all." Marchant.—Such as are Christians indeed exercise themselves, with Paul, to keep a good conscience in all things toward God and men. They have a regard unto all God's commandments, as David speaks, they have a sincere love to God, which makes them study the exactest obedience they can reach. And this is an imperfect kind of perfection; it is evangelical but not angelical. L. Such is the mercy of God in Christ to His children, that He accepts their weak endeavors, joined with sincerity and perseverance in His service, as if they were a full obedience. Be but so faithful as to do thy best, and God is so gracious that He will pardon thy worst. David knew this Gospel indulgence when he said, "Then shall I not be ashamed, when I have respect unto all Thy commandments," when my eye is to all Thy commandments. The traveller hath his eye on or toward the place he is going to, though he be as yet short of it; there he would be, and he is putting on all he can to reach it; so stands the saint's heart to all the commands of God; he presseth on to come nearer and nearer to full obedience; such a soul shall never be put to shame. Gurnall. 7. I will praise Thee when I shall have learned.** There is no way to please God entirely and sincerely until we have learned both to know and do His will. Practical praise is the praise God looks after. By learning he means his attaining not only to the knowledge of the Word, but the practice of it. For otherwise, if we get understanding of the Word; nay, if we get it imprinted in our memories, it will do us no good without practice. Manton. Learned Thy righteous judgments. We see here what David especially desired to learn—namely, the Word and will of God; he would ever be a scholar in this school, that learning to know, he might remember; remembering, might believe; believing, might delight; delighting, might admire; admiring, might adore, adoring, might practise; and practising, might continue in the way of God's statutes. This learning is the old and true learning indeed, and he is best learned in this art who turneth God's Word into good works. Greenham. Let us have it as one of our most sacred duties to the Bible, not to use it so as to shut ourselves and all that have it away from God's immediate revelation by it. The external, verbal revelation is not given to be a substitute for the internal and immediate, but to be a guide into that. We are to find God after all by an immediate knowledge ourselves, just as all the older saints have found Him, only with an immense help in the Bible, which they had not. We are not to know God simply as reading the Book, and living thus on a mere second-hand knowledge. That is making a fence of the Book, requiring us to get all light from it, and not from God. No, the Bible is received only when it is spiritually discerned; that is, when it brings us in where God is, to know Him by our faith and love, and have Him in a first-hand knowledge, even as Abraham had, or Job, or Jethro, or Cornelius. The Bible tells us how others found Him, that we may find Him also. We only know Him by an immediate knowledge, even as they did. If we use the Book only for the second-hand knowledge it gives us, we even make a barrier of it, and put God farther away. The right use of it will not give us notions about God, but God Himself. It will make God nigh, and make it felt that He is nigh, both to ourselves and to others, present to knowledge, pressing into knowledge in all human breasts. Little do we conceive how very nigh He is, and how He is pressing in, through the Bible, through nature, everywhere and always, to be known by every human creature in the world. Bushnell. Cultivate spiritual sympathy with the Bible; it is a spiritual Book. It is full of rich historical color, it abounds in curious facts and striking characters, and has an immense wealth of allusion to phenomena of nature and of human life; but all is pervaded by a supreme and controlling spirituality. Other things are very desirable for a just interpretation of Scripture. Spiritual sympathies, genuine and ever freshly cherished, are indispensable. J. A. Broadus. 8. Instantly upon forming his resolution, he recollects that the performance of it is beyond the power of human strength, and therefore the next moment he follows it with prayer, "I will keep Thy statutes; O forsake me not utterly." Bridges.—The spiritual life of believers may be at a stand, and sin may break out, but they are not utterly forsaken. One way or other, God is still present; present in light sometimes when He is not present in strength, when He manifests the evil of their present condition so as to make them mourn under it; and present in awakening their desires, though not in giving them enjoyment. As long as there is any esteem of God He is not yet gone; there is some light and love yet left, manifested by our desire of communion with Him. Manton. 9. A young man. A prominent place—one of the twenty-two parts—is assigned to young men in the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm. It is meet that it should be so. Youth is the season of impression and improvement, young men are the future props of society, and the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of wisdom, must begin in youth. The strength, the aspirations, the unmarred expectations of youth are in requisition for the world; oh, that they may be consecrated to God. J. Stephen.—God justly claims the first and the best. And is it not a most affecting proof of the alienation of the heart from God, that the youth of man, the bloom and freshness of his mind, should naturally be devoted to the service of sin? Bridges. Taking heed thereto. God's Word will not do without our watchfulness and a constant regard both to it and to our way, that we may compare them together. The ruin of young men is either living at large, or by no rule at all, or choosing to themselves false rules; let them ponder the path of their feet and walk by Scripture rules; so their way shall be clean, and they shall have the comfort and credit of it here and forever. H.—There is an especial necessity for this "Take heed," because of the proneness of a young man to thoughtlessness, carelessness, presumption, self-confidence. There is an especial necessity for "taking heed," because of the difficulty of the way. "Look well to thy goings;" it is a narrow path. "Look well to thy goings;" it is a new path. "Look well to thy goings;" it is a slippery path. "Look well to thy goings;" it is an eventful path. J. H. Evans. Let him "take heed to his way, according to God's Word." Let him begin to meditate upon this Word as the rule of the Divine government; he will soon see the necessity of that mediatorial and restorative process which is brought to light in the Lord Jesus, "the Fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness." Let him then go on, from time to time, putting away everything that he feels to be wrong, trying to conquer every bad habit, and to regulate his conduct by God's Word; and he will be led to rejoice in the sanctifying Spirit, who shall carry on this work. But it is no use for you to pretend to desire the pardon of sin and reconciliation by the blood of Christ, if you do not put away every evil thing, and seek to "cleanse your way, according to God's Word." The two things must advance together—the putting away everything practically wrong and the seeking after that truth which is according to God's Word. Binnie. If at that season when our youth are preparing their minds for guiding affairs, by courses of early discipline in public schools, and those of second rank are entered to the various professions of life, if then no pains be taken to draw their attention to the sacred writings, and impress principles of piety and virtue upon their minds, how can it be expected that religion should even have a chance? One cannot always be learning; youth is for learning, manhood for acting, and old age for enjoying the fruits of both. The future lawyer, physician, or statesman is studying, each that he may prepare for filling a reputable station in the present world. Why is the future immortal not at the same time studying the two Testaments of God, in order to prepare for the world to come, in which every one of us hath a more valuable stake? If immortality be neither the dream of fond enthusiasts nor the trick of artful priests, but the revelation of the righteous God, then let us have the literature and the science, and the practice for the long after-stage of our being, as well as for the present time, which is but its porch. Irving. 10. With my whole heart sought Thee.** God looks not at the fulness of words and variety of expressions, but at the sincerity and devotion of the heart. Let but the matter of thy prayer be according to God's mind, holy and warrantable, and the temper of thy heart humble and fervent, and no fear but thou shalt speed. Yea, let the prayer be old, pray to-day what thou didst yesterday, be but sure to bring new affections with thy old prayer, and thou shalt be friendly received into God's presence, though thou canst not on a sudden put thy requests into a new shape. God will not shut His child out-of-doors, because he comes not every day in a new-fashioned suit. Gurnall. Let me not wander. The best are sensible of their aptness to wander; and the more we have found of the pleasure there is in keeping God's commandments, the more afraid we shall be of wandering from them, and the more earnest we shall be in prayer to God for His grace to prevent our wanderings. H. 11. To "hide in the heart" is not to conceal away even from his own view, but the very opposite; to put it in his memory, where it will be ever present and ready to guide his affections and purposes, and to rule his life. C.—Laid up in the heart the Word has effect. The laying of it up in the mere memory will not avail. The Word must be known and prized, and laid up in the heart. Then the threatenings, the promises, the excellencies of God's Word, and God Himself realized, the young man would be inwardly fortified; the understanding enlightened, conscience quickened—he would not sin against his God. Stephen. As soon as one touches a Gospel, he at once brings his mind into better order. But if there be added to this a careful reading, then his soul is purified and becomes better, while God converses with it through those writings. The reading of the Scriptures is a great preservative against sin, whereas ignorance of the Scriptures is a great precipice, a deep abyss, and to know nothing of the Divine law is altogether to throw away one's salvation. It is this which has generated heresies, which has brought in a corrupt life, which has turned everything upside down. For it is impossible, quite impossible, that any one should go away without benefit who reads Scripture habitually and attentively. Chrysostom.—It is not enough for you to have a choice sentence of God's Word written upon the walls of your churches; but let God's law be written in your hearts and consciences, and practised in your lives, that all the world may see you live as men dedicated to the true God. Jenkyn. 12. What is the connection of thought between these two clauses? Perhaps this, Thou, Lord, art infinitely blessed in Thy purity, Thy benevolence, in the perfection of Thy entire moral nature. Oh, lead me upward to that same moral perfection! It is the noble purpose of Thy revealed law to bring Thy moral creatures up to Thine own standard of purity. Oh, help me to realize this purpose in my heart and life! C.—God cannot be unreal or remote to any who have learned to see, in the Bible, not a book of theology nor a volume of history, but a vital, throbbing, personal communication from our Father in heaven, full of infinite tenderness and wisdom, able to meet our daily spiritual requirement; inexhaustible and therefore Divine. God's consolations cannot be small with those who have found the master key to this golden treasury of life and inspiration and peace. J. H. Barrows. 14. The way of Thy testimonies.** The "way" of God's testimony is the practice of His Word, the doing of that which He hath declared to be His will, and wherein He hath promised to show us His love; and in very deed, the only cause why we find not the comfort that is in the Word of God is that we practise it not by walking in the way thereof. W. Cowper. A child of God is delighted in obedience and in conformity to His Word. "I have rejoiced in the way of His testimonies as much as in all riches," not only in the testimonies themselves—in the naked contemplation of these blessed truths—but in the way and practice of these things. He that loves His rule will study an exact conformity thereto. The true believer finds his delight when he can copy out the Word of God and transcribe it as the moral image of his God into his heart. Salter. All riches. These are the only riches within the reach of all. If we are poor in this world, it is the Lord's providence. If we are poor in grace, it is our own fault. "Things present and things to come;" something enjoyed and much more expected; the mercies of eternity added to the blessings of time; the riches of both worlds are all assured to him by the covenant of grace "in the way of the Lord's testimonies." But the riches of God's testimonies only rejoice the heart when they are uppermost there. 15. I will meditate in Thy precepts. Rejoicing in the testimonies of God will naturally flow in an habitual meditation in them. The thoughts follow the affections. C. B.—He who has an inward delight in anything will not long withdraw his mind from it. To some men meditation is a task; to the man of cleansed way it is a joy. He who has meditated will meditate; he who saith, "I have rejoiced," is the same who adds, "I will meditate." S. The Hebrew word here translated "meditate" signifies properly to speak or converse with one's self. Hence it conveys the idea of seclusion, retirement, solitude, and, at the same time, of mental activity. In meditation the mind retreats within itself; but it retreats thither to think, to ponder, to reflect. Meditation rivets Divine truth in the memory. Meditation on Divine things makes them really profitable to us. Meditation gives depth, seriousness, and earnestness to our religious profession and character. Religion, whatever else it is, is a mode of thought; and hence it is only as deep and earnest thoughtfulness is bestowed upon it that it can be developed in its higher and nobler forms. W. L. A. The end of study is information, and the end of meditation is practice, or a work upon the affections. Study is like a winter sun, that shines, but warms not; but meditation is like a blowing up the fire, where we do not mind the blaze, but the heat. The end of study is to hoard up truth; but of meditation to lay it forth in conference or holy conversation. Manton.—It is not the bee's touching on the flowers that gathers the honey, but her abiding for a time upon them, and drawing out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most on Divine truth, that will prove the choicest, strongest Christian. Bishop H. It probably is true of a great many regular readers of the Bible, that they lapse into a formal way of going over the chapters, one by one, and fail to drink in the spirit and deep meaning of the inspired words. Regular reading of the Scriptures is to be encouraged, of course. Every day ought to include an allotted time for communion with God, through the reading of His blessed Book and through private prayer. But regularity may be mechanical, or it may be full of life and enthusiasm. When one reads simply to cover so many verses each day, as if he were discharging an obligation, his regularity becomes mechanical and unprofitable. It is when one goes to the Bible daily to find something that he wants—goes as a searcher after the good things of God—and considers the meaning of what he reads with a lively and yet reverent interest, that he reads with profit and with sincere pleasure. A man, who has found the Bible to be the most interesting and helpful book in his house, states that he developed interest in it by reading one verse a day, at first, but he studied that verse in all its bearings and sought to discover its peculiar meaning for him. In this, as in other spiritual concerns, those who seek shall find. Interior. For some daily portion, large or small, read, marked, and inwardly digested, you are bound to find time. Business has no right to interfere with a duty as plain as that of obedience to parents or of abstinence from profanity. To give to anything the time necessary for this, is to render unto Cæsar the thing that is God's. There is far too great readiness on the part of Christians to excuse themselves from this duty on the ground of preoccupation; and their Christian lives starve for just this reason. They are spiritually lean and barren because they are not fed on the Word; and their leanness tells disastrously upon the fair heritage of the Church, as the seven thin and blasted ears consumed the seven full ones. None will go to the work of the day without the morning meal. But too many think nothing of plunging into the day's cares and toils without a morsel of the bread which cometh down from heaven. God will not nourish you with other bread because you have no leisure to taste of the "angels' food" He so freely gives you. And you may depend upon it that the time taken for the careful study of a portion of God's Word, taken from business, if need be, will be more than made up by the wellspring of blessing which that truth shall set running in your heart, to cheer and to refresh you when your burdens are heaviest. Vincent. As we drift along the swift, relentless current of time toward the end of life, as days and weeks and months and years follow each other in breathless haste, and we reflect now and then for a moment that, at any rate for us, much of this earthly career has passed irrevocably, what are the interests, the thoughts, ay, the books, which really command our attention? What do we read and leave unread? What time do we give to the Bible? No other book, let us be sure of it, can equally avail to prepare us for that which lies before us; for the unknown anxieties and sorrows which are sooner or later the portion of most men and women; for the gradual approach of death; for the passage into the unseen world; for the sights and sounds which then will burst upon us; for the period, be it long or short, of waiting and preparation; for the throne and the face of the eternal Judge. Looking back from that world, how shall we desire to have made the most of our best guide to it! how shall we grudge the hours we have wasted on any, be they thoughts or books or teachers, which only belong to the things of time! Liddon. I will have respect. The one is the fruit of the other, "I will meditate;" and then, "I will have respect." Meditation is in order to practise; and if it be right, it will beget a respect to the ways of God. We do not meditate that we may rest in contemplation, but in order to obedience, "Thou shalt meditate in the book of the law day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein" (Josh. 1:8). Manton.—I will have respect unto Thy ways, as the traveller has to his road, which he is in care not to miss, and always aims and endeavors to hit. We do not meditate on God's precepts to good purposes, unless we have respect to them as our rule, and our good thoughts produce good works, and good intentions in them. H. 16. Surely those who are serving Him in this happy, filial walk are not likely to "forget His Word." As the eye is continually turned to the object of its affection, so the eye of the soul, that has been fixed with delight on the ways of God, will be habitually resting upon them. As a wise heathen observed, "I never yet heard of a covetous old man, who had forgotten where he had buried his treasure." The reason is abundantly evident. His heart is in it. C. B.—Delight preventeth forgetfulness; the mind will run upon that which the heart delighteth in; and the heart is where the treasure is. Such instructions as we take in with sweetness, they stick with us, and run in our minds night and day. Manton. After all these thousands of years of the world's existence, after all splendors of literature in all the nations and in all ages, there is no book in the whole world which can supersede the Bible as an instrument for the education of the young. After all these millennia it remains the most uniquely glorious book which the world has ever known. Alone of all books it is circulated in hundreds of millions of copies in every tongue spoken by man: its eclipse would be the return of chaos; its extinction would be the epitaph of history. "Its light," says Cardinal Newman, "is like the beauty of heaven in all its clearness, its vastness like the bosom of the sea, its variety like the scenes of nature." Perhaps testimony from a religious teacher might be regarded as purely official. Let me, then, quote the testimony of an eminent living man of science; the testimony of a man like Professor Huxley on this subject will, at least, not be suspected. "I have been seriously perplexed to know," he says, "how the religious feeling which is the essential basis of conduct can be kept up without the use of the Bible. The pagan moralists lacked fire, and life, and color, and even the noble Stoic, Marcus Aurelius, is too high and refined for an ordinary child. For three centuries this book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history. It forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the existence of other countries and other civilizations, and of the great past stretching back to the farthest limit of the oldest nations of the world. By the study of what other book could children be so much humanized or made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary interspace between two eternities, and earns the blessings or the curses of this and of all time, according to his efforts to do good and to hate evil, even as they also are earning their payment for their daily work?" Farrar. Blessed book, bright as heaven when the sun has dissolved the clouds; beautiful as earth when the summer has clothed it with flowers; wondrous book, now all music, now all judgment, a fountain in the wilderness, a shadow of a great rock in a weary land, an infinite provision for the soul's infinite hunger; not a man-made book at all, but quite full of God, throbbing with God, burning with God, awful, solemn, sublime with God. Other books come and go, but this book stands forever, because the world forever reads it. Anon. "If we be ignorant," said the translators of 1611, "the Scriptures will instruct us; if out of the way, they will bring us home; if out of order, they will reform us; if in heaviness, comfort us; if dull, quicken us; if cold, inflame us." Tolle lege, Tolle lege; take them and read, take them and read. Only beware how you read. Read as a scoffer, read as a Pharisee, and it will be useless. Read rightly, and then the Bible will be a light unto your feet, and a lamp unto your path. Read teachably, read devotionally. The saving knowledge of Scripture is a science not of the intellect, but of the heart. Read, above all, as Christ taught us to read, not to entangle yourselves in the controversial or the dubious, but go to the very heart of the central significance. But read it in humility and in love, and then no Urim which the priest wore has ever gleamed with such lessons as it will reveal to you. However much it may be mingled with mystery which we are not required to unravel, and difficulties which we are not able to solve, the Bible contains plain teaching for men of every rank of soul and every state in life, and which, so far as they honestly and implicitly obey, they will be happy and innocent to the utmost powers of their nature, and capable of victory over all adversities, whether of temptation or of pain. For in the Holy Scriptures you find the secrets of eternal life, and they are they which testify of Jesus Christ. Farrar. Bible Study. Bible reading may be an important element in Bible study, but is not in itself the study of the Bible. Bible memorizing has its incidental advantages to one who would have the words of Scripture always available; but Bible memorizing is never in itself Bible studying, nor is it even, like Bible reading, an important element in Bible study. Familiarizing one's self with the contents of the Bible so as to be able to locate the text of any historic fact or special teaching, requires a certain measure of application in study; but it can hardly be called in itself Bible study. A careful analysis of the various books of the Bible, with a view to showing their date and authorship and immediate purpose of writing, together with an exhibit of their peculiarities of style and subject-matter, calls for patient investigation and demands a large measure of intellectual acumen; but all this knowledge may be mastered without touching the great truths of those books, which are of chiefest importance to him who would know and use the Bible aright. Tracking the use of a particular word or phrase throughout the Bible record, in proof of a presupposed duty or doctrine, without discriminating between the different meanings of that word or phrase in different connections, may be a means of Bible study that is not Bible study. Text-collating is not by any means the true study of texts. Bible study may include any or all of these methods, but it must include something beyond them all in order to be true Bible study. There is a sense in which the Bible is like any other book, in being made up of words that must be noted in their connection and uses, and that therefore it is to be studied like any other book in order to arrive at its meanings. But there is another sense in which the Bible is unlike all other books, in that it contains God's peculiar message to mankind through men whom He trained and inspired for that special purpose, and that therefore its study must be mainly for the ascertaining and understanding of the Divine truths that, unlike any other book, it has for ourselves as we are in our present needs and our ultimate destiny. Except for this difference in methods and objects of study, the Bible study of the baldest rationalist and of the most frigid agnostic is as much of a help toward truth as the Bible study of the warmest-hearted and most trustful Christian believer. No Bible study looks to the proper end of Bible study that does not seek to ascertain just what lesson it is that God would have this student gain from the passage immediately under study; and no student of the Bible has yet profited by his Bible study unless he is thereby helped toward truer completeness of manhood as a disciple of Christ. It is well enough to become familiar with the structure and contents of the different books of the Bible, and to memorize as many portions of it as there is time and mental strength for; but all this is but an incident to true Bible study, and not the thing itself. Bible study is for the purpose of gaining impulses and helps to the Christian life. H. C. T. 17. DEAL bountifully with thy servant, that I may live; So will I observe thy word. 18 Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold Wondrous things out of thy law. 19 I am a sojourner in the earth: Hide not thy commandments from me. 20 My soul breaketh for the longing That it hath unto thy judgments at all times. 21 Thou hast rebuked the proud that are cursed, Which do wander from thy commandments. 22 Take away from me reproach and contempt; For I have kept thy testimonies. 23 Princes also sat and talked against me: But thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. 24 Thy testimonies also are my delight And my counsellors. 25. My soul cleaveth unto the dust: Quicken thou me according to thy word. 26 I declared my ways, and thou answeredst me: Teach me thy statutes. 27 Make me to understand the way of thy precepts: So shall I meditate of thy wondrous works. 28 My soul melteth for heaviness: Strengthen thou me according unto thy word. 29 Remove from me the way of falsehood: And grant me thy law graciously. 30 I have chosen the way of faithfulness: Thy judgments have I set before me. 31 I cleave unto thy testimonies: O LORD, put me not to shame. 32 I will run the way of thy commandments, When thou shalt enlarge my heart. 17. Bountifully. Remembering what a weak, empty, and helpless creature the most experienced believer is in himself, it is not to be conceived that anything short of a bountiful supply of grace can answer the emergency. Standing as we do upon such high and sure ground, it is equally dishonorable to God, and impoverishing to ourselves, to ask only a little of Him. Rather let us, according to His own command, "open our mouths wide, and He will fill them." C. B. That I may live. Life is, therefore, a choice mercy, because it is an opportunity of obeying God in this world. "Not that I may live and grow rich, live and be merry; but that I may live and keep Thy Word, observe it myself, and transmit it to those that shall come after, which, the longer I live, the better I shall do." H. 18. "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may see." He asks for no new revelation. The request is not for more, but that he may employ well that which he possesses. He asks for no new faculty. The eyes are there already, and they need only to be opened. Ker.—The saints do not complain of the obscurity of the law, but of their own blindness. The Psalmist doth not say, Lord, make a plainer law, but Lord, open mine eyes; blind men might as well complain of God that He doth not make a sun whereby they might see. The Word is "a light that shineth in a dark place" (2 Pet. 1: 19). There is no want of light in the Scripture, but there is a veil of darkness upon our hearts. Manton. Two forms of Divine teaching are implied in these words: Revelation and spiritual apprehension to receive that which is revealed, truth in the written Word and the inward illumination of the Holy Spirit, the one, therefore, universal, common to all men, the open Bible, the Gospel preached to every creature under heaven; the other personal, private, incommunicable by man to man. And in this prayer both these are equally recognized as God's gift. "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law." . . . It is an unspeakably consoling and delightful reflection that this impossibility of attaining spiritual truth apart from Divine teaching which God's Word so plainly sets forth, puts no hindrance in any man's way, no hindrance in the way of the simplest learner, no hindrance in the way of the unbeliever any more than of the believer, if only the unbeliever is desirous of knowing what is truth. . . . This prayer implies the Divine inspiration and authority of the Bible; for is it not plainly incontrovertible that if the Bible be a book which the wisest man cannot understand, and therefore cannot interpret, without Divine teaching direct from God, it must be a book which no man could have written without such teaching? E. R. Conder. The man who uttered these words felt that he was under Divine law, and that it deeply concerned him to know it well; that to realize its sublimity and comprehensiveness, its marvellous wisdom, its perfect righteousness, would be light, and strength, and life to his soul, but that so to realize it God must vouchsafe to him a sacred influence, a spiritual enlightenment, and, he adds, sufficient faith in his God to believe that He was able and willing thus to help him. We need to have our eyes opened to see the law, our minds helped to understand the truth. The reason of man can no more act independently of God than his will can. Just as the will has been made to find its life in the holiness of God, reason has been made to find its life in the wisdom of God. Unless God open our eyes to behold the wonders of His law, no clearness in the outward revelation of its wonders will give us a true view of it. We shall see and yet not perceive. R. Flint. Scripture can be savingly understood only in and by the inward illumination of the Holy Ghost. The Gospel is a picture of God's free grace to sinners. Were we in a room hung with the finest paintings and adorned with the most exquisite statues, we could not see one of them, if all light were excluded. Now the blessed Spirit's irradiation is the same to the mind that outward light is to the bodily eyes. Toplady. — As the sun can be seen only by its own light, so Christ can be known only by His own Spirit. The sun can make dark things clear; but it cannot make a blind man to see them. But herein is the excellency of this Divine Sun, that He illuminates not only the object, but the faculty; doth not only open the mysteries of His kingdom, but opens blind eyes to behold them. Leighton. — Wonders without grace cannot open the eyes fully; but grace without wonders can. And as man hath not an eye to see the wonderful works of God spiritually, until it is given; so, much less hath he an eye to see the wonders of the Word of God till it be given him from above. Caryl. The Holy Spirit is needful to enable me so to understand the Bible that, instead of being a mere outer truth it may exercise an influence within, overcoming the hostility of my heart, sanctifying its governing principles, and giving new life and energy within. Hence it is the Spirit that fills every symbol in it with celestial glory, that inspires every truth in the Bible with life, gives to its every promise sweet music, and communicates to the heart that studies its receptive power, and makes this Book the guide unto life everlasting. Cumming. — By removing the mists of prejudice, by taking away the scales of pride and self-sufficiency, and by rectifying the will, which causes the judgment to look at truth through a distorted medium, by influencing the heart, so that the affections shall no longer blind the understanding, the Holy Ghost enables men to behold the wondrous things of the law. Melvill. — The Bible is dull when I am dull. When I am really alive, and set in upon the text with a tidal pressure of living affinities it opens, it multiplies discoveries, and reveals depths even faster than I can note them. The worldly spirit shuts the Bible; the Spirit of God makes it a fire, flaming out all meanings and glorious truths. Bushnell. The Bible is heaven-spoken; but we must separate heaven from the word which invests it, while it reveals it; and this is what Jesus Christ teaches us to do. It is an interpretation, moreover, which no commentary can supply for us; we must seek it upon our knees, saying to God, "Open Thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law!" Then we shall receive God's witness within ourselves; then what is written in the heart will agree so well with what is written in the Book, that we shall recognize in both the work of the same Spirit. The Bible, we said, just now, is heaven-spoken; the Bible thus listened to, would be heaven seen, felt, lived! A. Monod. The language of the Bible is divinely chosen; its words and figures are designed to be just what they are: "The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried, seven times refined." We may, therefore, search them, and rationally search them, for a Divine significance. Not one jot or tittle of it shall fail to reward our study. Christ has given us assurance of this; the Light of the World hath told us that the Scriptures are everywhere full of Him and His salvation. He Himself found rich meanings lying under words and forms of speech in which the Sadducean rationalists of His day saw nothing. We may, therefore, expect to discover in them "treasures new and old." We shall see "wondrous things out of the Divine law," and these will be, not merely conceits of our own minds, but thoughts substantial, living ideas, having in themselves evidence that they are true fruits, not of any mere human thinking, but of the "ingrowing Word," the life-giving Word that saves; that is, heals, makes sound, our souls. T. Lewis. We cannot understand our Scriptures without a spirit which is in harmony with them. In the neglect of true Christian culture, in the disuse of spiritual communion and a loving, obedient endeavor, the mind will grow dark. It is an appalling retribution that they who exclude the light gradually lose the power to see. If the real truth is disliked, or regarded with prejudice, the mind will be darkened to its perception. We meet a blind man, with downcast face and hesitating step, groping his way along the street, and are sad for our blind brother. But how much more an object of compassion is he of the sightless soul. W. A. Stearns. The Word of God is the great subject of this Psalm, and it is surprising how much this man found in it, when we think how small a part of that Word was then in his hands. We can only account for it when we light upon a prayer like this, which shows such a desire to use it to full advantage, and an earnest request that God would help him in doing so. The great end of the Word of God then, as now, was practical. Ker.—What the age demands is a more intense study of the Holy Scriptures, accompanied by this prayer of the Psalmist. The Bible itself must be brought out, its mighty spiritual power unfolded, as the best answer to infidelity, the Bible subjectively, the Bible objectively, as the great standing miracle of human history, as presenting a train of events most unaccountable in their bearing, on the world's course, as containing ideas which no philosophy, no theory of development can ever explain. To such study it will reveal itself as "the power of God. Taylor Lewis. Bible students should constitute a body of sound, intelligent, magnanimous, eminently spiritual men and women, the salt of every church, the light of every village and city. Increased knowledge of the Scriptures they undoubtedly have. But is it not, in many cases, the mere letter, the historical fact, the geographical locality, or biographical incident? Do they live in that world of rich conceptions and of imperishable truths which is opened to them in the Bible? B. B. Edwards. 19. A sojourner in the earth.** The prayer is perfectly suited to the condition here described. "A stranger," here but for a little, and yet morally beginning the great hereafter, "never continuing in one stay," and yet possessing one being, and developing and settling that being into character. God's commandments, revealed and brought home to the heart, will yield plentifully all that can be needed in the pilgrim state. In one way or other they touch all the chances and hazards of the journey and all the requirements of the traveler, while they all combine to make one supreme influence of preparation for what will come when the earthly journey is over. Raleigh.—The pilgrim-spirit is the pulse of the soul. All of us are travelling to eternity. The worldling is at home in the earth, a pilgrim only by constraint. The child of God is a stranger in the earth. Heaven is the country of his birth. His kindred, his inheritance, his Saviour, his hope, his home is there. C. B. Hide not Thy commandments. Here is a creature of sensibility and affection standing in this world, self-severed from it, separate, disportioned, lonely, and all for the love of God and in order to keep the best place for Him and His heavenly gifts and joys. Is there not in the very condition a mighty argument for the enforcement of the prayer? It is not possible that God should leave such a prayer without answer. He will "hide" neither His "commandments" nor Himself from such an one. He will reveal. He will refresh. He will visit, surprising the stranger sometimes with the light of an unexpected presence, meeting the pilgrim at times on the upward way to give foretaste and some pre-enjoyment of that perfect blessedness which will come to him when he passes into a world where he will be stranger and pilgrim no more. Raleigh. God's law and His written Word are guides to present duty, which, if faithfully accepted, will help to set you in accordance with the mind of God and the plan He has laid for you. "I am a stranger in the earth," said one, "hide not Thy commandments from me;" knowing that God's commandments would give him a clew to the true meaning and business of his life. . . . The simple thought of a life which is to be the unfolding of a Divine plan is too beautiful, too captivating, to suffer one indifferent or heedless moment. Living in this manner, every turn of your experience will be a discovery to you of God, every change a token of His fatherly counsel. Whatever obscurity, darkness, trial, suffering falls upon you: your defeats, losses, injuries; your outward state, employment, relations; what seems hard, unaccountable, severe, or, as nature might say, vexatious, all these you will see are parts or constitutive elements in God's beautiful and good plan for you. Trust God, have an implicit trust in God, and these very things will impart the highest zest to life! H. B. 20. The object of our desires is an inexhaustible spring. The longing of the soul can never over-reach its object. The cherished desire, therefore, will become the established habit, the element in which the child of God lives and thrives. Let not the fervor of desire here expressed be conceived to be out of reach; nor let it be expected in the way of some sudden manifestation or excitement. Rather let us look for it in a patient, humble, and persevering waiting upon the Lord. C. B.—The Psalmist longed for the Word at all times; in prosperity, to humble him; in adversity, to comfort him; in the one, to keep him from pride; in the other, to keep him from despair; in affliction, the Word was his cordial; in worldly increase, it was his antidote; and so at all times his heart was carried out to the Word either for one necessity or another. Manton. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/ 1. IN my distress I cried unto the LORD, And he answered me. 2 Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, And from a deceitful tongue. 3 What shall be given unto thee, and what shall be done more unto thee, Thou deceitful tongue? 4. Sharp arrows of the mighty, With coals of juniper. 5 Woe is me, that I sojourn in Meshech, That I dwell among the tents of Kedar 6 My soul hath long had her dwelling With him that hateth peace. 7 I am for peace: But when I speak, they are for war. Turs is the first of fifteen Psalms (120-134) all bearing the inscription, song of ascents or upgoings, i.e., sung during the periodical journeys or pilgrimages to Jerusalem at the times of the great yearly festivals. On these occasions the people are said, even in historical prose, to go up to Jerusalem, in reference both to its physical and moral elevation. The Hebrew verb employed in such connections is the root of the noun ascents in these inscriptions. This explanation of the title is much more satisfactory than any other which has been proposed. A.—In all probability the term is derived from the various "ascents," or stations, by which the pilgrims to the feasts came up to Jerusalem. Perhaps these songs were intended as pilgrim-songs for the various companies who were wont to go up together to the mountain of the Lord with music and singing (compare Isa. 30:29). But whether actually used for this purpose or not, they present such remarkable unity as to mark them out as one series, intended to express the feelings of a devout Israelite on beholding Jerusalem and the Temple, and recalling the history and the hopes connected therewith. A. E. Thrice every year, at the beginning and at the close of the wheat harvest, and again when the grapes were gathered and the wine made—at these natural seasons of joy and festivity every "son of the law" had to appear before God. So musical a people as the Jews would be sure to beguile the way with songs; so religious a people, bound, too, on an errand so sacred, would be sure to sing religious songs. And, therefore, we may reasonably infer, as most of our leading critics do infer, that these "Songs of the Goings-up" were the Psalms with which the Hebrew pilgrims lightened the way as, year by year, they went up to the Temple to keep the great feasts of their ecclesiastical calendar. Cox.—The whole group of Psalms is full of that blending of joy and sorrow, of triumph and aspiration, which were so strikingly characteristic of Israel, and which the great feasts were so eminently calculated to express and deepen. W. Milligan. We may fully accept the view advocated by Hengstenberg, Alexander, and many others as to the sense—viz., songs of the upgoings, i.e., songs prepared to be sung by the exiles returning from Babylon to Jerusalem, and also subsequently on their stated journeys going up to the holy city to attend the three great annual festivals. This theory accounts well, both for the leading thoughts and also for the local allusions found in these Psalms. The thoughts meet the case of the restored Jews and their re-established temple worship. This noun (ascents or upgoings) and its verb are used repeatedly for these goings up; the presence of the article (the ascents) favors its definite reference to some well-known and established journeys like these; the oldest of these songs (Psalm 122) contains these very words, naturally suggestive of the sense of this title: "Let us go into the house of the Lord" (v. 1); "whither the tribes go up" (v. 4); and finally, such circumstantial allusions as appear (Psalm 121:1) show that they were approaching the holy city: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills whence cometh my help." C. With this Psalm begins a series of fifteen Psalms, all bearing the same title, "Songs of the Goings-up," and constituting originally, no doubt, a separate hymn-book—a Psalter within a Psalter. Of the different interpretations which have been given of the name the most probable is that which supposes that the Psalms to which this title is prefixed were intended to be sung by the caravans of pilgrims “going up” to keep the yearly feasts at Jerusalem. The collection in its present form must have been made after the return from Babylon, some of the songs containing manifest allusions to the captivity as still fresh in the recollection of the writers. All these odes have certain features in common. With one exception (the one hundred and thirty-second) they are all short—the utterance of a single thought or feeling, a sigh, a hope, a joy. They are alike in tone, in diction, in rhythm. They are all pervaded by the same quiet, graceful, tender beauty, the charm of which was so felt by a Spanish commentator, that he does not hesitate to say that this collection is to the rest of the Psalms what Paradise was to the rest of the world at its first creation. P. It is not strange that Bible students love these pilgrim songs. They attach their great theological and moral utterances to the mind through simple and graphic picture lessons. There is one word which of itself gives them a lasting hold upon the thought and feeling of all Christian ages, and which gathers all their truths and illustrations into one sheaf. The emotion which shook the Hebrew’s heart whenever Jerusalem was named pervades them all. Each pilgrim has his eye upon Moriah while he sings, as the Moslem turns to Mecca in his prayer. Jerusalem! The glory of Solomon, the loved goal of generations of pilgrims, the bitter memory of the exile by the Euphrates, the sorrow of Jesus, the inspiration of Maccabeus, the fiery text of Peter the Hermit, the battle-cry of Godfrey and of Tancred—pervaded, even in eclipse, with that subtle attraction which drew two centuries against its walls in successive billows of blood, burden of mediæval hymns, touched with the glow of Dante’s verse and moving Tasso to immortal song, God’s own type of eternal rest, of a perfect society, and of a pure Church—so has the name passed into Christian thought and Christian song, that he who thinks of heaven has always the yearning of Bernard’s hymn in his heart, if not its words upon his lips: “Jerusalem the glorious! The glory of the elect, O dear and future vision That eager hearts expect! Ev’n now by faith I see thee, Ev’n here thy walls discern; To thee my thoughts are kindled, And strive, and pant, and yearn.” They are no less sermons for being poems. Their lessons are human, not local, fitting as aptly into the nineteenth century as into their own era; as fresh and as wholesome to-day as when the Hebrew pilgrim beguiled with their melody his way through the desert, or chanted them in the streets of his beloved city; and as the shadows lengthen and the degrees grow fewer by which we mount to the Jerusalem above, these pilgrim songs will be oftener on our lips, till we exiles tread the streets where they sing a new song, and need no more the shade at noon and the watch by night. V. The tone and diction of this one hundred and twentieth Psalm mark it as belonging to the period of the Restoration. It begins with an acknowledgment of that great mercy (v. 1), followed by a prayer for deliverance from treacherous and spiteful enemies (v. 2), and a confident anticipation of their punishment (vs. 3, 4), but closes with a further lamentation and complaint of present suffering (vs. 5-7). In this, as in all the other Psalms of the series, the ideal speaker is Israel or Judah, considered as the Church or chosen people. This first verse, although general in its terms, is perfectly appropriate to the captivity, as the distress out of which the sufferer cried to God, and to the Restoration, as the answer to his prayer. A.—The Psalm aptly portrays the condition of the restored exiles, e.g., Zerubbabel and Jeshua, Ezra and Nehemiah, prosecuting the great work of rebuilding the temple and city; harassed by malign and lying enemies who misrepresented and traduced them before the Persian court; compelled them to desist from their enterprise, and caused them long and most vexatious delays and immense trouble. The feelings of those godly men are brought out in this Psalm. C. 1. Cried, answered. The verbs are in the past tense, but do not refer merely to a past occasion. Past experience and present are here combined. From the past he draws encouragement for the present. P. 2. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that half the miseries of human life spring from the reckless and malignant use of the tongue. And these wicked tongues generally wag fastest behind a man’s back, and amid the excitements of social intercourse. We judge these sins of the tongue all too lightly, until we ourselves are injured by them. We are apt to smile when James' scathing description of the unruly, untamable member is read and enforced. Many a man, many a woman, thinks nothing of having spoken an untrue, unkind, or slanderous word, and is politely amused at you if you lay much stress upon it. Yet, so soon as we consider, we see that it is from the bitter waters of this fountain that most of our miseries flow; that the world would be a changed world indeed if none but true and kind words were spoken in it. Cox. 3. What will He give to thee, and what will He add to thee, thou tongue of fraud? Having complained to God of the false tongue, the ideal speaker turns to it as actually present and addresses it directly, speaking of God in the third person. The meaning of the question is, what recompense can you expect from an infinitely righteous God for these malignant calumnies? A.—The phrase seems to mean, "What calamities shall He heap upon thee? How shall punishment upon punishment visit thee?" P. 4. Answers v. 3 with the twofold punishment, which Jehovah will cause the false tongue to feel. The tongue which shot piercing arrows is pierced by the sharpened arrows of an irresistibly strong One; the tongue which set its neighbor in a fever of anguish must endure a lasting heat of broom-coals which consumes it surely and torturingly. D.—The slanderer shall feel woes comparable to coals of juniper, which are quick in flaming, fierce in blazing, and long in burning. He shall feel sharp arrows and sharper fires. The shafts of calumny will miss the mark, but not so the arrows of God; the coals of malice will cool, but not the fire of justice. S. The verse gives a poetic expression to that sacred law of retribution which pervades the Scriptures: Men are to receive according to their deeds. Those whose lying lips shoot out arrows of calumny shall be shot through with arrows; those whose guileful tongue kindles a blackening fire on their neighbors shall themselves be consumed as with fire. It is the old law—old, but never out of date—that as men do, so it shall be done unto them again; that as they sow, so shall they also reap. Cox. 5. It is evident from v. 6 that Meshech and Kedar are mere types and representatives of those who hate peace and delight in war. Compare Ezek. 38: 2, where Meshech appears as a chief leader under Gog, the great prophetic representative of heathendom. A. 6,7. A longing for peace breathes through these verses of the Psalm, and infuses a catholic meaning into it, making it a song not for a day, but for all time. Think what man's common life is like; how full of fret and care and strife; what a babble of conflicting voices from within and from without are forever falling on his ear! In the market, what rivalries and emulations and contentions! In politics, what differences of thought and opinion, what contradictory claims, what bitter enmities! In the home even, what selfishness and equivocation, what care and sorrow, what disappointment of reasonable hopes, what an impossibility of accurately or fully expressing one's self even to the heart that is nearest and kindest! Is it any marvel that a Hebrew, with a deep spiritual longing for peace, should cry as he started for the Temple, "Let me get out of all that, at least for a time. Let me be quit of this fever and strain, free from the vain turbulence and conflicting noises of the world. Let me rest and recreate myself awhile in the sacred asylum and sanctuary of the God of peace. God of peace, grant me Thy peace as I worship in Thy presence; and let me find a bettered world when I come back to it, or, at least, bring a bettered and more patient heart to its duties and strifes." Cox. 1. I WILL lift up mine eyes unto the mountains: From whence shall my help come? 2 My help cometh from the LORD, Which made heaven and earth. 3 He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: He that keepeth thee will not slumber. 4 Behold, he that keepeth Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep. 5. The LORD is thy keeper: The LORD is thy shade upon thy right hand. 6 The sun shall not smite thee by day, Nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD shall keep thee from all evil; He shall keep thy soul. 8 The LORD shall keep thy going out and thy coming in, From this time forth and for evermore. # Jehovah Thy Keeper. THIS song is a charming expression of confidence in the unfailing protection of God. As intended for use by the company of pilgrims, the first two verses may have been sung by one band of singers, and the remainder by another in response. It would be appropriate for morning or evening worship when they were approaching the mountains of Jerusalem. De Witt. This beautiful Psalm is the trustful expression of a heart rejoicing in its own safety, under the watchful eye of Him who is both the Maker of heaven and earth and the Keeper of Israel. The Creator of the universe, the Keeper of the nation is also the Keeper of the individual. The one ever-recurring thought, the one characteristic word of the Psalm, is this word keep. Six times it is repeated in the last five verses of this one short ode. The use of the same word in the original is evidently design—designed to mark by this emphasis of iteration the truth of God's loving care for the individual, and so to banish all shadow of doubt, fear, and anxiety. P. The idea is a very probable one, that the Psalm was the evening song of the sacred pilgrim band, sung on retiring to rest upon the last evening, when the long-wished-for termination of their wandering, the mountains of Jerusalem, had come into view in the distance. In this we obtain a suitable connection with the following Psalm, which would be sung one station further on when the pilgrims were at the gates of Jerusalem. Hengs.—At evening, as they are about to make preparations for their last night's encampment, they behold in the far distance, clear against the dying light of the western sky, the holy hill with its crown of towers. The sight fills them with a sense of peace and security, and from the midst of the band a voice begins; "I will lift up mine eyes to the mountains," etc. And another voice answers, "May He not suffer thy foot to be moved. May He that keepeth thee slumber not." And anon the whole company of pilgrims take up the strain: "Behold, He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep; Jehovah shall keep thee," etc. To-morrow, in the words of the next Psalm, they will sing, "Our feet are standing within thy gates, O Jerusalem." P. So soon as we read it, it commends itself to us by its tender, tranquil beauty. It is the song of a heart urging and persuading itself to a calm, unwavering trust in the sleepless providence of God. The Keeper of the whole nation is the Keeper of the individual man. The Keeper of the man and the nation does not fall into slumber from weariness; nor is His life, through mortal weakness, an alternate waking and sleeping. He guards them from the perils of the night as well as from the perils of the day. He keeps those who trust in Him from evil in every form. He keeps their very soul—their most inward and secret life. He keeps them in all the changes and intercourses of their outward life, their goings out and their comings in. He keeps them through all lapse of time, now and forevermore. By the iteration of one word, by the varied repetition of one thought, by the tenacious insistence on one point, the poet assures himself of the unceasing and watchful care of God, persuades himself to trust in it, banishes every shade of doubt from his heart, and loses all fear, lest he should be overlooked and forgotten by the God who has all men and all worlds on His hands. Cox. It has been said Mr. Romaine read this Psalm every day; and sure it is that every word in it is calculated to encourage and strengthen our faith and hope in God. S. E. Fierce.—It is a token of the inspiration of the Psalms, that, however they may have been prompted by the circumstances of the writers, they come home to our personal experiences, and utter our thoughts and feelings as if coined out of the conflicts and the desires, the sorrows and the hopes, of our own hearts. J. P. T. 1. The whole Psalm is a description of Jehovah as the guardian or protector of His people. The phrase to lift the eyes, though sometimes used to signify the mere act of directing them to an object, has its strict and full sense, when a higher object is particularly mentioned, such as hills or heavens. The mountains here meant are the heights on which Jerusalem is built. A. To the mind of the Jewish poet the everlasting hills of his native land were as shadows of the Infinite. The security which these mountain ranges afforded to Palestine, forming as they did so remarkable a barrier to the land on every side except toward the sea, suggested to the writer of the Psalm an emblem of the Divine protection. G. Forbes.—There is an affinity between souls and hills, especially for those who have become acquainted with their own solemn depths and sublime heights. In man's earthly estate wonderful heights are laid low. He has descended from the eternal hills. Being away from his home and half a stranger to himself, the broken conformations of the outward world, the deep, dark, mist-shrouded valleys, the bold, aspiring, light-seeking mountains, deeply affect him. Man in trouble instinctively looks to the hills; he feels the attraction of the Fatherland, and knows there is help for him there. From the hill of the Lord we receive help in the valley. W. Pulsford. It is looking upward to a Power above us which works the largest effects in both animating and purifying the soul, rather than any introspection, peeping about forever among our own petty attainments or defects. There is some secret provision in our nature which makes this act of looking upward the grandest exercise of our faculties. It is shadowed forth by the fact, that, in the common consent of all languages, what is noblest and best is placed over us. Heaven is arched above our heads. Excellence is a height. When we improve, we ascend. Greatness is figured as an elevation. Virtues in character are measured according to their loftiness. The divinest motions of the human spirit are aspiration and veneration—both looking upward. Prayer, we say, goes up. The more a man sees above him to reverence, the humbler he is; and "he that humbleth himself is in due time exalted." The finest symbols of all generous attainment are mountains and the sky. And just as to a true and thoughtful mind the largest satisfaction found in the society of great hills is in looking up toward them from beneath, and letting the kindled and devout imagination travel up their glorious peaks into the infinitude and mystery whither the summits point, rather than in putting the foot on their crown and sending the eye arrogantly down into the conquered plains, so always, if our spiritual state is right, what is grandest on earth most impels us to look beyond it. F. D. H. The supreme need of the soul is Divine illumination and guidance. The soul of man is to be lifted to its grandest height of spiritual outlook, and strengthened for its loftiest task by keeping the eyes fastened on Him whose throne is in the heavens. S. A. Harlow.—Nothing does so establish the mind amid the railings and turbulence of present things as both a look above them and a look beyond them—above them, to the steady and good hand by which they are ruled; and beyond them, to the sweet and beautiful end to which by that hand they will be brought. Jeremy Taylor.—Whosoever learns this first great lesson, to look away from himself and forget himself, to look to another and know that his help comes to him from without, to look to Christ adoringly, trustingly—and there is nothing so radically opposite to selfishness as this—whosoever can do this, and has done this, finds peace. The eye fills with light only by looking away from itself to the sunlight that is perpetually flooding the heavens. W. I. Budington. 2. He looks up to the holy mountains when he inquires longingly, Whence will my help come? And to this question of longing he answers himself, that his help comes from nowhere else than from Jehovah, the Maker of heaven and earth, from Him that is enthroned behind and upon these mountains, whose saving might reaches even to the remotest distances and corners of His creation, and with whom is help, i.e., both the willingness and the power to help, so that accordingly help comes from no other quarter than from Him alone. D. "I will lift up mine eyes. Whence shall help come to me?" The question, observe, is not how he shall make his way to the help; how he shall get up to the mountains; the help is to come down from the mountains, "My help cometh from the Lord." We do not have first to lift ourselves to God; God comes down to us; and whatever lifting there is to be done, He does. We do not have to climb to our refuge; He compasses our path and our lying down; fortifies the places where we walk and where we rest. We do not have to march to our reserves; when we are hard beset they pour down from the hills of God and range themselves around and beside us, as Elisha saw them from the house-top in Dothan. God Himself comes down into the sphere of our weakness, imperfection, ignorance, spiritual obtuseness, and from that low level commences the work of lifting, enlightening, and developing us. What we want is to have our eyes open so that we may see Him here and now, available to us as we are. V. Maker of heaven and earth; a name of God occurring especially in these pilgrim odes, and other later Psalms. God's creative power and majesty were, especially during the exile, impressed upon the heart of the nation, in contrast with the vanity of the gods of the heathen. P. Nothing less than God's help can really meet his needs. He will not peer into the valleys, he will not turn to fellow-men, to nature, to work, to pleasure, as if they had the relief he needed. "My help cometh from the Lord, who hath made heaven and earth." It is the duty of every man to seek help from the Highest in every department of his life. P. Brooks. There is absolutely no support for tired human spirits but in the idea of God and that which that idea implies. To the mountain of Sinai you must look for the quickening of conscience; to the mountain of Calvary for salvation from sin. As the mountains lift themselves above the world in a "stillness of perpetual benediction," so God rises to our faith and hope above these storm driven plains of time. His Fatherhood overhangs us like a perpetual benediction. He helps us with a help that is quite sufficient, and that sustains us amid all circumstances; yea, with a help that makes us indifferent to circumstance. To men accustomed only to the light of reason and calculation it is difficult to present the spiritual help of the Lord. It cannot be explained. But it is the one profound fact that makes the difference between the submissive and meek-browed; yea, the rejoicing saint, and the complaining and rebellious sinner. The child of God who perhaps has nothing but poverty and pain, misery and misfortune, as the world reckons, somehow holds a boundless peace, and the martyr who smiles in his agonies is not a more conspicuous example of this strange unseen help of God than is the quiet, patient soul who, in ordinary ways of uneventful living, holds a steadfast faith and a happy hope in God. Oh, to be thus acquainted with God! To find His shadow every day on our road! To get His greeting with the morning light and His benediction when the evening falls, to live with Him, to have His shadow when life's evening comes as the good night of time, the good morning of eternity! C. L. Thompson. 3,4. A great practical difficulty is to find a "keeper" who will remain awake during the whole night. The weariness of those who keep a faithful watch, and their longing for day during the tedious lonely hours of darkness, is alluded to in a graphic and beautiful figure of the Psalmist— "My soul waiteth for the Lord More than keepers for the morning, More than keepers for the morning." The usual method adopted to secure due vigilance is to require the man to call out loudly or to blow a whistle every quarter of an hour. Yet, notwithstanding all precautions, as soon as sleep falls on the tired camp, it is too often the case that the hircling keeper lies down on the ground, wraps around him his thick abaiyeh, or cloak, and careless of his charge, or overcome with weariness, yields himself up to his drowsy propensities. Viewed in the light of these facts, how full of condescension and cheer is the assurance of God's never-ceasing care— "He who keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, He who keepeth Israel Doth not slumber or sleep." J. Neil: 4. Having reasoned that the God of nature will care for him, he now reasons that the God of nations will care for him. "He that keepeth Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." The Hebrew's range of history was indeed limited to the history of his own people, but the study of that record had resulted in rooting deeply in the Hebrew mind the conception of God in history. All his education had emphasized one thought, that God had chosen his race and had taken it under His especial protection. He had been taught to associate God directly and intimately with all the heroes of his nation, and with all the incidents of its history. The more clearly he saw God working for his race, the more clearly he saw God working for him. The grandeur of God's dealings with the people as a whole, the occasions on which He handled them as one man, did not at all interfere with his sense of God's hand upon him individually. The fact that God watched over Israel as a nation was to him the best reason for believing that He watched over him. The God whose unslumbering eye had watched the destinies of Israel through all the changing years was the very One whom the pilgrim could most trust to preserve his life from all evil. And the Hebrew not only won comfort, but he drew it legitimately. All the past of all men is yours and mine for the reason that God is in it; and whatever lessons of His power or mercy or forbearance, of His goodness and love, of His favor and vengeance it contains, we may take and He means us to take for our own individual assurance or instruction or warning. V. The "Maker of heaven and earth" is also the "Keeper of Israel." It is His hand which has conducted the chosen people through all the vicissitudes of their strange, eventful history, through the perils of the darkness, through the perils of the light. Must not He, who keeps the whole nation, also keep every member of the nation? On this conception, on this conviction, the poet now plants himself. Standing in this new position, he asks, "Will the Keeper of Israel suffer my foot to totter? will He slumber in His watch over me?" and rejects the supposition with profound emotion. This is the special force of the Hebrew of v. 3, a force which we can only tamely render by representing the Psalmist as assuring himself, "He, verily, will not suffer thy foot to swerve, thy Keeper will not slumber," for thy Keeper is the Keeper of Israel, and the whole history of Israel is a demonstration that He has never slumbered nor slept, never intermitted His providential care. Cox. Fancy that to-night you were lifted above this great city, with its millions of inhabitants—the roof taken from every abode—before your inspection lies open every act of every being at every moment, all which you must see. Every word reaches your ear, and you must listen to all; every form of sorrow, every cry of agony. Not only visible acts, but every secret plan of purity or vice, of virtue or wickedness, every scheme of benevolence, and every purpose of riot, theft, licentiousness, robbery, and murder; every pang of the agonizing wife, mother, or child; the anxieties of the rich, and the distresses of the poor. Multiply these by a thousand—for a thousand millions of such beings people our earth. Hold in your memory—nay, ever-present before you—all the acts of these millions in the moments past, while the present moment unfolds its vastness, and add to that a foreknowledge of the interminable future. Under such a pressure every nervous system must be prostrate, every brain must reel. God alone knows, sees, understands all; and He is never weary, He never slumbereth or sleepeth. M. Simpson. 5. The Lord is thy keeper.** Two principal points are asserted in these words. Jehovah, and Jehovah alone, the omnipotent and self-existent God, is the Keeper and Preserver of His people. The people of God are kept, at all times and in all circumstances, by His mighty power unto everlasting salvation; they are preserved even "forevermore." A. Serle. Keeper. Shade. The titles of God are virtually promises, as when He is called a sun, a shield, a strong tower, a hiding-place, a portion. The titles of Christ, light of the world, bread of life, the way, the truth, and life; the titles of the Spirit, the Spirit of truth, of holiness, of glory, of grace, and supplication, the sealing, witnessing Spirit; faith may conclude as much out of these as out of promises. Clarkson. The whole movement of Scripture doctrine, of its history and imagery is from God downward to man; and the incarnation, which gathers up all Scripture into itself, which is the key to all its history and to all its symbolism, is expressly a movement out of the very heart of God, down to sick, suffering, erring, sin-stained man. The life, the words, the death of Jesus Christ, are simply God's way of saying to man, "All things are yours;" and so the Hebrew pilgrim was on the right track when he combined creative power and providential care in one and the same Being; when he recognized in the God of the mountains, the Father "full of grace and truth," and saw nothing inconsistent in God's creating and ordering the heavenly host, and in God's making Himself a shadow in the heat for a weary man in the desert; in God's keeping watch and ward round the circuit of the heavens, and in God's acting as sentinel of a pilgrim's tent in the wilderness. V. 5, 6. "The Lord thy shade," throwing over thee the grateful shelter which thou mayest need. This shade will avert the sun-stroke in the heats of day, and whatever malarious or otherwise harmful influences may imperil you by night. There is no occasion to assume that the Scriptures endorse the notion of noxious influence from the moon itself. Night, with or without moon, brings more or less that is noxious. C. The inward voice gives him the distinct assurance, "Jehovah is thy Keeper—thy Keeper, and not only the Maker of heaven and earth; thy Keeper, and not only the Keeper of Israel. He cares for thee, and watches over thee. When you are on the march, He will be to thee as a shadow from the heat, and a screen from the dazzling radiance that perturbs the senses, 'the sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.' In all changes of season and time He will be thy guard, adapting His help to thy varying needs." Cox. 7. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil.** It is an absolute promise, there are no conditions annexed; it honors God for us simply to believe it, and rest on the Lord for the performance of it. As we view it, what have we to fear? The mouth of the Lord hath spoken it, His Word is immutable. Jesus is the Saviour of the body as well as of the soul. S. E. Pierce.—The threefold expression, "shall keep thee . . . thy soul . . . thy going out and thy coming in," marks the completeness of the protection vouchsafed, extending to all that the man is and that he does. P. 8. Jehovah will keep thy going out and thy coming in, from now even to eternity.** This is the third repetition of the phrase, *Jehovah will keep, i.e., keep safe, protect, preserve, as if to silence the misgivings of a weak or tempted faith, by the reiterated declaration of this cheering truth. Going out and coming in is a proverbial Hebrew phrase for all the occupations and affairs of life. The original reference is to man's going out to labor in the morning and returning home to rest at night. A.—A promise that we shall be kept in all our ways; that in all our business, in all our movements, amid all the changes and chances of our mortal life, we shall evermore be defended by that ready help which issues from an eye that cannot close and an arm that cannot fail. "Even forevermore." There is a "going out" from this world; there is a "coming in" to the next world. Our "going out" through the dark valley shall be under the guidance of that blessed Shepherd whose rod and whose staff shall never fail to comfort the believer; our "coming in" to the heavenly city shall be as heirs with that glorious Redeemer who must reign until He has put all enemies under His feet. Melvill. God's presence is enough for toil and enough for rest. If He journey with us by the way, He will abide with us when nightfall comes; and His companionship will be sufficient for direction on the road, and for solace and safety in the evening camp. Maclaren.—Thou shalt be under His protection in all thy journeys and voyages, outward bound or homeward bound, as He kept Israel in the wilderness, in their removes and rests. He will prosper thee in all thy affairs at home and abroad, in the beginning and in the conclusion of them. He will keep thee in life and death, thy going out and going on while thou livest, and thy coming in when thou diest; going out to thy labor in the morning of thy days, and coming home to thy rest when the evening of old age calls thee in (104 : 23). H. How large a writ or patent of protection is granted here! No time shall be hurtful, neither "day nor night," which includes all times. Nothing shall hurt, neither sun nor moon, nor heat nor cold. These should include all annoyances. Nothing shall hurt. "Thy soul shall be preserved, thy outgoings and thy comings in shall be preserved." These include the whole person of man, and him in all his just affairs and actions. Nothing of man is safe without a guard, and nothing of man can be unsafe which is thus guarded. They should be kept who can say, "The Lord is our keeper;" and they cannot be kept, no, not by legions of angels, who have not the Lord for their keeper. None can keep us but He, and He hath promised to keep us "forevermore." Caryl.—There is something very striking in the assurance that the Lord will not suffer the foot even of the most faint and wearied one to be moved. The everlasting mountains stand fast, and we feel as if, like Mount Zion, they could not be removed forever; but the step of man—how feeble in itself, how liable to stumble or trip even against a pebble in the way! Yet that foot is as firm and immovable in God's protection as the hills themselves. In the hours of occupation and hurry, in the conflicts and perils of the day, in the helplessness of sleep, in the glare and heat of the noon-day, amid the damps and dews of night, that unslumbering eye is still over every child for his good. Man, indeed, goeth forth to his work and to his labor till the evening; but alike as he goes forth in the morning, and as he returns in the evening, the Lord still holds him up in all his goings forth and his comings in; no manner of evil shall befall him. And oh! what a sweet addition is it to the promise, "He shall keep thy soul." From the very dawn of life to its latest close, even forevermore, "He will keep thee from all evil; He will keep thy soul." Bouchier. The Psalmist has celebrated God's watchful providence over us in our journeyings, as defending us from the sun by day and the moon by night, as preserving us from all evil, and keeping our very feet from harm. Paul ascribed "a prosperous journey" to "the will of God;" and James has instructed us, when we have a journey in view, to say, "If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this or that." In these days of frequent and hurried journeying, there is less time for religious preparation, and often there is little thought of it. Yet, when we consider that the very facility and frequency of travel have multiplied both its pleasures and its perils, we surely shall bethink ourselves to commend to God those who are journeying by land or sea; and, in going from home, will commit ourselves to Him who is present everywhere and at every moment, and who doth neither slumber nor sleep. J. P. T. As we gather up the lessons of the Psalm, we find a suggestion of our own helplessness in the words which assure us of Divine protection; we have the positive assurance of that protection based upon God's power in creation, and God's wisdom and love as shown in the past experience of His people. We are made to see that as our chief danger is spiritual, so our need of protection is constant, and that none but a Divine Protector can insure our safety; and that, in order to avail ourselves of this eternal safeguard, we must live within its compass, and not think that we can pass our time at our own pleasure, and in the place of our own choosing, and then claim God's protection when emergencies arise. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High, and abides under the shadow of the Almighty, he only can say of the Lord, "He is my refuge and my fortress." "Because thou hast made the Most High thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling. Because he hath set his love upon Me, therefore will I deliver him." Thus all the pledges and assurances of the Psalm grow up in the sphere of life in God. It is a close walk with God, a life hidden in Him, which alone can interpret the sweetness of these pledges and make them fully available. V. 1. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go unto the house of the LORD. 2 Our feet are standing Within thy gates, O Jerusalem; 3 Jerusalem, that art builded As a city that is compact together; 4 Whither the tribes go up, even the tribes of the LORD, For a testimony unto Israel, To give thanks unto the name of the LORD. 5 For there are set thrones for judgment, The thrones of the house of David. 6. Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: They shall prosper that love thee. 7 Peace be within thy walls, And prosperity within thy palaces. 8 For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be within thee. 9 For the sake of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good. THIS Psalm, full of the sweet inspirations of love for the house of the Lord and for the scenes of worship there, is one of the "songs of the ascents," every thought and sentiment in it being adapted to the case of Hebrew families joyfully setting forth on their stated pilgrimage to the holy city to join in the prescribed worship of stated festivals. C. This Psalm, more emphatically than any in the Songs of Ascents, merits the title of a pilgrim song. It was evidently composed with immediate reference to one of the three yearly festivals, when the caravans of pilgrims "went up" to the holy city. The poet tells us how his heart had filled with joy as his friends and neighbors had invited him to go with them "to the house of Jehovah." The next verse transports us at once within the gates of Jerusalem. They have reached their journey's end; they are in the city which they love. Then the poet tells us, first, the impression made upon his mind by her stateliness and her beauty, and next, how there come crowding upon his memory the scenes of her earlier grandeur, the thought of all she had been as the gathering-place of the tribes of Jehovah, the royal seat of David and of his house. Filled with these thoughts, inspired by these memories, he bursts forth into hearty, fervent prayer—the prayer of one who loved his country as he loved his God, with no common devotion—for the welfare of that city so glorious in her past history, and with which all hopes for the future were so intimately bound up. And so the beautiful ode closes. P. We have heard the Hebrew pilgrims bid farewell to their homes as they started for Jerusalem, with a sigh for peace, a prayer for Divine protection. We have heard them sing their evening hymn, what time the caravan halted for the night, as they looked toward the Mount of Succor and Benediction, and rejoiced in the Lord their Keeper. And, now, we rejoin them as they arrive in the Holy City, and, with the perils of the journey behind them, rejoice in the stately beauty of Jerusalem, in its pathetic memories, and in the sanctuary which is its crown and pride. No other Psalm in the pilgrims' Psalter is so emphatically a pilgrim song as this. It was obviously written for the occasion, and not merely adapted to it; its author intended it to be sung as the caravans passed through the streets of Jerusalem on their way to the Temple. It was admirably suited to the purpose. It gathers into itself whatever could deepen and prolong the joy of the moment from the personal experience of the pilgrims, from their patriotic traditions, from their prophetic hopes. Cox. 1. Here is an example of the spirit in which we ought to approach the public worship of God; in a spirit of holy gladness. Ravensley. 2. Standing are our feet in Thy gates, O Jerusalem! The common version (shall stand) is entirely ungrammatical. The past tense of the substantive verb with the participle means strictly have been standing, i.e., have begun to stand, or are already standing. A.—Our feet are standing. The lively expression of the satisfaction and delight of one who finds himself on this high day of festal joy within the sacred walls, mingling with the throng of worshippers who crowd the courts of the temple, and taking his part, with a full sense of his privileges as an Israelite, in the solemn services of the feast. P. 3. When he and the other visitors to the feast had reached the goal of their pilgrimage, and their feet stood still in the gates, as if charmed by the overpowering, glorious sight, he exclaims: Jerusalem, O thou that art built up again. Jerusalem has risen again out of its ruined and dismembered condition, the breaches and gaps are done away with, it stands there as a city in which house joins on to house. D. 4,5. Glances at the earlier times, when Jerusalem had been the great religious and political centre of the nation, the dwelling-place of Jehovah, to whose temple all the tribes were gathered at the three great feasts, and the seat of government of kings of the house of David. This had been its double glory. P.—Jerusalem is very fair to him in its present beauty, and it is pleasant to him to keep the feast for its own sake. But both feast and city grow more fair and pleasant and attractive as he remembers that, from of old, "the tribes, the tribes of Jah," came up to the city in which he now stands, and kept the feast which he know attends. And in the main current of his song he runs back to David, and dwells on the fact that here, in this city, "thrones" had long been "set for the house of David," i.e., for David and his descendants, David and his dynasty. Cox. 5. Thrones for judgment. On a throne of ivory, brought from Africa or India, the throne of many an Arabian legend, the kings of Judah were solemnly seated on the day of their accession. From its lofty seat, and under that high gateway, Solomon and his successors after him delivered their solemn judgments. That "porch" or "gate of justice" still kept alive the likeness of the old patriarchal custom of sitting in judgment at the gate; exactly as the Gate of Justice still recalls it to us at Granada, and the Sublime Porte ("the Lofty Gate") at Constantinople. Stanley. Jerusalem, the city of the one national sanctuary, was at the same time the city of the Davidic kingship. The phrase "thrones of judgment" is transferred here from the judicial persons who sit in judgment, to the seats which are set down and stand there for judgment. In the golden age of the Davidic kingship the palace was also the supreme court of justice in the land; the king was the chief judge, and the sons, brothers, or kinsmen of the king were his assessors and councillors. In the time of the poet it is different; but the attractiveness of Jerusalem, not only as the city of Jehovah, but also as the city of David, remains for all times. D. The house of David. The expression plainly points to successors of David, not to members of his family associated with himself in government, administration of justice, etc. 6-9. The last four verses of the Psalm breathe a spirit of the noblest, most unselfish patriotism. Not for his own sake, but for the sake of his brethren—the people at large—and for the sake of his God, His temple, and His service, he wishes peace to Jerusalem, and calls upon others to wish her peace. With love to Israel and love to Jehovah there is naturally united a warm affection for Jerusalem, a hearty interest in her welfare. P. The Psalmist is a man of God as well as a man of Israel. The temple is even dearer to him than the city. He is moved by religious as well as by patriotic emotion. The fate of Israel is bound up with that of the palace of the Great King. And so, looking rather to the future than to the past, he breaks out into a profusion of good wishes for Jerusalem, and for all who love her, not for her own sake simply, but mainly “for the sake of the house of the Lord.” One and the same good wish is cast into many varied forms, denoting the fervor of the spirit from which they proceed. He calls on all men to pray for the peace of the City of Peace. He wishes prosperity to all who love her. For himself he wishes and prays, “Peace be within thy walls, prosperity within thy palaces.” And he says on behalf of his brethren and friends, “Peace to thee,” saluting the city as though it were a person. He vows that, because the House of God stands in the midst of her, he will never cease to seek the good of the city. In all this variety of form—in adjuration and prayer, in salutation and vow—it is the fervor of the devout patriot that speaks. He holds the sanctuary to be the centre and stay of the national life. He holds that all Israel should exist for Jerusalem, and all Jerusalem for the temple, since the temple is the house and palace of the Most High. Cox. A concern for the peace and happiness of our country is not only a political, but a religious virtue; a care that becomes us both as we are men, and as we are Christians; which stands not upon the narrow bottom of self-interest, but rises from a more generous principle, partaking of the love of God and love of our neighbor; since, while we seek the public peace, we show our beneficence to the one, and our obedience to the other. Bishop Sherlock. 6. “The peace of Jerusalem” is proposed as an object for prayer. “Peace” is here used to denote prosperity, all that is good. The Psalmist thus explains it in the succeeding verse: “Peace be within thy walls, prosperity within thy palaces.” The word, taken in this large acceptance, was customary among the Israelites; they wished “peace” to each other in the sense of “all good things.” R. Hall. The Psalm teaches us not simply what the Hebrew pilgrims felt, but also what God would have us feel. He would have us glad when we are summoned to His house. He would have us deepen our gladness by recalling the glorious company, the goodly fellowship, with which we associate ourselves so often as we come and stand before Him. He would have us pray for the peace and prosperity of His Church, and seek its good. He assures us that we shall prosper as we labor for its prosperity, that we shall enter into peace as we seek its peace. Cox. The prosperity of the Church consists in the piety of its members. Their numbers, without this, are as nothing. A church without piety is a synagogue of Satan, a sect and school of pestilence. The measure of piety in a church is the measure of prosperity. Without this, however rich, it is poor; however outwardly flourishing, inwardly wretched. Where the love of God, the faith of Jesus Christ, the fruits of the Spirit abound, there the Church is in a state of prosperity, however afflicted in outward circumstances. As members of the Church, we profess to make ourselves over to the Father, Son, and Spirit; if we keep back our hearts from God, if we transfer our affections to the world, we are not true members of the Church; our profession is false and hollow. Another feature of church prosperity is the prevalence of brotherly love; the spirit of union among the members. This is the mind of Christ, and He prescribes it as His own new commandment, as the distinguishing characteristic of His true disciples. How lovely a spectacle does that church present in which brotherly love prevails! no jarring passions, no envious competitions; but a delightful retirement from the troubles of the world. It is when Christians preserve “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” that the prosperity of the Church of Christ peculiarly appears. Conscientious and diligent attendance on all the ordinances of religion, public and domestic, is a third requisite to the prosperity of a Christian society. Neglect of these is contagious among the members, and fatal to the well-being of a church. All should conspire to strengthen the hands of their ministers and their brethren by an attentive observance of the appointed means of grace. To this must be added, as a fourth point, the due exercise of church discipline. The spiritual power with which Christ has armed His Church is a high and mysterious power, which has no parallel on earth. The sentence of excommunication, in particular, harmonizing with the dictates of conscience, and re-echoed by her voice, is truly terrible; it is the voice of God, speaking through its legitimate organ, which he who despises ranks with heathen men, joins the synagogue of Satan, and takes his lot with an unbelieving world, doomed to perdition. Excommunication is a sword which, strong in its apparent weakness, and the sharper and more efficacious for being divested of all sensible and exterior envelopments, lights immediately on the spirit, and inflicts a wound which no balm can cure, no ointment can mollify, but which must continue to ulcerate and burn, until it be healed by the blood of atonement, applied by penitence and prayer. R. Hall. If a man loves God he will take his part with God, just as a citizen who loves his country will take the part of his country. He will draw himself to all God's friends and count them brothers, rejoicing with them in the fellowship of the common love. He will set himself in every manner to strengthen, comfort, edify, stimulate them in their fidelity and application to good works. All this he will do by the simple instinct of his love to God. If there were no such thing enjoined upon the disciples of Christ as a formal profession, or church organization, there would yet be generated, within six months, exactly the same thing. The disciples would come out of the world in a body, testifying what God has done for them in the quickening grace of Christ shed abroad in their hearts, and claiming their fellowship with each other. They would band themselves together in holy covenant before God, to co-operate in a form of spiritual order—a church. They would have their officers and leaders. They would watch for each other. They would have terms adjusted by which to separate themselves from hypocrites and impostors—all that we now have in our formal politics and church compacts. Co-operation is the strength of such as have a common cause, and organization is the certain requisite of this. H. B. This work of Christ's house is varied to different individuals. "The Son of Man gave to every one;" that is, to each one, his work. Some are there to teach, some to counsel and administer; some to tend the young; some to visit the sick-bed; some to conduct the temporal affairs of the Church; some to be liberal givers as God has prospered them, and some, without any formal mode of action, come under this description, which applies to them all: "Sons of God, without rebuke, shining as lights in the world, holding forth the Word of Life." It is very beautiful to see how the God who has bound His world into a grand harmony by its very diversity, has arranged for this same end in His Church, by giving the members their different faculties of work; how the pure light that comes from the sun breaks into its separate hues when it touches the palace-house of Christ, with its varied cornices and turrets, till every color lies in tranquil beauty beside its fellow. If it is not so it should be so; and as the Church grows it will be so. Use and ornament, the corner-stone and the cope-stone, shall both be felt to have their due place. To see how this may be, is to perceive that an end can be put to all jealousies and heart-burnings, and may help us even now to take our position calmly and unenviously, working in our department, assured that our labor shall be found to contribute to the full proportion of the whole. Ker. Righteous men, lovers and doers of the truth, are as the lightning conductors, drawing aside the fiery bolts of His vengeance, which would else have long since scorched, shattered, and consumed a guilty world. Oftentimes, it may be, they are little accounted of among men, being indeed the hidden ones of God crying in their secret places for the things which are done against the words of God's lips. The world may pass them, may know nothing of them, yet it is for their sakes that the world is endured and continues unto this day. And this reminds us of the duty of prayer and intercession for others. Prayer for others is never lost, is never in vain; often by it we may draw down blessing upon others, but always and without fail it will return in blessing on ourselves. Trench. In praying for the salvation of a single soul, we pray for more than the whole world and its glories, more than the empire of the world, more than all possible inanimate creations. For we pray for one on whom the good pleasure of the Holy Trinity rests; for one whom the Father wills to be saved, for whom the Son was in- carnate, with whom the Holy Ghost has pleaded and will plead. Oh, for heart of fire, for fiery zeal for souls, that if we can do no more, we may yet plead with God with burning thoughts, burning longings, burning desires, for God's glory in the salvation of souls! Pusey. The true and grand idea of a church is a society for the purpose of making men like Christ, earth like heaven; the kingdoms of the world the Kingdom of Christ. Arnold. There is no other cause, compact, institution now on foot in the world which is at all comparable for benefit and dignity with the Church of God. It has outlived the great empires, three or four tiers of them in succession. It has created new empires, such as this of ours. It has leavened all human society with elements of advancement, by which educations, laws, liberties, sciences, inventions, constitutions, have been coming all the while into flower. It would take whole hours just to give the shining roll of names that in worth and genius, and true sainthood, have been marching out into their great history in it, for these almost nineteen hundred years. The history, I grant, is in some sense an awful history. The woes are sharp, the fires are hot, the prisons are bursting with wail; women-martyrs, child-martyrs, the general bleeding host of persecuted merit move on, as it were, in procession to die. From age to age it has been rock, as the Saviour promised, to the wrath surging heavily against it; rock, also, which is yet more strange, to the horrible rage of cruelty and crime within. Unable to be shaken by either this or that, it still stands firm as no political state or kingdom could have stood, even for a generation; till now we see it emerging, as we think, in the grace alone of the cross; in that to be full-organized, society complete, everlasting, universal, inviolable brotherhood. The Church is everlasting, the only fabric, structure, institute, society, or state that is. And how grand a thing it is that, going in hither, we can build ourselves into the eternal. Against all else a statute runs of limitation. Getting wealth we get no charter for breathing. Getting fame we shall not be on hand to hear the ring of it. Going into the healing of bodies we can only patch them up for an hour. Going into the law we give ourselves to what was made last year, and will be unmade the next. Public honors vanish, and statesmanship and states are only for a time, and commonly a very short time. Not so the Church of God, the great, everlasting all-worlds' society; that remains, and if we put much cost and sacrifice into it, all the better. H. B. With all our divisions the Christian Jerusalem is compact in itself together. What occupies the hearts and tongues of the myriads of worshippers that assemble themselves weekly in the sanctuaries of our beloved land, and of the millions that assemble beyond the Atlantic billows, but the one glorious Gospel of the grace of God? Yonder and yonder and yonder, whatever their name, their place, or their outward worship, are myriads of true hearts, beating with one pulse, gazing on one hope, possessed of one conviction, and praying and pressing forward to one blessed home. Robert Nisbet. 1. UNTO thee do I lift up mine eyes, O thou that sittest in the heavens. 2 Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hand of their master, As the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress; So our eyes look unto the LORD our God, Until he have mercy upon us. 3. Have mercy upon us, O LORD, have mercy upon us: For we are exceedingly filled with contempt. 4 Our soul is exceedingly filled With the scorning of those that are at case, And with the contempt of the proud. ALSTED beautifully entitles this Psalm "The Eye of Hope." "This" says Luther, "is a deep sigh of a pained heart, which looks round on all sides, and seeks friends, protectors, and comforters, but can find none. Therefore it says, 'Where shall I, a poor despised man, find refuge? I am not able to preserve myself; wisdom and plans fail me among the multitude of adversaries who assault me; therefore I come to Thee, O my God, to Thee I lift my eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the heavens.' He places over against each other the Inhabitant of heaven and the inhabitants of the earth, and reminds himself that, though the world be high and powerful, God is higher still. What shouldst thou do, then, when the world despises and insults thee? Turn thine eyes thither, and see that God, with His beloved angels and His elect, looks down upon thee, rejoices in thee, and loves thee.' This Psalm is either the sigh of the exile, toward the close of the captivity looking in faith and patience for the deliverance which he had reason to hope was now at hand; or it is the sigh of those who, having already returned to their native land, were still exposed to "the scorn and contempt" of the Samaritans and others, who, favored by the Persian Government, took every opportunity of harassing and insulting the Jews. Compare Neh. 2:19, "They laughed us to scorn and despised us," with v.4 of the Psalm, "The scorn of them that are at ease, the contempt of the proud." P.—It makes two main points: How we lift up our eyes unto the Great Lord above, and why; under what stress of trial—viz., the reproach and scorn which fills and oppresses our souls. The infant colony was feeble; their enemies strong, and as the history shows, very insulting. C. The Psalm should be dear to us also for its own sake. It gives brief but impressive expression to all the gentler and nobler moods of the man who "suffers, and is strong"—to his sense of utter dependence on God, to his entire submission to the Divine will, to his eager and watchful obedience, to his patience while that will ordains that he shall only "stand and wait," to his unfaltering trust in the rectitude and goodness of that will, to his hope that it will yet take on forms of grace, to the charity which constrains him to include his fellows in his prayer for the succors of heavenly mercy. Cox.—This Psalm is but short, and therefore a very fit example to show the force of prayer not to consist in many words, but in fervency of spirit. For great and weighty matters may be comprised in a few words, if they proceed from the spirit and the unspeakable groanings of the heart, especially when our necessity is such as will not suffer any long prayer. Every prayer is long enough if it be fervent and proceed from a heart that understandeth the necessity of the saints. Luther. 1,2. The destinies of all men and more especially of the Church are in the hand of Him who sits enthroned in the unapproachable glory of heaven as the King who rules over all things and the Judge who decides all things. Up to Him the poet lifts his eyes, so also the Church; just as the eyes of servants are directed toward the hand of their lord, and the eyes of a maid toward the hand of her mistress; for this hand regulates the whole house, and they look for its becks and directions with most eager attention. The people of Israel are Jehovah's servants; the community of Israel is Jehovah's maid. In His hand lies its future. He will at length have pity upon His own. Therefore its longing gaze is turned toward Him, without wearying, until He graciously turn its distress. D. 2. "As the eyes of slaves," watching anxiously the least movement, the smallest sign of their master's will. The image expresses complete and absolute dependence. Savary, "Letters on Egypt," says, "The slaves stand silent at the bottom of the rooms with their hands crossed over their breasts. With their eyes fixed upon their master they seek to anticipate every one of his wishes." In the Psalm the eye directed to the hand of God is the oculus sperans, the eye which waits, and hopes, and is patient, looking only to Him and none other for help. P. The believer glories in the name and office of a servant of Christ, or in being as Paul called himself, the slave of the Lord Jesus; he knows that his Saviour is all-wise, and almighty, and merciful and good, and that if He will only take the ordering of our concerns, and of those of the Church and of the world into His own hands, it must be wisdom to leave them there, and to seek and implicitly to follow His orderings. The idea of there being anything slavish and demeaning in such service is unknown to the Christian, for he seeks to have every thought brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. It will be felt by all that such a service both evidences and must foster high attainments in the Christian life. Under a skilled business man or a good housekeeper, attentive servants will be able to do the work of those that employ them, and to know their business and to gain their confidence so that it is felt to be safe to leave all in their hands, if need be. Such a servant is accounted invaluable, and will be greatly beloved. So is it in Christ's service. We may be sure that one who is ever eyeing the Master will know much about Him, His glory, His purposes, His work and will, and will have many delightful evidences of His love and favor. The Queen of Sheba said to Solomon, "Happy are thy men, happy are these thy servants which stand continually before thee, and that hear thy wisdom." A greater than Solomon is here. Unspeakably precious is it to have attained to such service under the Master. W. H. Lewis. 3,4. The Psalm is remarkable for the entire absence of anything like impatience in its language. From the expression of trustful dependence it passes to the earnest, heartfelt Kyrie eleison in which it pours out in few words the trouble whence springs the prayer. P. We hear the prayer he has come to court to urge. How much he is in earnest we learn from the repetition, "Be gracious unto us, be gracious unto us." How much he has suffered we learn from that other repetition, "Long have we been filled with contempt, long has our soul been filled with the scorn of the insolent, the contempt of the proud." We feel, we cannot but feel that he and those whom he represents have been deeply wronged, that they have suffered long and much. We are struck, we cannot but be struck with the meekness they have displayed and still display. No word of impatience or resentment breaks from their spokesman's lips, no imprecation on his foes or theirs. He asks for justice, as a grace, to the wronged; he does not ask for vengeance on the wrong-doers. The people he represents know not what to do, but their eyes are up unto the Lord their King. They are His. Their future lies in His hand. At last He will take compassion on His own. And they will wait, wait patiently, for Him, knowing that, though He tarry, He will come, and come to give them the desire of their heart. Whoever was the author of the Psalm, and whatever the period at which it was written, the Hebrew pilgrims often found it much to their mind. There were many dark years in their history, years of disaster, defeat, subjection. From the time of the captivity they knew little rest. Invasion succeeded to invasion, war to war. They never continued in one stay. And in all the clouded years of these five centuries—when the Syrians, the Greeks, the Romans were in the land—they must have known what it was to be loaded and bowed down with "the scorn of the insolent." Again and again they must have taken refuge in the conviction that, though men might be against them, He who sat "enthroned in heaven," ruling over all races, determining all events, was at once their Judge and their Friend. Again and again they must have felt that they stood waiting on the Lord, like the slave whose eyes are fixed on his master's hand, like the suppliant who has appealed for redress. Again and again, therefore, no prayer would be more native to their lips than, "Be gracious unto us, O Lord, be gracious unto us, for long have we been filled with contempt." Cox. 1. If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, Let Israel now say; 2 If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, When men rose up against us: 3 Then they had swallowed us up alive, When their wrath was kindled against us: 4 Then the waters had overwhelmed us, The stream had gone over our soul: 5. Then the proud waters had gone over our soul. 6 Blessed be the LORD, Who hath not given us as a prey to their teeth. 7 Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: The snare is broken, and we are escaped. 8 Our help is in the name of the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. IN Psalms 123-125 we have three successive pictures, or rather three parts of one and the same picture; for they are not only linked together as representing successive scenes in one history, but they are also pervaded by one great master thought which lends its unity to the whole group. In each there is the same full recognition of Jehovah's grace and power as working both for the deliverance and the security of His people. In the one hundred and twenty-third Psalm, "The eye waits upon Jehovah, till He be gracious." In the one hundred and twenty-fourth, "If Jehovah had not been on our side, men had swallowed us up alive. . . . Our help is in the name of Jehovah." In the one hundred and twenty-fifth, "The mountains are about Jerusalem, and Jehovah is round about His people." There can be little doubt that this Psalm (the one hundred and twenty-fourth) records the feelings of the exiles when the proclamation of Cyrus at length permitted them to return to their native land. P. The returned captives were few and poor and weak. They returned to a land wasted by fire and sword, choked with jungle, overrun with wild beasts, and to a city which had been reduced to a mere heap of ruins. The half-heathen inhabitants of Samaria plundered and derided them, and were only kept from flying at their throats by the Persian satraps. They had to watch against surprise while they built. The fields, which they had laboriously cleared and tilled, were often plundered by marauding bands as the harvest approached. Yet these men were the men who first sang this joyful and exultant Psalm! With what stout hearts must they have looked fortune and misfortune in the face! And if we ask the secret of their strength, the answer is plain and clear. It is simply this—trust in God. He had delivered them from the Babylonian snare; would He not sustain and guard them now that they had escaped? He had plucked them out of the dark, tempestuous sea in which they were sinking; would He not give them rest from their enemies round about, and establish the work of their hands upon them, now that they had returned to the city He loved, and were rebuilding the house in which He dwelt? Was it not reasonable to suppose that He had a purpose of mercy concerning them who had wrought so great a deliverance for them, and that He would carry it out? Cox. I. If (it had) not (been) Jehovah who was for us—oh, let Israel say. This Psalm consists of two parts, an acknowledgment of God as the deliverer of Israel (vs. 1-5), and a consequent determination to trust in Him exclusively for future favors (vs. 6-9). The verse before us propounds the theme of the whole composition in a more striking form. A. Many a time may Israel say to this day, had not the Lord been on their side, their enemies would have overcome them. But the Lord was on their side, He turned their captivity, He delivered them from their persecutors, He caused the wrath of men to praise Him, and restrained the remainder of their wrath. He sometimes diverted the attention of their enemies by secular distractions; the Divine Being so interfered as to create a second interest favorable to His Church, and made monarchs, for their own advantage, protect that Church which they would otherwise persecute and oppress. All hearts are in His hands; He can say to the proudest waves of human wrath, Hither shall ye go, and no farther. He makes the worm Jacob to thresh the mountains. He allows His Church to be the only society which subsists from age to age without any alteration; it exhibits the same form, is maintained by the same principles, and speaks the same voice that issued from the infantile Church at the first period of her history. R Hall. Jehovah is on the side of His people in a spiritual sense. God the Father is on their side; His love and relation to them engage Him to be so; hence all those good things that are provided for them and bestowed on them. Christ is on their side; He is the surety for them, the Saviour of them; He is their King who protects and defends them here, their Advocate and interceding High-Priest who pleads their cause and obtains every blessing for them. The Spirit of Jehovah is on their side, to carry on His work in them; to assist them in their prayers and supplications; to secure them from temptations; and to comfort them in all their castings down. Were this not the case, what would become of them! Gill. 6,7. Now that the fact of the Divine succor has been expressed, there follow the thanksgiving for it and the exultation of the rescued ones. In v. 6 the enemies are thought of as beasts of prey because of their lust for blood, just as the world-powers are in the Book of Daniel; in v. 7 they are thought of as fowlers because of their craftiness. D. 6-8. Opening with a thanksgiving to heaven, this second strophe falls back on the image of the third verse. There the Psalmist had compared the Hebrews to a prey which the ravening beast swallows up alive; here he blesses Jehovah that they have not been "given as a prey to the teeth" of their enemies. Nay, he strikes out a new, yet closely related figure, over which he lingers, as, in the previous strophe, he had lingered on the image of the overwhelming waters—that of the bird and the broken snare. As he conceives of Israel escaping like a quarry from the fangs and claws of a beast of prey, a new similitude of unhoped-for deliverance occurs to him, and he exultingly sings, "Our soul hath escaped like a bird out of the snare of the fowlers; the snare was broken, and we—we escaped." Indeed, the whole Psalm is alive with joy, the joy of an escape, of a triumph, as wonderful as it was unexpected. And yet it is no exultation in his own wit or might which fills the poet's heart. It is not in these that he glories, but in God; for it is not by these that he has been delivered from the toils in which he was caught, from the waters in which he was drowning. Throughout the Psalm gives the glory to God alone. The first strophe opens with the confession, "If Jehovah had not been for us, and had not shown Himself strong in our behalf, we must have been swallowed up and overwhelmed." The second strophe opens with a thanksgiving to Jehovah, who has not given them as a prey to the teeth of their foes. And the whole Psalm closes and reaches its climax in the solemn ascription— Our help is in the name of Jehovah, The Maker of heaven and earth. Cox. 8. The principle of spiritual life with ourselves is precisely that laid down as the principle of national life for the Israelites. God gives us the land of promise for no righteousness of our own. Everything depends on God's mercy, God's will, God's purpose; the certainty of victory depends not upon any feelings, or experiences, or conflicts of ours, but upon the ever-present help of the almighty God. Bishop Goodwin. Blessed be His name, He that has fashioned us will watch over us; yea, He has done so, and rendered us help in the moment of jeopardy. He is our help and our shield, even He alone. He will to the end break every snare. He made heaven for us, and He will keep us for heaven; He made the earth, and He will succor us upon it until the hour cometh for our departure. Every work of His hand preaches to us the duty and the delight of reposing upon Him only. 8. Is there any time in which the ruling sentiment of the Psalm—joyful trust in God founded on a memorable experience of His saving power—is inappropriate on the lips of any man? May not we, may not all, who have "tasted that the Lord is good," sing as sincerely and heartily as the Jews themselves, "If the Lord had not been for us, we had been swallowed up, we had been carried away as by a torrent, we had been overwhelmed as in a raging sea?" May not we, at all times, "bless the Lord, who has not given us up as a prey, but has broken the snares in which we were caught, so that we too have escaped?" May we not, should we not thankfully and joyfully avow that the Maker of heaven and earth has been and is and will be our help? Amid the sorrowful and perplexing vicissitudes to which we are exposed, nothing is more essential than that we should know that He who made all things, and rules all things, is our Refuge and Friend. Living, as we do, amid the play of vast forces, natural and political, over which we have but the slenderest control; affected, and profoundly affected, by events which we can neither shape nor foresee; how can we carry a steadfast and composed heart to our daily toils unless we repose in the Divine and tender wisdom which orders all events and controls all forces to ends of righteousness and love? How can we know any mirth, save the mirth of fools, unless we can joy and rejoice in God our Saviour? Cox. 1. THEY that trust in the LORD are as mount Zion, Which cannot be moved, but abideth for ever. 2 As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, So the LORD is round about his people, From this time forth and for evermore. 3 For the sceptre of wickedness shall not rest upon the lot of the righteous; That the righteous put not forth their hands unto iniquity. 4. Do good, O LORD, unto those that be good, And to them that are upright in their hearts. 5 But as for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, The LORD shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity. Peace be upon Israel. THE exiles had been restored to their own land (see introduction to last Psalm), but fresh perils awaited them there. Not only were they perpetually molested by the Samaritans and others in the rebuilding of the temple and of the city walls, but they were troubled with internal dissensions; Ezra found the "abominations of the heathen" countenanced by the intermarriages of the Jews who returned from the captivity with "the people of those lands," and was dismayed when he learned that "the hand of the princes and the rulers had been chief in this trespass." Nehemiah, at a later period, had to contend against a faction within the city who had taken the bribes of the Samaritans. In rebuilding the walls, he did not trust the priests, the nobles, or the rulers till he had begun the work (Neh. 2 : 16 ; 6 : 17). Even the prophets took part with his enemies against him. Shemaiah, he found, had been hired by Tobiah and Sanballat, and "the prophetess Noadiah and the rest of the prophets" had joined the plot, and sought "to put him in fear," and so to hinder his work (6 : 10-14). To these plots and this defection on the part of many of the Jews themselves there is probably an allusion in vs. 3, 5. On the other hand, the faith of the Psalmist rises above all these dangers. There is One who is the sure defence of His people, who is their bulwark as the mountains are the bulwark of Jerusalem. P. This short Psalm may be summed up in those words of the prophet (Isa. 3 : 10, 11) : "Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him. Woe unto the wicked ! it shall be ill with him." Thus are life and death, the blessing and the curse, set before us often in the Psalms, as well as in the law and in the prophets. H. 1,2. Two images of the security of those who trust in Jehovah : They stand firm as Zion itself, they are like a mountain which cannot be shaken ; they are girt as by a wall of mountains -a natural bulwark against all enemies. P. -"Abideth forever ;" sits on her deep, immovable foundations. So firm is the standing, so safe the state of those who trust with serene and steadfast faith in Jehovah, the God of the covenant and of its promises. The realm of nature furnishes no figure for stability more fine and perfect than the mountain on his base. Oceans are tossed about by tempests ; the grand old cedars come down at last ; the clouds are fickle ; man's mightiest works of art pass away ; but the mountains are always firm to the human foot, are always there, quietly and grandly reposing on their changeless foundations. So are they who trust steadfastly in their God. In v. 2 the figure varies slightly. The mountains stand like military ramparts round about Jerusalem, encircling and defending ; so God is a wall of circumvallation all round about His people. The form of the Hebrew sentence is abrupt, but expressive : "Jerusalem ; the mountains are round about her, and the Lord is round about His people." C. When God is in the midst of a kingdom or city He makes it firm as Mount Zion that cannot be removed. When He is in the midst of a soul, though calamities throng about it on all hands, and roar like the billows of the sea, yet there is a constant calm within ; such a peace as the world can neither give nor take away. That is the way to be immovable in the midst of troubles, as a rock amidst the waves. Leighton. 2. "As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so is the Lord round about His people." This is evidently an allusion to the protection afforded to the city by the wild hills cut up by a thousand ravines, which guard it on every side, and render any approach difficult, especially to a large armed force. Wilson.—The mountains most emphatically stand “round about Jerusalem,” and in doing so must have greatly safeguarded it in ancient times. We are specially told that when Titus besieged the city, he found it impossible to invest it completely until he had built a wall round the entire sides of these mountains, nearly five miles long, with thirteen places at intervals in which he stationed garrisons, which added another mile and a quarter to these vast earthworks. Assaults upon the city, even then, could only be delivered effectively upon its level corner to the northwest, whence every hostile advance was necessarily directed in all its various sieges. To those familiar with these facts, beautifully bold, graphic, and forceful is the Psalmist’s figure of the security of the Lord’s people. Neil. The Lord is round about His people from henceforth even forever. What can be spoken more fully, more pathetically? Can any expression of men so set forth the safety of the saints? The Lord is with them, and round about them on every side that no evil shall come nigh them. It is a most full expression of universal preservation, or of God’s keeping His saints in His love and favor upon all accounts whatsoever; and that not for a season only, but it is “henceforth even for ever.” Owen. 3. For not to rest is the rod of wickedness over the lot of the righteous, to the intent that the righteous may not put forth to iniquity their hands. This unusually long verse clearly shows the actual condition of the chosen people, here assumed or presupposed, as well known to the writer and original readers of the Psalm. The present ascendancy of wicked men is not inconsistent with the truth just stated, because it is to be brought to an end, lest the faith and patience of God’s people should fail, and they should be tempted to renounce His service as unprofitable—nay, as ruinous. A. The “rod” is an emblem of authority, power. The “lot” represents all the interests, all that makes up the state, of the righteous, the sentiment being that the wicked shall not be allowed to hold power over the righteous. The reason is, lest the righteous be tempted beyond their virtue to resort to iniquity in resisting such rule. In this connection, the fact is one manifestation of God’s care of His trustful people. He will not leave them forever; perhaps the sense is not long, under the rod of the wicked. The trial of His people under proud Babylon was terrible. In mercy the Lord cut it short in due time. C. Lest the righteous put forth their hands. The trial is to prove faith, not to endanger it by too sharp a pressure; lest, overcome by this, even the faithful put forth a hand to forbidden pleasure; through force of custom gradually persuading to sinful compliance, or through despair of good, as the Psalmist describes some in his day who witnessed the prosperity of wicked men. Bib. Com. Here is a reason why our Lord will not suffer the rod of the wicked to rest on the righteous: “Lest he put forth his hand unto iniquity.” We never suffer judgment, but mercy is in it; our troubles are dealt out to us by the hand of love; mercy is mixed with them all. The Lord knows the righteous is but frail; He remembers he is but dust, and liable to sin; He is wise to prevent this. When oppression and trials from the wicked bring us low and make us cry to the Lord, then we honor His grace and His power, His truth and His love, by the alliance of our heart. W. Mason.—God has set a limit to the woes of His chosen; the rod may light on their portion, but it shall not rest upon it. The righteous have a lot which none can take from them, for God has appointed them heirs of it by gracious entail; on that lot the rod of the wicked may fall, but over that lot it cannot have lasting sway. The saints abide forever, but their troubles will not. S 4,5. With full heart the Psalmist prays (and invites all to join) for all good to be given to the good, but for such as turn aside from righteous to morally crooked ways, he can only say, The Lord will give them their portion according to their works; with those of their own class. So it must be. How can praying men, living in sympathy with God and righteousness, offer any other prayer as to the final doom of sinners whom the richest offered mercy fails to reclaim? C. 4. They that do good shall find all things working together for their good; if they have a loss they shall receive good by it; if they bear a cross, that cross shall bear good to them. Caryl.—The persons for whom prayer is presented, and who have an interest in the Divine promises, are brought before us under different denominations. In the first verse they are described as trusting in the Lord; in the second verse they are described as the Lord’s people; in the third verse they are called the righteous; in the fourth verse they are called good and upright in heart, and in the fifth verse they are called Israel. N. M. Michael. 5. Such as turn aside unto their crooked ways. The ways of sin are called "crooked ways." The Psalmist calls them "their crooked ways;" that is, the ways of their own devising; whereas the way of holiness is the Lord's way. To exceed or do more: to be deficient or do less, than God requires, both these are "crooked ways." The way of the Lord lies straightforward, right before us. Caryl. There was no time in their history when the assurance would not be welcome that God was for them, and that, because they put their trust in Him, they were like Mount Zion, which could not be moved, but stood firm forever. There was no time at which they would not be glad to hear, and to affirm, that God was round about them as the nearer and more distant ranges stood round Jerusalem, so that they need fear no evil. There was no time in which some of them would not consider themselves wronged and oppressed, and take comfort in the promise that the rod of wickedness should not "rest" on the lot of the righteous. There was no time in which an Israelite indeed would not heartily pray that the good might thrive, and that the crafty and the profligate might be destroyed out of the land, or in which "Peace be upon Israel!" would not express the desire of his heart. And hence this song would take its place by natural right in the pilgrims' Psalm-book, and be chanted by generation after generation. Nay, more; in its main scope the Psalm is as appropriate to us as to any Hebrew of them all. In crises of our history we get glimpses of a great darkness hanging all round us, which may at any moment break loose from its bounds, rush over us, and put out all the lights of joy and hope, unless we have the life that springs from the knowledge of God, the strength and courage and unabashed hope which result from trust in Him. And even if we do trust in Him, and so trust in Him that nothing can really harm us, we do not, therefore, lose all fear of harm. Loss, disappointment, tribulation, bereavement, a clouded brain, a broken heart, may harm us, we think; we are not sure that we could meet them with fortitude and hope, or even the immediate prospect of them, although we confess that God could make even these work together for our good. And, therefore, it is pleasant and helpful to us to hear that, as our trust in God grows more perfect, we shall become like a mountain which no tempest can shake. It is pleasant and reassuring to hear that God bends lovingly and protectingly round us. We know and feel that "God is love;" that our defects and griefs are designed to inure and discipline our spirits, to test our constancy, to perfect our patience, to call forth our courage; we rest quietly in the assurance that the love which has ordained our discipline will, by that very discipline, at last redeem us from our defects, and pour itself out upon us in a large, full tide of gifts that will satisfy and transcend our every need and wish. Till that day come, we are content to pray, in the spirit of our Psalm: Do good to them that are good, O Lord! Make us good that we may know good. And sweep away from our path all that is subtle and crooked, no less than all that is openly and unblushingly iniquitous. And grant us Thy peace. Help us to rest in Thee, and in the Providence that guards us, and in the Wisdom that tries and proves us, and in the Love that even now sustains us and that will at the last enrich us with all good. May we rejoice in Thee with all who put their trust in Thee, and share Thy peace with all that are upright in their hearts. Cox. 1. WHEN the LORD brought back those that returned to Zion, We were like unto them that dream. 2. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing : Then said they among the nations, The LORD hath done great things for them. 3. The LORD hath done great things for us ; Whereof we are glad. 4. Turn again our captivity, O LORD, As the streams in the South. 5. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. 6. Though he goeth on his way weeping, bearing forth the seed ; He shall come again with joy, bringing his sheaves with him. THE first colony of exiles had returned to Palestine. The permission to return had been so unexpected, the circumstances which had led to it so wonderful and so unforeseen, that when it came it could hardly be believed. To those who found themselves actually restored to the land of their fathers it seemed like a dream. It was a joy beyond all words to utter. God, their father's God, had indeed wrought for them, and even the heathen had recognized His hand. It is with these thoughts that this beautiful Psalm opens. But after all, what was that little band of settlers which formed the first caravan? It was but as the trickling of a tiny rill in some desert waste. Hence the prayer bursts from the lips of the Psalmist, Bring back our captives like mighty streams, which, swollen by the wintry rains, descend to fertilize the parched and desolate wilderness. Then comes the thought of the many discouragements and opposition which the first settlers had to encounter; it was a time of sowing in tears (Ezra 4 : 11-24). Still faith could expect a joyful harvest. He who had restored them to the land would assuredly crown His work with blessing. P. 1-3. Babylon was the great military empire of antiquity, "that fierce and impetuous nation which marched across the breadths of the earth to seize upon dwelling-places that were not its own." Its victorious arms were in every land. It gathered to itself the strength and the riches of all nations. That it should be overthrown by the poor hill-tribes of Persia, led by Cyrus, had, indeed, been predicted by Isaiah, but was, nevertheless, wellnigh as great a marvel to the Jews as to other Eastern races. That the Lord should "stir up the spirit of the King of Persia" to proclaim Jehovah "the God of heaven," to affirm, "the Lord God of heaven, who hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth, hath charged me to build Him a house at Jerusalem," and to set free as many of "His people" as were willing to "go up to Jerusalem and build the house of the Lord God of Israel"—all this was so strange, so unexpected, so far beyond the reach of hope, that, when the Hebrew captives heard it, they were "like unto them that dream," and could not believe for wonder and joy. "This was the Lord's doing," none but He could have done it, "and it was marvellous in their eyes." Cox. When the first band of exiles, forty-two thousand in number, found themselves once more in the city of their fathers, when they recalled the former glories of Jerusalem, and caught glimpses of a possible glorious future, a restored temple and worship, a flourishing national metropolis, a reinvigorated national life, it seemed too good to be true. In the language of our Psalm they were "like them that dream." Their mouth was filled with laughter and their tongue with singing. They recognized their deliverance with all its marvels, as the work of Jehovah, and gave Him the glory, saying, "The Lord hath done great things for us whereof we are glad." Even the heathen around them for once refrained from scoffing. The deliverance, the return, were so wonderful, so directly in the face of all probability, that they were forced to acknowledge the interposition of some higher power; and they, too, took up the current saying, "Jehovah hath done great things for them." V.—And as the Hebrews heard such confessions of the power and goodness of Him whom they worshipped, how could they but again acknowledge (v. 3), "Jehovah hath done great things for us," and affirm, "We are glad," glad in Him? Cox. 1. We were like them that dream. In the lapse of seventy years the hope of restoration to their land, so long deferred, had mostly gone out in despair, save as it rested (in some minds) on their faith in God's promise. The policy of those great powers in the East had long been settled—viz., to break up the old tribes and kingdoms of Western Asia; take the people into far eastern countries, and never let them return. No nation known to history except the Jews ever did return to rebuild their ancient cities and homes. Hence this joyous surprise. C. 2. Then was our mouth filled with laughter. They that were laughed at now laugh, and a new song is put into their mouths. It was a laughter of joy in God, not scorn of their enemies. H.—They who feel their captivity shall have their mouths filled with laughter and joy; that is, redemption and deliverance from sin and death shall be preached unto them. This is the sense and meaning of the Holy Ghost, that their mouth shall show forth nothing else but great gladness through the inestimable consolations of the Gospel, with voices of triumph and victory by Christ, overcoming Satan, destroying death, and taking away sins. This was first spoken unto the Jews; for this laughter was first offered to that people, then having the promises. Now He turneth to the Gentiles, whom He calleth to the partaking of this laughter. Luther. 2. "The voice of rejoicing and salvation is heard in the tabernacles of the righteous;" and men cannot but mark it and ask the meaning. It is a proclamation to them that we have in the midst of us a great heart-gladdening truth, of which they too may partake. Our tongue is filled with singing that they may be led to say: "The Lord hath done great things for them." Ker. 3. The Lord hath done great things for us. This verse is the marrow of the whole Psalm, occasioned by the return of God's people out of Babel's captivity into their own country. Their deliverance was so great and incredible that when God brought it to pass they were as men in a dream, it seemed too good to be true. The manner was so admirable (without the counsel, help, or strength of man; nay, it was beyond and against all human means); that they doubt whether these things be not the dreams of men that are awake. Thomas Taylor. He in whom believers trust is a great God, and loves to do all things like Himself. Look, therefore, for great things from Him: great assistances, enlargements, deliverances; yea, the forgiving of great sins and the gift of a great salvation. Arrowsmith.—The Christian has had great things done for him of which his life is to be the witness. He is called by God's message, he is redeemed by the blood of the Son of God, he is renewed by the power of the Holy Ghost. Infinite grace has called him out from darkness into God's marvellous light. He has seen God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. He has felt the evil of sin in his own nature, and has read its odiousness in the tragedy of the cross. Eternity has been unfolded to him. The unsearchable riches of Christ have been exhibited to him. Heaven has opened its gates to invite him thither. To him the apostle turns when he says, "Ye are redeemed not by corruptible things as silver and gold, but by the precious blood of the Lamb of God." Is such an one to be content with a low and worldly standard of living? Gillett. 4. This seems to be a prayer for the return of yet other captives. Let their restoration be as when from the northern hills of Palestine and Syria the waters flow southward, and fill the long empty river channels of the south. The Hebrew word for "streams" means strictly a river's bed, the channel which holds water when water is there, but is often dry. Naturally there is joy for the husbandmen when those valley-beds are filled again with flowing waters. So, the prayer is, Let Thy people return joyfully to their fatherland. C. The returned exiles feel that their land and city, without their due inhabitants, lay bare and sterile, without life and fruit, like the southern plane under the drought of summer. They themselves are so few and helpless, they are but like a tiny rill trickling through a fervent waste in which it is lost. And hence they implore the Lord of hosts to flood the land with men, to bring back their captive brethren like the mighty torrents which, swollen by melting snows and copious rains, rush down the watercourses and clothe the barren earth with living green. Cox. The beginnings of mercy are encouragements to us to pray for the completing of it. And while we are here in this world, there will still be matter for prayer, even then when we are most furnished with matter for praise. And when we are free and in prosperity ourselves, we must not be unmindful of our brethren that are in trouble and under restraint. The bringing of those that were yet in captivity to join with their brethren that were returned would be as welcome to both sides as streams of water in those countries, which, lying far south, were parched and dry. As cold water to a thirsty soul, so would this good news be from that far country (Prov. 25 : 25). H. 5,6. But with the prayer is joined, as there ought to be with all prayer, an expression of faith. They do not know that Jehovah will answer this particular request. He may make them wait long for the needed re-enforcements, but they are sure that this painful waiting and working will have a joyful issue at last. And this thought, too, is conveyed under a beautiful figure. V. 5. Those sowing with weeping with singing shall reap. 6. He may go forth, he may go forth, and weep, bearing (his) load of seed. He shall come, he shall come with singing, bearing sheaves. The emphatic combination of the finite tense with the infinitive is altogether foreign from our idiom, and very imperfectly represented, in the ancient and some modern versions, by the active participle, which conveys neither the peculiar form nor the precise sense of the Hebrew phrase. The best approximation to the force of the original is Luther's repetition of the finite tense, he shall come, he shall come. Load of seed; literally, drawing or draught of seed. The only analogous expression is in Amos 9 : 13, where the sower is called a drawer (forth) of seed. The common version (precious seed) has no foundation either in etymology or usage. A. The return of the rainy season suggests seed-sowing. But seed-sowing has in it more or less of anxiety, solicitude; for who at that stage knows certainly that his seed will return to him at all, much less with manifold increase? The sowing time, therefore, is not the hour for the song of "harvest home." But God's ways in providence are shaped to minister faith and hope to the seed-sower, justifying the proverb, "They that sow in tears shall reap with songs of joy." The Psalmist beautifully expands this proverb: "He that goes forth with his burden of seed, weeping as he goes, will surely come back with shouts of joy, bearing the sheaves of his harvest." The seed that is sown, wet with the tears of solicitude, care, and prayer, brings a sure and glorious harvest at length. This is even more universally true in spiritual labor than in material, more true of labors for truth and for the souls of men than in labors for "the bread that perisheth." Christian labor that takes hold of the heart's deepest sensibilities, that means earnestness and real work, that is sustained by faith in the mighty God and has the witness of tears, cannot fail of fruitage in its due season. The shouts of the "harvest home" will be as the tears of sowing time. C. 5. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.** Is it not the sacred law of home life? As with the years come these mystical burdens of care and grief and pain and sickness and separation; as the life of one is imperilled for another, and the toil of one is poured out for all; as the loves and solicitudes of all are twined and intertwined, and perchance as the ivies of memory are clustering over some grave that has been many times sown with tears, is there not each year a richer reaping in joy, that could not have been the joy it is but for the hallowed soil of immortal experiences out of which it springs? "They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." Is not this the law of all higher spiritual effort? They shall have the joy who have loved their work well enough to be willing to suffer in the doing of it. How many can bear witness that all the greater spiritual efforts of our lives for others must be a sowing in tears. There are reasons which, applicable to one case and to another, make it true of all that when the joy does come after spiritual effort, it is a joy purchased by sorrow. . . . The sorrow of the spiritual effort springs from the travail of the soul. If we ourselves were not in Christ and of Christ, this would not be. We might still love with a human love, and work with a human interest for the objects nearest to us, but we would not have the travail of the soul. But this is the very signature of Jesus upon our work, showing us that, after all, it is not ours, but His. It is not we alone who are sorrowing over this wayward soul, going so fast away from God; it is not we alone who are working in an almost anguish of desire to help this mind captured by doubts, and so helpless, to make that great self-surrender to Christ. It is He, it is He who is sorrowing with us, who is working with us. When one thinks of this, one is ready to accept the sorrow of the higher spiritual effort, and to go on sowing in tears. C. C. Hall. All human life as related to the larger life of eternity is a sowing-time; and largely a sowing-time of tears. Life is a season of preparatory discipline for immortality; and the experience through which this discipline is perfected is often severe. V. 6. On this figure of the sower he lingers, expanding and retouching it. He gives us a tiny but finished sketch of an Oriental husbandman, who goes out into his fields carrying the seed, Eastern-wise, in the fold of his robe, and taking it out by handfuls to scatter it on the earth. As he goes, he weeps every step that he goes, for the times are hard, the season unpropitious; there has been a great drought, the heavens being stayed from dew and the earth from fruit. But as we look with sympathy on the weeping sower, the scene suddenly changes, and, lo, we see the smiling reaper treading stoutly and cheerily toward the homestead, buried in the rustling sheaves he bears on his shoulders, and singing a mirthful harvest song! Cox. The two pictures of the weeping sower and of the joyful reaper are here placed side by side; but in fact, as we all know, a large and thickly crowded interval lies between them; and it is in this interval that we shall find the great practical lesson for our immediate use. And the lesson is this; simple steadfastness, patience and hopefulness all through the tearful sowing-time. That joyful harvest scene means that the sower did not let his tears blind his eyes to the duty that lay before him. It was a bitter day when he went out with the seed folded in his robe; but the furrows lay before him, and the seed must be sown, and he went faithfully over every foot of the ground, promising or unpromising, and gave and did his best. And that is the lesson, very easy to state, but very, very hard to practise, which you and I must carry out in our sowing-fields if we ever reap a harvest. If we can only get it rooted in our minds that the tears, and the barrenness, and the lack of promise, and the hard toil and drudgery, and the present disappointment, mean joyful reaping by and by, that these are really God's ways to a harvest, we shall have gained very much. For that is the simple truth; but then it is a truth which becomes realized in fact only as we accept God's meaning in it, and work through the barrenness and the drudgery with God toward the fulfilment of God's intent; only as we accept the corrective hints which our discipline gives, enter and follow out to the end each line of duty on which it puts us, not despairing of ourselves, nor of our work, nor of God and Heaven, not wasting time in tears over the hardness of the soil or the scantiness of the seed, not trying to get round our allotted experience by some by-path, but going straight through it from end to end. V. The husbandman can obtain no excellent thing without labor and persevering patience! The seed must be hidden in the furrows, decayed and corrupted before it can spring forth with any increase; our hopes are hidden, and light is sown for the righteous; all our comforts are buried under the clods, and after all this there must be long waiting; we cannot sow and reap in a day; effects cannot follow until all necessary causes have first wrought; it is not in the power of the husbandman to ripen fruits at pleasure; our times are in the hands of God; therefore it is good to wait; a long-suffering patience will reap the desired fruits. "Let us not faint, or be weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we faint not." Manton. Growth, natural, steady, progressive growth, should be our aim; the growth which is the natural expression of the inward strength we have gained by a wise use of the truths and gifts and ordinances of God; growth never hastening, yet never resting; the growth which springs from the vivifying beams of the Lord our Sun, and the continual dews of the Holy Spirit, and a frank susceptibility to all pure and nourishing influences whether from earth or heaven. Let us be patient, then, with the patience of faith. Break up the soil; sow the good seed; water it with your tears and prayers; and then leave it calmly and hopefully with God. Don't be impatient for results, but have patience, and, if need be, "long patience." Don't be like foolish children, forever digging up the seed to see whether it grows or how it grows. But rest in the assurance that whosoever goeth forth weeping and sowing precious seed shall return again with joy, bringing his sheaves with him. Cox. The Christian sower sows himself, his character, his spirit, his power of influence. He is himself a seed quick with Divine life; planted anywhere, God can make that seed grow into blessing. Robert Tuck.—Life is not mere living. It is worship, the surrender of the Soul to God and the vision of the face of God. And it is service, it is to feel that when we die we have done something to make the world better and happier, we have tried to cast upon the waters some seeds which, long after we are dead, may still bring forth their flowers of Paradise. The seed dies, but the harvest lives. Sacrifice is always fruitful, and there is nothing fruitful else. Farrar.—We do real good to others only at cost of self. Christ blessed the world not by an easy, pleasant, prosperous life in it, but by suffering and dying in it, and for it; and we can never bless the world merely by having a good time in it. Work for others that costs us nothing is scarcely worth doing. At least, it takes heart's blood to heal hearts. Too many of us are ready to work for Christ and do good to our fellow-men only so long as it is very easy, and requires no sacrifice or self-denial. But if we stop there, we stop just where our service is likely to become of use. This saving of life proves, in the end, the losing of it. It is they who sow in tears that shall reap in joy. We may take easy work if we will, work that costs us nothing, that involves no pain or self-denial; but we must not, then, be surprised if our hands are empty in the great harvest-time. A. M. Every act done in Christ receives its exact and appropriate reward. They that are meek shall inherit the earth. They that are pure shall see God. They that suffer shall reign with Him. They that turn many to righteousness shall shine as the stars forever. They that receive a righteous man in the name of a righteous man; that is, because he is a righteous man, shall receive a righteous man's reward. We reap what we sow; not something else, but that. An act of love makes the soul more loving. A deed of humbleness deepens humbleness. The thing reaped is the very thing sown, multiplied a hundredfold. F. W. R. Our text speaks not only of sheaves for the sowing, but of rejoicing for the tears. The very tears are a seed that shall have a joyful springing; the sorrow shall return again in joy. A. Mackennal.—All abiding and spiritual knowledge, infused into a grateful and affectionate fellow-Christian, is as the child of the mind that infuses it. The delight which he gives he receives; and in that bright and liberal hour, the gladdened preacher can scarce gather the ripe produce of to-day, without discovering and looking forward to the green fruits and embryons, the heritage and reversionary wealth of the days to come, till he bursts forth in prayer and thanksgiving. Coleridge. Here is the nature of the Christian's work. He is one that "goeth forth." Religion is an active and operative principle. And he best illustrates the nature of Christianity who goes forth in the footsteps of his Divine Master, to instruct the ignorant and cheer the desponding and comfort the afflicted, and tell to lost and dying men, by the lettered page or with a brother's voice, of the blessed Saviour and the great salvation. The spirit, too, of the Christian's work is a spirit of which tears are the appropriate emblem—a spirit of piety, a spirit of sympathy, a spirit of love. He goes forth with tears—tears of sorrow over the lost, tears of joy over the reclaimed. This is the spirit which sends him forth and makes him successful. There is no agency so resistless as that of love. And what is the seed which the Christian laborer sows—what but the truth of God? It is the truth which, received into his own soul, has there quickened that soul into a new and earnest and undying life. This has changed the whole current of his being, and sent him forth to move and win the souls of men. It is always so. No man ever did anything great or glorious whose own soul was not filled and absorbed by some truth which worked within him, and urged him onward to do or die. Anon. Bearing forth. The Church must not only keep this seed in the store-house for such as come to inquire for it; but must send her sowers forth to cast it among those who are ignorant of its value or too indifferent to ask it at her hands. She must not sit weeping because men will not apply to her, but must go forth and bear the precious seed to the unwilling, the careless, the prejudiced, and the profligate. Edwin Sidney.—There must be constant, world-wide work and transmission. Human progress consists in this, that men have labored with body, with mind, and each next age has entered into their labors. "He that goeth forth weeping, bearing precious seed," is the fit motto for all who have employed their minds for the benefit of mankind. The path of the reformers, civilizers, purifiers has been up-hill against reigning corruptions, against the hankering of man for a slothful, unthinking life; in short, against that lapse of souls from God for which Christ furnishes the only all-sufficient remedy. No philosopher ever so toiled to find out or to spread truth as reformers and preachers of righteousness to make the world and the soul better. They have begun their work in a sense of loneliness and insufficiency; they have held out against fear, scorn, and uncertainty. But these religious laborers have changed the face of the world. They have brought into literature and art new ideas of purity and spirituality, into life another standard of character by which all truthfulness, honor, justice, and benevolence are duly valued. And if the world has made great advances in these latter days, and is making them, is there not something inspiring to the laborer in the hope of greater and more rapid success, in the hope of success in the highest of all causes—that cause of Christ which includes all temporal, as well as spiritual welfare? Woolsey. Mind we the undoubted certainty of our harvest verified by divers absolute, positive asseverations in the text: "He shall reap;" "he shall come again;" "he shall bring his sheaves with him." Here's no item of contingency or possibility, but all absolute affirmations; and you know heaven and earth shall pass away, but a jot of God's Word shall not fail. Nothing shall prevent the harvest of a laborer in Zion's vineyard. H. Hardwick. No true word is spoken, no holy deed done that is not done forever. Every seed tells in the harvest. Every beginning is at its stage a completion; and everything completed is at its stage a beginning. The harvest is the end of one sowing, but it is the beginning of a new sowing. And so as other men have labored, and we are entered into their labors, let it not be so much our ambition to be able to count the sheaves as to multiply the stalks into which in due time, by us or by those after us, the sickle shall be thrust. C. H. P.—A servant of God is to undertake his work with the clear understanding that he may not, personally, during his own life, reap the fruits of it. He must sow the seed in view of the possibility that the reapers may go to and fro over his grave to gather the harvest. And he must farther learn to rejoice in their reaping as his own; to feel that if he do not gather an ear with his own hand, he shall reap just the same in the harvest which other hands gather. The best work which is being done for the world is the work which makes the least noise. The forces which are at work to move society most profoundly and to revolutionize it most thoroughly are those of which the general public is not conscious. And the man who joins forces with that kind of sowing need not be surprised if it be forbidden his feet to tread among the standing corn. Nevertheless, he shall reap. But one thing we have to do, and that is to take up our seed, and in God's strength and with God's good cheer in our hearts go forth to the sowing, be the ground good or stony, be the prospect of harvest never so remote. V. The true success of life stands out from a background of self-denying toil, of struggle, and hardship, and manly endurance. The rich harvest-field, waving in its beauty to the breath of the winds, speaks of labor and culture, and the hard-won victory over a stubborn soil. Final success, the joy of life's ripe harvest, is the goal of our hopes. No wise or thoughtful man will live merely for to-day. Wisdom has regard to the grand issue. The true success of life is that which does not fail the evening of our days, and leave them to blight or barrenness. We want that shout of "harvest home" that will not die into silence with the failing breath, but makes the passage of the grave a whispering-gallery where heaven and earth talk together. That man who comes back from the field of probation's toil, rejoicing and bringing his sheaves with him, he who is heir to God's "well done," is not the world-applauded hero, not the man who has piled up the largest heap of wealth, not the man that has drawn most notice, but he who in proportion to his talents can show the most permanent good done; he who, though he has but few sheaves, has those of wheat and not tares, whose life-work has built not "hay, wood, and stubble," but "silver, gold, precious stones." Such seed as time sifts out of the lives of good men in faithful duties done, and holy examples set, and kindly words uttered; such as the faithful parent drops into the soil of the young heart springing up to all generous, and humane, and heavenward strivings; such as falls lightly as the snowflake about the hearthstone where the home-group kneel to pray; such as the Sabbath teacher drops into young and tender hearts, that it may grow with their growth and strengthen with their strength; such is the seed precious beyond all price, the harvest of which shall be rich in more than golden sheaves. Gillett. Nor, as we study this Psalm, should we forget that among the pilgrims who went up year by year to Jerusalem, there was One who took up the parable of the Psalm and carried it to new heights of meaning, both in His teaching and in His life. The man Christ Jesus was keeping the feast in Jerusalem—and as He went up to the city, He may have sung this very Psalm—when He addressed to His disciples the memorable words: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." And in prospect of the decease ("the exodus") that He was to accomplish at Jerusalem, was it no comfort to Him to remember that He was the Sower as well as the Seed; that if, as the Seed, He died, that He might live and bring forth much fruit unto God, so also, as the Sower, if He went forth, weeping as He went, bearing His handful of seed, He would surely come again, with songs of joy, bearing the sheaves that seed had produced? It was His one comfort, and stay, and hope; for it was for this joy, set steadfastly before Him, that He endured the cross, despising its shame. If, therefore, we have but a single poor handful of seed, let us sow it faithfully, even though we must sow it with tears; for then we, too, shall "joyous sing the harvest home." Cox. 1. EXCEPT the LORD build the house, They labour in vain that build it: Except the LORD keep the city, The watchman waketh but in vain. 2. It is vain for you that ye rise up early, and so late take rest, And eat the bread of toil: For so he giveth unto his beloved sleep. 3. Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: And the fruit of the womb is his reward. 4 As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, So are the children of youth. 5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: They shall not be ashamed, When they speak with their enemies in the gate. THIS and the next Psalm form two bright companion pictures of social and domestic life, and of the happiness of a household which, trained in the fear of God, is blessed by His providence. "These pictures," says Isaac Taylor, "are mild and bright; humanizing are they in the best sense; they retain certain elements of Paradise, and yet more the elements of the patriarchal era, with the addition of that patriotism and of that concentration in which the patriarchal life was wanting. The happy religious man, after the Hebrew pattern, possessed those feelings and habitudes which, if they greatly prevail in a community, impart to it the strength of a combination which is stronger than any other; uniting the force of domestic virtue, of rural, yeoman-like, agricultural occupations, of unaggressive defensive valor, and of a religious animation which is national as well as authentic and true. Our modern learning in Oriental modes of life and its circumstances and scenery may help us to bring into view either of two gay pictures— that of the Hebrew man in mid-life, at rest in his country home, with his sturdy sons about him; his wife is still young; her fair daughters are like cornices sculptured as decorations for a palace; or else the companion picture, with its group on their way Zionward, resting for the sultry noon-hour under the palms by the side of a stream, and yet home, happy home, is in the recollection of the party; but the hill of God, 'whereunto the tribes of the Lord go up,' is in the fervent purpose of all; and while they rest they beguile the time with a sacred song and with its soothing melody. Happy were the people while their mind was such as this, and such their habits, and such their piety!" P.—This and the next may very certainly be described as domestic Psalms. The theme of both is the home life of Israel; the former speaking rather of the home in the city, the latter of the home in the country. The one speaks of domestic life in its relation to national life; the other speaks of the home pure and simple, as it stands alone, with the pure, gracious heaven above it. Cox. This Psalm can never be out of season, the design of its author being to teach us the necessity of a dependence upon God and His blessing, in every work to which we set our hands. No work can prosper without Him, nor can any design miscarry under His favor and protection. Bishop Horne. God's blessing on His people as their one great necessity and privilege is here spoken of. We are here taught that builders of houses and cities, systems and fortunes, empires and churches all labor in vain without the Lord; but under the Divine favor they enjoy perfect rest. Sons, who are in the Hebrew called "builders," are set forth as building up families under the same Divine blessing, to the great honor and happiness of their parents. It is the Builder's Psalm. "Every house is builded by some man, but He that built all things is God," and unto God be praise. S. That everything depends upon God's blessing, the poet proves by examples taken from the divinely ordained circles of the family and the state. The raising of the house that affords us shelter, the stability of the city in which we dwell securely and peacefully, the acquisition of the possessions that maintain and adorn life, the begetting and upbringing of sons who prove a strong support to their ageing father—all these are things that depend upon God's blessing. D. 1. All our intense care in the acquisition or accomplishment of any object, without the Divine co-operation and blessing, will be fruitless. It is utterly in vain that we should labor for that on which our heart is set, so as to leave ourselves neither re t nor comfort, if the counsel of the Lord, which alone can stand, be adverse to our views. Duties are ours, events are God's; and the way is to do these duties free from anxiety, because trusting in Him; and He will give us all that He knoweth we have need of. Chalmers. The watchman waketh in vain. The best guardians of your property are the men who, morning and evening, implore the favor and protection of God; the righteous, for whose sakes God ever spares or mitigates His judgments; who implore God to be your defence by night, and who acknowledge His merciful protection with the returning light of day. These are our watchmen and our bulwark. Oh, when shall all learn to commit their property, their families, and their lives to God as to a Father who is all-wise and powerful and kind! J. P. T. He that closeth his eyes at night without prayer lies down before his bed is made. He is like a foolish captain in a garrison, who betakes himself to his rest before he hath set the watch for the city's safeguard. God is His people's keeper; but can he expect to be kept by Him that chargeth not the Divine providence with his keeping? The angels, at His command, pitch their tents about His saints' dwellings. But God looks, that by humble prayer we should beg of Him their ministry and attendance about us. Gurnall. Their thoughts are vain who think that their watching can preserve the city which God Himself is not willing to keep. And are not theirs as vain who think that God will keep the city for which they themselves are not careful to watch? The husbandman may not therefore leave his plough, nor the merchant forsake his trade, because God hath promised, "I will not forsake thee." Hooker. The Psalmist does not bid the builder cease from laboring, nor suggest that watchmen should neglect their duty, nor that men should show their trust in God by doing nothing; nay, he supposes that they will do all that they can do, and then he forbids their fixing their trust in what they have done, and assures them that all creature effort will be in vain unless the Creator puts forth His power, to render second causes effectual. Happy is the man who hits the golden mean by so working as to believe in God, and so believing in God as to work without fear. Much can be done by man; he can both labor and watch; but without the Lord he has accomplished nothing, and his wakefulness has not warded off evil. S. There is progress in life, there is progress in history, because the Lord is building, working, and watching with man; and man is learning—slowly, alas! and by stages that seem imperceptible each moment, visible only over a long range of generations—that the one way of life, the one fountain of blessing, is the taming of his self-will to build, and watch, and work with God. The great concern of man's life on earth is the discovery and establishment of a harmony between himself and God. The concord of man's thought and activity with God's is the secret upon earth of all true, real, and abiding work. Man is the architect of his own character and his own destiny. Principles and habits of moral judgment and action are the true house of the soul, wherein it dwells and from which it comes forth to work benignly or malignly for itself and mankind. Of that house man is the architect, not God; that house he is daily building, and that building will abide and be the home or the prison of the soul throughout eternity. If you would build wisely, look to the foundations. Christ is the one Rock on which the house of life must rest if it is to escape the floods and fires by which all that is perishable must perish, and be lifted on high among the imperishable things through eternity. And build daily in conscious, blessed dependence on the co-operation of a higher hand. There is One working with you, working in you, who alone can make your building of the house of life a large and lasting success. J. B. Brown. 2. Ye that rise. The Hebrew expression runs literally, "making early to rise, making late to sit (down)," i.e., going forth early to labor, and returning late at night to take rest. It is an artificial lengthening of the natural day. P. We should give over undue and anxious labor to accomplish our designs. The law of work is in our nature. The limitations of effort are set forth in nature. In order that all may be accomplished by the human race which is necessary to be done for human progress, all men must work. But no man should work beyond his physical and intellectual ability, nor beyond the hours which nature allots. Deems. So He giveth His beloved sleep. It is vain for you to be early to rise and late to rest, eating the bread of hard labor (Hebrew). "So," i.e., all this, "God will give to His beloved with sleep.' The beloved of God who trust His care and enjoy His blessings shall obtain their bread along with needful sleep—i.e., bread, and sleep besides—without sacrificing sleep to excessive unreasonable toil. So I prefer, on the whole, to interpret this somewhat difficult clause. C. I am inclined to prefer the rendering, "So He giveth His beloved sleep," though it is difficult to explain the reference of the particle "so." I suppose it refers to the principle laid down in the previous verse, there being a tacit comparison, "as all labor is vain without God's providence, as He builds the house, as He watches the city, so He gives the man who loves Him and leaves all in His hands calm, refreshing sleep." There is no discouragement here to honest labor. It is undue anxiety, a feverish straining, a toiling, as if toil of itself could command success, the folly of which is condemned. Compare for a similar sentiment Prov. 10 : 22, "The blessing of Jehovah maketh rich, and toil can add nothing thereto." The teaching is that of our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, God's "beloved" are not exempted from the great law of labor which lies upon all, but the sting is taken from it when they can leave all results in a Father's hand, with absolute trust in His wisdom and goodness. P. Quiet sleep is the gift of God, and it is the love of God to give quiet sleep. Have we through God's blessing this benefit, let us abundantly give praise and live praise unto God hereupon. Yea, large praise belongs to the Lord for quiet sleep. P. Goodwin.—Sleep is God's gift to His beloved. We owe it to His goodness that our sleep is safe (Psalm 4 : 8), that it is sweet (Jer. 31 : 25, 26). Then God gives us sleep as He gives it to His beloved when with it He gives us grace to lie down in His fear (our souls returning to Him and reposing in Him as our Rest), and when we awake to be still with Him, and to use the refreshment we have by sleep in His service. H. When a man's capacity, full spent in good, comes to its limit, and conscience audits the reckoning of its hours, to fall back into God's sole keeping and be recruited by unconscious rest in His bosom is the true Christly sleep, at once a natural bestowment and a supernatural gift. Be it in a palace or a hovel, be it on the land or on the sea, be it in outward calm or storm, be it with man's approbation or without, the resting place is glorious, the rest itself a baptism of peace—"God giveth His beloved sleep." H. B. The most unwelcome guest after a sinful day is God. The most joyful guest after a day of honest and faithful service is God. And here is where so many families miss the joy of Christian life. Where the evening song and prayer is in the home, there God comes with a smile and a blessing that calms us to rest. He lifts off our hearts the burden of daily care, and we find sleep, knowing that He is watching over us. Interior. 3. Behold,** as drawing particular attention to one marked example of God's good gifts; which none can question is emphatically His gift; on this the poet lingers, "allured by the charm of the subject," for such there was, especially to an Oriental, to whom a numerous progeny was the first of blessings, giving value and stability to all others. P. Children are an heritage of the Lord. The Psalmist speaks of what children are unto godly parents, for unto such only is any blessing given by God as a reward, and the Psalmist expressly speaks of blessings which God gives His beloved ones. T. Goodwin.—There is no reason why you should be apprehensive for your families and country; there is no reason why you should weary yourselves with such great and such restless labor. God will be with you and your children, since they are His heritage. Le Blanc.—He who gave them will feed them; for it is a fact, and the maxim formed on it has never failed. "Wherever God sends mouths, He sends meat." "Murmur not," said an Arab to his friend, "because thy family is large; know that it is for their sakes that God feeds thee." A. Clarke. Children are an heritage of the Lord, and as God's heritage children are worthy of honor, as precious in God's sight. "Fathers," says the inspired apostle—and the father always includes the mother as his "better half"—"provoke not your children, that they be not discouraged." There is no surer way of provoking a child to discouragement than by withholding from him that honor for his nobler nature which is fairly his due; and he who fails to honor his child fails in his duty to his child. Our children deserve honor from us; for they are one generation older than we are and they are beginning life on the elevation at which we are quitting it. They have, in the very nature of things, finer possibilities than it was ours to realize, because they are our children; and the probability is that their faults are not so marked or so injurious as ours have been. While we fail to give our children the honor that is their due, we hold them back from the progress they might be making; whereas, while we give them their meed of honor and respect, we are thereby helping them upward and forward, by inciting them to a struggle for the lofty ideal we perceive and point out to them as their own. If, indeed, we cannot see anything to honor in our children, in one direction or in another, we are helpless to be their helpers in that direction; for honoring a child is an essential factor in the helping of a child. H. C. T. One of the first duties of a genuinely Christian parent is to show a generous sympathy with the plays of his children; providing playthings and means of play, inviting suitable companions for them, and requiring them to have it as one of their pleasures, to keep such companions entertained in their plays, instead of playing always for their own mere self-pleasing. Sometimes, too, the parent having a hearty interest in the plays of his children, will drop out for the time the sense of his years, and go into the frolic of their mood with them. They will enjoy no other time so much as that, and it will have the effect to make the authority, so far unbent, just as much stronger and more welcome, as it has brought itself closer to them, and given them a more complete show of sympathy. Bushnell. 4. These sons of a man's youth are particularly mentioned, because they would naturally grow up to be a support and protection to their father in his old age, when he would most need their support. P.—Our children are what we make them. They are represented "As arrows in the hand of a mighty man," and arrows go the way we aim them. Anon.—"Children of the youth" are "arrows in the hand," which, with prudence, may be directed aright to the mark, God's glory, and the service of their generation; but afterward, when they are gone abroad in the world, they are arrows out of the hand; it is too late to bend them then. But these "arrows in the hand" too often prove arrows in the heart, a constant grief to their godly parents, whose gray hairs they bring with sorrow to the grave. H. 5. Among the Jews a numerous offspring was regarded as a marked instance of Divine favor, and the birth of a child was hailed with thanksgiving as a special gift of God. In all our earthly experiences there is no expression of Divine love to be compared with this. What love the babe brings! what love it inspires! what hope it awakens! what joy it kindles! how it draws around it all the hearts of the household in a tender sympathy, a sacred unity, which should bind them all the closer to their Father in heaven! J. P. T. A recent discovery of classical sculptures has recalled attention to the fact that the ancients had, so far as appears from their works, no appreciation of the beauty of childhood. "The artists whose work has afforded models for all time have not left a single specimen of that beauty which modern eyes most admire, the beauty of childhood." And in Grecian and Roman literature there is none of that happy picturing, that dwelling with delight upon the beauties of childhood that seem to have entered into the very essence of modern natures. To the Romans, "infancy was only a journey toward manhood; the sooner it was over the better." "The sympathy with childhood, which gives its coloring to modern literature and art, is to be traced back to utterances which have influenced more than the literature and art of modern Europe. 'Except ye become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven,' was a saying new to the world. The fresh aspect under which all weakness, all dependence appeared in the light of that teaching was evidently bewildering to its hearers." It took centuries for the Christian world to take in the full meaning of that utterance, which has not been realized as a fact of ordinary life till nearly our own time. Popular Science Monthly. Not be ashamed. The father and such a host of sons surrounding him (this is the complex subject) form a phalanx not to be broken through. Unjust judges, malicious accusers, false witnesses, draw back in alarm from before a family so capable of defending itself. D. In the gate, here mentioned chiefly as the place of judgment, as well as of all public acts. The allusion is to lawsuits, in which, if unjustly accused or brought before an unrighteous judge, a man need not fear lest he should be "put to shame," i.e., lose his cause; his stalwart sons would not suffer might to prevail against right. P. Able enough he shall be to defend himself and keep off all injuries, being fortified by his children; and if it happen that he hath a cause depending in the gate, and to be tried before the judges, he shall have the patronage of his children, and not suffer in his plea for want of advocates; his sons will stand up in a just cause for him. W. Nicholson. Fairly read, the Psalm has a remarkable unity of thought. Not only does it take for its theme the dependence of man on God, it also limits its illustrations of this theme to the circle of domestic and civic life. Home and its happiness, the State and its security, are all of God; we can neither found nor maintain them apart from Him; if we trust in Him, we need not exhaust ourselves with toil, nor fret ourselves with care; He will give us success even when we seem to fail, and bless us even as we lie asleep; let us therefore rest in Him. Of course the Psalmist intends no disparagement of honest labor and a wise vigilance, any more than our Lord did when He bade us not be careful for the morrow because the morrow would take care of itself. What he deprecates, what he condemns, is that excessive devotion to labor, that undue and self-defeating anxiety, that feverish straining after immediate success and immoderate gains, which are often as fatal to the very ends men pursue as they always are to the dignity, enjoyment, and peace of human life. By all means "take thought," if you would build up either the home or the commonwealth; be diligent and strenuous in endeavor, be provident, be circumspect; but remember it is the blessing of the Lord that really builds the house and keeps the town, that fills the house with the stir of children and peoples the town with strong and valiant men to defend its gates. Cox. I have lived for a long time [eighty-one years], and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of man. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured in the sacred writings, that "Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it." I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall proceed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our little, partial, local interests; our prospects will be confounded; and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a by-word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter, from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing government by human wisdom, and leave it to chance, war, or conquest. I therefore beg leave to move that henceforth prayers, imploring the assistance of heaven and its blessing on our deliberations, be held in this assembly every morning before we proceed to business. Benja- min Franklin, Speech in Convention for forming a Constitution for the United States, 1787. If the bounties of heaven were given to man without prayer, they would be received without acknowledgment. Prayer, administering the perpetual lesson of humility, of hope, and of love, makes us feel our connection with heaven through every touch of our necessities; it binds us to Providence by a chain of daily benefits; it impresses the hearts of all with a perpetual remembrance of the God who giveth all. Croly. The Psalm has a lesson for us. It reminds us that we depend on the Divine bounty for the blessings we most covet and prize, for the happiness of home, for the success of our labors, for the security and advancing welfare of the commonwealth. It affirms that we build in vain unless God build with us, and that we watch in vain unless God watch with us. And it rebukes that excessive addition to labor, and that feverish anxiety as to the outcome of our labors, which, as we all feel, is exhausting our energies and making our life hard and bitter to us. Everywhere in our own experience, no less than in the chronicles of the past, we find proofs that only as men live in harmony with the Divine will can they prosper and be happy, whether in their domestic or in their national relations and affairs. But to do the Divine will, to keep the moral laws in which that will has expressed itself, is to secure and enjoy the Divine blessing. When, as we build, we seek to do that which is right and good and true, God builds with us, and all the forces of the universe are on our side. When, as we watch the affairs of the State, and take our part in them, however small, we feel our dependence on the all-wise Disposer of events and put our trust in Him, God watches with us and over us. He blesses us in our work. He blesses us while we sleep. Let us, then, be careful that we do not exhaust our strength in incessant toils and in the anxieties which are even more exhausting than toil. Let us do the duty of the day with a cheerful diligence, and leave results in the hands of Him "in whose hands are all our ways." Thus trusting in Him, He will bless us with rest, and prosper us while we rest, and make our life bright and happy because we rest in Him. Cox. 1. BLESSED is every one that feareth the LORD, That walketh in his ways. 2 For thou shalt eat the labour of thine hands: Happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. 3 Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine, in the innermost parts of thine house: Thy children like olive plants, round about thy table. 4. Behold, that thus shall the man be blessed That feareth the LORD. 5 The LORD shall bless thee out of Zion: And thou halt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. 6 Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children. Peace be upon Israel. THIS is a sunny picture of the family happiness of one who fears God and leads a holy life. P.—In the former Psalm the prophet treated of both national and domestic life. Here also he joineth the two together, yet hath he more respect to household government or matrimony, because it is the fountain and source of civil government. Hence this Psalm is an Epithalamium or marriage song, wherein the prophet comforteth them that are married, wishing unto them and promising them from God all manner of blessings. Luther.—This is a song of the home pure and simple. It is the “Home, sweet Home,” of the Hebrew race. Not that the commonwealth is altogether absent from the poet’s thoughts; his final aspiration is “Peace be upon Israel.” Nor does he altogether forget the fair and sacred city which God had chosen for “the habitation of His holiness;” he is still concerned for “the prosperity of Jerusalem.” But in this Psalm Israel and Jerusalem, the commonwealth and its capital, are viewed in their relation to domestic life and as contributing to its happiness. Cox. 1. Happy is every fearer of Jehovah, the (one) walking in His ways. As if he had said, However things may now seem to an eye of sense, it is still a certain truth that the truly happy man is he who fears Jehovah not in mere profession, but who testifies his fear of Him by walking in His ways or doing His commandments. A.—Dost thou fear God? Why, the Holy Ghost hath on purpose indicted for thee a whole Psalm to sing concerning thyself. So that thou mayest even as thou art, in thy calling, bed, journey, or whenever, sing out thine own blessed and happy condition to thine own comfort and the comfort of thy fellows. Bunyan. They whose blessed state we are here assured of are such as fear the Lord, and walk in His ways; such as have a deep reverence of God upon their spirits, and evidence it by a regular and constant conformity to His will. Such are blessed (v. 1), and shall be blessed (v. 4). God blessed them, and His pronouncing them blessed makes them so. They are blessed now, they shall be blessed still, and forever. It is asserted (v. 4), with a note commanding attention, Behold, thus shall the man be blessed; behold it by faith in the promise; behold it by observation in the performance of the promise; behold it with assurance that it shall be so, for God is faithful; and with admiration that it should be so, for we merit no favor, no blessing from Him. H. 2. The labor of thy hands. This is the first part of the blessing—the quiet, peaceful life of a thriving, prosperous yeoman in the country, with no fear that the harvest will be trodden down by the invader before it is ripe, or the cattle swept off by some roving predatory tribe. The opposite condition is threatened as a curse in the law (Lev. 26 : 16 ; Deut. 28 : 30-33). P. We are promised a blessing upon hard work and honest industry. Though we are in God’s hands, we are to be supported by our own hands. He will give us daily bread, but it must be made our own by labor. The promise is that labor shall be fruitful, and that he who performs it shall himself enjoy the recompense of it. S. We value and we enjoy every outward good in exact proportion to its cost to us, in labor of brain or hand and in trial of heart. B.—Supposing it were possible that we could obtain the objects of our desire without any toil or trouble, we should not enjoy them. To benefit us really, they must be the growths of our own self-denial and labor. And this is the great lesson which the miracles of our Lord, wrought in the manner in which they were, unfolded. They teach us that, in both temporal and spiritual things, we should not so throw ourselves upon the providence or grace of God as to neglect the part we have ourselves to act—that God crowns every honest and faithful effort of man with success: “For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands: happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee.” Macmillan. 3. The comparison would perhaps be brought out more clearly by arranging the verse as follows: “Thy wife shall be in the inner part of thy house Like a fruitful vine; Thy children round about thy table Like the shoots of the olive.” In the inner part, literally, “the sides of thy house,” as in Amos 6:10, i.e., the women’s apartments, as marking the proper sphere of the wife engaged in her domestic duties, and also to some extent her seclusion, though this was far less among the Jews than among other Orientals. The “vine” is an emblem chiefly of fruitfulness, but perhaps also of dependence, as needing support; the “olive,” of vigorous, healthy, joyous life. P. The general type of an Oriental house is—a court, with or without a fountain and garden, round the inner sides of which runs an arched colonnade; under the arches are doors which open on the living rooms of the family; these arches and the walls under them are often adorned with climbing plants that yield flowers or fruit. Some such dwelling as this seems to have been in the writer’s mind. And he compares the householder’s wife to a vine which adorns its inner sides; the image of “the vine” being employed not only to denote fruitfulness, nor only dependence, but the grace, the added comeliness and cheerfulness which every true wife and mother lends to the life of the home. Their children are compared to “olive plants”—the olive being often found in the court of an Eastern house—because the olive was a recognized Hebrew symbol of vigor, health, and joy. Cox.—The wife and mother is a fruitful vine and a faithful housekeeper; if you wish to find her, she is within the house; she is to be found both inside and outside the home, but her chief usefulness is in the inner side of the dwelling, which she adorns. S. God has indicated in the structure of the physical frame, and in the mental characteristics which correspond, different spheres of duty for the husband and the wife. The adaptation of each sex to its sphere is equally perfect, and as both are parts of one indivisible race, the terms superior and inferior are not properly applicable. What is needed is a distinct recognition by each sex of its own sphere, and a cheerful acceptance of its responsibilities and duties. The object is unity through diversity, and, within limits, the greater the diversity the greater the beauty of the possible unity. M. II. Thy children like olive plants. Follow me into the grove, and see what may have suggested the comparison. This aged and decayed tree is surrounded, as you see, by several young and thrifty shoots, which spring from the root of the venerable parent. They seem to uphold, protect, and embrace it. Thus do good and affectionate children gather round the table of the righteous. Each contributes something to the common wealth and welfare of the whole. W. M. Thomson. 4. Thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord.** Here we have the living fountain of the blessing which rests upon the conjugal and domestic state. When worldly prudence attempts to choose a wife and form a household, it can apply its hand only to so much of the work as has its seat upon earth and is visible to the eye of sense. It builds, so to speak, the first and the second story, adds cornice and pediment, and the fabric presents a fair appearance; but it has no foundation. Whenever you see the household of a married pair continuing to defy every storm, you may be sure that it rests upon a sure foundation, lying beyond the reach of human sense, and that that foundation is the fear of the Lord. To the fear of the Lord, therefore, the holy Psalmist has wisely given a chief place in this beautiful Psalm, which celebrates the blessing that descends upon conjugal and domestic life. Tholuck. 4,5. He shall be blessed in his wife, and blessed in his children; so blessed in both that the Psalmist calls all to behold it, as a beautiful, yea, wonderful sight, “Behold, thus shall the man be blessed.” And yet the man fearing God shall be blessed more than thus; his blessing shall come in the best way (v. 5), The Lord shall bless thee out of Zion; His temporal mercies shall come in a spiritual way; yea, he shall have spiritual blessings; and he shall have blessings beyond his own walls, Thou shalt see the good of Jerusalem all the days of thy life. Yea, thou shalt see thy children's children, and peace upon Israel. When a good man looks home to his own house and sees good there; when also he looks abroad to Jerusalem and sees good there, too, how full is his joy! how complete is his blessedness! and, Behold, thus the man is blessed that feareth the Lord. Caryl. 5. Looking on the beautiful family picture, the poet turns to greet the father of the household, and to wish him the blessing of which he has already spoken in such glowing terms. Out of Zion, as the dwelling-place of God, his earthly throne and sanctuary, whence all blessing comes. Then follows the truly patriotic sentiment—the wish that he may see the prosperity of Jerusalem, as well as that he may live long to see his children and grandchildren. The welfare of the family and the welfare of the State are indissolubly connected. P. 5,6. Every blessing enjoyed by the individual comes from the God of salvation, who has taken up His abode in Zion, and is perfected by participation in the prosperity of the holy city and of the Church as a whole, of which Zion is the centre. A New Testament hymn would here open up the prospect of the new Jerusalem. But the character of limitation to this present world stamped upon the Old Testament does not admit of this. The promise refers only to a participation during this life in the well-being of Jerusalem and to a life long-continued in one's children's children, and in this sense intercessory calls down peace upon Israel in all its members, in all places, and in all ages. D. 6. And see thou sons to thy sons. Peace (be) upon Israel! The first clause is a virtual promise of long life—thou shalt see thy children's children. An interesting parallel is furnished by Zech. 8:4, the whole of which chapter is indeed a prophetic commentary on this Psalm. A.—Long life and the prosperity of the Hebrew commonwealth were the deepest desires of the Israelite indeed. And these blessings the poet invokes on the head of the happy father of the ideal household. Nay, as he remembers how many such households there are in the land, that they are the real strength and glory of the commonwealth and how utterly they may wither before the hot blasts of war and invasion, he breathes the higher and more comprehensive prayer, "Peace be upon Israel, that so these happy homes may abide and multiply in the land." "Home," say the poets, "is the last relic of Paradise." And however questionable that may be, there is unquestionably a breath as of Paradise in our Psalm. It is the picture of a happy home. God has blessed the land with peace. The husband and father goes forth to his daily toils, fearing no foe, saved from all anxiety by his trust in the Divine goodness and bounty. When the sun sets behind the western hills, he returns to "eat the labor of his hands," to teach his children the fear of the Lord, to sing praises unto God. His wife is fair to him as the vine which hangs from pillar and arch on the sides of his house; his children are pleasant as the vigorous olives which enrich his fields. This happy home is open to the sky. Thoughts of God are as natural to him and more precious than thoughts of temporal good. He loves Zion. He prays for the prosperity of Jerusalem. Three times every year he leaves his home that he may stand in the courts of the Lord's house. He lives in a constant reverence of Jehovah, and "walks in His ways," go where he will. It is a very sunny picture; it is an ideal full of purity and charm. If we analyze the Psalm to discover the constituents of this happy and noble domestic life, we find three main elements in it—industry, tranquillity, godliness; and each of these springing from a sincere and constant faith in God. By subtle touches that are not to be defined, by the very choice of his words and figures, the poet makes us feel how calm and deep is the household peace which springs from faith in God, from the obedience to Divine laws which that faith prompts, from the confident hope for the future which it inspires. Cox. Before the fall Paradise was man's home; since the fall home has been his Paradise. Hare. The family was constituted in the beginning by the direct act of God, and with His special blessing. The sacred union of a single pair is the source of all domestic happiness; and the family so constituted is the basis of a true social state, and the germ from which the nation itself must grow. Our Lord quoted this original form of consecration to show the sacredness and permanence of the marriage-covenant, and added, "What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." How tender and beautiful this care of the Creator for the welfare of the human race, through a provision that gives to natural affections the sacredness of a Divine ordinance and the promise of Divine benediction! They who would degrade marriage degrade man and dishonor God. J. P. T.—The family constitution is in analogy with the moral government of God, as being a part of it and in subserviency to it. “Framed for this brief and transitory, yet all-important state of existence, and to expire with the last generation of human beings, still it points to what is permanent and unchangeable. In its constitution, as far as we can penetrate, it displays the nearest approach to the Divine government, and unquestionably it bears this resemblance with an immediate view to the best interests of that government. As man himself was originally created in the image of God, so it would seem, in the depth of his condescension, He intended to place him at the head of a government, the shade or similitude of His own.” (Anderson.) And as, in the Divine government, the glory of God is coincident with the well-being of the creature, so in the family the honor of the parent and the welfare of the child are coincident. So that the highest interest of the child, the highest honor of the parent, and the highest glory of God are coincident. J. Harris. The family is a Divine arrangement, designed to be preparatory to the Church. Every truly religious family is a little church. Its office is to train up God’s children for individual membership in His greater Church on earth; even as the office of this is to train them more perfectly for their collective character, as “the bride,” the Church in heaven, which is on the morning of the great day of days to be presented to Christ, arrayed in divinely effulgent glories, for the enjoyment with Him of eternal blessedness and honor. J. S. Stone.—God confides to every believing household upon earth the task of taking the seed that these great sowers of the Word have sown and cherishing it beneath the tender and gracious and mighty influence of home. Such is God’s will and God’s purpose for the preservation of His faith. The family is its safe hiding-place, its true nursery, that none can invade or desecrate. Bishop Magee. The divinely established home is the home where self-support and habits of industry are promoted; the home where, in privacy and underwise jurisdiction, children may be brought up in modesty, simplicity, and obedience; the home where family worship may be maintained and religious teaching imparted; the home where the outside world may be admitted at our own option, and for its good as well as for our advantage. Home is the appointed school for man’s symmetrical training—physical, intellectual, social, executive, and spiritual, and when man and woman make home a school for life, for body and soul, for the neighbor and for self, for temporal good and for eternity, then and then only do they use God’s best gifts of grace and of opportunity. J. H. Vincent. The most beautiful and holy scene on earth is the Christian home. Constituted by the most intimate and peculiar relationships, sequestered from the general world by a common dwelling, and still more by peculiar affinities, united to each other by instinctive, intense, and indestructible affections, by community of interests, by identity of thought and habit and care, and imbued with a deep and pervading piety, its earthly love sanctified by heavenly, its common thankfulness finding expression by praise, and its common want in prayer, its tempers controlled, its affections hallowed, its virtues moulded and stimulated by the fear of God and the love of Christ—it realizes our highest earthly possibilities of sanctity and blessedness. Its natural affections are the most perfect and beautiful of which we are capable; and when these are hallowed and glorified by religious love and purity, they constitute a blessedness deep and inviolable and mysterious—a “peace that passeth all understanding, filling the heart and mind”—a blessedness so ineffable and holy that, as upon all deep blessedness, an awe rests upon it in the consciousness of him who realizes it. . . . The social intercommunion of our homes, so perfectly unique, founded upon affections so distinctive, the peculiar love of husband and wife, of parent and child, of brother and sister, must justly be regarded as one of the wisest provisions of our loving Father in heaven for our human happiness and sanctity. Just imagine the non-existence of these little social communities, our race multiplied in some way, each individual alone and isolated, save in the associations of accidental intercourse. How much the world would lose in kindly affection now developed and diffused by the genial influence of home alone! What inestimable treasure is its household love, hoarded in its million happy homes! What a qualification and correction of its hardness and selfishness! Where would the heart give forth its purest feelings, were they not solicited by the tender names of home? Where would its ruggedness be softened and fitted for kindly intercourse with men, if it were not there? Where would care relax its knitted brow and unburden its heavy heart were it not before the trusting love of brother and sister, husband and wife? In the crowd of men we should be utterly solitary; with appeals to our benevolence on every hand we should be utterly selfish; shut up in his own little self man would have no fear for misery, no sympathies for friendship, no heart for love; surrounded by the world's temptations, he would have no sanctuary to which to flee, no pure and loving thought of mother and sister to arm him against temptation, and stimulate him to virtue. Thank God, we say, for the social and religious blessings of our homes. H. Allon. Those who have homes should specially seek to keep them free from everything that is false. To accustom the young to the view of double dealing in those whom God has taught them first to revere is to sap the foundation of all faith. That God set the "solitary in families," that He made a world with a father and mother, with brothers and sisters in it, and caused such pure affection to well up from these fountains, is His way of helping us to believe in genuine love. And yet it may be remarked here that while a home and children were intended to make men believers in unselfishness, some men may use them so that selfishness may grow. They may be made a more subtle means for the exercise of vanity and egotism. They should not close the door of the heart to the outside world, but open it more widely. If so used and filled with truth and pure affection, the family may be made the best of human agencies for destroying the unhappy distrust in all reality. Happy is the man who, when the outer streams become turbid, "can drink waters out of his own cistern, and running waters out of his own well;" and happy next is he who, when transparency seems to meet him no more in his later course, has such a fountain of purity to look back upon in an early home. Ker. One of the most important requisites of home life is the intimacy that should exist between the parent and the child. This is, indeed, the foundation on which all good influences may be most securely laid. The control which is obtained through fear or force or bare authority has nothing abiding in it. Just as soon as the fear is outgrown or the force removed its power will pass away. But the influence which is at work where real sympathy and friendship exist between parents and children will abide long after the relation itself is severed, and will enter as a powerful factor into the whole life. There are two opposite extremes, both of which tend to prevent this sympathy. One is the prevailing fault of a past régime, which only required of this relation absolute authority on the one hand and absolute submission on the other. The spirit of the times has drifted us into an opposite extreme, equally unfavorable to true parental friendship. The desire to impose no unnatural restraint, and to grant all possible liberty, has had full sway, and the result has been, in many cases, not a knitting together, but a virtual separation, to a great extent, between parent and child. To steer between these two dangers—to avoid, on the one hand, the austere discipline that engenders fear and dislike, and, on the other, the weak laxity and slackness that verge into indifference, should be the aim of every parent. To do this is not merely to seek an average between severity and indulgence; it is rather to establish such an intimate relation of love and confidence that the temporary displeasure of the parent shall be the keenest penalty, and the unrestrained expression of his affection the sweetest indulgence. The friendship which should underlie this relation is not that of equals; it has a different root and bears very different fruit. The authority of the parent wisely and lovingly exercised, the obedience of the child gladly and freely rendered, are both essential to the growth of this peculiar friendship. That they may rightfully fill their office, there must be a firm, stanch, and loving loyalty and fidelity, each to each. The parent must truly sympathize in all the child's experiences and feelings; the child must look up with fullest confidence and loving trust to the parent as his best friend. There must be honest and genuine feelings, tenderly expressed, not in words alone, but in all the involuntary and spontaneous action of daily life. Founded on such an intimacy, and upheld by such principles, the homes of our land will indeed minister, as nothing else can, to the happiness of society and the character and welfare of our national life. Ledger (Philadelphia).—(Read Ps. 68:6.) Among the mightiest influences of our homes are their memories. They bring happiness or bitterness, according as they are sweet and tender, or painful and evil. There is no need of argument to prove the influence of home memories in the formation of character. When one's childhood home has been true, its memories never can be effaced. Its teachings may long remain unheeded, and life may become a sad waste. Sin may sweep over the soul like a devouring flame, leaving only blackened ruin; but the memory of the old home lives on, like a solitary star burning in the gloom of night. Even in revels and carousals its picture floats in the mind like a vanished dream, and often it wooes the wanderer back. It was the memory of home that touched the prodigal son. But it is only of a Christian home that the best memories are borne. An ungodly home twines about the tender lives of the young within its doors no such sacred cords to bind them to truth, virtue, and love. The intercourse of an unloving household leaves no such joy-fountains, but rather bitter regrets and griefs, in the hearts of its members. And in a Christless, prayerless home, sorrows are not transfigured and changed into blessings. It is only when the cross is the centre of all that the memories of a home are hallowed benedictions. S. S. T. There is one mark of a household in which God is known and loved, which is too often wanting in our day—I mean the practice of family prayer. Depend upon it, the worth of a practice of that kind can only be measured by its effects during a long period of time; and family prayers, though occupying only a few minutes, do make a great difference to any household at the end of a year. How, indeed, can it be otherwise, when each morning, and, perhaps, each evening, too, all the members of the family, the old and the young, the parents and the children, the master and the servants, meet on a footing of perfect equality before the Eternal, in whose presence each is as nothing, or less than nothing; yet to whom each is so infinitely dear that He has redeemed by His blood each and all of them? How must not the bad spirits that are the enemies of pure and bright family life flee away—the spirits of envy and pride, and untruthfulness and sloth, and the whole tribe of evil thoughts, and make way for His gracious presence in the hearts of old and young alike, who, as He brings us one by one nearer to the true end of our existence so does He, and He alone, make us to be “of one mind in a house,” here within the narrow presence of each home circle, and hereafter in that countless family of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, which shall dwell with Him, the universal Parent of all eternity. H. P. L. The only condition on which the pilgrim life is possible, and the temptations of the world cease to draw our hearts, is that all life shall be filled with the consciousness of the Divine presence, our homes altars, and ourselves joyful thank-offerings. Then every abode is blessed. The undefended tent is a safe fortress, in which we need not envy those who dwell in palaces. Common tasks will then be fresh, full of interest, because we see God in them, and offer them up to Him. Life will be a life of walking with God, and progressive knowledge of Him; and over all the roughnesses and the sorrows and the trivialities of it will be spread “the light that never was on sea or land, the consecration” of God’s presence, and the peacefulness of communion with Him. A. M. 1. MANY a time have they afflicted me from my youth up, Let Israel now say; 2. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth up: Yet they have not prevailed against me. 3. The plowers plowed upon my back; They made long their furrows. 4. The LORD is righteous: He hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked. 5. Let them be ashamed and turned backward, All they that hate Zion. 6. Let them be as the grass upon the house-tops, Which withereth afore it groweth up: 7. Wherewith the reaper filleth not his hand, Nor he that bindeth sheaves his bosom. 8. Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the LORD be upon you; We bless you in the name of the LORD. THIS song sweeps its eye over the historic past of Israel, bringing back this one great moral lesson, that though their enemies had afflicted them sorely, yet their God had always interposed in their time of need. This view of the past calls forth the trustful prayer that God would frustrate their schemes in all future time. C.—The nation, delivered from the Babylonish captivity, may well look back to all her past history, and trace in it the same great law of suffering, and the same ever-repeated tokens of God's mercy. The record is a record of conflict, but it is also a record of victory (v. 2). The great principle on which Israel's final deliverance rests is the righteousness of Jehovah (v. 4). That has been manifested, as often before, so now in cutting asunder the cords by which the people had been bound in Babylon. Full of thankfulness at this deliverance, the poet draws thence an augury and a hope for the overthrow, complete and final, of their oppressors. The Psalm consists, accordingly, of two stanzas, each of four verses: the first containing the record of the past, the second the prayer (which is also a hope, and almost a promise) for the future P. 1-3. The youth of Israel as a nation was spent in Egypt, much of it in political bondage. Then and all along at intervals onward their enemies had oppressed them greatly—much, the Hebrew word primarily means; but in this historic review it may include frequency as well as severity. "Oh, let Israel say," the word for "now" having no reference to time, but being only a word of entreaty. Yet gratefully to God let me say, "They have not been able;" i.e., to destroy me. They have scourged me sorely, "ridging my back with their furrows," where the wounds of the savage scourge are compared to the ridges of a ploughed field. C. 2. Have not prevailed.** This is the point of the Psalm. The New Testament parallel is 2 Cor. 4: 8-10, and the whole history of the Christian Church is an echo of the words P.—As he reviews a thousand years of conflict with adversaries on every side, the writer can say, "Nevertheless, they have not prevailed against us. Even when we were driven captive into Babylon, we were not abandoned; even there Jehovah opened to us a door of life and hope; and here we stand to day, in our own city, our own capital, once more—alive, though we have suffered so many strange indignities, free, though long bound!" Cox. The Christian Church may adopt the language of the Hebrew Church: "Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth; yet they have not prevailed against me." What afflictions were endured by the Christian Church from her youth up! Despite, however, of every opposition, our holy religion took root and grew upward. Not all the fury of ten persecutions could exterminate it from the earth. The fire could not burn it; the waters could not drown it; the dungeon could not confine it. Truth is eternal like the great God from whose bosom it springs, and therefore it cannot be destroyed. And because Christianity is the truth, and no lie, her enemies have never prevailed against her. M'Michael.—Israel prevailed with God in wrestling with Him, and therefore it is that He prevails with men also. If so be that we will wrestle with God for a blessing and prevail with Him, then we need not to fear but we shall wrestle the enemies out of it also. If we be the people of God, and persist in wrestling against His enemies, we need not fear but that we shall be victorious. A. Henderson. 3. As if he had said, My back was furrowed by their whips or scourges. We have here, then, an image of an image. The ploughing is a figure for scourging, and the scourging a figure for the manifold sufferings inflicted upon Israel by his cruel enemies. A.—Well did Latimer say that there was no busier ploughman in all the world than the devil; whoever makes short furrows, he does not. Whoever balks and shirks, he is thorough in all that he does. Whoever stops work at sundown, he never does. He and his children plough like practised ploughmen; but they prefer to carry on their pernicious work upon the saints behind their backs, for they are as cowardly as they are cruel. S. 4. Jehovah (is) righteous; He cut the cord of the wicked. He is righteous, and therefore faithful to His promise and to His covenant engagements to His people. The cord (not cords) is that which fastened the ox to the plough. This continuation of the figure in v. 3 is much more natural than the assumption of a new one, that of confinement by the tying of the limbs. According to the first translation above given, the meaning of the clause is, that Jehovah put an end to their inflictions by a violent separation from their victim. A.—God has cut asunder the cords of the wicked, has cut their traces and so spoiled their ploughing; has cut their scourges and so spoiled their lashing; has cut the bands of union by which they were combined together; He has cut the bands of captivity in which they held God's people. God has many ways of disabling wicked men to do the mischief they design against His Church, and shaming their counsels. H. 5. Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion. If this be an imprecation, let it stand; for our heart says "Amen" to it. It is but justice that those who hate, harass, and hurt the good should be brought to nought. Those who confound right and wrong ought to be confounded, and those who turn back from God ought to be turned back. Loyal subjects wish ill to those who plot against their king, and that with no trace of personal ill-will. We desire their welfare as men, their downfall as traitors. S. 6-8. Grass on the housetops;** easily springing up, but having no root. The flat roofs of the Eastern houses "are plastered with a composition of mortar, tar, ashes, and sand," in the crevices of which grass often springs. P. —Grass on Oriental housetops is of necessity short-lived, the soil for roots being the least amount which would admit any growth at all. With the first abatement of the rain and the first warm rays of the sun it must wither. Not "afore it growth," for this construction would preclude grass altogether; but before one plucks it; i.e., it withers of itself, under the agencies of nature, and without human hands to pluck it up. Still carrying forward the supposed case—with such grass no mower fills his hands; no binder of sheaves his arm; the passers-by could have no heart to say to men harvesting such grass, "The Lord's blessing be on you." C. The enemies of Israel are as grass upon the roofs, which is not garnered in; their life closes with sure destruction, the germ of which they (without there being any need of an uprooting) bear within themselves. D.—The enemies of God's Church wither of themselves; nor are they anything but the unprofitable burdens of the earth; nor will their attempts against Zion ever ripen or come to any head; nor, whatever they promise themselves, will they get any more by them than the husbandman does by the grass on his housetop. Their harvest will be a heap in the day of grief (Is. 17 : 11). H. 8. This is taken from real life. We find it in the Hebrew Chronicles as well as in the pilgrim's Psalm-book. As Ruth went gleaning amid "the alien corn," we are told, "Behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, Jehovah be with you! and they answered him, Jehovah bless thee!" Cox.—These expressions are most refreshingly Arabic. Nothing is more natural than for them, when passing by a fruit-tree or cornfield loaded with a rich crop to exclaim, "Barak Allah!" God bless you! We bless you in the name of the Lord! W. M. Thomson. To these ancient pilgrims, as to us, life was often hard and sorrowful, full of mystery and contradiction. Their feet, like ours, often well-nigh slipped when they saw the wicked prosper and the good decay. They needed, as we need, to assure and to reassure themselves that God is righteous in all His ways, and that, because He is righteous, it must be good to be good, and bad to be bad. And it was well for them, as it is well for us, to be taught not to be over-hasty and extravagant in their thoughts, not to expect that the world was all at once to be shaped to their mind because they threw in their lot with the righteous and the good. It would save them from many a disappointment and heart-sickness to learn that the righteous have to contend with many adversaries, and must often be content with being not overcome, instead of gaining a brilliant victory; that the ploughers may be suffered to plough many furrows, deep and long, even on the back of the elect, before God sees it right to cut the traces; but that, in the end, while the righteous should be singing over their sheaves, the wicked would wither like grass on the housetops. Strangely as the conditions of human life have changed since the Hebrew pilgrims went up to make holiday before the Lord, these sacred lessons of trust, of patience, of an assured belief in the final and complete victory of good over evil, are not obsolete, nor will they fall out of need or out of use so long as the world lasts. Cox. 1. Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O LORD. 2 Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications. 3 If thou, LORD, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with thee, That thou mayest be feared. 5. I wait for the LORD, my soul doth wait, And in his word do I hope. 6 My soul looketh for the Lord, More than watchmen look for the morning; Yea, more than watchmen for the morning. 7 O Israel, hope in the LORD; For with the LORD there is mercy, And with him is plenteous redemption. 8 And he shall redeem Israel From all his iniquities. THIS is the sixth of the seven Penitential Psalms, as they are called. It is a cry to God for the forgiveness of sin. The Psalmist pleads that he has long waited upon God, trusting in His Word. Out of his own experience he exhorts all Israel in like manner to hope and wait and look for God's mercy and redemption, which will assuredly be vouchsafed. P. The passionate earnestness of the Psalm is enhanced by the repetition eight times in it of the Divine Name. Bib. Com.—This Psalm, perhaps more than any other, is marked by its mountains: Depth; prayer; conviction; light; hope; waiting; watching; longing; confidence; assurance; universal happiness and joy. J. Vaughan. Being asked on one occasion which were the best Psalms, Luther replied: "The Pauline Psalms" (Psalmi Paulini), and being pressed to say which they were, he answered: "The thirty-second, the fifty-first, the one hundred and thirtieth, and the one hundred and forty-third; for they teach us that the forgiveness of sins is vouchsafed to them that believe, without the law and without works; therefore are they Pauline Psalms; and when David sings, 'With Thee is forgiveness, that Thou mayest be feared,' so Paul likewise saith, 'God hath concluded all under sin, that He may have mercy on all.' Therefore none can boast of his own righteousness; but the words, 'That Thou mayest be feared,' thrust away all self-merit and teach us to confess that it is all forgiveness and no merit." D. If the Psalm be a penitential Psalm, surely penitence is seldom so bright and hopeful as it is here; and if it be a Pauline, or theological Psalm, surely there never was a theology more generous and informal. Oh, that all our penitence were as quick with life and hope! Oh, that all our theology were set to a music as sweet and gracious! Cox. 1. The depths are the deep outward and inward distress in which the poet is sunk as in watery depths. Out of these depths he cries unto the God of salvation, and urgently beseeches from Him, that rules everything and is able to accomplish everything, a ready audience. D.—The Psalm has but two figures in it, or, rather, two allusions to one and the same figure, and these are made in the simplest and least dramatic way. Evidently, the Psalmist has in his mind the figure of a wrecked mariner crying to God "out of the depths" (v. 1), and watching, with yearning desire, for the break of day (v. 6). But he does not dwell on the figure. Cox. The singer calls out of the depths, as if he were on some angry sea where waves and billows were breaking over him. The figure is strong, but not extravagant, for the evil complained of is not that of ignorance, or weakness, or sorrow, but of sin. The sufferer was before insensible to the number and character and aggravations of his sins, thought them few and slight and easily got over, and was therefore in peace. But now he sees what they are; how he has offended God, broken His law, trifled with His name, failed in reverence, in worship, in thankfulness, and in affection. To Him, therefore, to Jehovah he addresses himself. He prays earnestly and perseveringly. Chambers. Depths of earnestness are stirred by depths of tribulation. Prayer de profundis gives to God gloria in excelsis. The more distressed we are, the more excellent is the faith which trusts bravely in the Lord, and therefore appeals to Him and to Him alone. Good men may be in the depths of temporal and spiritual trouble; but good men in such cases look only to their God, and they stir themselves up to be more instant and earnest in prayer than at other times. The depth of their distress moves the depths of their being; and from the bottom of their hearts an exceeding great and bitter cry rises unto the one living and true God. S.—It is not too much to say that we do not know what prayer may be till we have “cried.” And we seldom rise till we have gone very deep. “I die! I perish! I am lost! Help, Lord! Help me! Save me now! Do it now, Lord, or I am lost. O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hearken and do; defer not, for Thine own sake, O my God!” J. Vaughan. Through humiliation to exaltation—this is the indispensable way for all, who not merely wish to do something, but really to be something in the spiritual kingdom of God. This is the blessed path for all God’s children; they learn here in a manner which they can do nowhere else, to seek and to find God and understand what God is for them, and are grateful to Him, not merely in spite of their trials, but because in faithfulness He has afflicted them. Van O. 2. Mourning after an absent God is an evidence of love as strong as rejoicing in a present one.** F. W. R.—A Christian is always on the perch, or on the wing; he is always reposing in God, or in flight after Him; and the latter is as good an evidence of religion as the former; for delight is not only a part of complacency and affection, but also fear, complaint, desire—fear of losing the object; complaint of our enjoying so little of it; desire to attain and feel more. H. 3. Here he owns that he cannot stand before the great King in his own righteousness, and he is so struck with a sense of the holiness of God and the rectitude of the law that he is convinced that no man of mortal race can answer for himself before a Judge so perfect, concerning a law so Divine. Well does he cry, “O Lord, who shall stand?” S.** 4. There is forgiveness with Thee.** It is our unspeakable comfort, in all our approaches to God, that there is forgiveness with Him, for that is what we need. He has put Himself into a capacity to pardon sin, He has declared Himself gracious and merciful and ready to forgive (Ex. 34 : 6, 7). He has promised to forgive the sins of those that do repent. Never any that dealt with Him found Him implacable, but easy to be entreated and swift to show mercy. With us there is iniquity, and therefore it is well for us that with Him there is forgiveness. There is a propitiation with Thee, so some read it. Jesus Christ is the great Propitiation, the Ransom which God has found; He is ever with Him as Advocate for us, and through Him we hope to obtain forgiveness. H. The glory of the Gospel is that it maintains and honors both justice and mercy. This fact and the reason of it are fully set forth in the New Testament, but are only intimated and hinted at in the Old. Here we have simply the assurance of forgiveness. It is with God, and partakes of His boundless perfection. Unlike human pardon, which often amounts to impurity and leads to recklessness, Divine forgiveness leads to the true fear of God; i.e., reverence for His name and will. The pardoned sinner renders grateful service to the God of his salvation. Chambers. How is this forgiveness to be obtained consistently with the integrity of these laws? How are the attributes of the eternal to be reconciled in the dispensation of mercy and the just guardianship of Divine commandments? How is the law-breaker to be dealt with as a law-keeper, the transgressor to be treated as just? By the great law of substitution, by the mediation of another, who says, “Behold Me, then; Me for Him—life for life I offer.” This is the Scripture teaching. Loraine. To make the death of Christ a mere refuge-house for pardons is to degrade it to the most selfish end, and to receive the grace of God in vain. The Lord whom we acknowledge laid down His life to blot out all the sinful past; but He rose again that, in His Spirit of purity and love, He might be our Leader in the war with sin in every form and degree. He consecrates us as His soldiers, clothes us with the whole armor of God, and sends us out to do battle with evil, first of all in the heart which is its stronghold. If the death and life of Christ are to have any practical meaning in our daily walk, it must be this, the death of the false and impure in us, and the springing up of a new and Divine life in their room. Ker. The Father pardons, the Son propitiates, the Spirit purifies. The first of these three propositions involves the other two. Because it is the Father’s purpose to remit sin, He sends His Son to redeem and His Spirit to regenerate. The first has two seemingly insurmountable obstacles to encounter. How can God, being just, forgive sin; and how can man, being evil, return to God? The former is overcome by the atonement, in which the Son of God becoming man obeys the law and dies the death, that the sinner who trusts in Him with penitent heart may escape death and enter into life. The latter is overcome by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, who by the Gospel makes the sinner aware of the mercy of the Father and the mediation of the Son, and willing to lean on the Saviour and return to the Fountain of mercy. These three fundamental articles of faith manifestly involve two others of co-ordinate importance, the trinity of persons in the Godhead and the incarnation of the Eternal Word. These may be called the five cardinal points of revelation. M. What was the chief thing that moved the prodigal son to return home to his father? He remembered that he had a loving father. That maketh him to resolve with an humble confession to go home. Even so is it with the sinner; it is not terrors and threatenings that chiefly will move him to come to God, but the consideration of His manifold and great mercies. Rollock. There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared. These were good words to me, for it was thus made out to me that the great God did set so high an esteem upon the love of His poor creatures that rather than He would go without their love He would pardon their transgressions. Bunyan.—One would think that punishment should procure fear, and forgiveness love; but no man more truly loves God than he that is most fearful to offend Him. “Thy mercy reacheth to the heavens, and Thy faithfulness to the clouds;” that is, above all sublimities. God is glorious in all His works, but most glorious in His works of mercy. Lord, who can know Thee and not love Thee, know Thee and not fear Thee? We fear Thee for thy justice, and love Thee for Thy mercy; yea, fear Thee for Thy mercy, and love Thee for Thy justice; for Thou art infinitely good in both. T. Adams. If there were no mercy, there would be little fear. Men would grow reckless, desperate. All experience, the experience of all ages and countries, has shown this. Where mercy is never shown, crimes multiply; men grow bolder, take their chance more recklessly, and meet their fate more doggedly, than when there is an occasional pardon and reprieve. If God were extreme to mark what is done amiss, there would be no hope for any of us. But He has a prerogative of mercy, which He exercises in favor of those whom He deems worthy of it. Because, therefore, He holds the prerogative of mercy, let us fear Him—fear lest we should render ourselves unworthy of it; fear lest we should compel Him to withhold it; fear lest we should miss it. F. E. Paget. In that Thou shuttest all under free mercy, and leavest nothing to the merits and works of men, therefore thou art feared. But if all things were not placed in Thy mercy, and we could take away our sins by our own strength, no man would fear Thee, but the whole world would proudly contemn Thee. For daily experience shows that where there is not this knowledge of God’s mercy, there men walk in a presumption of their own merits. The true fear of God, the worship, the true reverence; yea, the true knowledge of God resteth on nothing but mercy, that through Christ we assuredly trust that God is reconciled unto us. Christian doctrine doth not deny or condemn good works, but it teacheth that God willeth not to mark iniquities, but willeth that we believe; that is, trust His mercy. For with Him is forgiveness, that He may be feared, and continue to be our God. So these two lines set forth to us the sum and substance of all Christian doctrine, and that sun which giveth light to the Church. Luther. God was pleased to provide a sacrifice in nature so pure, in value so precious, as might be perfectly satisfactory for our offences; in regard to which obedience God has become reconciled, and opens His arms of grace to mankind; in respect to which sacrifice He tenders remission to all men that, upon His terms (most equal and easy terms), are willing to embrace it. Barrow.—Christ hath not only satisfied for the punishment, but He hath procured favor for us; wherein He differeth from an ordinary and common surety. Christ does not only free us from bonds, but also hath brought us into grace and favor with the Creator, Lawgiver, and Judge. Manton.—Though there are many mercies that lay an obligation upon men to be holy, yet he that shall want the obligation that is begotten by the faith of redeeming mercy wanteth the main principle of true holiness; nor will any other be found sufficiently to sanctify the heart to the causing of it to produce such a life; nor can such holiness be accepted, because it comes not forth in the name of Christ. That which constrained the Psalmist was forgiving and redeeming mercy, and that which constrained Paul was the love that Christ showed to him in dying for his sins and in rising from the dead. Bunyan. Thus it is that the sinner’s chain is broken, and he is set free to serve God. First liberty, then service; the service of men set free from condemnation and from bondage. It is in accepting the Divine Substitute that the sinner is set free to serve the living God. The liberty flowing from forgiveness, thus received, is the true beginning of a holy life. If, then, I am to live a holy life, I must begin with the Substitute. I must deal with Him for pardon and deliverance. Thus being by Him "delivered out of the hands of our enemies, we serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness all the days of our life." If I am to serve God, and if I am to possess anything of "true religion," I must begin with the Substitute. For religion begins with pardon; and without pardon religion is a poor and irksome profession. "There is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared." This is the Divine watchword. Not first the fear of God, and then forgiveness; but first forgiveness, and then the fear of God. H. Bonar. When both sides of God's character and government are revealed together, every point is gained. God can be revered and felt to be worthy of reverence, can be loved and be felt to be worthy of love. The righteous can feel safe under His shelter, and the wicked can dread His displeasure. The trembling sinner can look with hope toward the light which beams from His mingled justice and holiness. Man, in all the forms of society, can feel that God's known character and will is the cement which binds the family, the State, the nations of mankind together by a twisted cord of justice and goodwill. Man can now be educated for the offices of the world and for eternal life, for all time and all places on one plan, because the policy of the family and of the State is seen to be the policy of heaven and of the universe. Law reigns and pardon is offered to sinners without weakening the authority or venerableness of the lawgiver. "There is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared." Sinners are recovered and reclaimed first by a sense of sin, and then by a perception of Divine love, and without the latter they would not think of their sins, or grow into that filial fear, that holy worship which the Psalmist intends. Only under this twofold aspect of God is true religion, the religion of the soul, possible. T. D. W. Where faith makes a discovery of forgiveness, great love, fear, and reverence of God are its attendants. Mary Magdalene loved much, because much was forgiven. Great love will spring out of great forgiveness. "There is forgiveness with Thee (saith the Psalmist), that Thou mayest be feared." No unbeliever doth truly and experimentally know the truth of this inference. But so it is, when men "fear the Lord and His goodness." Where pardoning mercy is truly apprehended, where faith makes a discovery of it to the soul, it is endeared to God, and possessed of the great springs of love, delight, fear, and reverence. Owen. 5. He hopes in Jehovah, his soul hopes; hoping in, waiting for God is the mood of his inmost and whole being. He waits for God's Word, the Word of His salvation, which, when it penetrates into the soul, calms all unrest, and by the appropriated consolation of forgiveness transforms and enlightens everything within and without it. D. "Waiting" expresses a state or habit which is the result of a combination of desire, expectation, and patient submission. "Waiting on God" is thus the patient expectation of results which God has promised to secure, results which are in themselves desirable, and which God has given us reason to believe will be realized. It implies the exercise of self-control, a meek acquiescence in the Divine arrangements, a confident assurance that God will do what He has promised and show Himself in full accordance with all that He has revealed Himself to be. W. L. A.—Waiting is a great part of life's discipline, and therefore God often exercises the grace of waiting. Waiting practises the patience of faith. It gives time for preparation for the coming gift. It makes the blessing the sweeter when it arrives. And it shows the sovereignty of God—to give just when and just as He pleases. J. Vaughan.—Be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in the deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God. A. M. I wait . . . I hope. Waiting and hoping ever attend the same thing. No man will wait for that which he hath no hope of, and he who hath hope gives not over waiting till he gives over hoping. The object of hope is some future good, but the act of hoping is at present good, and that is present pay to bear our charges in waiting. The word implies both a patient waiting and a hopeful trusting. Caryl.—This waiting, hoping attitude is the attitude of a true heart, of one not easily discouraged, of one that says, "I will not let Thee go, except Thou bless me." P. Knowing the boundless compassion of Jehovah, the believer waits for Him, for the manifestation of His favor. This is not a formal act, but one in which all his powers are engaged—"My soul doth wait." He knows the value of the blessing, and seeks it accordingly where alone it is to be obtained, even in Jehovah. Nor is this a vague and uncertain dependence, but one with a solid basis—"In His Word do I hope." The promise of God gives a sure warrant; and having this the soul is able to wait the Lord's time, for His Word is the Word of One who never speaks in vain. Chambers. Hope without patience would be life kindling into over-intensity, and burning itself out in fruitless longings. Patience without hope would be the decay of life's flame for want of nourishment, till it would sink into the quietude of death. Whenever hope rises into impatience, it is the will of God that quiet waiting should lay its hand upon it, and bid it "rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him, and not fret," for there is purpose in his delay, and occupation meanwhile for us. When patient waiting, on its side, becomes indifferent or torpid, it is not less the will of God that hope should come and wake it up, as the cry did the slumbering virgins, "Behold the Bridegroom cometh, go ye forth to meet Him." On either side we may fall into sin, and the fully approved state is to have the eye looking forward, while the heart is at rest; to combine these two, as they are found so often in the Bible: By the Psalmist, "I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His word do I hope." Ker. And in His word do I hope. This is the source, strength, and sweetness of waiting. Those who do not hope cannot wait; but if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it. God's Word is a true Word, but at times it tarries; if ours is true faith it will wait the Lord's time. Waiting, we study the Word, believe the Word, hope in the Word, and live on the Word; and all because it is "His Word," the Word of Him who never speaks in vain. Jehovah's Word is a firm ground for a waiting soul to rest upon. S. 6. My soul (looketh) for; literally, "My soul is unto the Lord," as the eyes of watchers through the long and weary night look eagerly for the first streaks of the coming day. P.—Watching for the morning, watching for the morning. There is something beautiful and touching in this simple repetition. The comparison suggested is between the impatience of nocturnal watchers for the break of day and that of sufferers for relief, or of convicted sinners for forgiveness. A.—The night-watch of the temple, or sentinels watching a city or an encampment might also be included in the term, and indeed all who, from whatever cause, are obliged to keep awake. No figure could more beautifully express the longing of the soul for the breaking of the day of God's loving mercy. P. Hoping in this Word, which has been his constant stay while tossing on the waves and sinking in the depths, he now gathers up all the energies of his soul and bends them toward the living and compassionate Ruler of men. Will He not come? will He not come? and come, bringing with Him a new day of mercy? For the breaking of that happy day the Psalmist longs and yearns more than the watcher on the wreck for the dawning light, which may show him that he is not solitary, or may even reveal some haven of refuge or some approaching deliverance. Cox. 8. Literally, "O Israel, hope thou in the Lord;" the ground of inspiring hope being that with Him pardoning mercy is much, great, plenteous; it comes not in scanty measure, but in measure abundant; not from reluctant hand and heart, but from a full hand and overflowing heart! C.—Whatever is in store for you, if you go trustfully and prayerfully forward into that future, you will find many sweet mercies there awaiting you, many blessings at this moment unsurmised; and you will find that in that future God awaits you, as powerful and as kind as He has been in the most favored past. So, summon up courage and go cheerfully forward. "Hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is mercy." And whatever else you limit, set no limits to the loving-kindness of the Lord, nor to the largeness of those petitions by which the needy suppliant honors the liberal Giver. Hamilton. Let Israel hope in the Lord. There is nothing which isolates a man so awfully as a consciousness of sin and of his relation to God; but there is nothing that so knits him to all his fellows and brings him into such wide-reaching bonds of amity and benevolence as the sense of God's forgiving mercy for his own soul. So the call bursts from the lips of the pardoned man, inviting all to taste the experience and exercise the trust which have made him glad. A. M. Worldly hopes are not living, but dying hopes; they die often before us, and we live to bury them and see our own folly and infelicity in trusting to them; but at the utmost they die with us when we die, and can accompany us no further. But the living hope, which is the Christian's portion, answers expectation to the full and much beyond it, and deceives no way but in that happy way of far exceeding it. Leighton. Plenteous redemption; or, more literally, "redemption plenteously." He calls it plenteous, as Luther says, because such is the straitness of our heart, the slenderness of our hopes, the weakness of our faith, that it far exceeds all our capacity, all our petitions and all our desires. P.—Though you are unworthy, yet Christ is worthy. Though you have no merit, yet God has mercy. Though there is no salvation for you by the law, yet there is "plenteous redemption" in the Gospel. T. Brooks. Temptations may harass and even defile, the world may come in like a spring-flood, inbred sin may reassert its sway, clouds of error may overshadow, despondency may impair the comforts of believing; but amidst all, and through all, God carries on the good work and "will perform it unto the day of redemption." Faith at length gets the victory, growing up in many to the attainment of a full assurance through Christ. J. W. A.—It will often happen in the experience of a much tried and tempted disciple that, even in the depths of his distress, praise to his God will be the readiest and surest road out of those depths and up to the heights of spiritual joy and exaltation. If he dwells in prayer only on his needs and sins and sorrows, he will miss one of the supreme delights of communion with God. On the other hand, if he turns his thoughts to the unnumbered evidences of the Father's love and care for him, to the saving power of the outstretched arm, to the promises of succor and sustenance, and for all these pours out his heart in gratitude, he will suddenly find himself out of the depths into which he allowed himself to fall, and his only prayer need be for a continuance of the very blessings which have evoked his heartfelt praise. The God we praise is the God from whom all blessings flow, and we cannot praise Him too often or too much for His wondrous love in making us partakers of the richness and fulness of His blessing. Interior. 8. And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. The pronoun is emphatic; only trust him for redemption, and He will Himself redeem thee. As the first clause shows by whom Israel is to be redeemed—by God alone; so the second shows from what—from sin, as the cause of His sufferings. A.—He will redeem. He emphatic, He alone, for none other can. From his iniquities. Not only from the punishment. The redemption includes the forgiveness of sins, the breaking of the power and dominion of sin, and the setting free from all the consequences of sin. P. What a graceful and appropriate conclusion of this comprehensive and instructive Psalm! Like the sun, it dawns veiled in cloud, it sets bathed in splendor; it opens with soul-depth, it closes with soul height. Redemption from all iniquity! It baffles the most descriptive language, and distances the highest measurement. The most vivid imagination faints in conceiving it, the most glowing image fails in portraying it. O. Winslow. Did the Lord come to this patient, hopeful watcher, and the day break on him? Yes, he had the desire of his heart. He was forgiven, succored, blessed. His hope did not make him ashamed. For it is out of the depths of his own happy experience of the Divine compassion that, in the closing verses of the Psalm, he bids Israel hope. The sinful nation, like the sinful man, will find that with Jehovah there is the very "loving-kindness" it needs, and a redemption so plenteous and bountiful as that it will save them from "all their iniquities" (vs. 7, 8). This is the spiritual experience half-veiled and half-disclosed in this penitential Psalm; the experience of one who endured the keenest sorrow for sin with a patient, resolute, and hopeful heart, and was at last cleansed by the Divine forgiveness and comforted with the Divine love. Cox. This exquisite Psalm was a great favorite with Luther, whose versification of it still holds its place in the sacred songs of Germany. It was especially dear to him, as it taught the forgiveness of sins to them that believe apart from the law and without works. It was this Psalm sung in St. Paul's, May, 1738, and heard by John Wesley with deep emotion, that prepared him for the truth of justification by faith which he embraced shortly afterward, through reading Luther on the Galatians. Chambers. The one hundred and thirtieth Psalm, the "De Profundis," whose undertone is like the sound of the sea, reveals the two great roots of Christian theology—sin and forgiveness. What a light is thrown upon the human heart by the words, "If Thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" What a glimpse into the redemptive work of God is opened by the succeeding verse, "There is forgiveness with Thee that Thou mayest be feared." What a testimony is borne throughout the Psalm, by the union of personal experience with dogma, that a true theology is bound up with experience and elaborated in living. V. The great doctrine, the ruling doctrine of this Psalm, as of the Gospel, is “the forgiveness of sins.” This is plainly and repeatedly affirmed. “Forgiveness,” “mercy,” “plenteous redemption,” are expressly attributed to God; and the sacred poet thus lingers on the Divine compassion, and places it before us in various forms that we may learn from him to put this dogma and Gospel first in our Creed, that He may leave us without excuse if we despair of being redeemed by Him who waits to redeem all men from all their iniquities. There is no truth of which we so profoundly need to be assured as of the unlimited compassion of Him against whom we have sinned. To know that He does not watch for our iniquities in order that He may condemn us, but in order that He may redeem us—this is life and peace. And therefore our Psalm is so valuable and precious. Its very iterations and reiterations make it beautiful and dear to us. We love it all the more because it sounds but one note, because it affirms and affirms again the very truth we most need to know. Cor. We all feel—at least, if our life amounts to anything that deserves to be called an experience—that we are not what we ought to be; that we are terribly otherwise. Let us not try to get around the fact. These hearts, our own hearts, have taken in other guests than purity and honor, devotion and disinterested love. These lips, have they never displaced the honest words of charity and prayer for bitterness and mockery? These hands have been about other than the Father’s business. Every day afresh we are selfish, and petulant, and censorious, and proud, and not quite sincere; our purity is not white; some duplicity creeps into our conversation; some bodily sacrilege profanes God’s temple. The law is holy, just, and good. Our lives are not holy, nor just, nor good. It is nowhere written that we may partly keep that law and partly break it, and yet go acquitted. But we break it still. Suppose the past score settled by our repentance; even if the integrity of the Divine government were left unimpaired, we have no reason to think we shall be perfect men or blameless women in the future. We are painfully and shamefully certain that, after all our endeavors, we shall sin again and again. What, then, were our life without a Mediator reconciling it? What if Christ, coming in from above its broken strength, did not touch it with His inspiration, renew it by His grace, sanctify it by His love? What if He, who alone is competent, uniting both the estranged elements in His own redeeming person, did not come and take this fallen life, and quicken it by the breathing of His Spirit, and revive its torpor by His truth, and warm its frost in His bosom, and restore its deadness by His intercession—and thus hide it again, with Himself, in God? What would it be except it were thus animated by His indwelling power, were forgiven by the pardon which no other voice on earth but His ever promised, and no other seal but His death could ever accredit? Past offences are then blotted out. The penitent passes into the disciple. Memories of transgression torment no more. So that thenceforth, Christ being formed within him, the believer might say, “This life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who gave Himself for me.” F. D. H. Thou hast nothing to boast of, and much to be humbled and also to be thankful for. Thy holy desires are too weak; but they are holy. Thy love has been too cold; but it is the most holy God whom thou hast loved. Thy prayers have been too dull and interrupted; but thou hast prayed for holiness and heaven. Thy labors have been too slothful; but thou hast labored for God and Christ, and the good of mankind. Though thy motion was too weak and slow, it has been Godward, and therefore it is from God. Oh, bless the Lord for frequently and remarkably fulfilling His promises in the answer of thy prayers, and in great deliverance of thyself and of many others; and that He has been preparing thee for the light of glory! And wilt thou yet doubt and fear, against all this evidence, experience, and foretaste?” Baxter. We have the mind and heart and will of God revealed to us for the light, the love, the obedience of our will and heart and mind; and we should try, moment by moment, in all the bustle and stir of our daily life, to have our whole being consciously directed to and engaged with, fertilized, and calmed by contact with the perfect and infinite nature of our Father in heaven. Before all else, and in the midst of all else, we should think of that Divine mind that in the heavens is waiting to illumine our darkness; we should feel the glow of that uncreated and perfect love, which, in the midst of change and treachery, of coldness and of “greetings where no kindness is,” in the midst of masterful authority and unloving command, is ready to fill our hearts with tenderness and tranquillity; we should bow before that will which is absolute and supreme indeed, but neither arbitrary nor harsh, which is “the eternal purpose that He hath purposed in Himself” indeed, but is also “the good pleasure of His goodness and the counsel of His grace." And with such a God near to us ever in our faithful thoughts, in our thankful love, in our lowly obedience, with such a mind revealing itself to us, and such a heart opening its hidden storehouses for us as we approach, and such a will sovereign above all, energizing, even through opposition, and making obedience a delight, what room would there be in our lives for agitations, and distractions, and regrets, and cares, and fears; what room for earthly hopes or for sad remembrances? A. M. 1. LORD, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty; Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, Or in things too wonderful for me. 2. Surely I have stilled and quieted my soul; Like a weaned child with his mother, My soul is with me like a weaned child. 3. O Israel, hope in the LORD From this time forth and for evermore. WHETHER written by David, to whom the title gives it, or not, this short Psalm, one of the most beautiful in the whole book, assuredly breathes David's spirit. A childlike simplicity, an unaffected humility, the honest expression of that humility as from a heart spreading itself out in conscious integrity before God—this is what we find in the Psalm, traits of a character like that of David. Delitzsch calls the Psalm an echo of David's answer to Michal (2 Sam. 6:22), "And I will become of still less account than this, and I will be lowly in mine own eyes." At the same time, with the majority of interpreters, he holds it to be a post-exile Psalm, written with a view to encourage the writer himself and his people to the same humility, the same patient waiting upon God, of which David was so striking an example. P. The Psalmist describes a contentment, resignation, and devotion to the Divine will, the most absolute, after lengthened struggles and temptations. The storm of passion has been allayed, all proud longings and vain expectations have been curbed. As a child at rest the poet waits the future which is before him, with joyous confidence in its revelations, and faithful encouragement to his people to wait with him. Nothing can be more beautiful than the sketch in the Psalm of a new birth to a new life; nothing more striking than its guarantee of a better future which the anticipated new birth holds out; nothing more suggestive of the noblest promise than the renunciation of all selfish personal aims, and resolution of them into a prayer for the nation's weal. The short lovely song is as a bud in spring. Ewald. The previous Psalm is a song of forgiveness; this a song of humility; the former celebrates the blessedness of the man whose transgressions are pardoned; the latter celebrates the blessedness of the man who is of a meek and lowly spirit. Forgiveness should humble us. Forgiveness implies sin; and should not the sinner clothe himself with humility? and when, not for any desert of his, but simply by the free grace of heaven, his sins have been pardoned, should he not bind the garments of humility still more closely about him? The man who is of a nature at once sincere and sweet will be even more humbled by the sense of an undeserved forgiveness than by the memory of the sins from which it has cleansed him. Very fitly, therefore, does the Psalm of humility follow the Psalm which sings of the Divine lovingkindness and tender mercy. It is the frank utterance of a soul so childlike and lowly that it can assert its own loveliness without losing it. Its tone is grateful, not vain-glorious. It is an appeal to the great Searcher of hearts as to the real state of the heart that speaks to Him. It is a thankful acknowledgment that He, Jehovah, has freed it from the agitations of self- will, and brought it to the rest and peace of a constant trust in Him. And this theme is wrought out with rare skill. Cox. 1. He could in truth of heart appeal to God, "Lord, my heart is not haughty." He appealeth to Him who knoweth all things. Lord, from whom nothing is hid, Thou knowest that this is the very disposition of my soul. God will accept the appeal; for in the account of God we are that which we sincerely desire and endeavor to be, and that which is the general course and tenor of our lives, though there be some intermixture of failing. Manton. Here are three things to be noted: The absence of the proud heart. "Jehovah, my heart is not haughty." In the heart of the truly humble man all high thoughts of self-righteousness and all notions of self-reliance are effectually abased. He is "poor in spirit," conscious of spiritual poverty and deep need, and consequently humble before God. The absence of the "high look." "Nor mine eyes lofty." "Pride has its seat in the heart, and betrays itself especially in the eyes." The absence of ambitious projects. "Neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me." The Psalmist did not strive with or after things that lay beyond his power or his sphere. He did not seek to know the mysteries of the humanly unknowable. Even if we could "understand all the mysteries and all knowledge," that would not give rest to our soul. He did not attempt to do that which was beyond his power. Rest is not attained through the efforts of daring and "vaulting ambition." Anon. 2. The verbs translated, "behaved," "quieted myself," suggest rather this sense: I have levelled down (toned down) and silenced my soul; I have suppressed and kept down undue aspirations, as a weaned child keeps down his natural cravings and makes himself quiet without the long enjoyed indulgence. C.—"The weaned child," writes a mother, with reference to this passage, "has for the first time become conscious of grief. The piteous longing for the sweet nourishment of his life, the broken sob of disappointment, mark the trouble of his innocent heart; it is not so much the bodily suffering; he has felt that pain before, and cried while it lasted; but now his joy and comfort are taken away, and he knows not why. When his head is once more laid upon his mother's bosom, then he trusts and loves and rests, but he has learned the first lesson of humility, he is cast down, and clings with fond helplessness to his one friend." As a weaned child lies close to its mother, satisfied with the fact that it has its mother, his soul, which is by nature restless and craving, is stilled; it does not long after earthly enjoyments and blessings, it does not desire that God should give it these; but it is satisfied with God's fellowship, it finds full satisfaction in Him. D.—Surely no figure could more forcibly express either the cost at which he gained rest, or the purity and unselfishness of the rest he gained, than this homely figure of the weaned child. When once the boy is fairly weaned, he lies still and content on his mother's bosom, no longer craving, and fretful unless his craving be satisfied. "So has it been with me," says the Psalmist. "I, too, was as one banished from God, the source of all comfort and joy. I have had to endure pain, loss, and the stings of unsatisfied desire. But, at last, my soul is weaned from all discontented thoughts, from all fretful desires for earthly good, from all selfish cravings, and waits in stillness on God, finding its satisfaction in His mere presence, resting peacefully in His arms." Cox. Observe, the "child"—which is drawn for us to copy—is "weaned;" the process is complete; it has been truly disciplined; the lesson is learned; and now it rests in its "weaning." The whole image expresses a repose which follows a struggle. There has been a distress, and a battle, and a self-victory; and now the stilled will is hushed into submission and contentment; ready to forego what is most liked, and to take just whatever is given it—"a weaned child." It was a perfectly subjugated will—nevertheless, a will. And this is what is required of us; and what the nature of our manhood and the provisions of our religion have to assume. A will, decidedly a will; the more decided the will, the stronger the character, and the greater the man. But a will that is always being given up, separated, conformed, constantly, increasingly conformed. The unity of the two wills is heaven. J. Vaughan. This weanedness of soul presupposes a power left in the soul of loving and desiring. It is not the destruction of its appetite, but the controlling and changing of it. A weaned child still hungers, but it hungers no more after the food that once delighted it; it is quiet without it; it can feed on other things; so a soul weaned from the world still pants much as ever for food and happiness, but it no longer seeks them in worldly objects. There is nothing in the world that it feels necessary for its happiness. This thing it loves, and that thing it values, but it knows that it can do without them, and it is ready to do without them whenever God pleases. Money, business, honor, pleasure, affection, friends, children, everything of an earthly kind that the hungry heart of man ever delighted itself in—this weanedness of soul says of them all, “If need be, let them go.” It checks the mind in the pursuit of them, it sobers it in the enjoyment of them, it prepares it to part with them, it quiets it when they are gone. It enables a man to rejoice in them while he has them, as though he rejoiced not; and to weep for them when he loses them, as though he wept not. We may trace this weanedness of soul to various causes—if we look upward, to God working by His Spirit in our hearts; if we look around us, to worldly disappointments and afflictions; if we look within us, to the discoveries we have had made to us of the grace and glory of the Lord Jesus in the Gospel, and the joy they have imparted to us. And may we trace it also to ourselves? to our own self-denial and efforts falling in with God’s gracious purposes? If so, it is to the glory of Jehovah’s grace, for not an effort heavenward would one of us make did not the living God constrain us. C. Bradley. Blessed are those afflictions which subdue our affections, which wean us from self-sufficiency, which educate us into Christian manliness, which teach us to love God not merely when He comforts us, but even when He tries us. Well might the sacred poet repeat his figure of the weaned child; it is worthy of admiration and imitation; it is doubly desirable and difficult of attainment. Such weanedness from self springs from the gentle humility declared in the former verse, and partly accounts for its existence. If pride is gone, submission will be sure to follow; and, on the other hand, if pride is to be driven out, self must also be vanquished. S. He who has longest studied the Gospel—who has risen into its strongest and purest light—and who, by broad, deep, and varied experience, has had his soul so schooled and taught as to have become proficient in the learning of the heart—he is the man who will have most about him of the humility of childhood, from his having found out for himself both the extent and limits of the human understanding. The most mature Christian will live in the exercise of the most simple faith. He who knows most of God will know most of himself; he will, therefore, believe when others doubt, and will distrust when others presume. T. Binney.—Our true knowledge is to know our own ignorance. Our true strength is to know our own weakness. Our true dignity is to confess that we have no dignity, and are nobody and nothing in ourselves, and to cast ourselves down before the dignity of God, under the shadow of whose wings and in the smile of whose countenance alone is any created being safe. Let us cling to our Father in heaven, as a child clings to his father’s hand C. Kingsley. President Edwards was no less eminent as a philosopher than as a Christian, and was versed in discriminating between what is false and what is true in religious experience. Writing of his early religious life, he says: “Holiness, as I then wrote down some of my contemplations on it, appeared to me to be of a sweet, pleasant, charming, serene, calm nature, which brought an inexpressible purity, brightness, peacefulness, and ravishment to the soul. The soul of a true Christian appeared like such a little white flower as we see in the spring of the year; low and humble on the ground, opening its bosom to receive the pleasant beams of the sun’s glory; rejoicing, as it were, in a calm rapture; diffusing around a sweet fragrancy; standing peacefully and lovingly in the midst of other flowers round about; all in like manner opening their bosoms to drink in the light of the sun. There was no part of creature holiness that I had so great a sense of its loveliness as humility, brokenness of heart and poverty of spirit, and there was nothing that I so earnestly longed for. My heart panted after this, to lie low before God, as in the dust, that I might be nothing, and that God might be all; that I might become as a little child.” And, again: “Sometimes only mentioning a single word causes my heart to burn within me, or only seeing the name of Christ, or the name of some attribute of God. And God has appeared glorious to me on account of the Trinity. It has made me have exalting thoughts of God, that He subsists in three persons—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The sweetest joys and delights I have experienced have not been those that have arisen from a hope of my own good estate, but in a direct view of the glorious things of the Gospel.” J. W. A. 3. Prayer, as at the close of the last Psalm, that the experience of the individual may become the experience of the nation, that they too may learn to lie still and trust and wait, in that hope which, like faith and love, abideth forever (1 Cor. 13 : 13). P. Humility is the root of hope. Hope is the blossom of meekness. The sorrows of a broken heart, the self-restraint of a meek and quiet spirit, the posture and temper of a little child—these are the forerunners and the sources of a lively hope. There are certain characteristics of hope expressed in this Psalm, which we can at once transfer to our own experience. It is a Divine hope, "Hope in the Lord." It is a diffusive hope. The hope of the Psalmist was strong enough to quicken the hope of all around him; he sang, "Let Israel hope in the Lord." A true hope has the power of infusing itself into the heart of others. It is a practical hope. This characteristic is to be gathered out of the words "from henceforth." It is a hope that should take its start from the actual circumstances in which we are placed. It is an eternal hope. "From henceforth, even forever," is the watchword of our Psalm. Our hope should and must take the long "forever" in. It has to do with unchanging realities, with an everlasting salvation; it looks forward to unseen things; it anticipates the ultimate fulfilment and accomplishment of all things that have been spoken by holy prophets since the world began. H. R. Reynolds. We all need the gift of humility now. Our hearts are haughty, and our eyes lifted up. We do too commonly busy ourselves with things too great and wonderful for us. And hence it is that we are so restless and perturbed. There is no peace but in the humility which leans on God, which trusts in Him, which confesses weakness and ignorance and guilt; which is not ashamed to say, "I do not know," "I cannot tell;" which rejoices not in the faults and defects of others, but rejoices in whatever is true in them and good and kind. Only as we recover the spirit of a little child, of a weaned child, and rest in simple, lowly faith in God shall we enter into the peace which passeth all understanding. Cox. It is only when we begin to think about life, and how we should live, that the art of being quiet assumes its real value. It removes what De Quincey calls "the burden of that distraction which lurks in the infinite littleness of details." It is the infinite littleness of details which takes the glory and the dignity from our common life, and which we who value that life for its own sake and for the sake of its great Giver must strive to make finite. The art of being quiet is necessary to enable a man to possess his own soul in peace and integrity—to examine himself, to understand what gifts God has endowed him with, and to consider how he may best employ them in the business of the world. This is its universal utility. It is unwholesome activity which requires not repose and thoughtful quiet as its forerunner, and every man should secure some portion of each day for voluntary retirement and repose within himself. Chambers's Journal. It is good to prepare the thoughts in gentleness and silence for the consideration of duty. Silence as well as gentleness would seem beloved of God. For to the human sense, and like the mighty manifestation of a serene lesson, the skies and the great spaces between the stars are silent. Silent, too, for the most part, is earth, save where gentle sounds vary the quiet of the country and the fluctuating solitudes of the waters. Folly and passion are rebuked before it; peace loves it, and hearts are drawn together by it, conscious of one service and of one duty of sympathy. Violence is partial and transitory; gentleness alone is universal and ever sure. Leigh Hunt. It is the quiet, unheralded lives that are building up the kingdom of heaven. Not much note is taken of them here. Their monuments will not make much show in the churchyard. Their names will not be passed down to posterity with many wreaths about them. But they are God's favorites. Their work is blessed. Anon. 1. LORD, remember for David All his affliction ; 2 How he sware unto the LORD And vowed unto the Mighty One of Jacob ; 3 Surely I will not come into the tabernacle of my house, Nor go up into my bed ; 4 I will not give sleep to mine eyes, Or slumber to mine eyelids ; 5 Until I find out a place for the LORD, A tabernacle for the Mighty One of Jacob. 6 Lo, we heard of it in Ephrathah : We found it in the field of the wood. 7 We will go into his tabernacles ; We will worship at his footstool. 8 Arise, O LORD, into thy resting place ; Thou, and the ark of thy strength. 9 Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness ; And let thy saints shout for joy. 10 For thy servant David's sake Turn not away the face of thine anointed. 11 The LORD hath sworn unto David in truth ; He will not turn from it : Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. 12 If thy children will keep my covenant And my testimony that I shall teach them, Their children also shall sit upon thy throne for evermore. 13 For the LORD hath chosen Zion ; He hath desired it for his habitation. 14 This is my resting place for ever : Here will I dwell ; for I have desired it. 15 I will abundantly bless her provision : I will satisfy her poor with bread. 16 Her priests also will I clothe with salva- tion : And her saints shall shout aloud for joy. 17 There will I make the horn of David to bud : I have ordained a lamp for mine anointed. 18 His enemies will I clothe with shame : But upon himself shall his crown flourish. THIS Psalm is a prayer that God's promises made to David may not fail of fulfilment, that He will dwell forever in the habitation which He chose for Himself in Zion, and that the chil- dren of David may forever sit upon His throne. It opens with a recital of David's efforts to bring the ark to its resting-place ; it ends with a recital of the promises made to David and to his seed. There has been much difference of opinion as to the occasion for which the Psalm was written. P. The Temple in Jerusalem was itself a prophe- cy. The true abiding-place of God, the true meeting-place of God and man, the true seat of the oracle, the true place of the real sacrifice, was the Temple of Christ's body. The anointed king in the holy hill of Zion was a prophecy. The true Son of David, the everlasting King, is Jesus the Anointed. Then, again, the New Testament teaches that besides this one real Temple, Christ Himself, He is building through all the ages an habitation for God—the Church. Hence our Psalm has been universally and wisely applied to the Church of these Christian days, and its invocations and promises claimed as expressive of the desires and confidences of Chris- tian people in their work for God. We are God's building, and we are God's builders too. The Psalm is full of strength and encourage- ment for us in both characters. We may call it the Song of the Builders. It falls into two parts—man's and God's. In the former (vs. 1-10) we have the toil that went before the completion of the Temple, and the prayer for the Divine blessing on it, now that it is com- plete. In the latter we have God's answer, guaranteed by His oath, corresponding to and surpassing all the petitions of the prayers. A. M. 1. Remember, O Jehovah, for David, all his affliction. This Psalm contains a commemora- tion of David's zeal for the house of God (vs. 1-9), and a prayer that it may be rewarded by the fulfilment of the promise to him and to his house (vs. 10-18). The common version (re- member David and all his afflictions) omits a preposition and inserts a conjunction, both with- out necessity. The precise sense is his being afflicted. The distress referred to is the great anxiety which David felt, first to reunite the ark and tabernacle, and then to build a more permanent sanctuary. This zeal for the house of God is one of the most characteristic features in the history of David, and for this he was rewarded not only with a promise that his son should execute his favorite design, but also with a promise that God would build a house for him, by granting a perpetual succession in his family upon the throne of Judah. A. 3. Tent of my house, i.e., "the tent which is my house" (as in the next clause, "the couch which is my bed"), a good instance of the way in which the associations of the old patriarchal tent-life fixed themselves in the language of the people. P. 6. We heard of it at Ephratah. The only explanation, equally agreeable to usage and the context, is that which makes Ephratah the ancient name of Bethlehem (Gen. 48:7), here mentioned as the place where David spent his youth, and where he used to hear of the ark, although he never saw it till long afterward, when he found it in the fields of the wood, in the neighborhood of Kirjath-jearim, which name means Forest-town, or City of the Woods. A. 6-8. On the whole, whichever interpretation we adopt, the general scope of the passage seems to be, Remember Thy servant David; remember all his efforts to build Thee an habitation for Thy name; he gave himself no rest till he had brought the ark to Zion. We heard where the ark was; we went to fetch it, saying one to another as we brought it to its new abode, "Let us come into His dwelling," etc. And now, by the memory of David, by the memory of Thy covenant with him and his faithfulness to that covenant, we plead with Thee. Reject not the prayer of our king, who is David's son; grant him the request of his lips, fulfil all his desires. P. 7-9. By a sudden transition the ark is supposed to be brought to its destined home and all is ready for worship. Pertinent now is the solemn public prayer that God Himself would arise and come into this place of His abiding rest—the seat of His visible presence (the Shekinah) being above the mercy-seat, upon the lid of the ark of the covenant and underneath the cherubim. The words of this prayer are those used by Solomon at the dedication of the first temple when he came precisely to this point—the consecration of the ark and the prayerful invocation of God's presence to abide there (2 Chr. 6:41), "Now, therefore, arise, O Lord God, into Thy resting-place, Thou and the ark of Thy strength; let thy priests, O Lord God, be clothed with salvation, and let Thy saints rejoice in goodness." C. 8,9. The Psalmist asks first that God would dwell in the completed Temple, and that the symbol of His presence may now at last, after so many wanderings, rest there. It had journeyed before the people in their wilderness marches. It had been planted in Shiloh, and had deserted that sanctuary which He once loved. It had tarried for a while at Mizpeh and at Bethel. It had been lost on the fatal field of Aphek. It had been carried in triumph through Philistine cities, and had been sent back in their terror. It had lain for three months in the house of Obed-edom. For twenty years it had been hidden in Kirjath. It had been brought up with song and dance to David's house, and now it stands in the holy place. There may it abide, and go no more out. He prays that the priests may be not merely in name and office, nor in symbolical attire, but in inmost reality, clothed with righteousness, may be pure and good as their office demands, and not, like the miserable sons of Eli, who had lost the ark at Eben-ezer, robed in violence and crime. He prays that the gathered Israel may receive such communications of God's love that their hearts and their lips may be filled with joy. And he prays, as at the beginning of the Psalm, that the memory of David may avail to bring down answers of peace to the prayer of David's son. May we not from all this draw a needful lesson for ourselves as to the one great blessing which all builders for God should desire. To be filled with God, to be pure and good, to be glad and jubilant, to have perpetual access with prayers to His mercy-seat, and large answers to the God-pleasing petitions—these are the true notes of the Church, and of the individual Christian man. What do we desire most for our brethren and for ourselves? Is the sum of all our hopes and wishes for both gathered in the one mighty petition, "Arise, O Lord, into Thy rest, Thou and the ark of Thy strength?" Do we see all other gifts wrapped up in that? Do we long for it, in the firm confidence that when He comes He will bring all that we need, that His indwelling, and it alone, at once constitutes His Church, and endows her with power, purity, and gladness; while it secures that all her work shall prosper, and that the house, which she builds for God, shall stand forevermore? 9. The Psalm prays that the priests may be clothed with righteousness. In the new Israel, as in the first constitution of the old, all the people are priests. Righteousness, then, is to be the robe of every Christian soul. Now, do not lose the force of this petition by thinking that "righteousness" is a hazy theological virtue, having little to do with every-day life, and small resemblance to secular morality. To be good, to be gentle and just, loving and truthful, self-forgetting and self-ruling, honest and true, kind and helpful, to live in the exercise of the virtues, which the consciences and tongues of all men call lovely and of good report, and to add to them all the consecration of reference to Him in whom these parted graces dwell united and complete—this is to be righteous, as the Psalmist conceived of it. The Gospel has taught us yet deeper thoughts associated with the Word. Thank God for that "fine linen, clean and white, the righteousness" with which Christ covers our wounded nakedness. It becomes ours, though no thread of it was wrought in our looms. But remember that growing purity in life and deed is the main proof that Christ's righteousness is indeed ours. If we are to do God's work in the world, we must be good, true, righteous men. That robe, like the silken vest in which the knight, in the old legend, went forth to fight, is our true mail. It will turn blows, and deaden cuts, and stay thrusts that will dint and shear through and pierce every other defence. Be you equipped with the armor of righteousness, and wear for all your protection the white robes of God's priests. Be you armed with the weapons of righteousness, and use, for your assaults on evil, mainly a holy life. There is none other in all the armory like it. The true power of the Christian soldier lies in character, character, character! A. M. And let Thy saints shout for joy. Holiness and happiness go together. The sentence, while it may read as a permit, is also a precept; saints are commanded to rejoice in the Lord. Happy religion which makes it a duty to be glad! Where righteousness is the clothing, joy may well be the occupation. S. 10. The frequency with which God is urged to hear and answer prayer for David's sake is not to be explained by making David mean the promise to David, nor from the personal favor of which he was the object, but from his historical position as the great theocratical model, in whom it pleased God that the old economy should reach its culminating point, and who is always held up as the type and representative of the Messiah, so that all the intervening kings are mere connecting links, and their reigns mere repetitions and continuations of the reign of David, with more or less resemblance as they happened to be good or bad. Hence the frequency with which his name appears in the later Scriptures, compared with even the best of his successors, and the otherwise inexplicable transfer of that name to the Messiah Himself. It is in this unique character and office, as the servant of the Lord, that David is here mentioned, first by his own name, and then as the Anointed King of Israel, whose face Jehovah is entreated not to turn away, a figure for refusing him an audience, or at least denying his petition, which we know to have been used in David's times. A. 11. The Lord hath sworn.** That this is a prophecy of the Messiah, we have the authority of Peter (Acts 2: 30). This promise to David occurs (2 Sam. 7: 12) and hath a two-fold sense, relating to Solomon in type and shadow, to Christ in truth and substance. Bishop Horne. 12. Forevermore.** The temporal kingdom of David continued in the line of David till the birth of Christ, when the spiritual kingdom commenced in the person of this Son of David, of which there shall be no end. Dimock.—The kingdom of Judah might have stood to this day had its kings been faithful to the Lord. No internal revolt or external attack could have overthrown the royal house of David; it fell by its own sin, and by nothing else. The Lord was continually provoked, but He was amazingly longsuffering, for long after seceding Israel had gone into captivity, Judah still remained. Miracles of mercy were shown to her. Divine patience exceeded all limits, for the Lord's regard for David was exceeding great. The princes of David's house seemed set on ruining themselves, and nothing could save them; justice waited long, but it was bound at last to unsheathe the sword and strike. Still, if in the letter man's breach of promise caused the covenant to fail, yet in spirit and essence the Lord has been true to it, for Jesus reigns and holds the throne forever. David's seed is still royal, for he was the progenitor according to the flesh of Him who is King of kings and Lord of lords. S. 14-18. In Zion, His chosen and dearly beloved dwelling-place, Jehovah blesses whatever belongs to the necessities of her temporal life, so that her poor do not suffer want, for Divine love loves the poor in an altogether special manner. His second blessing concerns the priests, for through these He will hold communion with His people. He makes the priesthood of Zion a real saving institution; He clothes her priests with salvation, so that they do not merely mediate it instrumentally, but possess it personally, and their whole appearance is one that proclaims salvation. And to all her saints He gives cause and matter for great and lasting joy, inasmuch as not only in word but also in deeds of grace He acknowledges the Church, in which He has taken up His abode. There in Zion is indeed the kingship of promise, the kingship to which the fulfilment cannot be wanting. To the house of David, which David, as its ancestor, and the anointed of God, who is reigning at the time, represent, He will make a horn to sprout; He has set in order a lamp for it, which shall never be extinguished. D. 14. This is My rest forever. Of the Christian Church we may affirm with undoubtedly certainty, that it is God's rest forever; after this dispensation of His will there will never succeed another; Christianity closes and completes the Divine communication from God to man; nothing greater, nothing better can or will be imparted to him on this side eternity; and even in heaven itself we shall, through an everlasting duration, be employed in contemplating and adoring the riches of that grace, the brightest glories of which have been realized in the consummations of Calvary, the ascension of the Messiah, the breaking down of all national peculiarity, and the gift and mission of the Divine Spirit. Morison. Christian faith is a grand cathedral, with divinely pictured windows. Standing without you see no glory, nor can possibly imagine any. Nothing is visible but the merest outline of dusky shapes. Standing within all is clear and defined, every ray of light reveals an army of unspeakable splendors. Ruskin. 14-16. God's presence is an earnest of all good; for all this follows upon "here will I dwell." By it He giveth meat to the hungry, and comfort to the poor, even the Bread of Life to the believing and repenting soul; by it He Himself is the sanctification of His priests, and His righteousness and salvation is their most glorious vesture; and by His presence He maketh His elect ever glad, filling their hearts with joy and their mouths with songs. Burgon. It is necessary for some people to remember that cheerfulness, good spirits, light-heartedness, merriment, are not unchristian nor unsaintly. We do not please God more by eating bitter aloes than by eating honey. A cloudy, foggy, rainy day is not more heavenly than a day of sunshine. A funeral march is not so much like the music of angels as the songs of birds on a May morning. It was not the pleasant things in the world that came from the devil, and the dreary things from God; it was "sin brought death into the world and all our woe;" as the sin vanishes, the woe will vanish too. God Himself is the ever-blessed God. He dwells in the light of joy as well as of purity, and instead of becoming more like Him as we become more miserable, and as all the brightness and glory of life are extinguished, we become more like God as our blessedness becomes more complete. The great Christian graces are radiant with happiness. Faith, hope, charity—there is no sadness in them—and if penitence makes the heart sad, penitence belongs to the sinner, not to the saint; as we become more saintly, we have less sin to sorrow over. No, the religion of Christ is not a religion of sorrow. It consoles wretchedness and brightens with a Divine glory the lustre of every inferior joy. It attracts to itself the broken-hearted, the lonely, the weary, the despairing, but it is to give them rest, comfort, and peace. It rekindles hope; it inspires strength, courage, and joy. It checks the merriment of the thoughtless who have never considered the graver and more awful realities of man's life and destiny, but it is to lead them through transient sorrow to deeper and more perfect blessedness, even in this world, than they had ever felt before the sorrow came. Dale. Christian, what ill news hath Christ brought from heaven with Him, that makes thee walk with thy folded arms and pensive countenance? To see a wicked man merry or a Christian sad is alike uncomely. "A feast is made for laughter," saith Solomon. I am sure God intended His people's joy in the feast of the Gospel; mourners were not to sit at God's table (Deut. 26). Truly the saint's heaviness reflects unkindly upon God Himself; we do not commend his cheer, if it doth not cheer us. O Christians, let the world see you are not losers in your joy since you have been acquainted with the Gospel; give not them cause to think by your uncomfortable walking, that when they turn Christians, they must bid all joy farewell, and resolve to spend their days in a house of mourning. Gurnall. 17, 18. "I have arranged" (put in order) "a lamp for mine anointed," referring to the lamps kept in order by the priests in the temple. This usage seems to furnish the figure; its significance comes from the relation between light and truth, so that this signifies the light of salvation which the Messiah sheds forth on a morally dark world. Glorious victory shall be his reward; his enemies clothed with the shame of overthrow and defeat; his own crown flourishing in perpetual beauty and glory. The figure here follows that in v. 17, the horn shooting up as a vegetable growth, so the crown puts forth blossoms and flowers of celestial beauty. C. 14-18. Notice that each single petition is enlarged in the answer to something much greater than itself. The Church asked God to arise into His rest; and He answers by adding the promise of perpetuity: "This is My rest forever; here will I dwell." He adds a blessing not sought when He promises abundance for all, and bread to fill even her poor. The Church asked for robes of righteousness for the priests; and He replies with robes of salvation, which is the perfecting and most glorious issue of righteousness. The Church asked that the people might shout for joy; and He replies with an emphatic reduplication of the word, which implies the exuberance and continuance of the joyful acclaim. The Church asked for favor to the king; and He replies by the promise that the horn of his power shall continually increase, that light of guidance and gladness shall be always his, that victory over all his enemies shall attend his arm, and an ever-blossoming crown be on his head. Put this in its widest form, and what does it come to but that great law of His grace, by which He over-answers all our poor desires, and giving us more than we had expected, shames us out of our distrust? And this law holds for us in all our works and in all our prayers. These transcendent answers belong to us as truly as they did to the waiting multitude, who thronged the courts of the temple. We have work to do for God, and the courses of the walls of His house are but rising yet. The true builder is that greater than Solomon, of whom it was written long ago, "Behold the Man whose Name is the Branch—He shall build the Temple of the Lord, even He shall build the Temple of the Lord, and He shall bear the glory." The day shall come when the weary work of the ages shall be accomplished, and the glory of the Lord shall fill that wondrous house. Here we ask that God would dwell with us, and there "the tabernacle of God shall be with men, and God Himself shall walk in them." Here we ask for righteousness as our garment, and there it shall be granted us to be arrayed in "fine linen, clean and white, which is the righteousness of saints." In that tabernacle that shall not be taken down, see that you build on the one foundation some gold and silver and precious stones, which the declaring day and the revealing fire shall manifest to have been wrought in God. Then our work, abiding, shall bring to us the endless glory with which God at last overpays the toils, even as now He over-answers the poor prayers of His laboring servants. A. M. Thus the song reminds us how God meets and outdoes our requests, and is ever more ready to give than we are to ask. It speaks to us of Him who was at once David's Son and Lord, the true "horn" and "lamp"—that is, the light and strength of the world. The seed of David no longer occupies a throne, if Christ be not the promised "seed." There is no longer a Temple, a place in which God and man may meet and rest and dwell together, if Christ be not at once Temple and Ark, Oracle and Sacrifice. The "Anointed One" who reigns forever, and whose crown still "blossoms" into new vigor and beauty, is, must be, He whom we call the Christ or Anointed One of God. And, therefore, grand as the Psalm was when it was first sung by the Levitical choirs, full as it was of glorious and pathetic memories to the later pilgrims who went up to Zion, it has reserved its fulness of meaning and the excellence of its glory for us, if only we have found the Son of God in that Son of Man who was "of the house and lineage of David." Cox. It is no marvel that the literature of a nation whose chief bond of national union was the law should have been intensely patriotic; for the nation possessed the noblest and the truest incentive to patriotism; and in its literature this patriotism found an utterance that is unrivalled elsewhere in any language. The hill of Zion is a fair place, and the joy of the whole earth, the city of the great King. God is well known in her palaces as a sure refuge. The city of the Lord of hosts, the city of our God (Psalm 48: 2, 3, 8). Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God hath shined (Psalm 50: 2). Jerusalem is built as a city that is at unity in itself. Oh, pray for the peace of Jerusalem; they shall prosper that love thee. Peace be within thy walls, and plenteousness within thy palaces. For my brethren and companions' sake I will wish thee prosperity; yea, because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek to do thee good (Psalm 122: 3, 6-9). Can anything be more beautiful? Can anything be more eloquent? The Psalmist was the most ardent of patriots, because his country was the chosen of God. Therefore he could say, The Lord loveth the gates of Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob. Glorious things are spoken of thee, thou city of God (Psalm 86 : 2, 3). "The Lord hath chosen Zion to be a habitation for Himself; He hath longed for her. This is My rest forever; here will I dwell, for I have a delight therein" (Psalm 132 : 14, 15). And in this revelation was the ultimate fulfilment of the earlier promise of the law, There shall be a place which the Lord your God shall choose to cause His name to dwell there (Deut. 12 : 11). Thus every portion of this ancient literature is intimately bound up with every other. The prophecy with the poetry, and the poetry with the history, and all together with the law, and the law of Moses is not only an integral element in the composition of the Old Testament, but is also the corner-stone of its internal structure, and the firm, essential basis of its organic and indestructible unity. S. Leathes. 1. BEHOLD, how good and how pleasant it is For brethren to dwell together in unity! 2. It is like the precious oil upon the head, That ran down upon the beard, Even Aaron's beard; That came down upon the collar of his garments; 3. Like the dew of Hermon, That cometh down upon the mountains of Zion: For there the LORD commanded the blessing, Even life for evermore. HERDER says of this exquisite little song, that "it has the fragrance of a lovely rose." Nowhere has the nature of true unity—that unity which binds men together not by artificial restraints, but as brethren of one heart—been more faithfully described, nowhere has it been so gracefully illustrated, as in this short ode. True concord is, we are here taught, a holy thing, a sacred oil, a rich perfume, which, flowing down from the head to the beard, from the beard to the garment, sanctifies the whole body. It is a sweet morning dew, which lights not only on the lofty mountain-peaks, but on the lesser hills, embracing all, and refreshing all with its influence. The title of the Psalm gives it to David. But in truth there is not a syllable in the Psalm which can lead us to any conclusion respecting its date. Such a vision of the blessedness of unity may have charmed the poet's heart and inspired the poet's song, at any period of the national history. And his words, though originally, no doubt, intended to apply to a state, would be equally true of a smaller circle, a family or a tribe. P. 1. By general consent of lexicographers and critics, the Hebrew words translated "together in unity" mean together in place, and leave unity in feeling and spirit to be inferred. The writer must be supposed to think of the great religious festivals which brought the masses of the people together for the delightful service of public religious worship. This service was morally and politically wholesome; it was socially delightful to the whole people, old and young; it could scarcely fail to exert a precious religious influence upon all. The bringing of the whole people together in one place during these great festivals served to bring their hearts together in fraternal union. C. This is one of those bursts of feeling the truth and beauty of which every human heart at once acknowledges. Separation, isolation, discord, are unnatural and inhuman. To appreciate as it deserves this rich gift of God, we must look at it in family life. The words suggest to us at once the picture not of a nation or of a numerous society, but of a family. We seem to hear the voice of an elder brother, whose heart cannot contain itself for thankfulness at the sight of peaceful family union. Something has stirred his spirit to detect the greatness of that blessing which has perhaps been interrupted or too long unconsciously enjoyed. H. M. Butler. Pleasant. The same word which is used here for “pleasant” is used also in the Hebrew for a harmony of music; for the pleasantness of a cornfield; for the sweetness of honey, and of sweet things in opposition to bitter things. And thus you see the pleasantness of it, by its being compared to the harmony of music, to the cornfield, to the sweetness of honey, to the precious ointment that ran down Aaron’s beard, and to the dew that fell upon Hermon and the hills of Zion; and all this to discover the pleasantness, profitableness, and sweetness of the saints’ agreement. It is a pleasant thing to behold the sun, but it is much more pleasant to behold the saints’ agreement and unity among themselves. W. Bridge. There is nothing that would render the true religion more lovely or make more proselytes to it than to see the professors of it tied together with the heartstrings of love. If God be one, let all that profess Him be of one mind and one heart, and thus fulfil Christ’s prayer, “that they all may be one.” T. Watson.—In church fellowship we can dispense with uniformity if we possess unity. Oneness of life, truth, and way; oneness in Christ Jesus; oneness of object and spirit—these we must have, or our assemblies will be synagogues of contention rather than churches of Christ. The closer the unity the better; for the more of the good and the pleasant there will be. Christian unity is good in itself, good for ourselves, good for the brethren, good for the outside world; and for certain it is pleasant; for a loving heart must have pleasure and give pleasure in associating with others of like nature. A church united for years in earnest service of the Lord is a well of goodness and joy to all those who dwell round about it. S. The great law is, work together if you would work with strength. To separate ourselves from our brethren is to lose power. Why, half-dead brands heaped close will kindle one another, and flame will sparkle beneath the film of white ashes on their edges. Fling them apart and they go out. Rake them together and they glow. Let us try not to be little feeble tapers, stuck in separate sockets, and each twinkling struggling rays over some inch or so of space; but draw near to our brethren, and be workers together with them, that there may rise a glorious flame from our summed and collective brightness which shall be a guide and hospitable call to many a wandering and weary spirit. A. M. 2. The first figure is taken from the oil which was poured on the head of the high-priest at his consecration. The point of the comparison does not lie in the preciousness of the oil, or in its all-percading fragrance; but in this, that being poured on the head, it did not rest there; but flowed to the beard and descended even to the garments, and thus, as it were, consecrated the whole body in all its parts. All the members participate in the same blessing. This is the point of the comparison. Other thoughts may be suggested by it, as that the spirit of concord, both in a state and in a family, will descend from those who govern to those who are governed; or, again, that concord is a holy thing, like the holy oil, or that it is sweet and fragrant, like the fragrant oil; but these are mere accessories of the image. P.—The point of the comparison is the uniting power of brotherliness, as that which inwardly unites those who are locally the farthest apart from one another, and also brings them externally together. When brethren united in harmonious love also unite locally, as is done in Israel at the great feasts, then it is as when the holy, precious chrism upon Aaron’s head—the chrism that breathes forth the blended odor of many spices—trickles down upon his beard, which flows down far over the upper border of his robe. It then becomes clearly perceptible and even outwardly visible, that Israel far and near is permeated by one spirit and bound together in unity of spirit. D. The precious oil; literally the good oil, the sacred oil, for the preparation of which special directions were given, and which was to be devoted exclusively to the consecration of holy things and persons (Ex. 30 : 22, 33). Hence the image implies not only the whole body is united, but that the whole body is consecrated. Aaron, named not because he only was thus anointed, but as the representative of all priestly anointing. P.—In the consecration of the Aaronic order, the inferior priests were only sprinkled with this oil mixed with the blood of the sacrifice, but in the unction of the High Priest the oil was so copiously poured forth as to “run down upon the beard and even to the skirts of his garments.” This was because it pointed to him who received the Spirit “without measure.” He was “anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows;” i.e., above those who possessed with him a fellowship or similarity of office, as types of himself. Aaron was anointed high priest; Saul was anointed king; Elisha was anointed prophet; Melchizedek, king and priest; Moses, priest and prophet; David, king and prophet; yet none was ever anointed to the joint possession of all these dignities together save the Christ of God, the anti-type of them all. Christians derive the name of Christians from their profession of Christ, and the nature and character of Christians from their union to Christ. It is their peculiar privilege and distinguishing joy "to have the unction from the Holy One, and to know all things" that are necessary for them to know. Bush. 3. The second image expressive of the blessing of brotherly concord is taken from the dew. Here, again, it is not the refreshing nature of the dew, nor its gentle, all-pervading influence which is the prominent feature. That which renders it to the poet's eye so striking an image of brotherly concord is the fact that it falls alike on both mountains; that the same dew which descends on the lofty Hermon descends also on the humbler Zion. High and low drink in the same sweet refreshment. Thus the image is exactly parallel to the last; the oil descends from the head to the beard, the dew from the higher mountain to the lower. (Hermon in the north, and Zion in the south, may also further suggest the union of the northern and southern tribes.) P. —This is one of the most beautiful images in the Psalter, an illustration of the blessings of unity, drawn by one who had looked upon the mountains with the eye of a poet, as well as upon the sanctuary with the eye of a saint. Bishop Alexander. As the sacred oil sanctified the whole body, so by the single ministry of the dew the whole land was united and blessed, each province serving the other; and, in like manner, love is the uniting and sanctifying force of life. It overpasses all lines of demarkation, all social gulfs and barriers. At once bond and benediction, it draws all aims and interests to a common centre, in which they blend and multiply and grow strong. Cox. Hermon must not be thought of as a mere peak. It is a mountain-range, substantially distinct, yet forming a part of the anti-Lebanon, and extending thirty miles, in a crescent of snow-capped mountains, from the southwest to the northeast. You journey beside it from morning to evening, and at night camp at Kefr-Hauwar with its white ridge resting on the dark sky and illuminating your northern horizon. From this long, crescent-shaped ridge mountain-ribs jut out, declining to hills as they near the plain. These ribs you cross in making your way south of Hermon from Bāniās to Damascus. Dulles.—Hermon itself, although its peak was scarcely within the limits of the Holy Land, yet, as its southern, eastern, and western slopes were shared by the three tribes of Dan, Naphtali, and Manasseh, must be considered a mountain of Palestine, of which it was the northwestern boundary. It is the culminating point of the anti-Lebanon range, the watershed east of Jordan, and which, in its prolongation, forms the mountain ranges of Bashan, Gilead, and Moab. It towers into the region of perpetual snow, between nine and ten thousand feet above the sea, and worthily holds the name of "Jebel esh Sheikh," the chief mountain; not quite so lofty, indeed, as the summit of Lebanon, but, with its isolated white-tipped cone, far grander in appearance. Its name Hermon signifies "lofty peak." The expression, "the dew of Hermon," seems to have been proverbial, and is well explained by facts. Hermon, unlike most other mountains, springs from its base at once. It is more than ten thousand feet above the sunken valley of the Jordan from which it rises, and which seethes in a tropical heat. The vapors exhaled by the sun from the vast swamps of Huleh rise during the day to the higher regions, and, congealed by the snows of the mountain, descend nightly in most copious distillation, saturating everything on its sides. Tristram. "The dew of Hermon descending upon the mountains of Zion" is now become quite clear to me. Here as I sat at the foot of Hermon, I understood how the water-drops which rose from its forest-mantled heights, and out of the highest ravines, which are filled the whole year round with snow, after the sun's rays have attenuated them and moistened the atmosphere with them, descend at evening-time as a heavy dew upon the lower mountains which lie round about as its spurs. One ought to have seen Hermon with its white-golden crown glistening aloft in the blue sky, in order to be able rightly to understand the figure. Nowhere in the whole country is so heavy a dew perceptible as in the districts near to Hermon. Van De Velde. We had sensible proof at Rasheiya of the copiousness of the "dew of Hermon." Unlike most other mountains which gradually rise from lofty table lands and often at a distance from the sea, Hermon starts at once to the height of nearly ten thousand feet, from a platform scarcely above the sea-level. This platform, too—the upper Jordan valley, and marshes of Merom—is for the most part an impenetrable swamp of unknown depth, whence the seething vapor, under the rays of an almost tropical sun, is constantly ascending into the upper atmosphere during the day. The vapor, coming in contact with the snowy sides of the mountain, is rapidly congealed, and is precipitated in the evening in the form of a dew, the most copious we ever experienced. It penetrated everywhere and saturated everything. The floor of our tent was soaked, our bed was covered with it, our guns were dripping, and dewdrops hung about everywhere. No wonder that the foot of Hermon is clad with orchards and gardens of such marvellous fertility in this land of droughts. Tristram. The Lord commanded the blessing. Where love reigns God reigns. Where love wishes blessing, there God commands the blessing. This makes Christian brotherhood so good and pleasant; it has Jehovah's blessing resting upon it, and it cannot be otherwise than sacred like "the precious ointment," and heavenly like "the dew of Hermon." S. Even life for evermore. "The gift of God," says the apostle, "is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Consider what this life includes and what it is. As the initial element, it includes the remission of all the guilt of sin, past and to come; the absolute removal of already incurred condemnation, and the cleansing of the soul from sin's defiling effects. Sin, the occasion of condemnation, and so the source of death—sin, with all its effects, must first be removed. Its condemning power must be annulled, its dominion must be broken, its defiling effects must be counteracted. All these results are wrought completely for and in the believing, saved soul by the blood of Christ. And as death is thus taken away, so also life is wrought in the soul—life, whose essential principle is holiness, is wrought by the Spirit of Christ. Holiness, conformity of mind and heart with God, is established in the soul as its ruling principle; ruling through this life, though subject to sharp and severe conflict with the old self-asserting lusts, aided by the world's attractions and Satan's influences. Thus, in every soul that simply receives and rests upon Christ, that accepts His blood as justifying and His Spirit as renewing unto holiness, thus eternal life is begun. By the one justifying act of Christ, performed for the soul at the moment of its receiving Him, that soul is forever after released from condemnation, raised from spiritual death. By the one quickening act of the Spirit of Christ, the soul begins a life of holiness, is introduced into spiritual conformity and likeness to God, as its forever-abiding condition. That soul may, indeed, sin through all the days that it remains in the body, but never again can its sins bring it under the jurisjurisdiction of the law, under its condemnation of death. It may, indeed, be tempted to sin, but the Omnipotent energy that has begotten it unto the life of holiness will recover and deliver it again; will enable it to hold on in its struggle with and give it victory after victory over the evil. And in the end, when it is sundered from the flesh through which all its temptations come, the soul's eternal life is perfected. Its union and communion with God is from thenceforth personal and perfect. Its conformity of thought and feeling, its likeness to God in character and in every movement of the spirit, is absolute and complete. And this intimate, endearing fellowship, this immaculate holiness, is its state of blessedness forever! And this eternal life, begun in the soul here and perfected hereafter, this eternal life, with its consummate satisfaction of blessedness, is the gift of God! It is the free donation of His sovereign grace, offered in the abounding riches of His mercy to every one who will receive it by faith in His Son Christ Jesus. B. We must learn to love the unselfish Christ before we can love selfish men. We must learn to love the perfect Christ before we can love imperfect men. No man, save only Christ, ever did love men altogether as they should be loved. And we shall gain a true love for them only as we love Him, and, by love for Him, are transformed into His likeness. Only as the mind of Christ dwells in us shall we rise to the love which is like the sacred oil that ran down Aaron's beard, like the gentle dew with which Hermon, out of its abundance, blessed the craving slopes of Zion, the love which is more holy than priest or mountain, which is the sweetness of life on earth, and the germ and power and blessedness of life forevermore. Cox. Eternal life also is to know God, and God is love. This is Christ's own definition. Ponder it. "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou has sent." Love must be eternal. It is what God is. On the last analysis, then, love is life. Love never falleth, and life never falleth so long as there is love. No worse fate can befall a man in this world than to live and grow old alone, unloving and unloved. To be lost is to live in an unregenerate condition, loveless and unloved; and to be saved is to love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth already in God. For God is love. H. Drummond. Unity and peace is said to be like the dew of Hermon, that descended upon Zion, where the Lord promised His blessing. Divisions run religions into briars and thorns, contentions and parties. Divisions are to churches like wars in countries; where war is, the ground lieth waste and untilled; none takes care of it. It is love that edifieth, but division pulleth down. Divisions are as the northeast wind to the fruits, which causeth them to dwindle away to nothing; but when the storms are over, everything begins to grow. When men are divided, they seldom speak the truth in love; and then, no marvel, they grow not up to Him in all things which is the Head. It is a sad presage of an approaching famine, not of bread nor water, but of hearing the Word of God when our controversies about doubtful things and things of less moment eat up our zeal for the more indisputable and practical things in religion. Bunyan.—Satan gains very much by the disunion of Christian hearts, and the falling out of those which have given their names to religion; and therefore he leaves no way of temptation unattempted to set such at odds. He labors mightily, and prodigiously prevails at this day, by vexing their judgments with opinionativeness, self-conceited speculations, and thoughts of separation, to drive them by degrees from divorce of judgments in some singular apprehensions to disaffection; from disaffection to faction, from faction to schism, from schism (to speak in softest phrase) to many dreadful distempers. R. Bolton. Christian brethren, surely we have this reason for unity. Many unfriendly eyes mark our strifes. They give great occasion to the enemy to blaspheme. And the enemy takes the occasion. The bitter enmities, the groundless and deplorable schisms, in the Church of Christ, form a stock commonplace on the lips of the enemies of our holy faith. The outer world, too, is always ready to set the stumbling or failure of any professed believer to the discredit of all. And such, in its essential nature, is all contention, that it is quite impossible to engage in it without throwing down some of the fences which guard us against our spiritual foes, our ensnaring temptations. Angry and vindictive feeling; unfairness and untruthfulness; the arts of misrepresentation, and the arms of intimidation where that is possible; the eyes shut against light, whether from argument or information — shut sometimes unconsciously, sometimes half consciously, sometimes quite consciously; these are the kind of things that come of falling out by the way among Christians. Boyd. Surely there is no better way to stop the rising of new sects and schisms than to reform abuses, to compound the smaller differences; to proceed mildly, and not with sanguinary persecutions; and rather to take off the principal authors by winning and advancing them, than to enrage them by violence and bitterness. Bacon.—Our Lord is repeating down through all time the rebuke He gave to the uncharitableness of John, and the one-sidedness of Martha, and the murmurs of His disciples—is teaching us to look with an approving eye on every honest effort to do good, and to take pleasure in the wide variety of human character and Christian grace. Ker. The pulse quickens and the eyes fill with tears at the bare thought of this vision of peace, at this distant but blessed prospect of a reunited Church. What dark doubts would it not dispel! What deep consolations would it not shed forth on millions of souls! What fascination would not the spectacle of concordant prayer and harmonious action among the servants of Christ exert over the hearts of sinners! With what majestic energy would the reinvigorated Church address herself forthwith to the heartier promotion of man's best interests, to the richer development of the Christian life, to more energetic labors for the conversion of the world! H. P. L. Though the Church of Christ has rent its own unity, we can see what may be called the breadth of view of the Great Head, in that He does not identify Himself with their narrowness, nor confine His reviving influences to any one portion where His truth remains. The showers of His grace come from too high a source to be limited by the walls they build against each other. Ker. The kingdom of Christ, not being a kingdom of this world, is not limited by the restrictions which fetter other societies, political or religious. It is in the fullest sense free, comprehensive, universal. It accepts all comers, irrespective of race, or caste, or sex. It has no sacred days or seasons, no special sanctuaries, because every time and every place alike are holy; above all, it has no sacerdotal system. It interposes no sacrificial tribe or class between God and man, by whose intervention alone God is reconciled and man forgiven. Each individual member holds personal communion with the Divine Head. To Him immediately he is responsible, and from Him directly he obtains pardon and draws strength. This, then, is the Christian ideal: a holy season extending the whole year round; a temple confined only by the limits of the habitable world; a priesthood co-extensive with the human race. Bishop Lightfoot. Heaven, the upper-world Church, is Society Organized; and the Church below, Society Organizing—both in fact one, as regards their final end or object, and the properties and principles in which they are consummated. Of course, the incomplete society below comprehends aberrations, misconjunctions, half conjunctions, and a great many mere scaffoldings which the other does not. The Society Organized is called a city, the city of the living God; because it is the most condensed, completest form of society. It also includes or takes in “angels an innumerable company,” some of them, we are to believe, from worlds more ancient than ours and from empires afar off, quite unknown to us. It gathers in also “the first-born” of the Church, and puts their names in register on the roll of the grand all-worlds’ society. And “the spirits of just men made perfect” are either there or on the way up, to be joined in the general city life and order, for which they are now made ready. All the indications are that a complete organization is so far made, and all its distributions and relations adjusted; as when men of all grades and races are gathered into and unified in the state of city organization. In this organized society it is one of the points to be noted that there is no distribution by sect or sectarian names. The myriads that arrive, new-comers from the Church below, drop off the names of their sects, having left them in their graves not raised; for there is no resurrection promised of these names. They are not Romish any more, not Anglican, not Calvinistic, not Armenian, or Wesleyan, their general assembly is not the Presbyterian, their crowns are not brimmed as being Friends, and since baptism is no more wanted, there are no Baptists. But they are all earth’s people and Christian to a man, all other names being sunk and forgot in their now complete society. The Church below, the Society Organizing, is, in fact, the same as the other, and is pouring on its trains continually to be merged in that other and become a part of it. It is even called a family—“of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.” Bushnell. 1. BEHOLD, bless ye the LORD, all ye servants of the LORD, Which by night stand in the house of the LORD. 2 Lift up your hands to the sanctuary. And bless ye the LORD. 3. The LORD bless thee out of Zion; Even he that made heaven and earth. THE whole series of pilgrimage songs closes, in the most appropriate manner, with a summons to bless the Lord, addressed by the people to the priests in attendance at the sanctuary (vs. 1, 2), and indirectly answered by a priestly blessing on the worshippers themselves (v. 3). The servants of the Lord here meant are not His people indiscriminately, but His official servants, and most probably the priests, as will appear from v. 3. A. Three things are clear with regard to this Psalm. First, that it consists of a greeting (vs. 1, 2), and a reply (v. 3). Next, that the greeting is addressed to those priests and Levites who had the night-watch in the temple. Lastly, that this Psalm is purposely placed at the end of the collection of pilgrim songs in order to take the place of a final blessing. D.—That the address is not to any persons in the habit of frequenting the temple is evident, because it was only in rare and exceptional cases that such persons could be found in the temple at night. And, further, the word “stand” in v. 1 is the common word to express the service of the priests and Levites, who had their duties by night as well by day. Accordingly, it has been supposed by Tholuck and others that the greeting in vs. 1, 2 was addressed to the guard going off duty by those who came to relieve them, and who in their turn received the answer in v. 3. Others conjecture that the greeting was interchanged between the two companies of the night-watch, when they met in making their rounds through the temple. Delitzsch, however, thinks that the words of vs. 1, 2 are addressed by the congregation to the priests and Levites who had charge of the night service, and that v. 3 is an answer of blessing from them to the congregation, who were gathered on the temple-mount. P. The Psalm teaches us to pray for those who are continually ministering before the Lord, and it invites all ministers to pronounce benedictions upon their loving and prayerful people. 2. And bless the Lord. God's ministers are to bless men by their teaching, but they must yet more bless Jehovah with their worship. Too often men look at public worship only from the side of its usefulness to the people; but it is of even higher importance that the Lord God is adored, extolled, and had in reverence. S. 3. Calling up thus to the temple-hill, the Church receives from above the benedictory countergreeting: Jehovah bless thee out of Zion, the Creator of heaven and earth. It is addressed to the Church as one person and to each individual in this indivisible Church. D.—As the priests were called upon to bless God in behalf of the people, so here they bless the people in behalf of God. The priests, having blessed God, turn and bless the people. The obvious allusion to the sacerdotal blessing (Num. 6: 23-27) favors the optative construction of this verse, which really includes a prediction, the Lord will bless thee. A. The Lord that made heaven and earth bless thee out of Zion. He doth not say, the Lord bless thee out of heaven, but "bless thee out of Zion." As if he would teach us that all blessings come as immediately and primarily from heaven, so mediately and secondarily from Zion, where the temple stood. If ever, therefore, we would have blessings outward, inward, private, public, secular, spiritual; if ever we would have blessing in our estate, in our land, in our souls, we must pray for it, and pray for it here, in Zion, in God's house. A. Wright. As we part company with the pilgrims, it is pleasant to think of them as starting on their homeward journey in the starlight from under the shadow of the temple, with the benediction of the priests making music in their hearts. But it is still more pleasant to reflect that, as they went on their way, pondering the priestly benediction, what time the sun rose into the sky to shine on righteous and unrighteous, on just and unjust, they would be reminded of a Divine love from whose grace no man could be hid, which shone with steadfast rays on every race, and brooded, with healing in its wings, over the whole world. One likes to think that the Book closes with the words, "Maker of heaven and earth," and to reflect what a fine omen, what a wide promise of hope, there is in these words for us and for all men. For we, too, are pilgrims on our way home; and much of the journey has to be done in the dark; and there are many steep roads to climb, and rough places on which we must pick our steps, and smooth places on which we may easily slip or stray; and there are many perils and many adversaries to be encountered. But we, too, have come to Mount Zion; for us there is a "city of the living God," the heavenly Jerusalem, in which an innumerable company of angels and the spirits of just men made perfect serve God day and night, a city which rings with joy and praise forever. And as we look up and listen, in the pauses of our journey, we, too, may catch glimpses of the glory of the city, and hear some faint echoes of its songs. The heavenly ministrants do, we know, look down on us with strengthening sympathy and compassion, and cry, "The Lord bless thee out of Zion." Nay, God Himself, since He is our Maker and loves us, even He Himself blesses us out of Zion, sends us help from the sanctuary, and bids us good speed on our journey. Let us, then, lift up our eyes unto the mountains. And if any ask, "Whence cometh your help?" let us make answer and say, "Our help cometh from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth; He will keep us from all evil; He will keep our soul; He will keep our going out and our coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore." Cox. 1. PRAISE ye the LORD. Praise ye the name of the LORD; Praise him, O ye servants of the LORD: 2 Ye that stand in the house of the LORD, In the courts of the house of our God. 3 Praise ye the LORD; for the LORD is good: Sing praises unto his name; for it is pleasant. 4 For the LORD hath chosen Jacob unto himself, And Israel for his peculiar treasure. 5 For I know that the LORD is great, And that our Lord is above all gods. 6 Whatsoever the LORD pleased, that hath he done, In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps. 7 He causeth the vapours to ascend from the ends of the earth; He maketh lightnings for the rain; He bringeth forth the wind out of his treasuries. 8 Who smote the firstborn of Egypt, Both of man and beast. 9 He sends signs and wonders into the midst of thee, O Egypt, Upon Pharaoh, and upon all his servants. 10 Who smote many nations, And slew mighty kings; 11 Sihon king of the Amorites, And Og king of Bashan, And all the kingdoms of Canaan: 12 And gave their land for an heritage, An heritage unto Israel his people. 13 Thy name, O LORD, endureth for ever; Thy memorial, O LORD, taroughout all generations. 14 For the LORD shall judge his people, And repent himself concerning his servants. 15 The idols of the nations are silver and gold, The work of men's hands. 16 They have mouths, but they speak not; Eyes have they, but they see not; 17 They have ears, but they hear not; Neither is there any breath in their mouths. 18 They that make them shall be like unto them; Yea, every one that trusteth in them. 19 O house of Israel, bless ye the LORD: O house of Aaron, bless ye the LORD: 20 O house of Levi, bless ye the LORD: Ye that fear the LORD, bless ye the LORD. 21 Blessed be the LORD out of Zion, Who dwelleth at Jerusalem. PRAISE YE THE LORD. A PSALM intended for the temple service, and one of the Hallelujah Psalms, though not placed in the same series with the rest. It is, like Psalm 134, an exhortation to the priests and Levites who wait in the sanctuary to praise Jehovah, both because of His goodness in choosing Israel to be His people, and because of His greatness and the almighty power which He has shown in His dominion over the world of nature, and in the overthrow of all the enemies of His people. Then His abiding majesty is contrasted with the nothingness of the idols of the heathen. The Psalm is almost entirely composed of passages taken from other sources. Compare v. 1 with Psalm 134: 1; v. 3 with Psalm 147: 1; vs 6 and 15-20 with Psalm 115; vs. 8-12 with Psalm 136: 10-22. P. The people of Jehovah are exhorted to praise Him as their peculiar God (vs. 1-4), as the God of nature (vs. 5-7), as the deliverer of Israel from Egypt and in Canaan (vs. 8-12), as their hope also for the future (vs. 13, 14), rendered more glorious by contrast with the impotence of idols (vs. 15-18), after which the Psalm concludes as it began with an exhortation to praise God (vs. 19-21). A. 3. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah (praise to Jehovah!) for good (is) Jehovah. Make music to His name, for it is lovely. The last words may also be translated, He is lovely, i.e., an object worthy of supreme attachment. A.—For the Lord is good—that is, originally, transcendently, effectively; He is good, and doeth good, and is therefore to be praised with mind, mouth, and practice. Trapp. Praise is a constant corrective of the earthliness which hangs about the words and even the thoughts whereby it is contained. And the praise of God is for us the expression of a perfect admiration blended with a perfect love. It is the admiration of a Being who claims all our hearts in personal devotion, while containing or being Himself all that we speak of in abstract categories as the ideals of goodness and beauty. It is the most ennobling exercise of the human spirit. E. S. Talbot. 4-12. Then follow the several grounds of this praise. First, because He has chosen Israel. Next, because He is higher than all the gods of the heathen, as He has shown in His absolute supremacy over the world of nature (vs. 5-7). Then, because He redeemed His people from Egypt (vs. 8, 9). Lastly, because, vanquishing all their enemies, He gave them the promised land (vs. 10-12). P. 4. The nation was chosen by God unto Himself to answer the Divine ends and purposes in blessing all mankind. Jacob's race was chosen to be the trustees of His truth, the maintainers of His worship, the mirrors of His mercy. Chosen they were; but mainly for this end, that they might be a peculiar people, set apart unto the service of the true God. S. 6. All that Jehovah will He does in the heavens and in the earth, in the seas and all depths. It is not merely as their own peculiar God that they are bound to praise Him, but as the universal sovereign. Heaven, earth, and sea are put for the whole frame of nature. A. Whatsoever He pleaseth. This absolute supremacy of God over all the forces and phenomena of the natural world is stated in the same way as in Psalm 115:3, with reference more particularly to the weakness of the gods of the nations, as also in this Psalm (vs. 15-18). P. —Profane history exhibits the instruments by which Jehovah works; the finger of Divine revelation points to the unseen but almighty hand which wields and guides the instrument, and causes even Herod and Pontius Pilate, together with the Jews and the people of Israel, to do what the hand and the counsel of God determined before to be done. George Payne. 7. As the electricity is dissipated by the frequent discharges the cloud condenses, and there comes a sudden and heavy rain; but the greater the accumulation of electricity, the longer is the rain delayed. Thus connected as the electrical phenomena of the atmosphere are with clouds, vapor, and rain, how forcibly are we struck with these appropriate words in the Scriptures! Edwin Sidney. He bringeth the wind. The winds are, with great beauty, represented as laid up by Him as jewels in a treasure house. Indeed, few verses better express creative control than those in which the winds, which make sport of man's efforts and defy his power, are represented as thus ready to spring forth at God's bidding from the quarters where they quietly sleep. The occasion comes, the thoughts of Jehovah find expression in His providence, and His ready servants leap suddenly forth. J. Duns. Everything in the material world is under the immediate direction and control of the Lord of all. Observe how the Psalmist brings before us the personal action of Jehovah: "He causeth," "He maketh," "He bringeth." Everywhere the Lord worketh all things, and there is no power which escapes His supremacy. S. 8-12. He is worthy to be praised, for He is the Redeemer out of Egypt. He is worthy to be praised, for He is the conqueror of the promised land. D. 10. The Israelites' sword, in its bloodiest executions, wrought a work of mercy for all the countries of the earth to the very end of the world. They seem of very small importance to us now, those perpetual contests with the Canaanites, and the Midianites, and the Ammonites, and the Philistines, with which the Books of Joshua and Judges and Samuel are almost filled. We may half wonder that God should have interfered in such quarrels, or have changed the course of nature, in order to give one of the nations of Palestine the victory over another. But in these contests, on the fate of one of these nations of Palestine the happiness of the human race depended. The Israelites fought not for themselves only, but for us. It might follow that they should thus be accounted the enemies of all mankind—it might be that they were tempted by their very distinctness to despise other nations; still they did God's work—still they preserved unhurt the seed of eternal life, and were the ministers of blessing to all other nations, even though they themselves failed to enjoy it. Thomas Arnold. 13. Jehovah, Thy name (is) to eternity. Jehovah, Thy memory is to generation and generation. Name and memory are here equivalent expressions, meaning that by which God is remembered or commemorated, His perfections as exhibited in act. The perpetuity of this implies continued or repeated acts of goodness. A. —The memorial name of Israel's God is Jehovah, with reference to its significance—fidelity to promise, faithfulness resting on immutability. (See Ex. 3:15; Hos. 12:5.) It had pleased God to give them this name of Himself with this interpretation; with joy, therefore, the Psalmist declares that this name shall stand good through all generations—the ground of abiding, everlasting confidence in the Lord of hosts as by covenant their own God. C. God is and will be always the same to His Church, a gracious, faithful, wonder-working God; and His Church is and will be the same to Him, a thankful, praising people; and thus His name endures forever. H.—Never shall men forget thee, O Lord. The ordinances of Thine house shall keep Thee in men's memories, and Thine everlasting Gospel and the grace which goes therewith shall be abiding remembrances of Thee. Grateful hearts will forever beat to Thy praise and enlightened minds shall continue to marvel at all Thy wondrous works. Men's memorials decay, but the memorial of the Lord abideth evermore. What a comfort to desponding minds, trembling for the ark of the Lord! No, precious name, Thou shalt never perish! Fame of the Eternal, Thou shalt never grow dim! S. 14. For.** Here is the proof and evidence that Jehovah's name and memorial abide forever; that He will manifest, as in the past, so in the future, His righteousness and His mercy to Israel. P.—He will plead their cause against others that contend with them; He will judge His people, He will judge for them, and will not suffer them to be run down. He will not Himself contend forever with them, but will repent Himself concerning His servants, and not proceed in His controversy with them; He will be entreated for them, or He will be comforted concerning them; He will return in ways of mercy to them, and will delight to do them good. This verse is taken from the song of Moses (Deut. 32: 36). H. 15. The idols of the nations (are) silver and gold, works of the hands of man.** The Divine perfection of the Lord is now exhibited in contrast with the impotence and nullity of idols. The terms of the comparison are borrowed, with several variations, from Psalm 115: 4-8. A.—For the good of His proved Church He ever proves Himself as the living One, whereas idols and idolaters are vain. D. 16,17. They can neither speak in answer to your prayers and inquiries, nor see what you do or what you want, nor hear your petitions, nor smell your incenses and sacrifices, nor use their hands either to take anything from you, or to give anything to you; nor so much as mutter, nor give the least sign of apprehending your condition or concerns. M. Pool.—Idols of gold and silver have a mouth, but give no counsel to their worshippers; eyes, but see not the devotions nor the wants of those who serve them; ears, but hear not their cries of distress or songs of praise; nostrils, but smell not the fragrant incense presented to their images; feet, but they cannot move to help the fallen. They cannot so much as whisper one syllable of response, or even mutter in their throat! And as man becomes like his God (witness Hindoo idolaters, whose cruelty is just the reflection of the cruelty of their gods), so these gods of the heathen being "soul-less, the worshippers become soul-less themselves." A. Bonar. The painter, the carver did their part well enough; they made them with mouths and eyes, ears and noses, hands and feet, but they could put no life into them and therefore no sense. They had better have worshipped a dead carcass (for that had life in it once) than a dead image, which neither has life nor can have. They speak not, in answer to those that consult them; the crafty priest must do it for them. In Baal's image there was no voice, neither any that answered. They see not the prostrations of their worshippers before them, much less their burdens and wants. They hear not their prayers, though ever so loud; they smell not their incense, though ever so strong, ever so sweet; they handle not the gifts presented to them, much less have they any gifts to bestow on their worshippers; they cannot stretch forth their hands to the needy. They walk not, they cannot stir a step for the relief of those that apply to them. Nay, they do not so much as breathe through their throat; they have not the least sign or symptom of life, but are as dead, after the priest has pretended to consecrate them and call a deity into them, as they were before. H. A beautiful contrast is formed between the God of Israel and the heathen idols. He made everything, they are themselves made by men; He is in heaven, they are upon earth; He doeth whatsoever He pleaseth, they can do nothing; He seeth the distresses, heareth and answereth the prayers, accepteth the offerings, cometh to the assistance and effecteth the salvation of His servants; they are blind, deaf, dumb, senseless, motionless, and impotent. Equally slow to hear, equally impotent to save in the time of greatest need, will every worldly idol prove on which men have set their affections, and to which they have, in effect, said, "Thou art my god." Bishop Horne. 18. They that make them are like unto them, so is every one that trusteth in them. Whatever we adore and esteem, we are changed into its image. Idolaters are as stupid and senseless as the idols to which they pay homage. Thus when God is chosen as our supreme good and last end, by conversing with Him, the image of His glorious holiness is derived on the soul, and it becomes godly; the heart is drawn by His attractive excellencies, and the life directed to him. Bates. 19-21. Let blessings in the sense of offered praises go forth out of Zion to Jehovah, who dwelleth in Jerusalem. Let all the people who constitute His Zion pour forth their ceaseless praises to their Almighty Lord who dwells in the midst of them. C. 21. Bless. Praise.** Blessing relateth to His benefits, praise to His excellencies. We bless Him for what He is to us, we praise Him for what He is in Himself. Now, whether we bless Him or praise Him, it is still to increase our love to Him and delight in Him; for God is not affected with the flattery of empty praises. It doth you good to consider Him as an infinite and eternal Being, and of glorious and incomprehensible majesty. It is pleasant and profitable to us. Manton. A summons to praise Jehovah, who is exalted above the gods of the nations, addressed to the whole of Israel, rounds off the Psalm in such a way that it resumes the strain with which it began. Zion, from whence Jehovah's self-attestation, rich in might and in grace, diffuses itself, is also to be the place from whence the glorifying attestation of Him by the mouth of men spreads itself abroad. History has realized this. D. 1. O GIVE thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: For his mercy endureth for ever.2 O give thanks unto the God of gods: For his mercy endureth for ever.3 O give thanks unto the Lord of lords: For his mercy endureth for ever.4 To him who alone doeth great wonders: For his mercy endureth for ever.5 To him that by understanding made the heavens: For his mercy endureth for ever.6 To him that spread forth the earth above the waters: For his mercy endureth for ever.7 To him that made great lights: For his mercy endureth for ever:8 The sun to rule by day: For his mercy endureth for ever:9 The moon and stars to rule by night: For his mercy endureth for ever.10 To him that smote Egypt in their firstborn: For his mercy endureth for ever:11 And brought out Israel from among them: For his mercy endureth for ever:12 With a strong hand, and with a stretched out arm: For his mercy endureth for ever.13 To him which divided the Red Sea in sunder: For his mercy endureth for ever: 14. And made Israel to pass through the midst of it: For his mercy endureth for ever:15 But overthrew Pharaoh and his host in the Red Sea: For his mercy endureth for ever.16 To him which led his people through the wilderness: For his mercy endureth for ever.17 To him which smote great kings: For his mercy endureth for ever:18 And slew famous kings: For his mercy endureth for ever:19 Sihon king of the Amorites: For his mercy endureth for ever:20 And Og king of Bashan: For his mercy endureth for ever:21 And gave their land for an heritage: For his mercy endureth for ever:22 Even an heritage unto Israel his servant: For his mercy endureth for ever.23 Who remembered us in our low estate: For his mercy endureth for ever:24 And hath delivered us from our adversaries: For his mercy endureth for ever.25 He giveth food to all flesh: For his mercy endureth for ever.26 O give thanks unto the God of heaven: For his mercy endureth for ever. THIS Psalm is little more than a variation and repetition of the preceding Psalm. It opens with the same liturgical formula with which the one hundred and sixth and one hundred and eighteenth Psalms open, and was evidently designed to be sung antiphonally in the temple worship. Its structure is peculiar. The first line of each verse pursues the theme of the Psalm; the second line, "For His lovingkindness endureth forever," being a kind of refrain or response, breaking in upon and yet sustaining the theme of the Psalm; the first would be sung by some of the Levites, the second by the choir as a body, or by the whole congregation together with the Levites. We have an example of a similar antiphonal arrangement in the first four verses of the one hundred and eighteenth Psalm; but there is no other instance in which it is pursued throughout the Psalm. In the Jewish liturgy this Psalm, with its twenty-six responses, is called "the Great Hallel," by way of distinction from "the Hallel," simply so called, which comprises Psalms 113-118, though there is some uncertainty as to the former designation; for according to some "the Great Hallel" comprises Psalm 135: 4-Psalm 136, and according to others, Psalms 120-136. P. This Psalm consists of two parts: the first, of nine verses, referring to the God of creation; and the second, of seventeen, referring to the God of redemption. The first nine contain three of thanks to God, and a double three referring to creation. The following seventeen contain twice three on the deliverance from Egypt, one on the journey through the wilderness, a twofold three on the conquest of Peræa, three on the subsequent history of Israel, and one re-echoing the first three of thanksgiving. M. Praise Him for what He is (vs. 1-3); for what He is able to do (v. 4); for what He has done in creation (vs. 5-9); for what He did in redeeming Israel from bondage (vs. 10-15); for what He did in His providence toward them (vs. 16-22); for His grace in times of calamity (vs. 23, 24); for His grace to the world at large (v. 25); and praise Him at the remembrance that this God is the God of heaven (v. 26). A. Bonar. 1. Give thanks to the Lord, not only because He doeth good, but because He is good; all the streams must be run up to the fountain; not only because He is merciful to us, but because His mercy endures forever, and will be drawn out to those that shall come after us. We must give thanks to God, not only for that mercy which is now handed out to us here on earth, but for that which shall endure forever in the glories and joys of heaven. H. His mercy endureth forever. This sentence is the wonder of Moses, the sum of revelation, and the hope of man. M.—Many sweet things are in the Word of God, but the name of mercy is the sweetest word in all the Scriptures, which made the Psalmist harp upon it twenty-six times in this Psalm, "For His mercy endureth forever." H. Smith.—It is the sweetest stanza that a man can sing. What joy that there is mercy, mercy with Jehovah, enduring mercy, mercy enduring forever! We are ever needing it, trying it, praying for it, receiving it; therefore let us forever sing of it. S. 4. Doeth wonders. There is nothing that God has established in a constant course of nature, and which, therefore, is done every day, but would seem a miracle and exercise our admiration if it were done but once; nay, the ordinary things in nature would be greater miracles than the extraordinary, which we admire most, if they were done but once. Donne.—This power of preserving things in their station and motion, and the renewing of them, is more stupendous than that which we commonly call miraculous. We call those miracles which are wrought out of the track of nature, and contrary to the usual stream and current of it, which men wonder at because they seldom see them and hear of them, as things rarely brought forth in the world; when, the truth is, there is more of power expressed in the ordinary station and motion of natural causes than in those extraordinary exertings of power. Charnock. God has wrought many miracles and daily works, but those miracles are much weakened in the sight of men because they are very usual. A greater miracle it is that God Almighty every day feeds all the world, and directs the good, than that miracle was that He filled five thousand men with five loaves; but men wondered at this, not because it was a greater marvel, but because it was unusual. Who now gives fruit to our fields, and multiplies the harvest from a few grains of corn, but He who multiplied the five loaves? Ælfric.—The philosophy of miracles is just the revelation of the living God, as the God of nature; the revelation of God, not as violating, but as maintaining the order of His world; a revelation sudden and startling, to show to us what could not be shown so effectually in any other way, what "His hand is daily doing for the beautifying and glorifying of the earth and of life." As Westcott says, in his thoughtful work on Miracles, "The order of the universe has a spiritual root. The purpose of love which changes is also the purpose of love which directs it. He who can bind and loose the forces of nature has thus revealed the eternal purpose in which they originate." Macmillan. 5-9. The general laws of nature are rules that God has laid down for the regulation of His own procedure. It is not that, as a Being omnipresent and omnipotent, ever watchful and ever active, He needs those helps which man requires in consequence of his infirmities. The Almighty can never be weighed down under the burden of His government. He adopts the mode of procedure by general laws, not for His own convenience, but for that of His intelligent creatures. "I call," says Sir Thomas Browne, "the effects of Nature the works of God, whose hand and instrument she only is; and therefore to ascribe His actions unto her is to devolve the honor of the principal agent upon the instrument, which if with reason we may do, then let our hammers rise up and boast that they have built our houses, and our pen receive the honor of our writings." It is surely possible for us so to expand our minds as to discover both the agent and the instrument—to discover the goodness of God in the blessing sent, and the wisdom of God in the means, so adapted to our state, through which the blessing comes. M'Cush. When God comes forth from the unvisioned light of His own eternal, self-adequate Being, and flashes into energy in creation, providence, or grace, the law of His working and His purpose are one in all regions. The unity of the Divine acts depends on this, that all flow from one deep source, and all move to one mighty end. This Psalm puts what people call the "philosophy" of creation and of providence very clearly in accordance with this thought, that the love of God is the source, and the blessedness of man the end of all His work. Creation, then, is the effluence of the loving heart of God. Though the sacred characters be but partially legible to us now, what He wrote, on stars and flowers, on the infinitely great and the infinitely small, on the infinitely near and the infinitely far off, with His creating hand, was the one inscription—God is love. And as in nature, so in providence. The origination and the support and the direction of all things are the works and the heralds of the same love. It is printed in starry letters on the sky. It is graven on the rocks and breathed by the flowers. It is spoken as a dark saying even by sorrow and pain. The mysteries of destructive and crushing providences have come from the same source. And he who can see with the Psalmist the ever-during mercy of the Lord, as the reason of creation and of judgments, has in his hands the golden key which opens all the locks in the palace chambers of the great King. He only hath penetrated to the secret of things material, and stands in the light at the centre, who understands that all comes from the one source—God's endless desire for the blessedness of His creatures! A. M. 5. By wisdom made the heavens. God has built the heavens in wisdom, to declare His glory and to show forth His handiwork. There are no iron tracks with bars and bolts to hold the planets in their orbits. Freely in space they move, ever changing, but never changed; poised and balancing; swaying and swayed; disturbing and disturbed, onward they fly, fulfilling with unerring certainty their mighty cycles. The entire system forms one grand complicated piece of celestial machinery; circle within circle, wheel within wheel, cycle within cycle; revolutions so swift as to be completed in a few hours; movements so slow that their mighty periods are only counted by millions of years. Anon. 7. Great lights. The luminaries of heaven are unspeakable blessings to the children of men. The sun, in the greatness of his strength, measures their day, and exerts an influence over animal and vegetable life which surrounds them with innumerable comforts; and the moon and stars, walking forth in their brightness, give direction to them amid the hours of night, and both by land and sea proclaim the wisdom, benignity, and gracious arrangement of the adorable Creator. By these luminaries day and night, heat and cold, summer and winter are continually regulated; so that God's covenant with the earth is maintained through their medium. How truly, then, may we exclaim, "His mercy endureth forever"! John Morison. 8. The sun. The lantern of the world, as Copernicus names the sun, enthroned in the centre, is the primary source of light and of radiating heat, and the generator of numerous terrestrial, electro-magnetic processes, and indeed of the greater part of the organic vital activity upon our planet, more especially that of the vegetable kingdom. The solar force, in its widest generality, gives rise to alterations on the surface of the earth—partly by gravitative attraction—as in the ebb and flow of the ocean (if we except the share taken in the phenomenon by lunar attraction); partly by light and heat-generating transverse vibrations of ether, as in the fructifying admixture of the aerial and aqueous envelopes of our planet, from the contact of the atmosphere with the vaporizing fluid element in seas, lakes, and rivers. The solar action operates, moreover, by differences of heat, in exciting atmospheric and oceanic currents; the latter of which have continued for thousands of years (though in an inconsiderable degree) to accumulate or waste away alluvial strata, and thus change the surface of the inundated land; it operates in the generation and maintenance of the electro-magnetic activity of the earth's crust, and that of the oxygen contained in the atmosphere; at one time calling forth calm and gentle forces of chemical attraction, and variously determining organic life in the endosmose of cell-walls and in tissue of muscular and nervous fibres; at another time evoking light processes in the atmosphere, such as the colored coruscations of the polar light, thunder and lightning, hurricanes and water-spouts. But the waves of light not only exert a decomposing and combining action on the corporeal world; they not only call forth the tender germs of plants from the earth, generate the green coloring matter (chlorophyll) within the leaf, and give color to the fragrant blossom; they not only produce myriads of reflected images of the sun in the graceful play of the waves, as in the moving grass of the field; but the rays of celestial light, in the varied gradations of their intensity and duration, are also mysteriously connected with the inner life of man, his intellectual susceptibilities, and the melancholy or cheerful tone of his feelings. This is what Pliny the elder referred to in these words, "The sun chases sadness from the sky, and dissipates the clouds which darken the human heart." Von Humboldt. 9. The stars guide the traveller both by sea and land; they direct the navigator in tracing his course through the pathless ocean. They serve "for signs and for seasons, and for days and years." They direct the labors of the husbandman, and determine the return and conclusion of the seasons. They assist us in commerce and in endeavoring to propagate religion among the nations, by showing us our path to every region of the earth. They have enabled us to measure the circumference of the globe, to ascertain the density of the materials of which it is composed, and to determine the exact position of all places upon its surface. They cheer the long nights of several months in the polar regions, which would otherwise be overspread with impenetrable darkness. Above all, they open a prospect into the regions of other worlds, and tend to amplify our views of the Almighty Being who brought them into existence by His power, and "whose kingdom ruleth over all." In these arrangements of the stars in reference to our globe, the Divine wisdom and goodness may be clearly perceived. T. Dick. 10. Up to this point it is God, the Creator of all things, to whose praise the poet stirs up men; from this point onward it is the God of the history of redemption. D. 10-15. Because the monarch of Egypt stood in the way of the Lord's gracious purposes it became needful for the Lord to deal with him in justice; but the great design was mercy to Israel, and through Israel mercy to succeeding ages and to all the world. Mercy cleared the road, mercy cheered the host, mercy led them down, and mercy brought them up again. Even to the depth of the sea mercy reaches—there is no end to it, no obstacle in the way of it, no danger to believers in it, while Jehovah is all around. "Forward!" be our watchword, as it was that of Israel of old, for mercy doth compass us about. S. 23-25. God's everlasting mercy is here celebrated, first, in the redemption of His Church (vs. 23, 24); in the many redemptions wrought for the Jewish Church out of the hands of their oppressors; when, in the years of their servitude, their estate was very low, God remembered them and raised them up saviours—the judges—and David at length, by whom God gave them rest from all their enemies; but especially in the great redemption of the universal Church, of which these were types, we have a great deal of reason to say, "He remembered us, the children of men, in our low estate, in our lost estate, for His mercy endureth forever; He sent His Son to redeem us from sin, and death, and hell, and all our spiritual enemies; for His mercy endureth forever; He was sent to redeem us and not the angels that sinned; for His mercy endureth forever." Second, in the provision He makes for all the creatures (v. 25), He gives food to all flesh. It is an instance of the mercy of God's providence, that wherever He has given life He gives food agreeable and sufficient; and He is a good housekeeper that provides for so large a family. H. The very air we breathe, the bread we eat, our common blessings, we have them all from grace, and all from the tender mercy of the Lord. You have here the story of the notable effects of God's mercy, and he concludes it thus, "Who giveth food to all flesh; for His mercy endureth forever." Mark, the Psalmist doth not only ascribe those mighty victories, those glorious instances of His love and power to His unchangeable mercy, but he traces our daily bread to the same cause. It is not only mercy which gives us Christ and salvation by Christ, and all those glorious deliverances and triumphs over the enemies of the Church; but it is mercy which furnisheth our tables, it is mercy that we taste with our mouths and wear at our backs. It is notable, our Lord Jesus, when there were but five barley loaves and two fishes, "lifted up His eyes and gave thanks." Though our provision be never so homely, yet God's grace and mercy must be acknowledged. Manton. 26. The God of heaven. The phrase, "God of heaven," is not found in the earlier Scriptures. We meet it nowhere else in the Psalms; but we meet it in 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel, and Jonah, and it is twice found in the Apocalypse. It is a sublime and appropriate designation of the true God, expressive of His glorious elevation above the passions and perturbations of earth. To him all flesh should give thanks, for all receive His mercy in many forms and ways. His favors come down on generation after generation, and to His willing, obedient people they shall flow on during eternal ages. Plumer. There is no reason to be given for grace but grace; there is no reason to be given for mercy but mercy; "for His mercy endureth forever." Ralph Venning. Jesus Christ is the organ and centre of all mercy for men. A merciful God is their God in Jesus Christ. It is part of His royal name and title, the Lord God, merciful and gracious—keeping mercy for thousands; longsuffering and of great mercy; He delighteth in mercy. Such are some of the phrases of the Old Testament, while in the New this is the great topic, and every page seems to exhale the fragrance of the benediction, grace, mercy, and peace. The goodness, the love, the grace, and the mercy of God are only so many phases of the same orb; all the outshining of one and the same benignant Jehovah; and all entitled to our praise. If it was right for Israel to recount the memory of these national advantages, it is doubly incumbent on Christians to speak to the praise and the glory of that grace wherein we are accepted in the Beloved. Especially should we record the great transaction, the chosen display of Divine goodness to mankind, in the election of Messiah—His taking human flesh, His companying with rejecting men in circumstances of lowliness and shame and pain, His conflict with the hour of darkness, His bloody, mysterious death, and His godlike resurrection. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. The main channel and torrent of mercy flows in a majestic stream in the redemption of the soul; but its flood receives and embosoms ten thousand lesser currents of temporal bounty. Divine mercy does not neglect the less while she accomplishes the greater. As she marches heavenward, with eyes fixed upon the crown and kingdom, she scatters largesses at every step. All our blessings flow from this same open hand, and are, therefore, properly denominated mercies. The covenant includes these, and the believer hopes for them, on the principle that all is his. Our persons, our landscapes, our neighborhoods, our city, our State, our nation, our race, are recipients every moment of this boundless favor; magnified inconceivably when we consider that it descends upon the unworthy, and made most tender and impressive when we consider that it descends upon us. And there is no view of the Divine glory which so exalts Him, as when He is beheld as the source of incessant and innumerable and immeasurable rivers of good; Himself the great parent on whom all the ranks of creatures hang and are nourished. J. W. A. How blessed to know of a love which cannot change or die! We may bring the blessedness of all the past into the present, and calmly face the misty future, sure that it cannot rob us of His love. Looking on all the flow of ceaseless change, the waste and fading, the alienation and cooling, the decrepitude and decay of earthly affection, we can lift up with gladness, heightened by the contrast, the triumphant song of the ancient Church, "Oh, give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good, because His mercy endureth forever!" A. M. 1. By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yea, we wept, When we remembered Zion.2 Upon the willows in the midst thereof We hanged up our harps.3 For there they that led us captive required of us songs, And they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion.4 How shall we sing the LORD's song In a strange land ?5 If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, Let my right hand forget her cunning.6 Let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, If I remember thee not ; If I prefer not Jerusalem Above my chief joy. 7. Remember, O LORD, against the children of Edom The day of Jerusalem ; Who said, Rase it, rase it, Even to the foundation thereof.8 O daughter of Babylon, that art to be de- stroyed ; Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee As thou hast served us.9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones Against the rock. AFTER the Psalms of praise and thanksgiving we have a subdued and plaintive melody relating to the time when Zion lay in ruins, and the cheerful songs of the Levite choir were hushed. It is the reminiscence of one who had recently returned from the captivity, recalling the taunts of the oppressor. It is beautiful in expression, and although tender and elegiac, especially at the opening, is spirited and pictorial, and becomes at last almost terrible. De Witt. The one hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm for tenderness and poetic beauty is hardly excelled by any composition in the entire collection. The reader is introduced at once into the midst of the sad scenes of the exile, and can almost look upon the neglected harp and hear the wailing lamentations. The Psalm was evidently composed subsequently to the return of the Jews from Babylon, yet not long after that event. It is not to be regarded simply as an expression of the feelings of which any captive Jew, endued with quick sensibilities, might be conscious, or as an outburst of patriotism ; it is a record of the fervent desires of the poor exiles that they might see the city of their solemnities again, and join in the worship which had once been paid to their fathers' God. They would rather be door-keepers in their national house of prayer than live amid all the sensual delights of Babylon. The Psalm is naturally divided into three strophes. Vs. 1-3 express the sorrow of the exiles in their remembrance of Zion. It would be doing violence to their most sacred feelings to comply with the demand of their proud oppressors to sing to them the songs of Zion. Vs. 4-6 give utterance to the passionate determination of the exiles never to profane the Lord's songs by signing them in a foreign land, and never to forget their beloved city. Vs. 7-9 invoke destruction upon the Edomites for their cruel conduct at the time Jerusalem was destroyed, and also upon the Babylonians for their oppressive acts. The destruction of the children of the Babylonians is a just recompense for their cruelties toward the Jews. He who finds fault with the spirit of these verses, and denounces it as a relic of a barbarous age, has very inadequate or erroneous views both of the principles of the Divine government and of the deeper necessities of his own moral nature. When outrageous cruelty or wickedness of any kind meets with retribution, we feel that it is condign, just, deserved, and this feeling is consistent with the tenderest compassion. B. B. Edwards. This is the most direct and striking reminiscence of the Babylonish Exile in the whole collection, and could scarcely have been written but by one who had partaken of its trials. A.—The writer begins by telling in language of pathetic beauty the tale of his captivity. He draws first the picture of the land—so unlike his own mountain land—the broad plain watered by the Euphrates and intersected by its canals, their banks fringed with willows, with no purple peak, no deep, cool glen to break the vast, weary, monotonous expanse; and then he draws the figure of the captives in their deep despondency, a despondency so deep that it could find no solace even in those sacred melodies which were dear to them as life—“As for our harps, we hanged them up on the willows by the water-side.” Next, his verse tells of the mocking taunt of their captors, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion;” and the half-sad, half-proud answer of the heart, strong in its faith and unconquerable in its patriotism, “How shall we sing Jehovah’s song in a strange land?” It were a profanation, it were a treachery. Sooner let the tongue fail to sing than sing to make the heathen mirth; sooner let the hand lose her cunning than tune the harp to please the stranger. No wonder that then, brooding over the memory of the past, brooding over his wrongs, and seeing around him in blackened ruins and wasted fields the footsteps of the invader, the poet should utter his wrath. No wonder that the Psalm concludes with that fierce outburst of natural resentment, a resentment which borrows almost a grandeur from the religious fervor, the devoted patriotism, whence it springs. Terrible have been the wrongs of Jerusalem; let the revenge be terrible. Woe to those who in the day of her fall took part with her enemies and rejoiced in her overthrow, when they ought rather to have come to her aid! Woe to the proud oppressors who have so long held her children captive, and made their hearts bitter with insult and wrong! P.—We note in the closing verses a loftier than poetic inspiration. The pen, and harp, and voice that swept on in these stirring measures were those of a prophet. What stands before his illuminated vision is not a personified principle, incarnations wrought by poetic fancy, to be dissipated presently into thin air. They are indeed persons, yet not as known individuals of our race, each standing for himself, against whom for personal wrong his darker human passions are roused; but impersonations, standing for men always and everywhere, who crush innocent lives under their iron heel, who know neither pity nor kindness, justice nor truth, but with determined will identify themselves with evil of devilish stamp, hating men and defying God. It is no base human passion, but impassioned prophecy, in the name of Him to whom vengeance belongs, that calls down upon them a doom from which, if they repent not, there is no escape. And with whatever sadness, yet with firmness unflinching, let all people that are loyal to God pronounce their Amen! De Witt. 1. By the rivers. Euphrates, Tigris, Chaboras, and the canals which intersected the country. The exiles would naturally resort to the banks of the streams as shady, cool and retired spots, where they could indulge in their sorrowful remembrances. The prophets of the exile saw their visions by the river (Ezek. 1:1; Dan. 8:2). Bib. Saera. Nothing could present a more striking contrast to their native country than the region into which the Hebrews were transplanted. Instead of their irregular and picturesque mountain city, crowning its unequal heights, and looking down into its deep and precipitous ravines, through one of which a scanty stream wound along, they entered the vast, square, and level city of Babylon, occupying both sides of the broad Euphrates; while all around spread immense plains, which were intersected by long, straight canals, bordered by rows of willows. How unlike their national temple—a small but highly finished and richly adorned fabric, standing in the midst of its courts on the brow of a lofty precipice—the colossal temple of the Chaldean Bel, rising from the plain, with its eight stupendous stories or towers, one above the other, to the perpendicular height of a furlong! The palace of the Babylonian kings was more than twice the size of their whole city; it covered eight miles, with its hanging gardens built on arched terraces, each rising above the other, and rich in all the luxuriance of artificial cultivation. How different from the sunny cliffs of their own land, where the olive and the vine grew spontaneously, and the cool, shady, and secluded valleys, where they could always find shelter from the heat of the burning noon! No wonder then that, in the pathetic words of their own hymn, “by the waters of Babylon they sat down and wept, when they remembered Zion.” Of their general treatment as captives we know little. The Psalm seems to intimate that the Babylonians had taste enough to appreciate the poetical and musical talent of the exiles, and that they were summoned occasionally to amuse the banquets of their masters, though it was much against their will that they sang the songs of Zion in a strange land. In general it seems that the Jewish exiles were allowed to dwell together in considerable bodies. They were colonists rather than captives, and became by degrees possessed of considerable property. They had taken the advice of the Prophet Jeremiah (who gave them no hopes of speedy return to their homes); they had built houses, planted gardens, married and brought up children, submitted themselves as peaceful subjects to the local authorities—all which implies a certain freedom, a certain degree of prosperity and comfort. They had free enjoyment of their religion, such at least as adhered faithfully to their belief in Jehovah. We hear of no special and general religious persecution. Milman. 4. How shall we sing the song of Jehovah on a foreign soil?** These are the words with which the invitation was or might have been rejected at the time. The question implies a moral impossibility. The idea is not that the Psalms themselves would be profaned by being sung there, but that the expression of religious joy would be misplaced and incongruous, implying an oblivion of the sanctuary and its forfeited advantages. A.—Why could they not sing? In most touching words they answer, “How shall we sing the songs of our Jehovah in a strange land?” Every strain would seem in its echo to mock our grief, telling us that He is our faithful God no longer! Ah! can we forget Jerusalem? To sing in tones of mirth as they demand would imply it. C. 5. Let my right hand forget her cunning.** There is a striking and appropriate point in this, which has been overlooked. It is that, as it is customary for people in the East to swear by their professions, so one who has no profession—who is poor and destitute, and has nothing of recognized value in the world—swears by his right hand, which is his sole stake in society, and by the “cunning” of which he earns his daily bread. Modern translators substitute “skill;” but perhaps a term still more general would be better, such as, “May my right hand lose its power.” Kitto. 5,6. It is hard for us to imagine how much the ancient Jews loved their native land. There the ancestral recollections were such as no other nation has ever enjoyed. The founder of the race was the father of the faithful, the friend of God, with whom angels watched in company, and his great-grandson was the prime-minister of Egypt, the saviour alike of his own race and of his adopted country, and whose bones now reposed in the Promised Land, in the field which Jacob gave to his son Joseph. The meek law-giver, too, what reminiscences clustered around his name, whom the Lord knew face to face, who was almost permitted to gaze upon the splendors of the Godhead itself! A series of wondrous miracles had been interwoven into the national history and into the songs of the temple. In the lapse of ages, these hallowed remembrances, these dear and cherished monuments, multiplied on every side, till the very soil became sacred. On this mountain God appeared; under this oak He stood visible; here at this fountain angels talked. In that spot fire descended from heaven. In that valley an army perished when the seals of pestilence were unloosed. Jerusalem, moreover, was the centre and substance of all which was holy and venerable, beautiful for situation, the city of the great king; the temple of burnished gold, crowning its highest summit, no unapt emblem of that new Jerusalem which John saw in apocalyptic vision. How could the pious Jew bear to be exiled from such a country? B. B. Edwards. Under the reign of King David’s “Greater Son” it is our privilege to live. We have the spiritual church of the Messiah, far more glorious than its ancient type of Zion. Would that our Ark of the Covenant might be as vividly present with us and as personally dear to us as was the golden ark to God’s true people of old, in the tabernacle on Mount Zion and the temple on Mount Moriah! If the ancient Jew “preferred Jerusalem above his chief joy,” shall we not cherish such a devotion to the Church of Christ as shall continually prompt the protestation— “For her my tears shall fall, For her my prayers ascend, To her my cares and toils be given”? —N. C. Burt. 7-9. The Psalmist prays for vengeance upon Edom and Babylon. How shamefully the Edomites, that brother-people related to Israel by descent and yet pre-eminently hostile to it, behaved at the destruction of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans as their malicious, rapacious, and barbarous helpers, we see from the prediction of Obadiah, which Jeremiah has taken up again into his prophecies. From the false brethren the imprecation turns to Babylon, the city of the world-kingdom. D. 7. The “day of Jerusalem” was that memorable one when the walls fell, and her enemies rushed in to sack, burn, and destroy. Then the children of Edom, their national cousins, were specially spiteful, revengeful. Wisely, prudentially, they had a common interest with Judah in repelling this Chaldean invasion and in driving this conquering horde back from Western Asia to their home on the Euphrates; but their old antipathy against the Hebrew race blazed forth, an outrage on humanity and a rank offence against the God of heaven! As said here, they shouted, Raze, raze the city to its very foundations; leave not one stone upon another! The Prophet Obadiah (vs. 10-15) charges upon them that they stood on the enemy's side; looked on joyfully, and spake proudly in the day of their distress; joined in the pillage; intercepted the fugitives and turned them back upon the sword of the conquerors. Amos (1 : 11) gave the reasons for the ruin of Edom, saying: "Because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath forever." Was there not a natural fitness in the prayer that God would "remember these children of Edom"? C. 8. O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed. In the beginning of the fifth year of Darius happened the revolt of the Babylonians, and he besieged the city with all his forces. As soon as the Babylonians saw themselves begirt by such an army as they could not cope with in the field, they turned their thoughts wholly to the supporting of themselves in the siege; in order where to they took a resolution, the most desperate and barbarous that ever any nation practised; for to make their provisions last the longer, they agreed to cut off all unnecessary mouths among them, and therefore drawing together all the women and children, they strangled them all, whether wives, sisters, daughters, or young children useless for the wars, excepting only that every man was allowed to save one of his wives, which he best loved, and a maid-servant to do the work of the house. Prideaux. 9. The young children are to be dashed in pieces, in order that a new generation may not restore the world-empire that has been cast down. It is zeal for God that puts such words into the poet's mouth; but they do not suit the mouth of the New Testament Church. In Old Testament times the Church had still the form of a nation, and the longing for a revelation of the Divine righteousness clothed itself accordingly in a martial form. D.—A deeper view of the case will suggest that this idea of retribution, even in its most specific form, was not original with these captives. They must have known the "burden on Babylon" as given by Isaiah (13 : 16, 18). "The children shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes; they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children." Also the words of Jeremiah, sent expressly to them during their captivity: "Take vengeance upon her; as she hath done, do unto her. Recompense her according to her works; according to all that she hath done, do unto her" (Jer. 50 : 15, 29). These and other similar prophecies must have taught them unmistakably God's purpose of retribution upon both Babylon and Edom, and, in fact, must have suggested to them the very ideas which seem to our view most exceptionable. C. 8, 9. Happy. In this place alone the English Bible translates 'ashrê, happy, as of personal enjoyment, a meaning it never has. It expresses here emphatic approval of divinely ordered retribution. It would apply to a tender-hearted judge, as once seen by the writer, with streaming eyes pronouncing the death penalty on one guilty of brutal murder. De Witt. According to Scripture, evil, in the long course of its development and reproduction, concentrates itself in successive principles, persons, systems, nations; in Judas Iscariot, who betrayed his Lord; in the Jews, who rejected the flower and crown of all their history; in that ordered system of error and persecution, be it what it may, which is called Babylon. No passage in the Psalms has given more offence than that which comes at the close of the tender Super flumina. But for the attentive student, the doom of Babylon hangs in the air of prophecy. We close the Psalter for a time; and after many days, as we draw near to the end of the whole volume of Revelation, we are startled by a new echo of the words of the old one hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm—"Babylon the Great is fallen, is fallen. Reward her even as she rewarded you; and double unto her double, according to her works." Bishop Alexander. The writer of the Psalm pronounces the Divine judgment against Babylon, the enemy and oppressor of God's people. But the language is the pictorial, poetic language which that age used, and which alone was then intelligible. In war peoples were exterminated, and even little children were dashed to pieces and destroyed. Of course we are to deny, as God denies, approval to such conduct. "How then can the prophet-Psalmist call men who do such things blessed"? This is our answer. Blessed are they who fulfil the command of God, even in the destruction of those whom He has appointed to destruction. Blessed are they, even though they live in an age of darkness and cruelty, even though their way of doing what God commands be coarse and revolting to the Christian conscience of men to-day. We may be sure it is and ever was more coarse and revolting to God. Herrick. The Jews were punished for their apostasy by being carried as captives to Babylon, their city and temple being destroyed by fire. A captivity of seventy years cured them of their propensity to idolatry, and caused them to long for the land and the worship of their fathers. Babylon, in turn, was overthrown for her pride, her idolatry, her luxury, and her cruelty. These last two verses of the Psalm shock our Christian sensibilities; yet, when interpreted according to the customs of ancient warfare, they simply express the desire of victory; for, "according to the barbarous usage of those days, the slaughter of infants belonged to the practice of war, when a fortress had been carried by storm. At a much later period, we find that the barbarity of the Greeks was so great that during an insurrection the mob had the children of the rich trampled to death by oxen; and, when the aristocracy had regained their power, they ordered their enemies, along with their wives and children, to be cast into the flames." Such imprecations in the Psalms should not be judged by that more merciful feeling which Christianity has infused into the code of war: neither should they be taken for the mere cry of personal or national revenge. The Jews had so far identified their capital and kingdom with the kingdom of God upon earth, that an assault upon these was the double crime of sacrilege and rebellion against Jehovah; and hence their patriotism was intensified by their religious faith. This comes out very beautifully and tenderly in the preceding verses of the Psalm. The Jews were then in a land of great beauty and fertility; and, though they were captives, the way to wealth and preferment was open before them, if they should choose to adopt the country and its customs. But they clung to the memory of their beloved Zion. Though Jerusalem had been burned, and its walls razed to their foundations, it was yet to them the most precious spot of earth. No beauty of scenery, no diversion of society, no bribe of pleasure, could cause them to forget the sorrows of the Lord's house. So should we set the kingdom of God above all our joys, and account whatever evil befalls that kingdom a personal sorrow and disaster. J. P. T. The only questions that remain with reference to the Imprecatory Psalms are such as these: What are they to us? Can we use them in our worship without being faithless to the Divine spirit of love that irradiates the Gospel and is sometime to irradiate the world? Am I to unite with the great congregation in uttering these terrible sentences, and what is their meaning as issuing from my lips? Surely we are to use them; but whatever else they mean for us, they cannot mean that we are thus to express our hatred to the enemies of David, or of some unknown writer of sacred song, and to unite with him in praying for their extermination. He and they have passed from the earth long ago, and everything that relates to them is irreversibly settled. They exist here only in the images they suggest to the thoughts of men as shades of the past. Nor does our use of them mean that we are thus to denounce our own enemies. We have no such enemies as these, and they are never to be classed with the facts of our personal life. They stand before us as vivid representations of the hostility to God that is the black curse of the world, and which we, as born of God, must hate and denounce forever. The more I love God, and love my fellow-men in their actual personality, each and all, the more heartily and bitterly I shall detest and curse the principle of evil, incarnate or unincarnate, that, if it could, would blot out the light of the world, and leave us all in the blackness of darkness forever. This is the solution of our paradox. Love, because it is love, must hate evil. And God, because He is love, hates it. And we, if we have the love of God and man in our hearts, always and everywhere must hate it. De Witt. 1. I WILL give thee thanks with my whole heart: Before the gods will I sing praises unto thee. 2 I will worship toward thy holy temple, And give thanks unto thy name for thy lov- ingkindness and for thy truth: For thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name. 3 In the day that I called thou answeredst me, Thou didst encourage me with strength in my soul. 4 All the kings of the earth shall give thee thanks, O LORD, For they have heard the words of thy mouth. 5. Yea, they shall sing of the ways of the LORD; For great is the glory of the LORD. 6 For though the LORD be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: But the haughty he knoweth from afar. 7 Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me; Thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, And thy right hand shall save me. 8 The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: Thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever; Forsake not the works of thine own hands. THIS is the first of a series of eight Psalms (138-145), probably the last composed by David, a kind of commentary on the great Messianic promise in 2 Sam. 7. They are found in this part of the Psalter, in consequence of having been made the basis, or rather the body, of a system or series (135-146) by a later writer. A. These eight Psalms are composed in the first person, and they follow very happily after the fifteen "Songs of Up-goings," and the three Psalms of praise uttered by the chorus of those who have gone up to Zion. Those Psalms were the united utterances of national devotion. These eight Psalms are the devout Israelite's manual of private prayer and praise. C. Wordsworth. The Psalm before us contains an acknowledgment of God's goodness as experienced already, an anticipation of His universal recognition by the nations, and, in the mean time, of additional favors to the Psalmist, or to the Church of which he was the temporary head. Such a Psalm was, of course, well suited to sustain the faith and revive the hopes of a later generation. A. The Psalm consists of three strophes. In the first the poet encourages himself to praise God both because of His goodness and faithfulness and His great promises, and also because he himself had had his prayers answered (vs. 1-3). He utters the hope, the prophecy, that the kings of the earth shall acknowledge the greatness of Jehovah-His greatness chiefly in this, that He does not measure by any human standard of great and small, of high and low (vs. 4-6). The application of all that he has learned of Jehovah's character to his own individual experience in prospect of trouble and danger (vs. 7, 8). P. 2. The Psalmist will thank Him for His grace, i.e., His anticipating, condescending love; and for His truth, i.e., His truthfulness and faithfulness; and more especially for that He has made His promise great above all His name, i.e., for having given His promise, which infinitely surpasses everything whereby He has hitherto gotten for Himself a name and a memorial. D. I will worship toward Thy holy temple; or, the place of God's dwelling, where the ark abode. He would worship God in God's own way. The Lord had ordained a centre of unity, a place of sacrifice, a house of His indwelling; and David accepted the way of worship enjoined by revelation. And praise Thy name for Thy lovingkindness and for Thy truth. Praise would be the main part of David's worship; the name or character of God the great object of his song; and the special point of his praise the grace and truth which shone so conspicuously in that name. S. Thou hast magnified Thy Word above all Thy name. "By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth." But mightier far is the Word by which a lost world is redeemed. This is the "Word" that He hath "magnified above all His name," as displaying at once the exceeding greatness of His power, the resources of His manifold wisdom, and the blended glories of holiness and love. John Lillie.—God has a greater regard unto the words of His mouth than to the works of His hand; heaven and earth shall pass away, but one jot or tittle of what He hath spoken shall never fall to the ground. E. Erskine. Above all Thy name. The expression seems to mean that to the soul waiting upon God and trusting in His Word the promise becomes so precious, so strong a ground of hope, that it surpasses all other manifestations of God's goodness and truth; or in the promise may here also be included the fulfilment of the promise. P.—He would sooner allow all His other perfections to come to naught, than for His faithfulness to fail. He has so magnified His faithfulness that His love, His mercy, His grace, would all sooner fail than His faithfulness—the Word of His mouth and what He has revealed in the Scripture. Philpot. In the sacred volume all the glory of the God-head shines; there we are admitted even to the council-chamber of the Most High, to hear the covenant entered into between the Father and the Son. This mysterious transaction having taken place in the incarnation and death of the Lord Jesus Christ, we behold all the perfections of God united and harmonizing in a way that they never could by any other means; we see justice more inexorable than if it had executed vengeance on the whole human race; and mercy more abundant than if it had spared the whole human race without any such atonement. There, as it is well expressed, "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." Of this great mystery we find not a trace in the whole creation besides; but in the Word it is reflected as in a mirror (2 Cor. 3 : 18). From the Word we derive all our knowledge of Divine truth and all our hopes of everlasting salvation. Nor is it the knowledge only of truth that we obtain, but the operation and efficacy of it on our souls. There is in Divine truth when applied by the Holy Spirit a power to wound, to sanctify, to save. When it comes to the soul with power, the stoutest heart in the universe is made to tremble; when it is poured out as balm, the most afflicted creature under heaven is made to leap for joy. Thus God has magnified and will magnify His name. C. Simeon. When the Bible, reason, and the Church concur in regard to a doctrine, that doctrine may be set down as having a clear majority. If the Bible and reason concur, but the Church dissents, the majority is still for the doctrine. If the Bible propounds, and reason and the Church dissent, still the doctrine has a clear majority. The Bible, reason, and the Church are not a tripod, but a pyramid. The Bible is the base, the Church a temple built upon it, and reason is its dome of crystal, letting in the light of heaven that all may be clearly seen and set in order. Take off the dome, the pile remains undisturbed. Take off the ecclesiastical structure, still the pyramid stands. The foundation standeth sure. Other foundation can no man lay than is laid. Interior. The history of the Church abounds in proofs that the study of the Bible and intense spiritual life go hand in hand. As we look back upon certain epochs when there were great awakenings, we find that the most important factor which brought about the wonderful work was a return to both the spirit and the letter of the revealed Word. There were controversies on theological questions, and some of them were animated enough, but they took their place in the background when the supreme question of the conversion of souls came to the front. Here before me is a volume of sermons preached by Gilbert Tennent and Samuel Blair, and published in Boston in 1739. They are fair specimens of the preaching of the times. One of these sermons is on the Divinity of the Scriptures, and another on the Sanctifying Efficacy of the Gospel on the Souls of Men, while the whole volume abounds in appeals to the exact language of the Word of God. The first six of the nineteen remarkable letters of Jonathan Dickinson on religious subjects, published about the same time (Boston, 1745), dealt entirely with the Old and New Testaments. It was when the Bible, with all its fulness of promise and threat, was held up, that the hearer and the reader were aroused, and from deep conviction they passed into a beautiful and joyous Christian life. The same return to the study of the Bible is perceptible in the great struggles for the reform of the Church. There is not a country where the Reformation was a success, or, for that matter, where it was attempted and at last failed, where the whole movement did not find its very centre and inspiration in the study of the Scriptures. The Reformers, every one of them, were students of the Word before all other things. Is it any wonder that when ministers and laymen go back to it, and study it closely, and bring it before the people in all its native glow and searching force, there should be great heart-searching, that old things should pass away, and all things should become new? All the men who have become prominent as successful evangelists have aroused themselves with the Scriptures. Bishop Hurst. 3. With strength in my soul.** This was a true answer to his prayer. If the burden was not removed, yet strength was given wherewith to bear it, and this is an equally effective method of help. It may not be best for us that the trial should come to an end; it may be far more to our advantage that by its pressure we should learn patience. Sweet are the uses of adversity, and our prudent Father in heaven will not deprive us of those benefits. Strength imparted to the soul is an inestimable boon; it means courage, fortitude, assurance, heroism. By his Word and Spirit the Lord can make the trembler brave, the sick whole, the weary bright. S. 4. They have heard the sayings of Thy mouth.** Not merely one king, though that king be David, shall acknowledge, thank, and praise Thee, but all others who receive the true religion, when they know what Thou hast promised, and especially when they compare the promise and fulfilment with particular reference to the promise of Messiah, which is described in Scripture as a grand means for the conversion of the nations and the chiefs which represent them. 5. And they shall sing in the ways of Jehovah, for great (shall be) the glory of Jehovah.** The kings of the earth, representing its nations, shall join in the praise of the true God, walking in His ways, i.e., as converts to the true religion. Compare Mic. 4 : 2 ; Isa. 4 : 3. A. 6. He hath respect unto the lowly.** Give me the homely vessel of humility, which God shall preserve and fill with the wine of His grace, rather than the varnished cup of pride, which He will dash in pieces like a potter's vessel. Where humility is the cornerstone, there glory shall be the topstone. W. Secker.—Pride is the growth of blindness and darkness; humility, the product of light and knowledge; and while the former has its origin in a mistaken and delusive estimate of things, the latter is as much the offspring of truth as it is the parent of virtue. R. Hall.—Let us aspire after true greatness, that is only found in humility. God rebukes the proud even in this world, and in the world to come they are abased; but the humble, even in this life, shall receive the respect that they have not sought for, and eternal glory shall be the recompense of their contempt of false and perishing honors. Fénelon. 8. The Lord will perfect.** God's work is perfect, man's is clumsy and incomplete. God does not leave off till He has finished. When He rests, it is because, looking on His work, He sees it all "very good." If you and I have been changed from enemies into sons, and have one spark of love to God kindled in our hearts, that is a mightier change than any that yet remains to be effected in order to make us perfect. One grain has been changed, the whole mass will be in due time. A. M.—None of God's designs break in the middle or fall short of their end. He will perfect that good work which He hath begun, to the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1 : 6). And how often is He called the strength of those that trust on Him; their buckler, and His way perfect. He performeth all things for me (Psalm 57 : 2). Hence is the stability of grace and perseverance of the saints; it is founded upon His unchangeableness. Not that they are so, though truly sanctified, if they and their graces were left to their own management; no, it is He who not only gives that rich portion to those He adopts to be His children, but keeps it for them, and them in the possession of it. And to build that persuasion of perseverance upon His truth and power engaged in it is no presumption; yea, it is high dishonor to Him to question it. . . . Put all your trust in the special and singular mercy of God, that He, for His mercy's sake, and of His only goodness, will help and bring you to perfection; not that absolute perfection is attainable here, but the meaning is, to high degrees of that spiritual and Divine life which is always growing and tending toward the absolute perfection above; but in some persons comes nearer to that and riseth higher, even here, than in the most. If you, with hearty and fervent desires, do continually wish and long for it, and with most humble devotion daily pray unto God and call for it, and with all diligence do busily labor and travel to come to it, undoubtedly it shall be given you. Leighton. When we find that Christ hath by His Spirit begun to make us know God, and love Him, and delight in Him, and praise Him, it is the easier to make us believe that He will perfect His work in us. It is God's work to love them that love Him, and to reward the obedient; and I must needs believe that God will do His work, and will never fail the just expectations of any creature. All my doubt is whether I shall do my part, and whether I shall be a prepared subject for that felicity. And He that resolveth this, resolveth all; He that will make me fit for heaven hath overcome the greatest difficulty of my belief, and I should the more easily believe that He will do the rest, and that I shall surely come to heaven when I am fit for it. Baxter. Many a Christian who thinks he is not growing at all may be growing in the most important sense of the word. He that is growing more acquainted with the weakness, and the sinfulness, and the waywardness of his own heart is no doubt thinking that he is going back, but he may be really making preparation for going forward in the noblest sense of that word. We may be growing downward in lowly humility, not less important in its place than growing upward in conformity to the Lord Jesus Christ. Cumming.—When we think we are growing worse we may actually be growing better, and making no little progress when we seem to be making none. Be not cast down! Progression is the ordinary law of God's government. It is minute by minute that morn's gray dawn brightens up into perfect day; it is inch by inch and foot by foot that the tide comes creeping in on the shore. And not like justification, an act, our sanctification, being a work of God's free grace, is under the same law of progress. More or less rapid, it is a thing of steps and stages. Therefore, while praying earnestly and working diligently, live hopefully and wait patiently. He will perfect that which concerneth us, and one day bring forth the headstone with "shoutings of grace, grace unto it." Guthrie. God has a plan concerning every one of us. Our lives do not move on at haphazard, neither are they altogether shaped by our own choice; but the Lord had a purpose in bringing us into being, and is directing our lives toward the fulfilment of that purpose. His purpose toward the work of His hands is always good. We can, indeed, frustrate the moral end of our creation by our perversity and sin; but if we adapt ourselves in obedience and submission to the will of God, He will perfect that which concerneth us. He will not abandon His own plan. It matters nothing that He is so great and high, and we so insignificant; He who clothes the lilies and feeds the birds of the air, and watches over the minutest laws and processes of the physical universe, thinks upon His children with a Father's watchful and forecasting love. When we find ourselves in trouble, we may not infer that God has forsaken or forgotten us. Our path may lie through the sea, but He will make the waters as a wall upon the right hand and the left. Our way may lead through the valley of the shadow of death, but He will go with us; His rod and staff will comfort us. The very troubles of life—disciplining our hearts to a loftier faith, separating us from a worldly unto a spiritual life—may be a means of perfecting that which concerneth us in the wise and holy purpose of God. So the Psalmist had already found it. His troubles had brought him experiences of the merciful faithfulness of God, so rich and blessed, that the fulfilment of the Divine promise even exceeded the hopes based upon His glorious name. So let the remembrance of past mercies lead us to praise and trust Him whose ways toward us are perfect, and whose mercy endureth forever. J. P. T. By the discipline of daily life, by the ministry of sorrow and joy, by merciful chastisements dogging our steps when we stray, by duties and cares, by the teaching of His Word coming even closer to our hearts and quickening our consciences to discern evil where we had seen none, as well as kindling in us desires after higher and rarer goodness, by the reward of enlarged perceptions of duty and greater love toward it, with which He recompenses lowly obedience to the duty as yet seen, by the secret influences of His Spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind breathed into our waiting spirits, by the touch of His own sustaining hand and glance of His own guiding eye, He will reveal to the lowly soul all that is yet wanting in its knowledge, and communicate all that is lacking in character. So for us, the true temper is confidence in His power and will, an earnest waiting on Him, a brave forward, yearning hope blended with a lowly consciousness of imperfection which is a spur, not a clog, and vigorous increasing efforts to bring into life and character the fulness and beauty of God. Presumption should be as far from us as despair; the one because we have not already attained, the other because "God will reveal even this unto us." Only let us keep in mind the caution which the apostle, knowing the possible abuses which might gather round His teaching, has here attached to it, "Nevertheless"—though all which I have been saying is true, it is only true on this understanding—"where to we have already attained, by the same let us walk." God will perfect that which concerneth you if—and only if—you go on as you have begun, if you make your creed a life, if you show what you are. If so, then all the rest is a question of time. Begin with humble trust in Christ, and a process is commenced which has no natural end short of that great hope with which this promise is charged, that the change which begins in the deepest recesses of our being, and struggles slowly and with many interruptions into partial visibility in our character, shall one day triumphantly irradiate our whole nature out to the very finger tips, and "even the body of our humiliation shall be fashioned like unto the body of Christ's glory, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things to Himself." A. M. Thy mercy, O Lord, endureth forever. God's work in us will abide unto perfection because God's mercy toward us thus abideth. "Forsake not the works of Thine own hands." Our confidence does not cause us to live without prayer, but encourages us to pray all the more. Since we have it written upon our hearts that God will perfect His work in us, and we see it also written in Scripture that His mercy changeth not, we with holy earnestness entreat that we may not be forsaken. If there be anything good in us, it is the work of God's own hands; will He leave it? He who has gone so far will surely persevere with us to the end. Our hope for the final perseverance of the believer lies in the final perseverance of the believer's God. S. There is already a power at work within us, if we be Christians, of whose workings we may be aware, and from them forecast the measure of the gifts which it can bestow upon us. We may estimate what will be by what we know has been and by what we feel is. That is to say, in other words, the effects already produced and the present operations of that power carry in them the pledge of their own completion. The strange mingling of good and evil in our present nature, our aspirations so crossed and contradicted, our resolution so broken and falsified, the gleams of light, and the eclipses that follow—all these, in their opposition to each other, are plainly transitory, and the workings of that power within us, though they be often overborne, are as plainly the stronger in their nature, and meant to conquer and to endure. The whole threefold Divine cause of our salvation supplies the measure and lays the foundation for our hopes in the glory of the Father, the grace of the Son, the power of the Holy Ghost. Let us lift up our cry: "Perfect that which concerneth me, forsake not the works of Thine own hands," and we shall have for answer the ancient Word fresh as when it sounded long ago from among the stars to the sleeper at the ladder's foot, "I will not leave thee, until I have done that which I have spoken to thee of." A. M. The hand of God is in everything. No point is more distinct to a trustful, relying spirit, no truth is more settled than this. There are no fortuities in this world; there is not an event which has not its meaning, its connections, and its end. The confidence which gives peace, and fixeliness, and strength to the mind fastens upon the views which the Bible gives of God, His agency, and His purposes; as a God who is concerned with everything and who acts in everything in reference to an end worthy of Himself. The Word of God, in which faith rests, contemplates man in all the various circumstances of his being, in every possible or supposable condition in which he may be placed. The promise of a Saviour and of all good in Him covers all our interests; hence the Word which is given to us is full of promises, and they are "exceeding great and precious"—great in their range, because there is no circumstance which they do not reach; precious in their character, because there is no exigency in our affairs to which they are not adapted. All these promises are promises in Christ Jesus, and herein we have the evidence of their certainty, the assurance of their fulfilment. The Christian's confidence has been actually tested by experiment, and has never yet failed. Confidence in God always ministers peace and joy to the human spirit. In the last hour nothing but confidence in God will help us; and herein we have an illustration of the value and glory of this confidence, that it can and does sustain the spirit and give it in this hour perfect peace. That hour is just before us; it will not be long before we shall be passing through it. Happy is the man who can say with calmness and composure, in view of such a scene, "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me." Faith, simple confidence in God through Christ, can give a man strength and peace in such a scene as this, and nothing else can do it. E. M. The Word of God consecrates home joy, and yet reminds us that every garden has its grave, every dear union its separation. But, on the other hand, there are no utterances of unbearable grief, or unmitigated woe. It says ever to us, Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord will provide. And the facts of experience in every age endorse its truth. As the snows hide flowers even in the Alps, so beneath all our separations and sorrows there are still plants of the Lord, peace, and hope, and joy, and rest in Him. Blessed indeed shall we be if we can rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him. We, too, shall all change. Time and sorrow will write their experiences on our brow. There will be hours in which we feel like Naomi, empty, oh! so empty—the cup of affection poured out on the ground, the forest without its songsters, the garden without its flowers, the home without its familiar faces. We shall see these pictures every day, and wonder more and more how any hearts can do without a Brother and a Saviour in Jesus Christ. But if character be enriched and trained, all is well; for this very end have we had Divine discipline, and the Lord will perfect that which concerneth us for the highest ends of eternal life in Him. W. M. Statham. Blessed, indeed, is his lot over whom, regenerate, loving, and grateful, is heard the Father's assurance: All things are yours. All things shall work together for thy good. Nothing shall be able to separate thee from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. The earth, with all its adornments, treasures, and privileges, may well be dear as thy Father's work and as one of the outlying fields to His heavenly home. But in addition to a share of His bounties here there awaits thee a better portion hereafter and in the world beyond. W. R. Williams. Nothing is lost. Patient waitings, cheerful sacrifices, still-born plans and baffled hopes, are all remembered. God gathers up and will fulfil in His best way. Life is what character has made it; it depends on the decision we make between the claims of the seen and the unseen worlds, pleasure and duty, inclination and principle. Truth is but a means to an end, and knowledge is to be translated into character. The unseen spiritual realm is to be our daily dwelling-place. Turn your eye to Christ, and in His light discover the lines of your destiny. He came to minister and not to be ministered to; to give rather than to receive. Take His burden and yoke. Keep Him in view amid the glamour and mirage of life, as an Alpine peak rises at evening in tender beauty and clear glory, when darkness has deepened about its base. It is morning now, but the night cometh, when the shadows will fall. Then let the glory of the cross shine full and clear before your eye, and nothing remain between you and heaven. V 1. O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. 2. Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, Thou understandest my thought afar off. 3. Thou searchest out my path and my lying down, And art acquainted with all my ways. 4. For there is not a word in my tongue, But, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. 5. Thou hast beset me behind and before, And laid thine hand upon me. 6. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain unto it. 7. Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? 8. If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, thou art there. 9. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; 10 Even there shall thy hand lead me, And thy right hand shall hold me. 11. If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, Then the night shall be light about me; 12. Even the darkness hideth not from thee, But the night shineth as the day: The darkness and the light are both alike to thee. 13. For thou didst form my reins: Thou hast knit me together in my mother's womb. 14. I will give thanks unto thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: Wonderful are thy works; And that my soul knoweth right well. 15. My frame was not hidden from thee, When I was made in secret, And curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. 16. Thine eyes did see mine unformed substance, And in thy book were all my members written, Which day by day were fashioned, When as yet there was none of them. 17. How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them! 18. If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand: When I awake, I am still with thee. 19. Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God: Depart from me therefore, ye bloodthirsty men. 20. For they speak against thee wickedly, THIS remarkable Psalm has been justly admired in all ages for its view of the spiritual nature and perfections of God, especially of His omniscience and omnipresence. Noticeably, these are thought of and presented here, not in their abstract nature and relations, but in their personal relations and bearings upon "me," the writer, and myself—each singer and reader of this Psalm. The God of David, the God of the ancient Hebrew worship, was no mere abstraction, no impersonal universality, to be thought of only as infinitely distant and infinitely regardless of man or of man's moral life and real welfare. The Psalm before us is a lesson on these points. Though ascribed to David, its style, choice of words and the peculiar sense sometimes given them are thought to indicate strongly the age of the restoration. The basis of the Psalm being David's, it may have been modified in these respects by those who in the age of Ezra revised it for greater practical usefulness. C. The one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm is a composition among the most remarkable in the collection; fraught with the loftiest conceptions of God, breathing profound and ardent devotion, uniting the most awakening thoughts with the most finished outward form, winged for the highest flight of the imagination, and yet conveying impressive practical lessons—a favorite hymn in the past ages of the Jewish and Christian churches, and furnishing the germ of some of the most sublime lyric poems in all Christian languages. B. B. E. Nowhere are the great attributes of God—His omniscience, His omnipresence, His omnipotence—set forth so strikingly as they are in this magnificent Psalm. Nowhere is there a more overwhelming sense of the fact that man is beset and compassed about by God, pervaded by His Spirit, unable to take a step without His control; and yet nowhere is there a more em- And thine enemies take thy name in vain. 21. Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? And do not I loathe those that rise up against thee? 22. I hate them with perfect hatred: I count them mine enemies. 23. Search me, O God, and know my heart: Try me, and know my thoughts: 24. And see if there be any way of wickedness in me, And lead me in the way everlasting. phatic assertion of the personality of man as distinct from, not absorbed in the Deity. Man is here the workmanship of God, and stands in the presence and under the eye of One who is his Judge. The power of conscience, the sense of sin and of responsibility, are felt and acknowledged, and prayer is offered to One who is not only the Judge, but the Friend; to One who is feared as none else are feared, who is loved as none else are loved. Both in loftiness of thought and in expressive beauty of language the Psalm stands pre-eminent, and it is not surprising that Aben-Ezra should have pronounced it to be "the crown of all the Psalms." The Psalm both in the Hebrew and the LXX is ascribed to David. In some copies of the latter it is also said to be a Psalm of Zechariah, with the further addition by a second hand of the words, "In the dispersion," which Origen tells us he found in some manuscripts. Theodoret, on the other hand, says that he had not found the addition either in the Hebrew or the LXX, or in any of the other interpreters. The strongly Aramaic coloring of the language certainly makes it more probable that the Psalm was written after the exile than before, unless, indeed, this tendency to Aramaisms is to be regarded as evidence of a variation merely of dialect, perhaps the dialect of Northern Palestine—a supposition which seems not to be wholly without foundation. The rhythmical structure is, on the whole, regular. There are four strophes, each consisting of six verses; the first three strophes containing the proper theme of the Psalm, and the last the expression of individual feeling. In the first strophe the poet dwells on the omniscience of God, as manifested in His knowledge of the deepest thoughts and most secret workings of the human heart (vs. 1-6). In the second, on His omnipresence; inasmuch as there is no corner of the universe so remote that it is not pervaded by God's presence, no darkness so deep that it can hide from His eyes (vs. 7-12). The third strophe gives the reason for the profound conviction of these truths of which the poet's heart is full. No wonder that God should have so intimate a knowledge of man, for man is the creature of God, the mysterious beginnings of life, which none can trace; the days, all of which are ordered before the first breath is drawn—these are fashioned and ordered by the hand of God (vs. 13-18). In the last strophe the Psalmist turns abruptly aside to express his utter abhorrence of wicked men—an abhorrence, no doubt, deepened by the previous meditation on God and His attributes, and called forth probably by the circumstances in which he was placed; and then closes with a prayer that he himself may, in his inmost heart, be right with that God who has searched him and known him and laid His hand upon him, and that he may be led by Him in the way everlasting (vs. 19-24). P. 1-4. The opening verses assert the most comprehensive and exact knowledge of the individual man in all the conditions and activities of his outer and inner life. De Witt. 2. Thou knowest my sitting and my rising; Thou understandest as to my thought from afar. Sitting and rising or standing represent rest and motion, or all the various conditions of the living, waking man. In every posture, state, and occupation, Thou knowest me. The next phrase does not merely signify, Thou perceivest the meaning of my thought, but Thou knowest all about it—its origin, its tendency, its moral quality; Thou understandest (everything) respecting it. From afar, unimpeded by local distance, by which men are prone to imagine the Divine omniscience to be circumscribed. A. Thou understandest my thought afar off—that is, every thought, though innumerable thoughts pass through me in a day. The Divine knowledge reaches to their source and fountain before they are our thoughts. Charnock.—In all affliction, in all business, a man's best comfort is this, that all he does and even all he thinks, God knows. In the Septuagint we read "reasonings." God knows all our inner reasoning, all the colloquies of the soul with itself. Le Blanc. 3. My path and my lair Thou siftest, and with all my ways art acquainted. Path is here put for going, lair for lying, and these, like the terms of the preceding verse, for motion and rest, or the active and passive parts of human life. The poetical word lair is used to represent a Hebrew one, occurring only here, but the verbal root of which is used by Moses (Lev. 18 : 23 ; 20 : 16). The last verb means to be accustomed, and then by a natural association acquainted or familiar. My ways, my condition and my conduct, what I do and what I suffer. A. 3,4. God takes notice of every step we take, every right step and every by-step. He is acquainted with all our ways; He knows what rule we walk by, what end we walk toward, what company we walk with. Thou knowest me in all my retirements; Thou knowest my lying down; when I am withdrawn from all company, and am reflecting upon what has passed all day, and composing myself to rest. There is not a word in my tongue, not a vain word, not a good word, but Thou knowest it altogether; knowest what it meant, from what thought it came, and with what design it was uttered. There is not a word at my tongue's end, ready to be spoken yet checked and kept in, but Thou knowest it. H. God knows everything that passes in our inmost souls better than we do ourselves; He reads our most secret thoughts; and He is as perfectly employed in the scrutiny of the thoughts and actions of an individual, as in the regulation of the most important concerns of the universe. God knows everything perfectly, and He knows everything perfectly at once. This, to a human understanding, would breed confusion; but God, without confusion, beholds as distinctly the actions of every man, as if that man were the only created being, and the Godhead were solely employed in observing him. Henry Kirke White.—Would men speak so vainly if they considered God overheard them? Latimer took heed to every word in his examination when he heard the pen go behind the hangings; so, what care would persons have of their words if they remembered God heard, and the pen is going in heaven! Watson. Do we sufficiently think what is meant by the proposition, God knows us? It cannot be perfect knowledge, an all knowing of all that we are, unless there be an ever-present spiritual beholding, a constant, actual knowing of our knowledge, and thinking of our thoughts. It is an idea most precious as well as fearful! Who is so unthinking as not to be sometimes impressed with that great mystery of our spiritual being, his own utter isolation from an all-surrounding universe? How perfect the seclusion in which every individual finite soul dwells apart from every other! We do, indeed, hold an imperfect intercourse by telegraphic signals passing through matter, but walls of adamant could not more effectually separate us from direct spiritual communion than the state in which God has created us. There is something impressively solemn in this deep seclusion, this everlasting loneliness. No other soul knows us; no other finite spiritual eye has ever seen us. The most unthinking must have some experience of this. There are times when we are lonesome, insupportably lonesome, and then is it fear, or joy, or are they both combined in the thought that there is, indeed, One who does thus know us? It may startle us when we think of all that is to be seen, and more, perhaps, than our own inner sense has ever seen, in that deep dwelling of our spirituality; truly is there pain, but this is not the only feeling; there may be consolation in the thought, yea, even strength and joy. There is one soul that knows us, personally, intimately, thoroughly—knows us not by media, by signals outward or interior, not by induction from effects, or by foreknowledge from causes, but by direct and immediate presence, by more than presence, even by spirit-pervading, interpenetrating spirit—not only an occasional or partial beholding, but an unintermitted knowledge of our all, our sense, our memory, our intelligence, our consciousness, even when least sensible, least known, least conscious to ourselves. T. Lewis. Our Christian friends watch us, our unchristian enemies watch us, angels in heaven watch us, and the devils that roam the earth watch us, but none watch us like God. We do not see Him as He stands by our side; the great observer of us is invisible and His scrutiny a silent one; we think not of Him, but He marks every one of us every hour with the most searching attention. He listens to our words, acquaints Himself with our doings, follows us wherever we go. We cannot for one moment get away from His eye. And all this while He is not taking a merely superficial glance at us; He is searching our inmost hearts, looking us through and through. C. Bradley. 5. Thou hast beset me behind and before. What would you say if, wherever you turned, whatever you were doing, whatever thinking, whether in public or private, with a confidential friend telling your secrets, or alone planning them—if, I say, you saw an eye constantly fixed on you, from whose watching, though you strove ever so much, you could never escape, that could perceive your every thought? The supposition is awful enough. There is such an Eye. De Vere. That we should be so little checked, so little awed, in the course of our daily lives, by this perpetual and awful presence; that we should know God to be looking at every motion and every impulse, and should be so unmoved; that we should do so many things before God's face which the opening of a door and the entrance of a fellow-creature would instantly stop—this is an instance of that weakness of faith which proves the fall of man. There is no need to exaggerate in this matter. We may recognize to the full that it is a part of God's own ordinance that we should be, as it were, unconscious of His presence during the greater part of every day of our lives. But that which is quite peculiar in this case is the nature of the forgetfulness. In the presence of father or of mother, or of any one else for whom you care, though you forget, yet the slightest real temptation, still more the slightest open sin, is sure to put you instantly in remembrance. Now I fear there is no such perpetual readiness in us to remember the presence of God. We forget His presence in the absorption of our daily employments and amusements; and forgetting it, we approach some sin which we know that He has forbidden. But our approach to the forbidden path rarely puts us in mind of the awful eye that is ever silently marking our steps. This is a veil which the devil puts before our eyes. It is the blindness of our fallen state. The right state of mind plainly is to have the thought of God's presence so perpetually at hand that it shall always start before us whenever it is wanted. This perpetual, though not always conscious sense of God's presence would, no doubt, if we would let it have its perfect work, gradually act on our characters just as the presence of our fellow-men does. This habit, beyond all others, strengthens our faith. Bishop Temple. We ought to live and learn to live all day long with the thought that God's eye is upon us, if for no other reason, for this one alone—that this is the truth, that this is the real condition under which we must live. The thought of God's eye upon us is usually looked upon as a thought to restrain and bridle us in the hour of temptation and carelessness; and so it is. But with our selfish love of forbidden things we miss what is meant not merely to restrain us, but to be the greatest and most unfailing of our comforts. The thought that God sees us always is His great encouragement and help to His children in doing right. His eye is not the eye of a Judge and Ruler only, but of a Shepherd and Father, the Lover of the souls of men, these poor souls of ours and of our brethren, not sparing even His own Son for them. We are being watched by an eye of tenderness and sympathy deeper and truer than even that of any man on earth for his suffering friend. Church. 7-10. Passing now from God's all-perfect knowledge to His universal presence, he would fain represent this by supposing all imaginable ways of escape from it. "If I were to mount up to heaven, Thou art there; or make Sheol my bed, thou art there." If I say, "I will take the wings of dawn; let me dwell in the farthest sea; even there Thy hand would lead me; Thy right hand would hold me fast." C.—"Suppose I should think of getting out of Thy sight, that I might shake off the awe of Thee; suppose I should think of revolting from my obedience to Thee, or of disowning a dependence on Thee, and of shifting for myself; alas! whither can I go?" A heathen could say, Whithersoever thou turnest thyself, thou wilt see God meeting thee. (Seneca.) H. 7. Inasmuch as the spirit in man is the seat of understanding, the Psalmist transfers the same to God; which is clearer from the second member, where the word face (presence) is put for knowledge or sight. The Psalmist is employed with the practical truth that by no change of place or circumstance can man escape from the eye of God. There is further implied, too, in the thought of escape, and in the thought of darkness, a sense of sin and the terror of an awakened conscience, which of itself would lead a man to hide himself, if it were possible, from his Maker. Calvin. Even the sacred Scriptures instruct us to seek the omnipresent Deity first within the sanctuary of our own bosom. Is it not the consciousness of the inward presence of Jehovah, which led the Psalmist to say, Whither shall I flee from Thy Spirit? It was the Spirit, the face of Jehovah, which accompanied the Psalmist in all places; he was conscious of this Spirit abiding within him, whether he should ascend toward heaven or make his bed in hell; this Spirit who reproveth men for sin, this Divine countenance which looketh upon men with flaming eyes, went with the Psalmist wherever he went. Tholuck. Thy presence. The presence of God's glory is in heaven; the presence of His power on earth; the presence of His justice in hell; and the presence of His grace with His people. If He deny us His powerful presence, we fall into nothing; if He deny us His gracious presence, we fall into sin; if He deny us His merciful presence, we fall into hell. John Mason.— We never shall escape from omnipresence. There is no fleeing from a being who is everywhere and who is omnipotent. The old Latin proverb says, "If you wish to flee from God, flee to God." For the only way to flee from an omnipotent being, and an omnipotent one, is to flee to Him. J. Cook. In all lands and coasts it is His sun that shines, His elements of earth or water that bear us, His air we breathe; but it is our special privilege that His gracious presence is ever with us; that no sea is so broad as to divide us from His favor; that wheresoever we feed, He is our host; wheresoever we rest, the wings of His blessed providence are stretched over us. Let my soul be sure of this. T. Adams.—What the atmosphere is to the physical life, that a sense of the Divine omnipresence is to secret prayer. Ambition, self-interest, the love of enterprise, as motives, in some of the greatest crises of life, ebb from under the soul and leave it stranded; a sense of the Divine omnipresence is the only motive that wears, and that is capable of flooding the highest harbor bar of temptation, and carrying the soul fully out to sea. J. Cook. 8. Thou art there. Or, more emphatically and impressively in the original, "Thou!" That is, the Psalmist imagines himself in the highest heaven, or in the deepest abodes of the dead—and lo! God is there also; He has not gone from him! he is still in the presence of the same God! Barnes. The effort to see God about us is of the highest practical moment. There is no one perhaps who has not known the value of the thought, Thou, God, seest me; but this seeing God is something more. That is a safeguard, but this is strength; that keeps us from doing, but this arms us to do; that suggests the presence of a Judge, but this the presence of a Redeemer. And in the common details of life it is this, the conviction of the nearness of God to help us, which we want above all things. We pray languidly, expecting little; we take the gifts and the trials which come to us for the most part as a matter of course; we are like the nine lepers who made their petition and received their answer, without actually knowing that the petition was addressed to a present God, and that the answer came directly from Him. But when the better way is opened let us boldly enter upon it, and claim, like the Samaritan, to see the personal love of God in the action of His providence. Bishop Westcott. Sheol—"asking, demanding, insatiable"—is used of the realm of death, i.e., the place of departed spirits, to which all go alike, whether good or bad. The word "Sheol" occurs sixty-five times in the Hebrew Scriptures; and in sixty-one of these it is translated Hades in the Septuagint Greek version, and four times by thanatos, i.e., death. It is sometimes (but only poetically) used for qeber or qibrah—"a grave." Hades is the "unseen," invisible world of spirits, to which all alike go, whether good or bad. It is thus (practically) identical with Sheol. In the New Testament Gehenna is literally "the valley of Hinnom," which was used by the Jews as a place to consume refuse in, or filth of any kind; hence the word was subsequently used to express, figuratively, the utmost degree of severity and opprobruum to which the wicked in Sheol or Hades are exposed. Tartarus is only referred to in 2 Pet. 2:4, and is adopted (apparently) from the heathen mythology, where it stands related to Hades, just as Gehenna, in Jewish theology, does to Sheol. In short, then, all souls, without exception, go to Sheol or Hades, while the wicked alone go to Gehenna or Tartarus. R. Young. 10. Thy hand lead me, hold me. We need not fear the omnipresence of love, nor the omniscience which knows us altogether, and loves us even as it knows. Rather we shall be glad that we are ever in His presence, and desire, as the height of all felicity and the power for all goodness, to walk all the day long in the light of His countenance, till the day come when we shall receive the crown of our perfecting in that we shall be "ever with the Lord." A. M. 12. The darkness darkeneth not from Thee, for there is no darkness or shadow of death where the workers of iniquity may hide themselves. No hypocritical mask or disguise, how specious soever, can save any person or action from appearing in a true light before God. Secret haunts of sin are as open before God as the most open and barefaced villainies. H. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning and dwell in the utmost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it. Daniel Webster. 13-16. The fact that man is manifest to God even to the very root of his being and on every side is now accounted for by man's origin. The development of the child in the womb was looked upon by the Israelitish Chokma (Wisdom) as one of the greatest mysteries (Eccl. 11:5); here the poet sets forth this coming into being as a miracle of God's omniscient and omnipresent omnipotence. The reins are made specially prominent, in order to characterize them, the seat of the tenderest and most secret emotions, as the work of Him who trieth the heart and reins. D. 13. My reins. It seems to denote the sensational and emotional part of the human being, as afterward "the bones" denote the framework of the body. P.—The meaning of the first clause seems to be, Thou hast in Thy power and at Thy control the very seat of my strongest sensibilities, my pains and pleasures; and this subjection is coeval with my being, for even before birth I was under thy protection and command, as I am now. A. Mine innermost being (Hebrew, my reins, kidneys), regarded in the Semitic psychology as the seat of the desires, affections, and all the deeper emotions that distinguish man's spiritual nature. The interior parts of the body represent the points through which, in one direction, the immortal spirit was supposed to express itself outwardly, and in the opposite direction, to be wrought upon by the Spirit of God. This reference lifts the whole following description above any gross material conceptions, as if the Psalmist were glorifying the wisdom and power of God, as exhibited in his physical constitution. It is not in the possession of a skilfully wrought body, with members adapted to his life on the earth, that man is "fearfully distinguished." The man and the beast are alike in having the heart, the reins, and all other material organs, performing their several functions with admirable perfection and fidelity. But this is the marvel of God's workmanship and the chief glory of man, that his perishable body is the seat and throne of spiritual and Divine endowments, and that the two diverse elements in his nature are woven together as one. There is wrapped up in the embryonic condition of man not merely a body to be developed into wondrous symmetry, strength, and adaptation to temporary purposes, but an eternity of thought, feeling, fellowship with God, and spiritual activity and enjoyment. It is a fine thought of Hupfeld, that the "imperfect substance is the yet undeveloped course of life, the days of which, in their continuity, are the thread, rolled up as in a ball, which is unwound as life goes on." Yet it is not his own thought, but that suggested by the most literal translation of the words of the Hebrew poet. De Witt. 14. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Never was so terse and expressive a description of the physical conformation of man given by any human being. So "fearfully" are we made, that there is not an action or gesture of our bodies which does not, apparently, endanger some muscle, vein, or sinew, the rupture of which would destroy either life or health. We are so "wonderfully" made, that our organization infinitely surpasses, in skill, contrivance, design, and adaptation of means to ends, the most curious and complicated piece of mechanism not only ever executed "by art and man's device," but ever conceived by human imagination. R. Warner. 15. Not hid was my frame from Thee, when I was made in secret, embroidered in depths of the earth. The not hid is a meiosis, implying that God saw it clearly and fully understood it, inasmuch as He Himself created it. Frame, literally, strength, applied to the bones and sinews as the strength or framework of the body. A. "Embroidered with great skill" is an accurate poetical description of the creation of veins, sinews, muscles, nerves, etc. What tapestry can equal the human fabric? This work is wrought as much in private as if it had been accomplished in the darkness of the abyss. The expressions are poetical, beautifully veiling, though not absolutely concealing the real meaning. S. In every part, beauty, strength, convenience meet together. Neither is there any whereof our weakness cannot give reason why it should be no otherwise. How hast thou disposed of all the inward vessels, for all offices of life and nourishment! No vein, sinew, artery is idle. There is no piece in this exquisite frame, whereof the place, use, form, doth not admit wonder and exceed it. Bishop H. But as yet we have spoken but of the casket wherein the jewel lieth. The soul, that Divine spark and blast, how quick, nimble, various, and indefatigable in its motions! how comprehensive in its capacities! how it animateth the body, and is like God Himself, all in every part! Who can trace the flights of reason? What a value hath God set upon the soul! He made it after His image, He redeemed it with Christ's blood. Manton.—What is it which unites soul and body? how do they touch? how do they keep together? how is it we do not wander to the stars or the depths of the sea, or to and fro as chance may carry us, while our body remains where it was on earth? Certainly it is as uncomprehensible as anything can be, how soul and body can make up one man; and, unless we had the instance before our eyes, we should seem in saying so to be using words without meaning. For instance, would it not be extravagant and idle to speak of time as deep or high, or of space as quick or slow? Not less idle, surely, it perhaps seems to some races of spirits to say that thought and mind have a body, which in the case of man they have, according to God's marvellous will. Newman. I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made—made immortal and spiritual like Thee, made to sustain conscious and most endearing relations to Thee, made wise by Thine unsearchable wisdom, made happy in Thine immediate presence, destined to an everlasting progress toward that great luminary, the faint irradiations of whose love now, in this distant world, are my song in my pilgrimage. B. B. E. 16. My unformed substance did Thine eyes see, and in Thy book all of them are written, days are formed, and there is not one among them. This is one of the most obscure and doubtful verses in the Book of Psalms. Its difficulty to our own translators may be gathered from the fact that substance yet being imperfect answers to a single Hebrew word, and that my members is a gratuitous addition to the text. The first word in Hebrew occurs only here, but is clearly derived from a verb which means to roll or roll up (2 Kings 2:8), and may therefore be supposed itself to signify something rolled up or rolled together, and from this may be deduced the sense of something shapeless or unformed, or more specifically that of an embryo. The next difficulty lies in the expression all of them, evaded in the English Bible by changing it to all my members and then making this the subject of the plurals following. The best interpreters are now disposed to construe all of them with days. In Thy book all of them are written—namely, all my days, as they were planned, projected, or decreed, before as yet one of them had really existed. Written and formed are then parallel expressions. All of them are written, days are delineated or depicted. By days (translated in our Bible in continuance) we are then to understand not merely the length but the events and vicissitudes of life. This is one of those cases in which the difficulty lies in the particular expressions while the general import of the passage is clearly determined by the context. A. Man, in the very rudiments of existence, is a miracle of design. The threads of a strange embroidery are shot through the wondrous woof where life sleeps folded in its ante-natal cell. The Divine Artificer sees that which is rolled up in the embryo. And while He sees it, the days fitted for its development are outlined before His gaze, as the sculptor knows what shape will come from the unhewn block, as the architect has the outline of his work before him. God's mind is God's book. There is a secret laboratory, where birth as a natural fact, and creation as a supernatural fact, coincide. The point of reconciliation we cannot find. We see but broken segments of the perfect arch. The womb is as mysterious as the grave. Birth shrouds its secrets with a veil as impenetrable as death. But the revelation which throws some radiance upon the sombre mystery of life's close flings back, in this Psalm, one ray at least upon the portal of its beginning. Bishop Alexander. 17,18. God is everywhere present, in the vastness of the upper heavens, in the remotest recesses of Sheol, everywhere, to the utmost borders of the material universe; but these affirmations of a universal truth are advanced in apposition to a truth which is more affecting, or which is of more intimate concernment to the devout spirit; this spirit, its faults, its terrors, its aspirations; and this animal frame, of which it is the tenant, is in the hand of God, and is dependent upon His bounty, and is cared for in whatever relates to its precarious welfare; and thus is so great a theme, the Divine omniscience, brought home to its due culmination in an outburst of religious feeling. How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! how great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with Thee. Whence came an idea of God so living, so real, so universal in its applications, so commanding in its power? Is not the book that contains it—a book into whose whole texture is woven this supernatural idea of God—is not this book a revelation of God to the soul of man? I. T. 17. He breaks off in wonder and admiration and holy thankfulness, as before in v. 14; these expressions of personal feeling lending not only much beauty and force, but also much reality to the contemplation of God's attributes. P. —How precious also are Thy thoughts unto me, O God! How cold and poor are our warmest thoughts toward God! How unspeakably loving and gloriously rich are His thoughts toward us! Compare Eph. 1: 18, "The riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints." Fausset.—God, who knew him, thought of him, and His thoughts toward him were thoughts of love; thoughts of good, and not of evil (Jer. 24: 11). God's omniscience, which might justly have watched over us to do us hurt, has been employed for us, and has watched over us to do us good. H. When I awake; literally, "I have waked," i.e., as often as he awakes from sleep he finds that he is again in the presence of God, again occupied with thoughts of God, again meditating afresh with new wonder and admiration on His wisdom and goodness. P.—The thoughts of God were the first visitors he had in the morning. God and his heart met together as soon as he was awake, and kept company all the day after. Charnock.—It is no small advantage to the holy life to "begin the day with God." The saints are wont to leave their hearts with Him over night, that they may find them with Him in the morning. Before earthly things break in upon us, and we receive impressions from abroad, it is good to season the heart with thoughts of God. When the world gets the start of religion in the morning, it can hardly overtake it all the day; and so the heart is habituated to vanity all the day long. But when we begin with God, we take Him along with us to all the business and comforts of the day; which, being seasoned with His love and fear, are the more sweet and savory to us. Thomas Case. 19-24. The Psalm has an immediately practical aim, which is unfolded near the close. It is not an abstract description of the Divine attributes, with a mere indirect purpose in view. If God is such a being, if His vital agency reaches over all His creation, pervades all objects, illumines the deepest and darkest recesses; if His knowledge has no limits, piercing into the mysterious processes of creation, into the smallest and most elemental germs of life; if His eye can discern the still more subtle and recondite processes of mind, comprehending the half-formed conception, the germinating desire "afar off;" if, anterior to all finite existence, His predetermining decree went forth; if in those ancient records of eternity man's framework, with all its countless elements and organs, in all the ages of His duration, were inscribed—then for His servant, His worshipper on earth two consequences follow, most practical and momentous: First, the ceasing to have or feel any complacency with the wicked, any sympathy with their evil ways, any communion with them as such; and, secondly, the earnest desire that God would search the Psalmist's soul, lest in its unsounded depths there might be some lurking iniquity, lest there might be, beyond the present jurisdiction of his conscience, some dark realm which the omniscient eye only could explore. For an earnest consideration of the all-pervading presence and all-comprehending knowledge of God would lead every thoughtful man to the profoundest humility and self-distrust, and to the wish that the searching light of heaven may explore all the dark corners of his soul. B. B. Edwards. 19. The prayer arises from the intense hatred of wickedness as wickedness, from the deep conviction that, if hateful to a true-hearted man, it must be still more intensely hateful to Him who searcheth the hearts and trieth the reins. The soul, in the immediate presence of God, places itself on the side of God, against all that is opposed to Him. The Psalmists are profoundly convinced that their cause is right. They are sure that God is on their side. They hate evil with all their hearts, because they love God with all their hearts. But the question forces itself upon us, Are we justified ourselves in using these words? Is it right to pray, "Oh, that Thou wouldst slay the wicked, O God"? Are these words in harmony with the Christian conscience? Though there may be single expressions in the Psalter, imprecations and burning words, which are not suitable in Christian mouths, depend upon it that the whole strain of the Psalter, as sternly set against evil, is not opposed to the Christian conscience. The New Testament is not so entirely opposed to the spirit and teaching of the Old on this point as is sometimes asserted. The chief difference lies here, that in the New Testament we are taught to carry the endurance of wrong much further than was possible or conceivable before Jesus our Master set us an example that we should follow in His steps, and that we are taught by Him and His apostles what we are not taught distinctly by Psalmists and prophets: to distinguish between the sinner and the sin, between the wickedness which a man does and the man himself; that we are to try and root out wickedness without rooting out the wicked from the earth; that, with the patience of God, we are to bear with the evil and seek to reform the evil, even while we long to see it come to an end. We may not cherish a personal hatred; we may not seek for a perpersonal vengeance. But it is our bounden duty to hate wickedness and wicked characters with all our hearts. P. 20. Take Thy name in vain. If justice be wanting in our actions, or truth in our assertions and promises, they are vain; and to use God's name in either is to take His name in vain. So that if either we take the name of God to no end, but make it common, and take it up as a custom till it come to a habit, not for any good end; or if our hearts be not stable or fixed, but light and inconstant when we take it; or if we take it to color or bolster up any falsehood or any unjust act, we take it in vain. Lancelot Andrews. 21. Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate Thee?** The simple future in the first clause comprehends several distinct shades of meaning. Do I not, may I not, must I not, hate those hating Thee? Hate them, not as man hates, but as God hates. A.—A good man hates, as God Himself doth; he hates not the persons of men, but their sins; not what God made them, but what they have made themselves. We are neither to hate the men on account of the vices they practise, nor to love the vices for the sake of the men who practise them. He who observeth invariably this distinction fulfilleth the perfect law of charity, and hath the love of God and of his neighbor abiding in him. Bishop Horne. 22. Is not my heart with Thee, O God, in all its sympathies? I hate Thy haters. As they are Thine enemies, so I count them mine. It does not seem to have entered for one moment into the Psalmist's theology that this spirit involves sinful vindictiveness. No doubt it seemed to him the most natural thing possible and the most righteous that his sympathies should flow in the same moral channel with God's; that his heart should be perfectly at one with the heart and the interests of his benevolent Father. C. Loving and seeking what is good means hating what is bad. There cannot be a genuine pursuit of purity and holiness combined with tolerance of evil, or a sneaking relish for it. The attempt to follow the right without absolutely breaking with the wrong is what leads to so many disastrous failures on the part of half-way Christians. There can be no real success or progress in the service and knowledge of God unless there is an attachment to it, a longing for it, so deep and strong that it involves what the Psalmist stoutly calls "perfect hatred" of them that hate God; which means not only all persons, but all influences, associations, practices, indulgences and habits that are against God's will, and interrupt the soul's fellowship with Him. New York Examiner. Determine to hate that which rises up in you against God—that first, that chiefly—and you will hate, along with your indifference, cowardice, meanness, all your conceit of your own poor judgment, your dislike of opposition to it, your unwillingness to have your thoughts probed to the quick. And so with this hatred, deeply and inwardly cherished, will come the true and not the imaginary charity, the genuine, not the bastard toleration. Maurice. 23. Search me, God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts. The last expression is emphatic, meaning even my most anxious and disturbed thoughts, into which corruption might most easily find entrance. In this verse he again appeals to the Divine omniscience for the purity of his intentions, and thus comes back to the point from which he started. A. 23,24. One closing supplication: Since Thou, O God, knowest me so perfectly, I implore Thee to keep Thine eye evermore upon me; reveal n.y heart truly to myself; see if there be any way of mischief, way of wrong, in me; and lead me in the way of life eternal. C. Two kinds of hypocrisy—namely, that of deceiving the world and that of imposing on ourselves—are touched with wonderful beauty in the one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm. The folly of the first kind of hypocrisy is set forth by reflections on God's omniscience and omnipresence. The other kind of hypocrisy, whereby a man deceives himself, is intimated in the two last verses, where the Psalmist addresses himself to the great Searcher of hearts in that emphatical petition, "Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart; prove me, and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Addison. Let our outer life of word and look and deed be ever so fair before men, it is our inner life, the life of the spirit, the life of motive, thought and principle, that God searches and tries. It is comparatively easy to gain the reputation of goodness among men. But God looks not only at what we do, but how and why we do it. True religion is a religion of the heart, a religion of motives; and it must be a religion of the heart because this can be the only education for heaven. Tudor. The real prayer of faith says, "Search me, O God, and try my heart—try me and know my thought, and see if there be any wicked way within me, and lead me in the way everlasting." That prayer, fervently offered, never fails. It cuts off all unlawful requests and motives. It asks God to root out all self-will, to tame inordinate desire, to bring the human will into harmony with His own, and then to bestow what He sees good. Such a prayer stands on the broad foundation, "Thy will be done." Armitage. "That man must have a rare confidence," says Calvin, "who offers himself so boldly to the scrutiny of God's righteous judgment." And then he remarks that such a prayer is no evidence of self-ignorance or a presumptuous spirit, but of integrity of heart and the absence of all hypocrisy. It is connected with what precedes in this way—that, having declared his utter separation from and aversion to the wicked, he prays that this may be no mere outward separation; he remembers that, even while he seems most opposed to the wicked, the all-seeing eye may discern in him some way of evil and sorrow; that only as God holds his hand and leads him can he walk in the way of life. P. These words express an appeal to the omniscience of God in proof of the sincerity of the Psalmist's love to Him. There is a frank affection and candor about the words to which the heart of our own personal experience readily corresponds. They breathe the quiet repose of one speaking in confidence to another whom he trusts, and whom he is authorized to trust. The words express a single-hearted and undivided desire that nothing whatever may interpose between the soul and God, or interrupt the enjoyment of His presence. This second feeling is a necessary part of the first. Whatever there was in his heart, or in his thoughts, or in his manner and his conduct displeasing to God, and which prevented his walking in the way of everlasting life, that the Psalmist was prepared to give up, holding nothing back. His prayer implies a desire for holiness at any cost of discipline and chastisement, a wish to learn the lesson even though it should be beneath the rod, to get nearer to God even though the path should tear him away from all he loved below. E. Garbett. This is the end of simple-hearted, sincere souls, in their appeals at a throne of grace, that, "with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord," they may be "changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Thus the new creature appeals to the God of all grace to be searched, tried, and led. W. Mason. The thoughts of this Psalm are presented in a gradually ascending series. The illustrations rise in a beautiful progression. God's ubiquity and unlimited knowledge are first illustrated by outward and, as it were, tangible allusions; then by the wonderful processes of creation, which no eye can pierce; then by those eternal decrees which accurately delineated all the organic structures that were to come into being; and finally, by the climax and crowning wonder of all, God's goodness to His frail and humble servants on earth, His thoughts of love inestimably precious, more in number than the sands on the sea-shore. Is it a matter of surprise that our path and our lying-down are environed by this great Being; that in our walks we never can be solitary or alone; that, free and independent as we may feel, we are evermore pressed upon by a personal and conscious existence; that in the highest heavens He is no more present than He is in the profoundest abyss; that it is His power which wings the earliest beam of the morning, and His wisdom which guides it on its adventurous course; that in the night with its rayless gloom He walks as in the blaze of day? Do not be astonished at this; there are greater mysteries, "for Thou hast created my reins." My bodily frame, fearfully and wonderfully made; that incipient organization, so faint, so minute, as to mock all investigation; that contexture so complicated; those threads so innumerable and so cunningly interwoven, animated by that impalpable breath, that subtle essence, which we call life—this is the most wonderful of all. Before this curious mechanism of thine, the splendor of the morning and the solemn pomp of night fade away. Wrapped up within thee are mysteries higher than thou couldst find in heaven, deeper than thou couldst discover in hell. Travel not, even in thy wish, to the ends of the earth to see God's wisdom; it is nigh thee, in thine own frame, in thy breathing life. Thou carriest about with thee treasures of knowledge which science can never explore. Thou art in thyself a proof of Divine skill, which the heaven and the earth cannot equal. Yet be not astonished at this. All these wondrous existences, with their ten thousand elements, organs, and ramifications, did not come by chance. They were arranged from all eternity. The model, the plan, all the minute specifications, if we may so say, were present with the Architect, were perfectly known long before time began. In His book thy members were written in the unfathomable depths of a past eternity. This predetermining resolve, this delineating decree, was more astonishing than the power that executed it; the design more extraordinary than its accomplishment. God's consummate knowledge is shown, if possible, in greater perfection by the original conception than by the finishing act. But more touching than all this stupendous knowledge, more impressive than all this unerring prescience, is the Divine compassion; God's thoughts toward them that fear Him, overflowing with love, uncounted in number. The greatest wonder in God is His condescension. His philanthropy, His fatherly benignity, His yearning tenderness, is the crowning grace, is the thought which comprehends and exhausts all others. Therefore inestimably dear are God's thoughts toward him! In all the stages of his being, in all his varied experience from the dawn of life, in helpless infancy onward, the Divine goodness has pursued him with unfaltering step; that goodness has lavished upon him its boundless stores; the Divine perfections have been, as it were, conspiring to mark him out as the object of unceasing and exuberant favor. B. B. E. God's omniscience searching our inmost thoughts, knowing our hidden motives, scanning our most secret ways, should keep us in awe of sin. God's omnipresence, surrounding us continually, making it impossible for us, by darkness or by distance, to hide from His eye or escape from His hand, should at once dissuade us from evil, and encourage us to commit ourselves to His guidance, and trust in His love. That love surrounds us every moment with its precious thoughts—thoughts originating life, shaping its wondrous organism, providing for our sustentation, our culture, our enjoyment, filling the world with forms of beauty and resources of happiness; thoughts as inexhaustible as the desert of its sands, the sky of its stars, each separate grain a golden thought of love, each point of light a world, a constellation of glory. J. P. T. God is in our life to be seen. He who can be seen nowhere with the bodily sight—whom we might follow and seek in vain through all the realms of space, whom we should never find on brightest mountain-tops, if they were transfigured with the light of Tabor, nor in solemn grove, nor in deepest forest shade, nor among the flowers of Eden, if Eden were restored; no! nor could we see Him in heaven itself if we were there; He can be seen and felt by the soul, by the spiritual perception, by that wonderful faculty called "faith," which is just our soul seeing God. By that faculty we can see Him in all our earthly ways, at our right hand, at our left, behind, before, around, above, about our bed, about our path, in the field of labor, in the place of rest, in the flow of prosperity, in the ebb of adversity, in the sunshine of joy, in the darkness of sorrow, in the hardness of duty, in the sweetness of recompense, in the battle of life, in the conquering moment of death—God everywhere! God always! God forevermore! A. Raleigh. Standing face to face with the unseen, there is, first of all, a keen and overpowering sense of the Divine personality. The starry spaces are awful, not as being boundless and empty, but as being swept forever by the vision and the breath of God. The only shadow anywhere is of sin. Self-impeachment begins just where and when self-consciousness begins. Till God has pardoned there is no peace. But when He pardons, we see new, great depths in Him, which His angels have never seen, and our little life lays holds on His for time and for eternity. Out of such experience come all the great Psalms, and hymns, and prayers, and meditations, and high discourse of all the Christian generations. R. D. Hitchcock. One of the most obvious and direct inferences suggested by this Psalm is this, that meditation upon God's character, the intellectual contemplation of His attributes, should lead us to self-review and humiliation. This practical effect should not be confined merely to what are termed His moral attributes. We may indeed consider abstractly, and for scientific purposes, certain aspects of His nature, certain modes of His being, and denominate them natural or intellectual attributes. But in reality His being is one and indivisible. His nature is not separable into parts. All those states which we, on account of the imperfection of language, term qualities or characteristics, really coexist and cohere; they are very inadequate symbols to express a nature which is at once personal and boundless, a perfection whose moral and intellectual excellences can no more be separated than the exact edge or transition points in the colors of the rainbow. Such is the uniform representation of the Scriptures. They never teach us to gaze upon these attributes as intellectual propositions. The omniscience of God is a holy omniscience. The omnipresence of God is the presence of spotless holiness and infinite love. The power of God is the agent and executor of perfect righteousness. When, therefore, we look at any of the symbols of Divine agency around us, the practical effect should be lowly adoration and the deepest selfabasement. The moon, walking in her brightness, is the teacher of moral purity. The stars in their courses, with sounds inaudible to our gross sense, whisper of the moral serenity of that Being who appointed them their circuits. The gorgeous apparitions in the western evening sky prefigure a realm whose pure light never fades away. All nature, all visible forms, all this wondrous mechanism of sky and earth, all the depths of our physical and immortal nature, speak not simply of abstract power and vast knowledge, nor simply of God's overflowing love, but by the law of contrast, by one of the most active principles of our nature, they lead us to feel our own impurity, our own helplessness, the fearful uncongeniality of our nature to that of Him with whom we have to do. What are we, that we should be placed in the midst of such glories? Why should defilement mar Divine purity? Why should beings so corrupt, with hearts so inclined to evil, with eyes blind to the moral beauty that is lavished all around, be permitted to deface what they cannot love and appreciate? "Search me and try my heart; by Thy cleansing power qualify me to live in a world radiant with the Divine perfections, to be an accepted worshipper in this pure temple, and to meditate, thoughtfully, on Thy uncreated glories!" this should be the spontaneous exclamation of every one who is permitted to turn aside and see this great sight. B. B. E. Let no soul examine itself by any lower marks than this, participation of the Divine nature, conformity to the Divine image. Examine what alliance your soul has to God; "whose is the image and superscription;" for conformity to the image and will of God, that is religion; and that God will own for His, when all the counterfeits and shadows of it will disappear forever. Some are searching God's decretals to find their names written in the Book of Life, when they should be studying to find God's name written upon their hearts, "Holiness to the Lord" engraven upon their souls. Some are busy examining themselves by notes and marks without them, when they should labor to find the marks and prints of God and His nature upon them. Some have their religion in their books and authors, which should be the law of God written in the tables of the heart. Some glory in the bulk of their duties, and in the multitude of their religious performances and achievements, whereas it were much more excellent if they could see their likeness to the Lord, and the characters of Divine beauty and holiness drawn upon their hearts and lives. Shaw. There are anatomists of piety who destroy all the freshness and vigor of faith and hope and charity by immuring themselves, night and day, in the infected atmosphere of their own bosoms. Let a man of warm heart, who is happily surrounded with the dear objects of the social affections, try the effect of a parallel practice; let him institute anxious scrutinies of his feelings toward those whom, hitherto, he has believed himself to regard with unfeigned love; let him use in these inquiries all the fine distinctions of a casuist, and all the profound analyses of a metaphysician, and spend hours daily in pulling asunder every complex emotion of tenderness that has given grace to the domestic life; and, moreover, let him journalize these examinations, and note particularly, and with the scrupulosity of an accomptant, how much of the mass of his kindly sentiments he has ascertained to consist of genuine love, and how much was selfishness in disguise; and let him, from time to time, solemnly resolve to be, in future, more disinterested and less hypocritical in his affection toward his family. What, at the end of a year, would be the result of such a process? What but a wretched debility and dejection of the heart, and a strangeness and a sadness of the manners, and a suspension of the native expressions and ready offices of zealous affection? Meanwhile, the hesitations and the musings, and the upbraidings of an introverted sensibility absorb the thoughts. Is it, then, reasonable to presume that similar practices in religion can have a tendency to promote the healthful vigor of piety? By the constitution of the human mind its emotions are strengthened in no other way than by exercise and utterance; nor does it appear that the religious emotions are exempted from this general law. The Divine Being is revealed to us in the Scriptures as the proper and supreme object of reverence, of love, and of affectionate obedience; and the natural means of exercising and of expressing these feelings are placed before us, both in the offices of devotion and in the duties of life; just in the same way that the opportunities of enhancing the domestic affections are afforded in the constitution of social life. Why, then, should the Christian turn aside from the course of nature, and divert his feelings from their outgoings toward the supreme object of devotional sentiments, by instituting curious researches into the quality and quantity and composition of all his religious ious sensations? This spiritual hypochondriasis enfeebles at once the animal, the intellectual, and the moral life, and is usually found in conjunction with infirmity of judgment, infelicity of temper, and inconsistency of conduct. I. T. It will generally be much better to just let God put us on such ways of discovery here as will be best for us. But this is not what most disciples go to self-examination, or by their teachers are put on self examination for; they are set to it, not to find out their faults and correct them, but to settle and try out their Christian evidences. Evidences of piety are a great deal more likely to be hidden or ruled out in that way than they are to be found, and the most sensitively delicate disciple is the one that will suffer. On the other hand, when evidences are sought in this manner, that class of persons who are commonly finding what they look for, will be almost certain to fish up the evidences they want. This whole method of self-examination, to settle the question of Christian evidence, is deceptive, unscriptural, and bitterly injurious. It is injurious not only in misleading, but in hindering the disciple. A man does not want to examine himself to find whether he is cold or hungry, whether he loves his child, whether he is an honest man? No, the sturdy fact is that all such answers sought come and ought to come without seeking, and can only come of themselves in simply being true. The real wisdom of the Christian is that he shall not face round as he walks to examine the tracks he makes, but ask the way to Zion with his face thitherward. The thing wanted here, and that which only yields the true evidence, is the genuine downrightness of our life—that it covers no shams, gets up no mock virtues and no pretexts of proceeding scientifically, but goes right on, putting its face the way it goes, and not backward. It is consciously right, and God is consciously yielding it His immediate testimony. And let there be no doubt of this, as if it were a way not safe. God will make it safe as He only can. And if you are afraid that some looseness may creep in, or some false hope steal you away, be upon your watch, for watching is one thing and self-examination a very different thing. Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation, and let the prayer be this, which God will never disregard, "Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." Then forward, forward in that way. Bushnell. 4. By the ordinances of the Mosaic law, the coming out of Egypt, the sojourn in the wilderness, and other memorabilia of Israel's history were constantly brought before the minds of the people, and their children were by such means instructed in the wonders which God had wrought in old time. Especially were they designed to confirm the faith of His people in the Divine love, and to make them know that "the Lord is gracious and full of compassion." Grace is as conspicuous as righteousness in the great work of God. S.—Grace is of the greatest and sweetest use to the soul; it is a staff to uphold the soul, and a sword to defend the soul; it is bread to strengthen the soul, and wine to cheer the soul; it is physic to cure all diseases, and a plaster to heal all wounds, and a cordial to strengthen the soul under all faintings. Grace is thy eye to see for Christ, thy ear to hear for Christ, thy head to contrive for Christ, thy tongue to speak for Christ, thy hand to do for Christ, and thy feet to walk with Christ. T. Brooks. 5. He will ever be mindful of His covenant. This clause is in the future tense, while all the other clauses are in the past—"He hath made His wonderful works to be remembered;" "He hath given meat unto them that fear Him;" "He will ever be mindful of His covenant;" not He hath ever been. Dwelling on these past favors of God to Israel, it is his joy to think that they were but partial fulfilments of a covenant promise which still remained, and in its highest sense should remain forever; and that covenant, itself the memorial or type of the better, the spiritual covenant, the Gospel. So out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh, and he celebrates God's promised truth to Israel as the memorial and pledge of His eternal faithfulness to the New Testament Israel, His blood-ransomed Church. Vidal. 5-9. He has shown His goodness in never failing to supply the need of His people; He gave them manna in the wilderness, He gave them the spoil of the heathen in Canaan; He thus kept with them the covenant which He made of old with their fathers. Not unmindful of other nations, it is to His people that He has specially revealed Himself; He has given them their promised inheritance. As in His works so in His commandments, as in His providence so in His Word, the same truth and faithfulness are visible. Therefore His commandments ments cannot fail; they remain the sure, everlasting pillars of His kingdom. The great seal of all is the redemption which He accomplished for His people; He who brought them out of Egypt will never suffer His covenant to fail. P. 7. The works of God expound His Word, in His works His Word is often made visible. The acts of God are verity—that is, God acts His own truths; the works of His hands are His own verity and judgments. When we cannot find the meaning of God in His Word, we may find it in His works; His works are a comment, an infallible comment upon His Word. Caryl. 8. They stand fast for ever and ever. That is to say, His purposes, commands, and courses of action. Immutable principles rule in the courts of Jehovah, and He pursues His eternal purposes without the shadow of a turning. He acts in eternity and for eternity, and hence what He works abides forever. Much of this lasting character arises out of the fact which is next mentioned—namely, that they "are done in truth and uprightness." God always acts according to the glorious principles of truth and integrity, and hence there is no need of alteration or revocation; His works will endure till the end of time. S 9. His precepts, the rule of our actions, are unquestionably just and good, and therefore unchangeable and not to be repealed. His promises and threatenings are all sure and will be made good; nor shall the unbelief of man make either the one or the other of no effect. They are established, and therefore they stand fast forever and ever, and the Scripture cannot be broken. The wise God is never put upon new counsels, nor obliged to take new measures, either in His laws or in His providences. All is said, as all is done, in truth and uprightness, and therefore it is immutable. Men's folly and falsehood make them unstable in all their ways, but infinite wisdom and truth forever exclude retraction and revocation. He has commanded His covenant forever. H. Sent redemption, commanded His covenant. The deliverance was the more thankworthy, as being upon a covenant account; for thus every mercy is a token of the Lord's favor to His favorite; it is this which makes common mercies to become special mercies. A child of God knows that everything that comes through the Redeemer's hands and by His covenant is the better for it, and tastes the sweeter by far. W. Cooper. "The fear of the Lord" in Scripture signifies not only filial reverence of our adorable Father who is in heaven, but it is frequently put for the whole of practical religion; hence it is explained in the last part of the verse by "doing His commandments." The fear of the Lord, in this latitude, implies all the graces and all the virtues of Christianity. S. Davies. A good understanding have all they that do His commandments. They which do the commandments have a good understanding; not they which speak of the commandments, nor they which write of the commandments, nor they which preach of the commandments. H. Smith. —A great understanding they have that know God's commandments and can discourse learnedly of them; but a good understanding have they that do them and walk according to them. H. Over and above all accumulation of knowledge and all discipline of the intellect, there remains, as the indispensable condition of true theological thought, that of purity of soul, the love of truth for its own sake, the willingness to be taught of God, and to do His will, to which is attached the promise that it "shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God." The true King's highway to the wisdom which we seek is to be found in an intellect emancipated from prejudice and a heart purified from baseness. Plumptre. — Our Saviour prescribes men an unfailing method to assure themselves of the truth of this doctrine. "If any one," says He, "will do the will of the Father, he shall know of My doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself." There is a strange intercourse and mutual corroboration between faith and practice. For as belief first engages practice, so practice strengthens and confirms belief. South. A very large portion of the Christian's doubts are not doubts; they are won'ts. The will is not subdued to God. It has not completely surrendered itself to the best it knows, and to the dictates of the Spirit of the Lord and the promptings of the conscience. Often when the man stands doubting, as he supposes he is, the struggle really is between the conscience and the will. That trouble lies at the root of the whole matter. He knows what is right, but hesitates to do the right. When the prodigal said, "I will arise and go to my father," the question was settled. God worketh in us to will and to do. Let us be workers together with Him in willing and in doing. Anon. — And here it is to be observed, that in order to our carrying out the mightiest schemes of God, it is not necessary that we know what these are. God gives to each what each can do, and by the various gifts and labors of all fulfils His own grand purpose. What we need to know is only the commands of God, what He sees fit for us to do. And doing this we may be sure that, so far as we are concerned, the secret purposes of God are accomplished. All murmuring and excusing is in vain, for these three things, God's commandment, our circumstances, and God's eternal purpose, are all of them springing from one source, the will of God, and do therefore harmonize. Our circumstances are allotted by the same will which commands us. Dods. Know thyself that thou mayest fear God; know God that thou mayest love Him; in this thou art initiated to wisdom, in that, perfected. The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom; the love of God is the fulfilling of the law. . . . In all thy actions think God sees thee, and in all His actions labor to see Him; that will make thee fear Him; this will move thee to love Him. The fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, and the knowledge of God is the perfection of love. Quarles. Is it not the highest wisdom to fear such a God as this, so great in His works, so true in His Word, so faithful to His covenant? To fear God and to keep His commandments is the whole duty of man; to praise Him man's highest employment both now and forever. P. # The Test of Doctrine. Verse 10. A good understanding have all they that do thereafter. The theological demand of the times is that we shall work from facts and not theories; that in our building, facts fit each other so closely, exactly, and beautifully, that there shall be no need of intervening mortar of man's argument to bind and hold them together. The direction in which biblical scholarship has advanced, more than any other, is in the search for facts. Our scientific theologians declare there is a fact basis for the truth of the Gospel's doctrines as valid as that which underlies geology or chemistry in the natural world. Thus the two chief tests of doctrine in the past have been theory and fact, logic and deduction. Formerly men advanced from general principles to conclusions which they said must follow from the necessity of logic. Later men rise from facts by laws of evidence along inductive lines, to an affirmation of the truth. It was first Plato, then Bacon. But Christ announced a new and Gospel method of testing truth. "He that doeth the truth cometh to the light." And in another place explaining how doctrine may be learned, He says there is only one way. "If any wills to do God's will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or not." The English version does not exactly express the idea. Not if any man purposes to do the will of God, but if any man has a desire, bias, aspiration to do the will of God, he shall know. Many people would resolve to do God's will for the purpose of finding out the doctrine. But the test of a doctrine is not in a resolution. The Tyndal prayer-test says we will put men in wards, pray for them in one, and not pray for them in the other, and see what the outcome will be. That was a resolution without any bias toward God's will, merely a critical purpose to find out what God's will was. Of course it would not yield to that test. Our relation to God's will and doctrine must not be that of a critic, must not be the result of a resolution, but of a bias that will incline our being toward His ways—that is, to understand God we must be on His side. It is not so with matters purely intellectual. It does not matter which side you are on when you study gravitation, or chemistry, or mathematics. But Paul says spiritual things must be spiritually discerned. You must have a spiritual eye and occupy spiritual ground. If you want to see truth you must look at it from God's standpoint. If we look at the movement of planets from the earth, they are irregular and confused, but if we could look at them from the sun, they would all appear harmonious. So it is necessary to get near God to see truth. But the only way we can get near Him is in spirit. We cannot have His holy knowledge that looks through all disguises, but we can at least aspire toward Him, and practise, as far as may be, what He commands. We must, as it were, experiment with the truth, by putting it into life. The world, when it comes to consider truth, says, "Think about it." Christ says, "Do it." It can be brought to the test of experiment. The Gospel can be lived. Christian doctrine can be put into Christian practice, and that leads to Christ. A great deal of scepticism has a moral rather than an intellectual origin. It is just as true that the doing of God's will leads to a knowledge of God's will, as not to do it obscures that knowledge. Moral vision goes out of the man who refuses to use it. It is a law of grace, as well as nature, that God gives only what we use. The man who does not use spiritual faculties in Christian aspiration shall have no spiritual vision. Darwin says that it is the use that makes the organ, it is the effort to see that makes the eye. It is the effort to be good that opens up spiritual realities. And this spiritual knowledge will come, even through our failures. Christ does not say that the man who does the doctrine shall know. That would discourage us. If the range of our knowledge were only according to our success in doing, we would have narrow horizons. But the measure of it is rather our striving. "If any man wishes to do God's will, he shall know." Not our attainments, but our aspirations are the measure of our progress in Christian knowledge. No wonder that John the apostle wrote so delightfully about Jesus Christ. What an Apocalypse he gave us of future things! The reason of it is apparent; he saw truth from Jesus' breast. In proportion, then, as we are in sympathy with Christ, we will be guided into truth. In proportion as our aspirations are toward God and our practices are of Christian life, will light come into Christian ideas. It is true, of course, that a man's life may be better than his faith; he may be turned aside by mental bias or inherited idiosyncrasies, but it remains true that right living tends to right doctrine. The man who lives godly may be incapable of forming or expressing elaborate doctrine; he may not get any farther than the Lord's Prayer, but he will not come short of faith, hope, and charity. C. L. Thompson. 1. DELIVER me, O LORD, from the evil man; Preserve me from the violent man: 2 Which imagine mischiefs in their heart; Continually do they gather themselves together for war. 3 They have sharpened their tongue like a serpent; Adders' poison is under their lips. [Selah 4 Keep me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; Preserve me from the violent man: Who have purposed to thrust aside my steps. 5 The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; They have spread a net by the way side; They have set gins for me. [Selah 6 I said unto the LORD, Thou art my God: Give ear unto the voice of my supplications, O LORD. 7 O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle. 8. Grant not, O LORD, the desires of the wicked; Further not his evil device; lest they exalt themselves. [Selah 9 As for the head of those that compass me about, Let the mischief of their own lips cover them. 10 Let burning coals fall upon them: Let them be cast into the fire; Into deep pits, that they rise not up again. 11 An evil speaker shall not be established in the earth: Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him. 12 I know that the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted, And the right of the needy. 13 Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name: The upright shall dwell in thy presence. THIS Psalm is a prayer for protection against enemies who were at once violent and crafty and unscrupulous in the use of their tongues. The general strain of the Psalm is like that of many which occur in the earlier books, and like them it is ascribed to David. P.—From the Sauline persecution the images are evidently borrowed. Besides the warlike tone, the vigorous conciseness, the verbal agreements with Davidic Psalms combined with eminent originality, the very structure is Davidic, and exhibits the familiar sequence of complaint, prayer, and confident anticipation. A.—He complains here of serpent-like, treacherous, slanderous adversaries, who are preparing themselves for war against him, and whom he will ultimately have to fight in open battle. The Psalm, more bold than beautiful in form, is Davidic in thoughts and figures, and is to be explained by the circumstances of Absalom's rebellion, which was followed by the rebellion of Sheba the Benjamite as an outbreak of Ephraimitish jealousy. Psalms 58 and 64 are very similar. D. 2,3. The wicked assault the righteous with three weapons: with the heart, by conspiracy; with the tongue, by lying; and with the hand, by violence. Lorinus. 3. Sharpened their tongues like a serpent. To sharpen or whet the tongue imports the keenest and extremest kind of talkativeness, much more to sharpen the tongue "like a serpent." Naturalists tell us that no living creature stirs his tongue so swiftly as a serpent, and serpents are therefore said to have a treble tongue, because, moving their tongue so fast, they seem to have three tongues. The Psalmist means, the wicked speak thick and threefold, they sting and poison me with their tongues. Caryl.—There are men, the very existence of whom is a baneful poison. They dart their livid tongue like the tongue of a serpent; and the vetom of their disposition corrodes every object upon which it concentrates itself; ever vilifying and maligning. Pliny. In order to constitute slander, it is not necessary that the word spoken should be false; half-truths are often more calumnious than whole falsehoods. It is not even necessary that a word should be distinctly uttered; a dropped lip, an arched eyebrow, a shrugged shoulder, a significant look, an incredulous expression of countenance; nay, even an emphatic silence may do the work; and when the light and trifling thing which has done the mischief has fluttered off, the venom is left behind, to work and rankle, to inflame hearts, to fever human existence, and to poison human society at the fountain springs of life. Very emphatically was it said by one whose whole being had smarted under such affliction, "Adders' poison is under their lips." F. W. R. 6. I said unto the Lord, Thou art my God. Here was David's stay and hope. He was assured that Jehovah was his God, he expressed that assurance, and he expressed it before Jehovah Himself. Often the less we say to our foes and the more we say to our best Friend the better it will fare with us; if we say anything, let it be said unto the Lord. S. 7,8. From first to last, David leaves his cause in God's hands; it is not "my sword and my bow that shall help me;" he counted them vain things to help a man; and therefore, as he had so often said in other Psalms, "The Lord was his shield and his defence," and as God had already shielded his head in the day of battle, so he prays for the same protection against his enemies now. Bouchier. 9. The head of those surrounding me, the mischief of their lips shall cover them. While my head is covered by the Divine protection, the head of those by whom I am beset shall be covered with the consequences or the punishment of the mischief occasioned by their calumnies and insults. Or the trouble, which their lips have caused to others, shall return upon themselves. A.—The LXX., Jerome, and the majority of modern commentators give the future, "Though they that compass me may lift up the head, the mischief of their own lips shall cover them; hot burning coals shall fall upon them," etc. P. 9-11. Their lips, which uttered mischief against others, shall be the means of covering themselves with confusion, when out of their own mouths they shall be judged. Evil speakers and false accusers shall gain no lasting establishment, but punishment shall hunt sin through all its doubles and seize it at last. G. Horne. 11. Evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him. 'Tis an allusion to hounds that are of a quick scent, and pursue the game with pleasure; they do not see the deer or the hare, yet they follow upon the scent; and though they have sometimes a very cold and dead scent, yet they will follow and work it out. Thus "evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him;" and though sometimes he hath, as it were, got out of the view or sight of evil, and thinks himself under covert, yet these evils, like a company of greedy hounds, will pursue till they have overtaken and overthrown him. Caryl.—He hunted the good, and now his own evil shall hunt him. Sin is its own punishment; a violent man will need not direr doom than to reap what he has sown. It is horrible for a huntsman to be devoured by his own hounds; yet this is the sure fate of the persecutor. S. 1. LORD, I have called upon thee; make haste unto me: Give ear unto my voice, when I call unto thee. 2 Let my prayer be set forth as incense before thee; The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. 3 Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; Keep the door of my lips. 4 Incline not my heart to any evil thing, To be occupied in deeds of wickedness With men that work iniquity: And let me not eat of their dainties. 5. Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; And let him reprove me, it shall be as oil upon the head; Let not my head refuse it: For even in their wickedness shall my prayer continue. 6. Their judges are thrown down by the sides of the rock; And they shall hear my words: for they are sweet. 7. As when one ploweth and cleaveth the earth, Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth. 8. For mine eyes are unto thee, O GOD the Lord: In thee do I put my trust; leave not my soul destitute. 9. Keep me from the snare which they have laid for me, And from the gins of the workers of iniquity. 10. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, Whilst that I withal escape. THIS Psalm presents some peculiar difficulties of interpretation, which, however, are due neither to the words employed nor to the grammatical construction, but to the extreme abruptness with which in vs. 5-7 the thoughts follow one another, and the extreme obscurity which hangs over the allusions. To translate each sentence by itself is no difficult matter, but it is almost hopeless either to link the sentences plausibly together, or to discover in them any tangible clew to the circumstances in which the Psalmist was placed. As all the ancient versions must have had substantially the same text, the deviations in any of them being very slight, it is hardly probable that, as Olshausen and Hupfeld maintain, the text is corrupt; it is more likely that our entire ignorance of the circumstances under which the Psalm was written prevents our piercing the obscurity of the writer's words. It has been usual to accept the inscription which assigns the Psalm to David, and to assign it to the time of his persecution by Saul. Delitzsch, with more probability, refers the Psalm to the time of Absalom's rebellion. P.—David was banished from Jerusalem and, therefore, cut off from the sacrificial worship of God on Zion; the Psalm before us is an evening hymn on one of those troublous days. The ancient Church has chosen it for its evening hymn, just as it has chosen Psalm 63 for its morning hymn. Chrysostom describes it as being known by almost every one, and as being sung all one's days. D. This Psalm, like the one before it, is distinguished by a pregnant brevity and the use of rare expressions, while at the same time it is full of verbal and real coincidences with the Psalms of David. These indications are so clear and undeniable, that a sceptical critic of great eminence (De Wette) pronounces it one of the oldest Psalms in the collection. A. 1,2. Mercy to accept what we do well, and grace to keep us from doing ill, are the two things which we are here taught by David's example to pray to God for. He loved prayer, and he begs of God that his prayers might be heard and answered. His crying denotes fervency in prayer, he prayed as one in earnest; his crying to God denotes faith and fixedness in prayer. H. 2. Let my prayer continue (as) incense before Thee, the offering of my hands (as) the evening oblation. Continue, literally, be established. He prays not only for acceptance, but for constant or perpetual acceptance, as the offerings referred to were the stated daily services of the Mosaic ritual. Incense is in Scripture the symbol of prayer. In the later books it is commonly mentioned as an evening oblation, perhaps because in the evening it was reckoned the main offering, whereas in the morning it was merely an appendage to the animal sacrifice. A. Before Thee as incense, literally, let my prayer, incense, be set in order before Thee, implying that prayer was in the reality what incense was in the symbol. Passing to New Testament Scripture, though still only to that portion which refers to Old Testament times, we are told of the people without being engaged in prayer while Zacharias was offering incense within the sanctuary; they were in spirit going along with the priestly service. And in the Book of Revelation the prayers of saints are once and again identified with the offering of incense on the golden altar before the throne (Rev. 5: 8; 8: 3, 4). P. Fairbairn. There was a fitness in the nature of things in incense being regarded as an embodied prayer. Perfume is the breath of flowers, the sweetest expression of their inmost being, an exhalation of their very life. It is a sign of perfect purity, health, and vigor; it is a symptom of full and joyous existence; for disease, and decay, and death yield not pleasant but revolting odors. And, as such, fragrance is in nature what prayer is in the human world. Prayer is the breath of life, the expression of the soul's best, holiest, and the heavenliest aspirations; the symptom and token of its spiritual health, and right and happy relations with God. The natural counterparts of the prayers that rise from the closet and the sanctuary are to be found in the delicious breathings, sweetening all the air, from gardens of flowers, from clover crofts or thymy hill-sides, or dim pine woods, and which seem to be grateful, unconscious acknowledgments from the heart of nature for the timely blessings of the great world-covenant; dew to refresh and sunshine to quicken. Macmillan. It is not the composure of prayer or the eloquence of expression that is the sweetness of it in God's account, and makes it a sacrifice of a pleasing smell or sweet odor to Him; but the breathing forth the desire of the heart that makes it a spiritual sacrifice. L.—The lifting up of his hands in prayer denotes both the elevation and enlargement of his desire, and the outgoings of his hope and expectation; the lifting up of the hand signifying the lifting up of the heart, and being used instead of lifting up the sacrifices which were heaved and waved before the Lord. Prayer is a spiritual sacrifice, it is the offering up of the soul and its best affections to God; now he prays that this may be set forth and directed before God, as the incense which was daily burned upon the golden altar. H. Evening sacrifice. The sacrifice here meant is strictly the offering consisting of fine flour with oil and frankincense, or of unleavened cakes mingled with oil, which was burned upon the altar (see Lev. 2: 1-11). This, however, like the "incense," was only added to the burnt-offering, the lamb which was offered every morning and evening. It would seem, therefore, that these two, "the incense" and "the offering of fine flour," etc., stand for the morning and evening sacrifices; and the sense is, "Let my daily prayer be acceptable to Thee as are the daily sacrifices of Thine own appointment." The incense may be mentioned because, as ascending in a fragrant cloud, it was symbolical of prayer; and the same would hold also of the "meat-offering," of which it is said that the priest was to burn a part as "a memorial," "a sweet savor under Jehovah" (Lev. 2: 9). P. The altar of incense stood in the closest connection with the altar of burnt-offerings. The blood of the sin-offering was sprinkled on the horns of both on the great day of annual atonement. Morning and evening, as soon as the sacrifice was offered, the censer poured forth its fragrant contents, so that the perpetual incense within ascended simultaneously with the perpetual burnt-offering outside. Without the live coals from off the sacrificial altar, the sacred incense could not be kindled; and without the incense previously filling the holy place, the blood of atonement from the altar of burnt-offering could not be sprinkled on the mercy-seat. Beautiful and expressive type of the perfect sacrifice and the all-prevailing intercession of Jesus—of intercession founded upon atonement, of atonement preceded and followed by intercession! Beautiful and expressive type, too, of the prayers of believers kindled by the altar-fire of Christ's sacrifice, and perfumed by His merits! Macmillan. There is a general kind of devotion that goes through the renewed heart and life of a Christian, which we may term habitual and virtual; and there is a special and fixed exercise of devotion, which we may name actual. The soul that is rightly affected to God is never void of a holy devotion; wherever it is, whatever it does, it is still lifted up to God, and fastened upon Him, and converses with Him. Bishop H. If you would have fire for your evening sacrifice, do not expect a new flame to be dropped from heaven, but keep what is already on thy altar from going out, which thou canst not better do than by feeding it with the fuel of ejaculatory prayer all the day. Gurnall.—Prayer at stated seasons is good and necessary; but a man aiming at sanctity in ever so low a degree will find it impossible to confine his prayers to stated seasons. He will soon discover that prayer is literally, and not merely in a figure, "the Christian's breath of life;" and that to attempt to carry on the spiritual life without more prayer than the recital of a form on rising, and retiring to rest, is about the same absurdity as it would be for a man to open his casement morning and evening, and inhale the fresh air for a few minutes, and then say to himself on closing it, that that amount of breathing must suffice him for the rest of the day. Under this view of it, ejaculatory prayer is seen to be even a more essential thing than stated prayer. Both are necessary to the well-being of Christian life; but the momentary lifting the heart to God, the momentary realization of His presence amid business or under temptation, is necessary to its very being. The life is no more when the work is suspended. Goulburn. 3. Set a watch.** The prayer is apparently directed against the temptation to indulge in rash and foolish words, such as wicked men would indulge in (see next verse). P.—Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, and nature having made my lips to be a door to my words, let grace keep that door, that no word may be suffered to go out, which may any way tend to the dishonor of God or the hurt of others. Good men know the evil of tongue sins, and how prone they are to them; when enemies are provoking, we are in danger of speaking unadvisedly, as Moses did, though the meekest of men; and therefore they are earnest with God to prevent their speaking amiss, as knowing that no watchfulness or resolution of their own is sufficient for the governing of their tongues, much less of their hearts, without the special grace of God. H. Everything is transacted by speech, in natural, civil, and religious concerns; how much, therefore, depends on the good or evil management of the tongue! What an ardor of holy love and friendship, or of anger and malice, may a few words fan into a flame! The tongue is the principal instrument in the cause of God; and it is the chief engine of the devil. The use, the influence of it, therefore, is inexpressible; and words are never to be considered only as effects, but as causes, the operation of which can never be fully imagined. We are in danger from the frequency of speech. "In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin." We must of necessity speak often; but we often speak without necessity. Duty calls us to intermingle much with our fellow-creatures; but we are too little in the closet, and too much in the crowd, and when we are in company we forget the admonition, "Let every man be swift to hear, and slow to speak." W. Jay. It is a fault to speak evil one of another, but the essence of the fault lies in the want of that charity which thinketh no evil. Had the heart been filled with this principle, no such bad thing as slander would have come out of it. T. C.—For of all the disorders of the tongue, the remedy must begin at the heart, purge the fountain, and then the streams will be clean; keep thy heart, and then it will be easy to keep thy tongue. It is a great help in the quality of speech to abate in the quantity; not to speak rashly, but to ponder what we are going to say. Set a watch before the door of thy lips. He bids us not build it up like a stone wall, that nothing go in or come out; but he speaks of a door which may be sometimes open, oft-times shut, but withal to have a watch standing before it continually. A Christian must labor to have his speech as contracted as can be in the things of this earth; and even in Divine things our words should be few and wary. In speaking of the greatest things, it is a great point of wisdom not to speak much. Leighton. Not only must we carefully silence all expressions savoring of falsehood, irreverence or malice; not only must we be content to part with a character for wit and ability, rather than gain it by words more entertaining than innocent; but we must learn to speak considerately and discreetly, checking all idle conversation, which is folly and tends to sin, and even in mirth remembering whose we are and whom we serve. So, too, by our words we should do good, as well as abstain from evil. To conciliate the affections, to increase the knowledge, to correct the faults, to encourage the virtues, to alleviate the sorrows, or even to amuse the cares of our fellow-creatures, are worthy employments of the faculty of speech; but still more so, to spread the knowledge of religion, to honor God and benefit men. Bishop Jackson. The Master keeps the lips of His servants by so filling their hearts with His love that the outflow cannot be unloving, by so filling their thoughts that the utterance cannot be un-Christ-like. There must be filling before there can be pouring out; and if there is filling, there must be pouring out, for He hath said, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." F. R. Havergal. 4. "Incline not my heart to any evil thing," like the prayer, "Lead us not into temptation," must not be construed as assuming any danger or even moral possibility that God may tempt men to sin. It is rather a brief way of saying, Protect me by Thy providence, guard me by Thy Spirit, from being led into any evil thing. "Let me not eat the dainties of the wicked" in its moral application covers not merely delicacies of food, tempting, poisonous; but all enticing seductions toward any sinful self-indulgence—temptation to any sin. C.—We are ready to do as others do, and to think that if we received injuries we may return them; and therefore we have need to pray that we may never be left to ourselves to practise any wicked work, either in confederacy with or in opposition to the men that work iniquity. While we live in such an evil world and carry about with us such evil hearts we have need to pray that we may neither be drawn in by any allurement nor driven on by any provocation to do any sinful thing. H. The way the heart inclines the life soon tends; evil things desired bring forth wicked things practised. Unless the fountain of life is kept pure the streams of life will soon be polluted. S.—There is strife for the heart. "Give it me," saith the Lord; "give it me," saith the tempter; "give it me," saith riches; "give it me," saith pleasure; as though thou must needs give it to some one. Now here is the choice, whether thou wilt give it to God or the devil; God's heart or the devil's heart; whose wilt thou be? Henry Smith. 5-7. Up to this point the Psalm is comparatively easy, but now it becomes exceedingly difficult. David, well aware of his sins against God and of his imperfection as a ruler, says in opposition to the abuse which he is now suffering, that he would willingly submit to any friendly correction. Well-meaning reproof shall be acceptable and spiritually profitable to him—that is the meaning of the figure, as Paul Gerhard paraphrases it: "He who knows how to smite me in lovingkindness is as he who in days of joy pours copiously upon my head the balsam that flows by the Jordan." There now follows the reason, enigmatical both in meaning and expression. We explain it, for the case still stands thus that my prayer is against their wickedness, i.e., to these I oppose no weapon save that of prayer, and am therefore in the spiritual mood susceptible to well-meaning reproof. Mendelssohn renders it similarly: I still pray, while they practise infamy. He who in v. 3 has prayed God to set a watch before his mouth is now dumb over against the present possessors of authority, and seeks to keep himself clean from their sinful ongoings, whereas he willingly allows himself to be chastised by the righteous; and the more silent he is toward the world, he is all the more constant in his intercourse with God. But there will come a time when those who now bear themselves as lords will fall a prey to the vengeance of the people misled by them, and when, on the other hand, the confession of the salvation and of the way of the salvation of God, that has hitherto had to be silent, may again make itself freely heard and will find a ready hearing. As v. 6 says, the new rulers fall a prey to the fury of the people and are hurled down the steep rocks, while the people that has again come to its right mind attends to David's word and finds it pleasant and beneficent. D. 5. According to the rendering of this verse, the sense will be, "I will gladly welcome even the reproofs of the good, and I will avail myself of prayer as the best defence against the wickedness of my persecutors." The last member of the verse may be rendered, "For even in their wickedness (while it continues and while I suffer from it) shall my prayer continue." In v. 4 he had prayed that he might not be led astray by the evil he saw around him, nor allured by the blandishments and luxurious prosperity of the wicked. Now he says, on the contrary, "let me ever be ready to welcome even reproof from the righteous," which, howhowever harsh, is salutary. The wounds of a friend are faithful. P. Let the righteous smite me. If a righteous or a right-wise man smite and reprove, he will do it without gall, without bitterness, without publishing, divulging, or telling it to the world, without disgrace—to reform his friend, not to disgrace him—without flattery; not without God. J. Gore.—Very blunt people do little good to others, and get little love to themselves. The Scriptures recommend gentleness and kindness. The "oil" insinuates itself; the stone wounds and then rebounds. The great thing is to show the person that you really love him; and if you manifest this in the sight of God, He will bless your efforts. Christian Treasury.—Grace will teach a Christian to take those potions which are wholesome, though they be not toothsome. Faithful reproof is a token of love, and therefore may well be esteemed a kindness. Such wounding of a friend is healing, and so David might well call it "an excellent oil." And he did not only say so, which is easy and ordinary, but acted accordingly. Swinnock. What a test and trial of character there is in all reproof! How it searches and probes the heart, and proves what manner of spirit we are of! Meekly taken when deserved, it makes us humble ourselves for our faults; it fits us by our humility for grace and pardon. When undeserved, it is especially thankworthy, and exalts us to the likeness of Him who, when He was reviled, reviled not again. Taken in a rebellious spirit, it encourages us in sin; it makes us look on our reprover as the cause of our guilt. It is the meek and humble spirit which is most watchful against constant daily imperfections, which takes reproof, if ever it should meet with it, in the only true and Christian way. Watchful obedience trains us to lowliness and meekness, while careless and indifferent living is the surest mode of reaching undutifulness and rebellion of spirit. But in the one is peace, in the other turbulence and sorrow; the one is well pleasing to God, the other most offensive to Him. G. Moberly. 6. This verse, difficult in itself, is still more difficult, because it has no very obvious connection either with what precedes or with what follows. The allusions are so obscure that it is impossible to do more than guess at the meaning. Their judges must be in a general sense the "rulers" or "princes" of "the wicked;" for the pronoun must refer to them. The verse apparently describes a punishment which has been or will be inflicted upon them. They shall hear. If the Psalm is to be referred to Absalom's rebellion, or any similar occasion, the sense will be, "When the leaders in the insurrection meet with the fate they deserve, then the subjects of the king will return to their allegiance." And the expression, "they shall hear my words that they are sweet," would be a thoroughly Oriental mode of describing the satisfaction with which they would welcome the gracious amnesty pronounced by their offended sovereign. P.—The verb is in the perfect tense, but surely it is the well-known predictive future. As often elsewhere, future events are seen with prophetic certainty as accomplished facts. This suggests a contrast in the mind of the poet between a hereafter, when, judgment having fallen upon the wicked rulers, the mass of the people shall return to their right mind, and receive meekly his gracious admonitions, and the present, in which they mock at his counsel, and will none of his reproof. De Witt. 7. Assuming that matters should come to the very worst, it is a glance of hope into the future; even should his bones and the bones of his followers be scattered at the mouth of Sheol, their soul below, their bones above—it would, nevertheless, be only as when one in ploughing cleaves the earth; i.e., they lie, not in order that they may continue lying, but in order that they may rise up anew, like seed sprouting up out of the upturned earth. D. 8. For. The conjunction does not refer to what immediately precedes, but either to what is said in vs. 4, 5, or perhaps rather to the whole of the former part of the Psalm, so far as it consists of petition, "Listen to my prayer, keep me from temptation, for unto Thee are mine eyes." P.—In Thee do I put my trust, I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go. My own wisdom and that of all about me seemed insufficient for that day. A. Lincoln. 10. No law can be more just than that the architects of destruction should perish by their own contrivances. All that are bound over to God's justice are held in the cords of their own iniquity. But let me at the same time obtain a discharge. The entangling and ensnaring of the wicked sometimes prove the escape and enlargement of the righteous. H. 1. I crv with my voice unto the Lord; With my voice unto the Lord do I make supplication. 2 I pour out my complaint before him; I shew before him my trouble. 3 When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walk have they hidden a snare for me. 4 Look on my right hand, and see; for there is no man that knoweth me: Refuge hath failed me; no man careth for my soul. 5. I cried unto thee, O Lord; I said, Thou art my refuge, My portion in the land of the living. 6 Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low: Deliver me from my persecutors; for they are stronger than I. 7 Bring my soul out of prison, that I may give thanks unto thy name: The righteous shall compass me about; For thou shalt deal bountifully with me. THIS is the last of the eight Psalms which, according to their inscriptions, are to be referred to David's persecution by Saul. Like the fifty-seventh Psalm, it is supposed to describe his thoughts and feelings when he was "in the cave," though whether in the cave of Adullam or in that of Engedi is not clear. The general strain of the Psalm is that of the earlier books. It expresses in language like that of David the cleaving of the heart to God. the deep sense of loneliness, the cry for deliverance, the confidence that that deliverance will call forth the sympathy and the joy of many others. P. TITLE. When he was in the cave. Every part of this Psalm shows the propriety of its inscription or title. He expressly mentions his being in a place where he was entirely shut up, where he saw no possible method of escaping, as having no friends that dared to own him and appear for his deliverance, and when every one seemed to desert him and to have abandoned all care of his safety and life. He seems almost to have despaired of himself, and declares that his spirit is quite overwhelmed with the greatness of his distress. At length, recollecting his principles and the promises that God had made him, he earnestly supplicates the protection of God and assures himself that he should yet praise God for his deliverance, and that good men should share his joy and encompass the altar of God with thanksgiving for the mercy that He had shown him. Chandler. 2. I pour out before Him my care; my trouble before Him I tell. The word translated care means properly reflection, meditation, musing, especially such as is anxious and sad. A.—The word “complaint” does not express the idea. The meaning is not that he complained of God or of man; but that his mind meditated on his condition. Barnes. 3. This is what consoles him, that Jehovah is intimately acquainted with his way and with the dangers that threaten him at every step, and therefore also understands how to appreciate the justification and the meaning of his cry. D.—Because there seems to be no light but only darkness, that may not be any positive proof that God is not with the soul. The soul may not be able to perceive it by reason, as Bunyan expresses it, of the impediment that attends the place; and yet God may be guiding and blessing the soul, even in such thick darkness. When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, said David in such a case, then Thou knewest my path. Cheever. 4. Look to the right and see; and there is no one knowing me; refuge has failed me; there is no one caring for my soul. The first two verbs must be translated as imperatives. The right hand is mentioned as the post of a protector. We might say, Look to the right and see, and (you will find that) there is no one. Knowing, recognizing, willing to acknowledge, much less to defend. There is none to me, i.e., I have none. Far from having a protector at my right hand, I have not even one who will acknowledge that he knows me. Caring, literally, seeking, asking, or inquiring after it, in order to assist or save it. A. Observe the beautiful opposition between “Thou knewest” (v. 3) and “no man would know me.” “Refuge failed me,” literally, “perished” from me. But Thou art my refuge. Fausset. 5. What a grand confession of faith was this? David spoke to God, and of God; “Thou art my refuge.” Not Thou hast provided me a refuge, but Thou, Thyself, art my refuge. He fled to God alone; he hid himself beneath the wings of the Eternal. He not only believed this, but said it and practised it. Nor was this all; for David, when banished from his portion in the promised land and cut off from the portion of goods which he by right inherited, found his portion in God; yea, God was his portion. S. 6,7. All fellowship of faith and love is imperfect; and there are situations in life in which man feels himself altogether isolated and turns all the more earnestly to God, who alone can satisfy the soul’s need of love, who loves with a love that is absolutely unselfish and unchangeable and pure, to whom the soul can without reserve confide whatever burdens it, and who not only honestly desires its highest good, but is also able to bring it about in spite of all obstacles. Surrounded by bloodthirsty enemies, misunderstood, or at least not understood at bottom by his friends, David feels himself cut loose from every creature. Then, despairing of everything that is visible, he cries to the invisible One. He is his refuge and his portion, i.e., the portion that satisfies him. To be allowed to call Him his God, this it is that satisfies him and outweighs everything else. For Jehovah is the living One, and he who has Him as his own cannot die; he cannot perish. D. 1. HEAR my prayer, O LORD; give ear to my supplications: In thy faithfulness answer me, and in thy righteousness. 2. And enter not into judgment with thy servant; For in thy sight no man living is righteous. 3. For the enemy hath persecuted my soul; He hath smitten my life down to the ground: He hath made me to dwell in dark places, as those that have been long dead. 4. Therefore is my spirit overwhelmed within me; My heart within me is desolate. 5. I remember the days of old; I meditate on all thy doings: I muse on the work of thy hands. 6. I spread forth my hands unto thee: My soul thirsteth after thee, as a weary land. [Selah 7. Make haste to answer me, O LORD; my spirit faileth: THIS is the last of the seven Penitential Psalms, as they are called. In the Hebrew it is styled a Psalm of David; in some copies of the LXX it is further said to have been written when he had to flee from his son Absalom. It is probable that the deep tone of sorrow and anguish which pervades the Psalm, and the deep sense of sin, led to the belief that it must be referred to that occasion. The spirit and the language, it is true, are not unworthy of David; yet the many passages borrowed from earlier Psalms make it more probable that this Psalm is the work of some later poet. Delitzsch says, very truly, that if David himself did not write it—and he admits that the many expressions derived from other sources are against such a supposition—still the Psalm is “an extract of the most precious balsam from the old Davidic songs.” Like other post-exile Psalms (such, for instance, as the one hundred and sixteenth and one hundred and nineteenth), it is a witness to us of the depth and reality of the religious life in the later history of the nation, and an evidence also of the way in which that life was upheld and cherished by the inspired Hide not thy face from me; Lest I become like them that go down into the pit. 8. Cause me to hear thy lovingkindness in the morning; For in thee do I trust: Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk; For I lift up my soul unto thee. 9. Deliver me, O LORD, from mine enemies: I flee unto thee to hide me. 10. Teach me to do thy will; for thou art my God: Thy spirit is good; lead me in the land of uprightness. 11. Quicken me, O LORD, for thy name’s sake: In thy righteousness bring my soul out of trouble. 12. And in thy lovingkindness cut off mine enemies, And destroy all them that afflict my soul; For I am thy servant. words of David and other Psalmists and prophets of old. The Psalm consists of two parts, each of which is of six verses, the conclusion of the first being marked by the Selah. The first portion contains the complaint (vs. 1-6); the second the prayer founded on that complaint vs. 7-12). P. I. Jehovah, hear my prayer, give ear unto my cries for mercy; in Thy faithfulness answer me (and) in Thy righteousness. The combination of faithfulness and righteousness can hardly be regarded as distinct grounds of argument, but rather as modified statements of the same. The faithfulness of God has direct reference to His promise or covenant engagements; His righteousness has reference to the claims of His own people, but claims which owe their existence to those same covenant engagements. A.—He sets forth two reasons for the answering of his prayer that are found in God Himself: The truthfulness with which He evinces the truth of His promises; i.e., His faithfulness to His promises; and, His righteousness, not in a legal sense, but in the evangelical sense. D.—It is to God’s own character that the appeal is made. It is there first, and not in his own misery, that the sinner finds the great argument why his prayer should be answered. It is precisely the same ground which John takes: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous (true to His promise and true to His revealed character) to forgive us our sins." P. 2. And enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for just before Thee is no one living.** To enter into judgment is a forensic phrase meaning to go to law, to prosecute, to sue. The verb in the last clause is not a passive meaning to be justified, but a neuter meaning to be just or innocent, to be in the right or on the right side of the controverted question. The acknowledgment in this verse has caused the Psalm to be reckoned among the penitential Psalms. A. —The noticeable point here is that David prays to be answered on the basis of God's faithfulness and righteousness, while yet he deprecates being judged on the score of strict justice, and even says that no living man can abide such an ordeal and come forth justified. This moral attitude, this unique position between God's covenanted faithfulness and integrity on the one hand, and His simple justice in the eye of law on the other, is by no means unknown to Christian experience. It is the case of one conscious of imperfections, deeply sensible of being all unable to stand before God blameless in law; yet encouraged to take hold of Divine promise because it is promise; of God's mercy because it is simple mercy; favor shown to those who have sinned and who are still conscious of moral weakness and shortcomings. C. The godly man, in his desire to have his character vindicated before man, appeals to the just Judge, but instantly falls back with a guilty sense that before His tribunal none can stand. Aglen.—The outward rule applied by the human observer to external conduct, the man might bear and might feel that he could present to it a fairly adequate external righteousness; but the spiritual rule of the Divine law, reaching to motive, affection, and will, to the thoughts and intents of the heart; the eye that is as a flame of fire penetrating into these, exploring and revealing their secret recesses, he could not bear that; he could not bear it even with respect to those same things which might demand the favorable judgment of men, for while men can look only on the outward appearance, at visible external phenomena, God looks at the inner actuating and modifying forces which are busy within; things not seen, but which in His sight determine the character of the things that are seen. T. Binney. The burden of the Psalmist's lamentation was none other than that which we hear in so many notes, high and low, through the whole scale of suffering in other cries of penitence or prayers for pardon. The soul of man finds itself in the presence of God, and feels that it is not and cannot be justified; that God cannot count it righteous because it is not so, and yet that, unless it be justified there can be no peace or blessedness for it. This was the problem of all problems. The man who trod the path of obedience found that it was the way of peace; but when his foot slipped and temptation came on him, and the enemy persecuted his soul, how was he to regain his ground? The devout worshipper might come before the Lord with sacrifices and burnt offerings, but he soon found that the righteous God had no pleasure in them; that He did not require them, only or chiefly, at the hands of His servants. The old difficulty returned in all its force: "In the sight of God could no man living be justified." How terrible, then, would it be if He were to enter into judgment! Plumptre. He doth not say, "With an enemy, a rebel, a traitor, an impenitent sinner;" but "with Thy servant," one that is devoted to Thy fear, one that is consecrated to Thy service, one that is really and indeed "wholly Thine, as much and as fully as he can be." As if he had said, "Lord, if the holiest, purest, best of men should come and stand before Thee in judgment, or plead with Thee, they must needs be cast in their cause. 'If Thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities,' alas! 'O Lord, who shall stand?'" T. Lye. 3. The suffering had made him look within, had shown him his own heart in its sinfulness and its misery; and this deep sense of sin and misery had led to the prayer in v. 2. Hence his deliverance from his enemy and the forgiveness of his sin are naturally connected in his mind. P. 4. Is desolate.** Or rather, "is full of amazement," literally, "astonishes itself;" seeks to comprehend the mystery of its sufferings, and is ever beaten back upon itself in its perplexity; such is the full force of the reflexive conjugation here employed. P. 5,6. He remembers the days of old in which Jehovah was manifestly with him; he meditates upon the whole redemptive work of God with all the mighty and gracious deeds in which it has hitherto unfolded itself; he muses upon the work of His hands; i.e., the hitherto so wondrously moulded history of himself and his people. The contrast which presents itself to the Psalmist when he thus compares his present. with the past only opens his wounds still deeper and makes his prayer for help all the more urgent. He spreads forth his hands unto God that He may receive him and espouse his cause. Like a thirsty land his soul is toward Him. D. 5. I meditate, I muse.** The mind and the heart are absorbing faculties. If we run over truth we shall carry little of it along with us. Nothing will take any adequate effect. Our growth will be slow, if indeed we grow at all. The joy, too, of spiritual life will be small; it will have little elevation, little unworldly refinement. Every step in our experience requires a thoughtful and accounting mind toward Him; and in such a mind we shall ever find peace and support. None can think for us, none do our duty but ourselves. If we do not drink of the waters of life they will not heal us; if we do not absorb, as it were, the image and life of truth, they will not be in us, nor ever become the fashion and energy of our living. There is a sweetness, a power in the Divine promises not to be hastily made ours, but ours as the wisdom of years is that which we have toiled for as the price and glory of life! H. Hooker. There is one art of which every man should be master, the art of reflection. If you are not a thinking man, to what purpose are you a man at all? To what end was man alone, of all animals, endued by the Creator with the faculty of self-consciousness? But you are likewise born in a Christian land; and revelation has provided for you new subjects for reflection, and new treasures of knowledge, never to be unlocked by him who remains self-ignorant. Self-knowledge is the key to this casket; and by reflection alone can it be obtained. Coleridge.—Meditation is the life of the soul; action is the soul of meditation; honor is the reward of action. So meditate that thou mayest do; so do that thou mayest purchase honor, for which purchase give God the glory. Quarles. 6. I have spread forth my hands,** as the weary child stretches forth its hands to its mother, that on her bosom it may be hushed to rest. P. I meditate. I stretch forth my hands. Meditation is prayer's handmaid to wait on it, both before and after the performance of supplication. It is as the plough before the sower, to prepare the heart for the duty of prayer; and as the harrow after the sower, to cover the seed when 'tis sown. As the hopper feeds the mill with grist, so does meditation supply the heart with matter for prayer. Gurnall.—In the Hebrew poets the longing for God never strikes one as morbid or unnatural to the men who uttered it. It is as natural for them to long for God as for the swallow to seek her nest. Throughout all their images no suspicion rises within us that they are exaggerating. We feel how truly they are reading themselves, their deepest selves. No false note occurs in all their aspiration. How joyous a thing it was to the Hebrews to seek their God! How artlessly they call upon Him to entertain them in His pavilion, to cover them with His feathers, to hide them in His secret place, to hold them in the hollow of His hand, or stretch around them the everlasting arms! H. Drummond. 7. God is a pitiful Spirit to failing spirits.** "I will not contend (saith the Lord) forever, neither will I be always wroth;" why? we deserve His wrath should last and take fire forever against us; yea, but (saith the Lord) this is the reason, "The spirit should fail before Me, and the souls which I have made" (Isa. 57 : 16); I love and pity the fainting souls and spirits of men; I will help my children; how can I see my creatures whom I made and do love, to perish for want of my help? David knew the Lord's nature, and that this was a speeding argument in prayer, which made him here and elsewhere so often use it. A pitiful father will not see the spirit of his children utterly fail. It is His opportunity; He usually helps when all other helps fail, that we may the more strongly cleave to Him, and ground ourselves upon Him, as knowing how infirm we are, if He confirm us not. When man's cruse of oil is dry and fails and can drop no more, then is God's time to prepare His. Thus helped He the Israelites at the Red Sea, when all man's strength and wisdom was at a stand. He loves to be seen in the mount, in extremities. T. Calvert. 8. Cause me to hear Thy loving-kindness.** In God's favor is life, wealth, and grace, all good things and pleasure for evermore, so that if He look kindly to us we need be afraid of nothing. But how shall he be assured of His favor? Even by hearing it, as he saith in the fifty-first Psalm: "Make me to hear joy and gladness." The voice which is heard is the Word of God, which, being apprehended by faith, is able to comfort our souls in whatsoever temptation. Symson.—Loving-kindness is a favorite expression, a choice theme of David's. It is used more in the Book of Psalms than in any other book in the Scriptures. Loving-kindness is love showing kindness; it is the sun of love shining with rays of kindness; the river of love sending forth streams of kindness; it is the heart of love uttering itself by words of kindness, doing deeds, and giving gifts of kindness. W. Abbott. In Thee do I trust. Our plea with the Lord is our faith; if we are relying upon Him He cannot disappoint us; "In thee do I trust" is a sound and solid argument with God. He who made the ear will cause us to hear; He who is love itself will have the kindness to bring His loving-kindness before our minds. S. Cause me to know the way wherein I should walk. This may be said to comprise every other prayer. If God gives His servant to "know the way wherein he should walk," and strength to walk in it, peace, and order, and liberty, and joy will soon come. Life is a daily difficulty. Think of the number of things that are to be believed, that are to be renounced, that are to be examined, that are to be distinguished in themselves and from other things, that are to be tentatively dealt with, that are to be done, that are to be left undone, that are to be waited for, that are to be suffered. All these are included in the "way wherein we should walk." First, as respects opinions and beliefs. There can be no living way for a man that does not involve these. We are bound to form them, and the point is that there is very great difficulty in forming some of them or in keeping them when we have them. Any one of us, if we will, may be of them that believe to the saving of the soul. How? By bringing the whole case fully and earnestly before God. If we come really to Him, we have solved the difficulty, we have come into the new and living way, and God will make that way more and more plain before our face; whereas if we abide among the exterior things, examining, considering, comparing, putting this opinion against that, and working the whole matter simply as a high intellectual problem, without ever making the last and highest appeal, we have no certainty of a good and true issue. Secondly, in respect of conduct also, we find life to be a scene of constant difficulty. Even those who know the way they should go, so far as it consists of beliefs, convictions, principles, find it still in their practise to be a way of continual difficulty. What can we do? We can pray. We can use this text and get the benefits it carries. The solution of all difficulty, be it what it may, is "to lift up the soul to God." God is the God of peace; and to lift up the soul to Him is to rise out of storm into calm, is to leave the self-made troubles of life beneath us while we mount up on eagles' wings into His eternal and illimitable tranquillity. Raleigh. Cause me to know, for I lift up my soul unto Thee. Religious life is more than feeling, more than knowledge, more than obedience to a moral code; and yet religion is feeling, it is mental illumination, it is especially moral effort; because it is that which implies, comprehends, and combines them all. It is the sacred bond, freely accepted, generously, enthusiastically, persistently welcomed, whereby the soul binds itself to God, its true Friend. To be thus bound to a person is to cherish strong feelings toward him; it is to seek to know all that can be known about his wishes and character, and to register this knowledge in exact terms; it is to obey scrupulously all that is clearly ascertained to be his will. "Show Thou me the way that I should walk in, for I lift my soul unto Thee!" This is the language of feeling, pure and strong; it is the language of intelligence, ever desiring a higher knowledge of its Highest Object; it is the language of obedience, the most absolute that man can proffer. It is these, because it is the voice, the exceeding great cry of that unquenchable passion, of that irrepressible aspiration whereby the soul of man shows forth its truest dignity and highest virtue in seeking the better to know and love and serve its Highest and Invisible Object; because, in a word, it is the language of religion. Liddon. The heavenward look will guard us from the temptations which surround all our service and the distractions which lay waste our lives. It is habitual communion with Christ alone that will give the persistency that makes systematic, continuous efforts for Him possible, and yet will keep systematic work from degenerating, as it ever tends to do, into mechanical work. We are ever apt to trust to our work, to do it without a distinct recurrence at each moment to the principles on which it rests, and the motives by which it should be actuated; to become so absorbed in details that we forget the purpose which alone gives them meaning, to overestimate the external aspects of it, to lose sight of the solemn truths which make it so grand, and to think of it as commonplace because it is common, as ordinary because it is familiar. And from these most real dangers, which beset us all there is no refuge but the frequent, the habitual gaze into the open heavens, which will show us again the realities of things, and bring to our spirits, dwarfed even by habits of goodness, the freshening of former motives by the vision of Jesus Christ. For ourselves, and for all that we do for Him, living communion with God is the means of power and peace, of security and success. A. M. 8-12. The series of petitions may thus be grouped: Prayer for God's mercy or loving-kindness, as that on which all hangs, and then for guidance (v. 8). For deliverance from enemies, and then still more fully for a knowledge of God's will and the gifts of His Spirit, that he may obey that will (vs. 9, 10). For a new life, and deliverance from suffering, and now not only for deliverance from his enemies, but for their destruction (vs. 11, 12). P. 10. Jehovah alone, unto whom he has fled for refuge, can make him know in the externally and internally perilous position in which he finds himself what is right and salutary; He alone can teach him how to carry out the recognized will of God. This is what he begs of Him in v. 10; for Jehovah is indeed his God, who cannot leave him in error; may His good Spirit, then, i.e., His Spirit which willingly furthers the salvation of man, lead him. D. To do Thy will. Not merely to know it; hence the need of the Holy Spirit's aid, His quickening, guiding, strengthening, as well as His enlightening influence. P.—We are to pray that God would teach us to know and then teach us to do His will. Knowledge without obedience is lame, obedience without knowledge is blind; and we must never hope for acceptance if we offer the blind and the lame to God. Vincent Alsop. Thy Spirit is good. It is vain to imagine that our obedience is to have no other rule but the Spirit without an attendance to the law; the Spirit is, indeed, the efficient cause of our obedience, and hence we are said to be "led by the Spirit;" but it is not properly the rule of our obedience, but the will of God revealed in His Word is the rule; the Spirit is the wind that drives us in our obedience; the law is our compass, according to which it steers our course for us. The Spirit and the law, the wind and the compass, can stand well together. "Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God" (there is David's rule, viz., God's will revealed); "Thy Spirit is good" (there is David's wind, that enabled him to steer his course according to it). The Spirit of life doth free us from the law of sin and death, but not from the holy, and pure, and good, and righteous law of God (Rom. 8: 1-3). T. Shepherd.—We are inclined and enabled to good by the sanctifying Spirit. In the Christian religion, not only the precepts are good, but there goeth along with them the power of God to make us good. The Spirit's direction hath strength joined with it. And He is a good Spirit as He doth incline us to good. The Spirit is the only fountain of all goodness and holiness (Neh. 9: 20): "Thou gavest also Thy good Spirit to instruct them." Why is He so often called the good Spirit but that all His operations tend to make men good and holy? Eph. 5: 9, "The fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth." Manton. Perhaps we have not sufficiently considered the lovingness of the character of the Third Person in the Holy Trinity. To the minds of many who still recognize His complete personality He is as One almost passionless. To some He is associated with the thoughts of reproof and sternness. The chief and highest name of the Holy Spirit is "Comforter," and not a comforter, as though He were one among many, but exclusively, so that whatever comfort there is in all the world dates itself in Him, "the Comforter." His very title, twice repeated, is "Spirit of love," and His first-fruit and all His fruits—for each fruit in order is only the expression of the first; it is only the same grace placed in a different combination—"love." The Holy Ghost is a great Leader. He guides into all truth; truth of thought first, truth of feeling next, truth of action afterward. His leadings tend to the land of uprightness. And where is that? Truth's land must be Christ's land, because Christ is truth; and therefore the Gospel must be "the land of uprightness." J. Vaughan. Land of uprightness. Literally, "in a level land," or "on level ground," where there is no fear of stumbling and falling. The word mishōr is constantly used of the plain (champaign) country. P.—The land of plainness, a land where no wickedness of men, and malice of Satan, vex the soul from day to day; a land where no rough paths and crooked turns lengthen out the traveller's weary journey (see v. 5); but where all is like the smooth pasture-lands of Reuben, a fit place for flocks to lie down. A. Bonar. Teach me to do Thy will, for Thou art my God. Thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness. These two clauses mean substantially the same thing. The Psalmist's longings are expressed in the first of them in plain words, and in the second in a figure. "To do God's will" is to be in "the land of uprightness." In each case his prayer is based upon a motive or plea. "Thou art my God." His faith apprehends a personal bond between him and God, and feels that that bond obliges God to teach him His will. "Thy Spirit is good," and therefore the trusting spirit has a right to ask to be made good likewise. The relation of the believing spirit to God not only obliges God to teach it His will, but to make it partaker of His own image and conformed to His own purity. Or the last clause may be read, "Let Thy good Spirit lead me." In either case the goodness of the Divine Spirit is the plea upon which the prayer is grounded. And the thought just comes to this: We have the right to expect that we shall be made participant of the Divine nature. So sweet, so deep, so tender is the tie that knits a devout soul to God, that nothing short of conformity to the perfect purity of God can satisfy the aspirations of the creature or discharge the obligations of the Creator. It is a daring thought. The Psalmist's desire was a prophecy. The New Testament vindicates and fulfils it when it says, "We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." Christ's heart cannot be satisfied, Christ's cross cannot be rewarded, the Divine nature cannot be at rest, the purpose of redemption cannot be accomplished until all that have trusted in Christ are partakers of Divine purity, and all the wanderers are led by devious and yet by right paths, by crooked and yet by straight ways, by places rough and yet smooth into the land of uprightness. Where and what He is, there and that shall also His servants be. A. M. 11. Quicken me, O Lord, for Thy name's sake. For the sake of Thine own glory, that Thou mayest show Thyself to be the God of loving-kindness and power, which thou art esteemed to be. Fauset.—For Thy righteousness' sake. It is worthy of observation that the Psalmist pleads God's righteousness as the foundation on which he bases his supplication for the deliverance of his soul from trouble, and God's loving-kindness or mercy as that on which he grounds his prayer, or his conviction, that God will destroy his enemies. This is not the language of a revengeful and bloodthirsty spirit. Bib. Com. 11, 12. Thy name's sake . . . Thy righteousness' sake . . . And of Thy mercy. Mark here with what three cords David seeks to draw God to grant him his suits; for His name's sake, for His righteousness' sake, and for His mercy's sake, three such motives that it must be a very hard suit that God will deny if either of them be used. R. Baker.—Mercies asked with an act of faith and assurance shall be obtained; God, for the sake of His name and His righteousness, of His glory and His faithfulness in the performance of His promises, will not fail to be favorable and gracious to his servants, quickening them and bringing them by degrees out of all their troubles. Bishop Horne. 12. We have nothing to do with the historical sense of these and other like passages; it is not and cannot be in their historical and human meaning that the Psalms are the perpetual storehouse of prayer and thanksgiving for the people of God in every age. But the spiritual meaning of these words expresses an eternal truth which we should do ill not to remember. We have enemies, we have those that vex our soul; the Psalmist spoke a language which every one of God's servants may echo. Did Paul mean anything or nothing when he said our warfare is not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the princes of this world's darkness, against evil spirits not confined in the great deep, but ranging at will in this upper world? Did Peter mean anything or nothing when he said, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour"? By these words we see that if we are indolent or slumbering, we have an enemy who is wakeful; that as we hope for the help of God's Spirit, so we have against us the power of the spirit of evil; that with a working mysterious indeed, and incomprehensible, as is the working of God's Spirit no less, yet with a fruit clearly manifest, there is an influence busy in undoing every work of grace in our souls, in driving away every thought of penitence or of love, in instigating every evil desire, in deepening every fit of spiritual slumber. Indeed it is no unmeaning prayer. "Destroy them that afflict my soul." T. Arnold. Thy servant. Does God give His servants wages for what they do? Yes, always. Salvation is not wages; heaven is not wages. Where, then, are the wages of good works? Very often providences, sometimes happy ones, sometimes bitter ones, but both wages; conscience, a good conscience; growth, more grace, more light, more peace, more faith, and more of the presence of Christ; and in heaven the degrees, higher measures, and capacities of glory awarded according to the service done. J. Vaughan. The Psalms bring before us in all its fulness and richness the devotional element of the religious character. They are the first great teachers and patterns of prayer. And they show this side of the religious character in varied and finished detail, in all its compass and living and spontaneous force. R. W. Church. 1. BLESSED be the LORD my rock, Which teacheth my hands to war, And my fingers to fight : 2. My lovingkindness, and my fortress, My high tower, and my deliverer ; My shield, and he in whom I trust ; Who subdueth my people under me 3. LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowl- edge of him ? Or the son of man, that thou makest ac- count of him ? 4. Man is like to vanity : His days are as a shadow that passeth away. 5. Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down : Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. 6. Cast forth lightning, and scatter them ; Send out thine arrows, and discomfit them. 7. Stretch forth thine hand from above ; Rescue me, and deliver me out of great waters, Out of the hand of strangers ; 8. Whose mouth speaketh vanity, And their right hand is a right hand of false- hood. THIS is a singularly composite Psalm. The earlier portion of it, to the end of v. 11, con- sists almost entirely of quotations strung to- gether from earlier Psalms ; and it is not al- ways easy to trace a real connection between them. The latter portion of the Psalm (vs. 12-15) differs completely from the former. It bears the stamp of originality, and is entirely free from the quotations and allusions with which the preceding verses abound. It is hardly probable, however, that this concluding portion is the work of the poet who compiled the rest of the Psalm ; it is more probable that he has here transcribed a fragment of some an- cient poem, in which were portrayed the hap- piness and prosperity of the nation in its bright- est days—under David, it may have been, or at the beginning of the reign of Solomon. His object seems to have been thus to revive the hopes of his nation, perhaps after the return 9. I will sing a new song unto thee, O God : Upon a psaltery of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee. 10. It is he that giveth salvation unto kings : Who rescueth David his servant from the hurtful sword. 11. Rescue me, and deliver me out of the hand of strangers, Whose mouth speaketh vanity, And their right hand is a right hand of falsehood. 12. When our sons shall be as plants grown up in their youth ; And our daughters as corner stones hewn after the fashion of a palace ; 13. When our garners are full, affording all manner of store ; And our sheep bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our fields ; 14. When our oxen are well laden ; When there is no breaking in, and no going forth, And no outcry in our streets ; 15. Happy is the people, that is in such a case : Yea, happy is the people, whose God is the LORD. from the exile, by reminding them how in their past history obedience to God had brought with it its full recompense. The Psalmist re- counts glorious victories in the past, complains that the nation is now beset by strange, i.e., barbarous enemies, so false and treacherous that no covenant can be kept with them, prays for deliverance from them by an interposition great and glorious as had been vouchsafed of old, and anticipates the return of a golden age of peace and plenty. P. I, 2. The whole of this first group is an imi- tation of David's great song of thanksgiving for victory (Psalm 18). D.—David acknowl- edges his dependence upon God and his obliga- tions to Him. A prayer for further mercy is fitly begun with a thanksgiving for former mercy ; and when we are waiting upon God to bless us, we should stir up ourselves to bless Him. H. 3. This and the next verse are again borrowed from other passages. V. 3 is a variation of Psalm 8 : 4. V. 4 resembles Psalm 39 : 5, 6. P. 3. 4. Our days are not only few, but we ourselves are vanity. The words are weighty and full. It is not a problem or a doubtful thing; but a definition, and so it is here proven. What is man? He is like to vanity, and his days are as a shadow that passes away. His days do not only soon decline and pass away as a shadow, but also they are like vanity. While he appears to be something, he is nothing but the figure and picture of vanity. Every man, and that at his best estate as the word is, in his settled and fixed state; set him as sure and high as you will, yet he is not above that; he carries it about with him as he does his nature. Leighton. 5. Here begins the direct prayer for the overthrow of his enemies. The Psalmist longs for a theophany, a coming of God to judgment, which he describes in language again borrowed from Psalm 18 : 9, 14-16. P. 7. That Jehovah stretches out His hand from high heaven and rescues David out of great waters, is taken verbatim from Psalm 18 : 17; here the poet appends to the figure its interpretation. D. 8. Their right hand is falsehood. The right hand, as elsewhere, is power in its greatest activity. In the Hebrew there is an emphatic repetition, "their right hand is a right hand of falsehood." Every activity is possessed, directed, and controlled by falsehood as the spirit that inspires it, the opposite of the description in Psalm 15 : 2, "the thought of whose heart is the truth." This occurs again in v. 11. De Witt. 12. That our sons may be as grown-up plants even in youth. The fathers and the mothers want the sons in their homes. They are the beautiful staffs on which their parents would lean when sorrow comes, when old age comes. There is nothing more attractive or holy out of heaven than the reverence of a true son for his father—is not God our Father?—than the love of a pure boy for his mother. The boy to whom his father is a kind of elder brother—how holy is the epithet, since Jesus has hallowed it, by becoming ours; the boy to whom his mother is the ideal of all excellence. The Psalmist sees a period in the national history of his people when young men shall have a youth in their own homes, under the eyes of their father and near the heart of their mother. It is home training, home memories, home inspirations that are the hope of our youth. They are the qualities that go into their manhood. That our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace. Sons are out-door plants; daughters are in-door adornments. Sons grow up in out-door strength; daughters clothe a home with attractiveness and grace. The Psalmist passes from the growth of the out-door plant to the corner-carvings with which it was customary to decorate the inside of palaces. There is a beauty of inward character, a beauty of outward life which originates in that character, which even God desires. "So shall the King greatly desire thy beauty," which, in God's sight, is of great price. And I think that when the sacred writer in the text speaks of the daughters in our homes, he means this beauty. There are elements of material prosperity in this Psalm which are very beautiful. Peace brings rest to material things: to the valleys which are clothed with verdure or grain; to the hills which are covered over with flocks; fills the garners to overflowing; makes traffic in towns and commerce on the seas; puts an end to all disturbances. But the most beautiful and touching element in it is this allusion to home-life, in which young men and maidens have an opportunity to develop in all the symmetry and beauty characteristic of each in its best estate. "That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; and that our daughters may be as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace;" as though the sons graced the exterior of a home, as the plant does, and the daughters the interior. J. E. Rankin. "The polished corners of the temple," rather "the sculptured angles, the ornament, of a palace." Great care and much ornament were bestowed by the ancients upon the angles of their splendid palaces. It is remarkable that the Greeks made use of pilasters, called Caryatides (carved after the figure of a woman dressed in long robes), to support the entablatures of their buildings. Cresswell.—When we see our daughters well established, and stayed with wisdom and discretion, as corner-stones are fastened in the building; when we see them by faith united to Christ, as the chief corner-stone, adorned with the graces of God's Spirit, which are the polishing of that which is naturally rough, and "become women professing godliness;" when we see them purified and consecrated to God as living temples, we think ourselves happy in them. H. Among the Hebrews the instruction of children in the history of the nation and in the precepts and principles of the law, was early, solemnly, and repeatedly prescribed. The whole community guarded each child; and the independent will of the father was not supreme, under the restraining Hebraic legislation. The prosperity of the city was then only conceived as perfect, when, with old men and old women dwelling in it, it should also "be full of boys and girls playing in the streets thereof." The hope and prayer of the devout was, that "their sons might be as plants grown up in their youth, and their daughters as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace." It was only natural, under such a religion, that children should be accounted the heritage of the Lord; that for them, at different stages of their growth, the language should furnish many general names of a tender significance; that they should be presented with thank-offerings in the temple; that some of the most touching and memorable passages in Hebrew literature should be those recounting the grief of parents when the infant of days had died; and that the sweetest and grandest thought, one may almost say, which prophecy itself ever delivered, was that which came from the sublimest of Hebrew seers, that the fierce and warring elements on earth shall be subdued in the reign of the Messiah, that the wolf and the lamb shall dwell together, and the leopard with the kid, and that "a little child shall lead them all." That word is like the point of light in the eye of a portrait, illuminating the scheme of the prophetic economy. R. S. S. The public state of religion in the world must entirely depend on the care bestowed on the cultivation of it in private families. Such as the families are of which congregations, churches, and kingdoms are composed, such will be the flourishing or the decayed state of religion in these larger communities. And consequently it is as clear as noon-day, that the disregard shown to God in our households is the fatal source of corruption of manners. Would you, then, put a stop to abounding iniquity and promote the cause of God and religion, begin at home, and let your Maker have that honor in your families to which He is entitled. R. Walker. 13,14. This Psalm is the language of a prince who wished his people's prosperity; that their "garners might be full of all manner of stores;" that their "sheep might bring forth thousands and ten thousands in their streets;" that their "oxen" might be fat for slaughter or "strong for labor;" that there might be neither robbery nor beggary in their streets; no oppressive magistrates nor complaining people; and as if all these blessings were to be derived from the character of the people, and the character of the people from the education they had received, our text is a prayer for the youth of Judea. R. Robinson. 14. No sallying forth; literally, "going out," which has been interpreted either of "going forth to war," or "going forth into captivity." This and the previous expression, taken together, most naturally denote a time of profound peace, when no enemy lies before the walls, when there is no need to fear the assault through the breach, no need to sally forth to attack the besiegers. The whole passage (vs. 12-15) is a picture of the most perfect, undisturbed peace and tranquillity. P.—An uninterrupted peace. That there be no war; no breaking in of invaders, no going out of deserters. Let not our enemies break in upon us; let us not have occasion to march out against them. War brings with it abundance of mischiefs, whether it be offensive or defensive. That there be no oppression or faction, no outcry in our streets. H. 15. Happy is that people. It is only a narrow and one-sided religion that can see anything out of place in this beatitude of plenty and peace. If we could rejoice with the Psalms fully and without misgiving in the temporal blessings bestowed by heaven, we should the more readily and sincerely enter into the depths of their spiritual experience. And the secret of this lies in the full comprehension and contemplation of the beautiful and pleasant as the gift of God. Aglen.—Whose God is the Lord. This comes in as an explanation of their prosperity. Those who worship the happy God become a happy people. Happy was the nation in its families, in its prosperity, and in the possession of peace; but yet more in enjoying true religion and worshipping Jehovah, the only living and true God. S. The last verse of this Psalm leads us to reflect wherein the peculiar happiness doth now principally consist, of "that people, whose God is the Lord." Their happiness consists in something far above riches and outward greatness; it consists in having the Lord Himself, the Supreme Governor of the world, to take care of them, and to provide all things needful for them. They have His wisdom to instruct them; His power to protect them; His mercy to pardon them; His grace to adorn them here, and His glory to crown them forever; and all because they have the Lord Himself for their God, not only for their light, their life, their hope, their help, their strength, their tower, their sun, their shield, and their exceeding great reward, but for their God; which is infinitely more than can be couched under any other expression whatsoever. What can those persons lack who are thus related to, and interested in, Him that is all things in Himself? Bishop Beveridge. With this prayer of Jehovah's anointed One end the prayers of the Book of Psalms. The remaining six Psalms consist exclusively of praise and high hallelujahs. Lord Congleton. Look at a whole city, in the full tide of commercial prosperity and social indulgence. Abundance shall run down all the streets like rivers of water. Every scene of entertainment, from the glittering play-house to the lowest haunt of dissipation, shall be nightly thronged and illuminated. The men shall build palaces as playthings, and the women string diamonds as beads. The talk of the town shall be of the last night's brilliancy and jewelry, raiment and banquet. Night itself shall be turned into day, not for vigils of prayer or praises of the Great Benefactor—if that were done the whole population would laugh aloud at the fanaticism—but it shall be done night after night for frivolity, for dancing and eating and drinking, for this world's god, and no lip shall sneer at it. There shall be wealth enough for all this; and every new form of ostentation, and every new avenue of traffic, and every addition to the trappings of a material estate that wealth could provide, shall heighten the pomp. Now, would this be the strong city? What are the attributes of strength? Self-command, courage, faith, endurance, moderation; these are the signs of human strength. Has it these? God alone, the Almighty, is the source of strength; and that city alone is strong of which it can be said that "God is in the midst of her." Can it be said of that city? Character is strength, and there is no character there. It is weakness at the foundation, weakness in the superstructure, weakness at the gates; weakness in the chambers; weakness at the heart. You have read history; and you know whether Tyre and Babylon and Rome just before they fell were strong. Turn from that spectacle to another. By some providence the city is humbled. Its face is sober and thoughtful. Manners are simple; dress is plain; industry is more plentiful than entertainment; luxuries are not seen, but charities are abundant; its sanctuaries are thronged; its nights are still; its people are walking with God; its children's indulgence is restrained. Wisdom is the ornament of grace about its neck. There are household prayers in all the houses. Righteousness is its law; and God is its king. Here is strength: "Clean hands and a pure heart." Strong as well as happy is that people whose God is the Lord. Man is not strongest when his head is full of dreams and calculations of gain, his heart full of promotion and admiration, his hand full of this world's gifts, and his mouth full of meat and wine. He is strong when he rules his spirit; strong when he works, and consecrates his work to God; strong when he is on his knees; strong when he forgets himself, and lives in the spirit of the apostle's declaration: "It is no more I that live, but Christ liveth in me." F. D. H. 1. I will extol thee, my God, O King; And I will bless thy name for ever and ever. 2 Every day will I bless thee; And I will praise thy name for ever and ever. 3 Great is the LORD, and highly to be praised; And his greatness is unsearchable. 4 One generation shall laud thy works to another, And shall declare thy mighty acts. 5 Of the glorious majesty of thine honour, And of thy wondrous works, will I meditate. 6 And men shall speak of the might of thy terrible acts; And I will declare thy greatness. 7 They shall utter the memory of thy great goodness, And shall sing of thy righteousness. 8. The LORD is gracious, and full of compassion; Slow to anger, and of great mercy. 9. The LORD is good to all; And his tender mercies are over all his works. 10. All thy works shall give thanks unto thee, O LORD; And thy saints shall bless thee. 11. They shall speak of the glory of thy kingdom, And talk of thy power; 12. To make known to the sons of men his mighty acts, And the glory of the majesty of his kingdom. 13. Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, And thy dominion endureth throughout all generations. 14. The LORD upholdeth all that fall, And raiseth up all those that be bowed down. 15. The eyes of all wait upon thee; And thou givest them their meat in due season. 16. Thou openest thine hand, And satisfiest the desire of every living thing. 17. The LORD is righteous in all his ways, And gracious in all his works. 18. The LORD is nigh unto all them that call upon him, To all that call upon him in truth. 19. He will fulfil the desire of them that fear him; He also will hear their cry, and will save them. 20. The LORD preserveth all them that love him; But all the wicked will he destroy. 21. My mouth shall speak the praise of the LORD; And let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever. THIS has been happily characterized as the "new song" promised in Psalm 144:9. In other words, it is the Song of Praise, corresponding to the didactic, penitential, and supplicatory Psalms of this series. In form it is an alphabetical Psalm, and like others of that class admits of no analysis, being made up of variations on a single theme, the righteousness and goodness of the Lord to men in general, to His own people in particular, and more especially to those who suffer. The letter nun is wanting, being omitted, as some suppose, for the sake of having three equal stanzas, each containing seven verses. A.—This is the last of the alphabetical Psalms, of which there are eight in all, if we reckon the ninth and tenth Psalms as forming one. Like four other of the alphabetical Psalms this bears the name of David, although there can in this case be no doubt that the inscription is not to be trusted. This is the only Psalm which is called a Tehilla, i.e., "praise" or "hymn," the plural of which word, Tehillim, is the general name for the whole Psalter. P. Very appropriately this is called a "praise-Psalm." It groups together in lofty strains, from a full heart, the noblest utterances of praise; the richest testimonies to the universal benevolence of the Great Father. C.—Psalms are the praises of God accompanied with song; Psalms are songs containing the praise of God. If there be praise, but not of God, it is not a Psalm. If there be praise, and praise of God, if it is not sung, it is not a Psalm. To make a Psalm there go these three—praise, God's praise, and song. Augustine.—In the original no other Psalm beareth such a title. It is appropriate to it, because this Psalm consists wholly of praise. T. Goodwin.—The eighty-sixth Psalm is David's Tephilla, his own prayer. This Psalm is his Tehilla, his own praise, or thanksgiving. L. Andrews. It was the Psalm of the mid-day meal in the ancient Church. It is the first of the series of doxological Psalms with which the Psalter closes. It falls naturally into three sevens, which may be parted into three couplets, followed by a single verse. The first seven speak of His general greatness and goodness; the second, of His grace and kingdom; and the third, of His readiness to hear and answer the prayers of His people. M. 2. Forever and ever will the poet extol God and bless His name; because the praising of God is his deepest need, in this devotion to the ever-living King he forgets his own mortality—this impulse of the soul, an impulse begotten by God Himself, toward the praising of the God to whom the soul owes its origin, in which praise it finds its noblest enjoyment, is indeed a practical proof of a life after death. D. Praise. Praise is thankful, lowly, loving worship of the goodness and majesty of God. And therefore we often find the word "praise" joined with "blessing" and "thanksgiving;" but though all three are akin to each other, they are not all alike. They are steps in a gradual scale—a song of degrees. Thanksgiving runs up into blessing, and blessing ascends into praise; for praise comprehends both, and is the highest and most perfect work of all living spirits. Manning. Every day will I bless Thee. Praising God must be our daily work. No day must pass, though ever so busy a day, though ever so sorrowful a day, without praising God; we ought to reckon it the most needful of our daily employments, and the most delightful of our daily comforts. God is every day blessing us, doing well for us; there is therefore reason that we should be every day blessing Him, speaking well of Him. H. 4. “One generation shall laud Thy works to another,” fathers to their sons; the aged and those of mature years to the young, bearing their testimony to the great deeds of Jehovah, so that this knowledge of what God has done may pass down traditionally through all human generations. This is fully in harmony with the Divine order, with the duties enjoined upon parents in the Mosaic law, and with the spirit of their commemorative institutions. C. All the best things and treasures of this world are not to be produced by each generation for itself; but we are all intended not to carve our work in snow that will melt, but each and all of us to be continually rolling a great, white, gathering snowball higher and higher, larger and larger, along the Alps of human power. Thus the science of nations is to be accumulative from father to son; each learning a little more and a little more; each receiving all that was known, and adding its own gain. The history and poetry of nations are to be accumulative—each generation treasuring the history and songs of its ancestors, adding its own history and its own songs. And the art of nations is to be accumulative—just as science and history are; the work of living men not superseding, but building itself upon the work of the past; all growing together into one mighty temple; the rough stones and the smooth all finding their place, and rising, day by day, in richer and higher pinnacles to heaven. Ruskin. 5. His language labors to express his meaning; he multiplies the terms by which he would extol Jehovah, his King. Everything which has to do with the Great King is majestic, honorable, glorious. There is nothing about the infinite Lord which is unworthy of His royalty; and, on the other hand, nothing is wanting to the splendor of His reign; His majesty is honhonorable, and His honor is glorious; He is altogether wonderful. S. In v. 5, I will muse is the primary and more usual sense of the Hebrew word. It suggests that these glorious qualities of God’s character and deeds should be not merely talked about and extolled in song, but be deeply pondered, laid close upon our very heart, that so their legitimate impression may be wrought into our very soul, and may mould our whole spirit and character into God’s own moral image. C. 6. We must see God acting and working in all the affairs of this lower world; various instruments are used, but in all events God is the Supreme Director; it is He that performs all things. Much of His power is seen in the operations of His providence; they are mighty acts, such as cannot be paralleled by the strength of any creature; and much of His justice; they are terrible acts, awful to saints, dreadful to sinners. These we should take all occasions to speak of, observing the finger of God, His hand, His arm, in all, that we may marvel. H. 7. The memory of the abundant goodness of God is the theme of universal, overflowing acknowledgment, and the righteousness of God the theme of universal exultation. Having sung the glorious self-attestation of God as regarded from both its sides, the poet now lingers over the bright side, the front side, of the name Jehovah as unfolded in Ex. 34 : 6. D. They shall abundantly utter the memory of Thy great goodness. God’s goodness is great goodness, the treasures of it can never be exhausted; nay, they can never be lessened, for He ever will be as rich in mercy as He ever was. It is memorable goodness, it is what we ought always to have in mind and preserve the memorials of; for it is worthy to be had in everlasting remembrance; and the memory we have of God’s goodness we should utter, we should abundantly utter, as those who are very full of it, and desire that others may be acquainted and affected with it. But whenever we utter God’s great goodness, we must not forget at the same time to sing of His righteousness; for as He is gracious in rewarding those that serve Him faithfully, so He is righteous in punishing those that rebel against Him. Impartial and inflexible justice is as surely in God as inexhaustible goodness; and we must sing of both together (Rom. 11 : 22). H. They shall sing of Thy righteousness. The righteousness of God, whereby He justifieth sinners and sanctifieth the justified, and executeth judgment for His reconciled people is the sweetest object of the Church’s joy Dick- son.—It is easy to perceive God's righteousness declared in the punishment of sins; the cross alone declares "His righteousness for the remission of sins." It magnifies justice in the way of pardoning sin, and mercy in the way of punishing it. M'Laurin. 8. Full of compassion. To the suffering, the weak, the foolish, the despondent, He is very pitiful; He feels for them, He feels with them; He compassionates freely, constantly, deeply, divinely, and effectually. In God is fulness in a sense not known among men, and this fulness is all fragrant with sympathy for human misery. Slow to anger. Even those who refuse His grace yet share in longsuffering. Greatly patient and extremely anxious that the sinner may live, He "lets the lifted thunder drop," and still forbears. And of great mercy. This is His attitude toward the guilty. When men at last repent, they find pardon awaiting them. Great is their sin and great is God's mercy. They need great help, and they have it though they deserve it not, for He is greatly good to the greatly guilty. S.—Mercy hath misery for its object, and is that attribute toward which the eyes of a fallen world must necessarily be turned. She is above the heavens and over all the earth, so that the whole creation findeth that refuge under the shadow of her wings of which, by reason of man's transgression, it standeth in need. Barder. 9. His goodness embraces all; His compassion is over all His works, it hovers over and encompasses all His creatures. Therefore all His works also praise Him; they are all together eloquent witnesses of that sympathetic love of His, which excludes no one that does not exclude himself. D. 10. "All Thy works shall praise Thee" is a poetic conception, yet exquisitely beautiful and just. All nature, all the beneficent arrangements by which God clothes the earth with beauty and makes it minister to the sustenance and joy of all sentient beings—all have a voice to witness for God and proclaim His praise. How much more should Thy saints to whom Thou hast given intelligence to see and appreciate Thy love pour forth their praises in honor of Thy name! C.—"All" God's "works" do "praise" Him, as the beautiful building praiseth the builder, or the well-drawn picture praiseth the painter; but His "saints bless" Him, as the children of prudent and tender parents rise up and call them blessed. Of all God's works, His saints, the workmanship of His grace, the first-fruits of His creatures have most reason to bless Him. H. It is a poor philosophy and a narrow religion which does not recognize God as all in all. Every moment of our lives we breathe, stand, or move in the temple of the Most High; for the whole universe is that temple. Wherever we go, the testimony to His power, the impress of His hand are there. The bright worlds around us, as they roll in the everlasting harmony of their circles, tell of Him whose power launched them on their courses; the mountains that lift their heads among and above the clouds proclaim their testimony to the agency which has laid their deep foundations. The boundless waves of oceans chant from shore to shore a hymn of ascription to that Being who hath said, "Hitherto shall ye come and no further." The rivers, as they roll onward to the sea, bear along their ceaseless tribute to the ever-working energy, which struck open their fountains and poured them down through the valleys. The countless tribes of plants and animals testify to the action of the great Source of life. From every portion, from every department of nature, comes the same voice; everywhere we hear Thy name, O God! everywhere we see Thy love! Creation, in all its length and breadth, in all its depth and height, is the manifestation of Thy Spirit, and without Thee the world were dark and dead. The universe is to us as the burning bush which the Hebrew leader saw; God is ever present in it, for it burns with His glory, and the ground on which we stand is always holy. Dillon. 11. This kingdom is indeed a kingdom of grace. The throne is a throne of grace, and the sceptre is a sceptre of grace. He revealeth His grace, which is His glory; and thus He captivates the hearts of His people. The subjects of this kingdom have in them a preparation for perfect blessedness. They have that which meetens them "to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." They are not entirely cured, it is true, of all the infection of sin, but they are under a restorative process; they are taking the medicine which is of sovereign efficacy. All the love and joy that glow with celestial fervor before the throne of the heavenly majesty is only the consummation of seeds like those which are sown in the hearts of believers, "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." They are sown in their hearts; and when that which is sown, or is to be sown, shall be matured, Jesus Christ will present unto Himself "a glorious Church." And what a spectacle will this be! how will the saints themselves be astonished at their attainments! It will require an eternity to know ourselves, much more to know the Fountain whence all these beauties and glories have been derived. Then, indeed, shall we "speak of the glory of His kingdom, and talk of His power." R. Hall. If Christ be not in our hearts, we are godless; if He be there without our joy, we are senseless; if we rejoice in Him and speak not of Him, we are shamefully unthankful. As I will think of Thee always, O Lord, so it shall be my joy to speak of Thee often; and if I find not opportunity, I will make it. Bishop H. God wants every Christian to be a Gospel messenger, preaching the Word of life; a godly philanthropist doing good deeds. The supremest thing for us in this world is to tell the good news. Not to be rich or famous or given to luxury, but to live for Christ and for those whom He came to save. To make Christ better known. There is not a single exception to this; no one is exempt. For this end God gives us time, and opportunity, and money, and health, and a city full of people. For this end He educates us spiritually and disciplines us. For this end He puts us even in the furnace of affliction. God wants us to have such an appreciation of the Gospel and such a love and burden for souls that we cannot remain silent. His whole aim and purpose in His dealings with us is to make us Gospel responsive. Gregg. 12. The saints are the religious instructors of the race; they ought to be not only the historians of the past, but the bards of the present, whose duty it is to keep the sons of men in memory of the great deeds which the Lord did in the days of their fathers and in the old time before them. S. The glory of the majesty of His kingdom. This government is a perfect kingdom. He hath majesty for His crown, mercy for His seat, and justice for His sceptre. He hath wisdom for His counsellor, almightiness for His guard, and eternity for His date. He hath heaven for His palace, the earth for His foot-stool, and hell for His prison. He hath laws to which nature assents and reason subscribes, that do not fetter us but free us, for by them nature gets the wings of grace and transcends the earth. Reason gets the eyes of faith, and ascends up to heaven. He hath a yoke, indeed, but it is easy; a burthen, but it is light. His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. He is established in His sovereignty, not by His subjects' election of Him, but by His election of His subjects; not as raising Himself to a higher title, but as humbling Himself to a lower calling; and as not receiving it from a predecessor who is before all, so never leaving it to a successor, who is after all. R. Baker. 13. Thy reign is a reign of all eternities, and Thy dominion in generation and generation. These words are also found in Dan. 3:33; 4:31. The meaning of the last clause is, Thy dominion still exists and shall exist in every successive generation. A.—The point upon which the Psalmist's mind rests is the eternity of the Divine throne, "Thy reign is a reign of all eternities." The Lord's kingdom is without beginning, without break, without bound, and without end. None can overthrow His power, or break away from His rule. Neither this age, nor the age to come, nor ages of ages shall cause His sovereignty to fail. Herein is rest for faith. "The Lord sitteth King forever." "And Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations." S. On the door of the old mosque in Damascus, which was once a Christian church, but for twelve centuries has ranked among the holiest of the Mohammedan sanctuaries, are inscribed these memorable words: "Thy kingdom, O Christ, is an everlasting kingdom, and Thy dominion endureth throughout all generations." Though the name of Christ has been regularly blasphemed, and the disciples of Christ regularly cursed for twelve hundred years within it, the inscription has, nevertheless, remained unimpaired by time, and undisturbed by man. It was unknown during the long reign of Mohammedan intolerance and oppression; but when religious liberty was partially restored, and the missionaries were enabled to establish a Christian church in that city, it was again brought to light, encouraging them in their work of faith and labor of love. Anon. 13,14. These verses combine the magnificence of unlimited power with the assiduity of unlimited tenderness. It is this combination which men are apt to regard as well-nigh incredible, supposing that a Being so great as God can never concern Himself with beings so inconsiderable as themselves. Tell them that God lifteth up those that be bowed down, and they cannot imagine that His kingdom and dominion are unbounded; or tell them, on the other hand, of the greatness of His empire, and they think it impossible that He should uphold all that fall. Melvill. 14. The Lord upholdeth all that fall, and raiseth up all that be bowed down.** Think of the Infinite bowing to lift up the bowed, and stooping to be leaned upon by those who are ready to fall. The two "alls" should not be overlooked; the Lord has a kindly heart toward the whole company of the afflicted. S.—The words do not apply to those who are indifferent to God and who wilfully defy His law. The Psalmist settles that in a single verse. "The Lord preserveth all them that love Him, but all the wicked will He destroy." They apply to those who honor God; who are trying to keep their lives pure and to make them useful. He lifts them up, upholds them, and helps them to walk in His way. It is the steps of a good man that are ordered. The Word throws less light upon reward than upon duty. Enough, indeed, to stimulate duty, but the Word is a lamp unto the feet and a light unto the path. Paul says, summing up the result of the life-battle, "Having done all to stand." Oh merciful, wise, tender love, which, even while it denies what we long for, bends over us while we lie prone and weeping over our disappointment, and sets us on our feet again and bids us follow God and not the devices and desires of our own hearts. . . . God sometimes upholds and raises by a disappointment. Sometimes it seems as if God's policy toward a man is to keep him down, and yet keep him walking and working. That develops the highest type of moral heroism. It is a higher and greater thing for an unsuccessful and disappointed man to keep rising from his failures and to struggle on his way leaning on God's hand to the very end, than for him to succeed before the world. God has a testimony to bear to the world through His sons and daughters no less than to them; and He bears that testimony most emphatically in showing the world that His hand can keep a man a man, with an honest soul and a persistent purpose in him, amid all his falls and disappointments. . . . The difference between a Christian and a man of the world does not lie in stumbling or not stumbling, but in the whole attitude of the man toward his stumbles and falls. It would be strange, indeed, if the man who sets himself to fight his way to heaven in the face of such a world as this and of the whole spiritual power of darkness, should not now and then fall into a snare or receive a blow that brings him to the ground. God nowhere promises that a believer shall walk straight on with upright carriage and serene front, compassed with the calm of holiness all the way to heaven. He tells him rather that Christian life is a wrestle. What He is specially concerned about, the point where He brings His own Divine forces into the field, is the way in which the man shall bear himself in this struggle. He does promise that sin shall not have dominion over him; that though he struggles all the way to heaven, and marks his progress with a series of falls, he shall mark it also with a series of risings, and shall fall and rise and struggle through to victory. "Sin shall not have dominion over you." God will bring him at last, a saved man, out of the soil and the bruises. He will uphold him, not in sinning, but in the fight with sin. But this promise is to the honest-hearted, to the man who goes bravely and trustfully into the fight with all its certainties of blow and downfall. Take courage, then. The great thing for you is that God is on your side. Try your best to walk without falling. Lean heavily on His hand. Keep your eye on Him; keep your purpose steadfast to overcome the world. When the falls do come, think only of that hand and grasp it. When conscience tells you you are not what you should be, and reproaches you for what you are, say, "With God's help I will get farther from what I am, and nearer to what I ought to be. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me; and as for life's failures and disappointments, if He see fit to disappoint me, it is still His hand in the disappointment, His hand that raiseth up them that are bowed down." V. 15-17. The doubts and difficulties which consideration of God's dealings will necessarily excite will best be dealt with by pondering the every-day mercies which are showered upon the world. "The eyes of all wait upon Thee," etc. There is not in this creation a single living thing which is not perpetually drawing upon God, and so literally dependent on His care and bounty that a moment's suspension of His operations would suffice to extinguish its vital principle. Who can fear that, because God's ways are unsearchable, they may not be all tending to the final good of His creatures, when he knows that, with the tenderness of a most affectionate parent, this Creator and Governor ministers to the meanest living thing? Who can distrust God, because clouds and darkness are round about him, when there is light enough to show that He is the vigilant guardian of every tenant of this earth, that His hand upholds, and His breath animates, and His bounty nourishes the teeming hordes of the city, and the desert, and the ocean? Is this a God of whom to be suspicious? Is this a God to mistrust? Oh! surely if you will fortify yourselves by such facts as these, "Thou, O Lord, satisfiest the desire of every living thing," "The eyes of all wait upon Thee; and Thou givest them their meat in due season," you will be able at all times and in all circumstances to join heartily in the acknowledgment of the Psalmist, "The Lord is righteous in all His ways and holy in all His works." Melvill. 16. Science demonstrates two things: First, that the organization of every sentient being is contrived for happiness—that every faculty, sense, limb, vessel, and fibre are so adjusted as to conduce to the well-being of the whole, so that the movement of each yields gratification. Its keen eye has never yet detected, in the case of any creature, one single constituent of his existence which he could regard as intended to give pain. Not one of the countless myriads of sentient vessels can he find "fitted for destruction." And, secondly, science demonstrates that the external sphere of each sentient being has suitable provisions for its happiness. Through all the realms of animal nature into which philosophy has gone, from the tiniest insect up to man, there is found in the ordained sphere of each creature a supply for every want, an object for every desire, a pleasure to penetrate every sense. Anon. Thou openest Thine hand, and satisfiest the desire of every living thing. Thou alone providest, O Jehovah! Thou doest it liberally, with open hand; thou doest it easily, as if it were only to open Thine hand. These verses refer to natural providence; but they may equally well apply to the stores of grace, since the same God is king in both spheres. If we will but wait upon the Lord for pardon, renewing, or whatever else we need, we shall not wait in vain. The hand of grace is never closed while the sinner lives. S. If there be any desires in us which are not satisfied, it is through their being self-created ones, which is our own fault; or through artificial scarcity from men's luxury, which is the fault of our species. God raises no desires as our Creator, but He gives enough to satisfy them; and none as our Redeemer and Sanctifier but what shall be actually satisfied. Oh, the wonderful munificence of God! "How great is His goodness, and how great is His beauty!" A. Fuller. It may be good that we should have to trust Him even when the storehouse is empty; it may be good for us to know something of want; but that discipline comes seldom, and is never carried very far. God's machinery for distribution is perfect, and its very perfection, with the constancy of the resulting blessings, robs Him of His praise and hinders our gratitude. And we may apply the same thought of the unbroken continuity of God's gifts to the higher region of our spiritual experience. His supplies of wisdom, love, joy, peace, power, to our souls are always enough and more than enough for our wants. He means that there should be no parentheses of famine in our Christian life. The source is full to overflowing, and there are no limits to the supply. The only limit is our capacity, which, again, is largely determined by our desire. A. M. 18. The God of the Scriptures transcends any limiting conception. "He inhabiteth eternity;" "He filletth all things." Philosophy may talk ever so proudly, she can never go beyond this. His unchangeable abode is the infinity of time and space, and yet He thinks the finite truly, as finite, and as it is thought by the finite intelligence. This is the transcending mystery of the Bible; it presents both these wondrous aspects of Deity, and that, too, without betraying, on the part of the Divine messengers, any feeling of dissonance, any misgiving sense of contradiction. God is so far off that all differences of space and rank vanish before Him, and yet is He "nigh, very nigh to every soul that calleth upon Him." T. Lewis. Call upon Him in truth. The holiness of a prayer is not at all concerned in the manner of its expression, but in the spirit of it—that is, in the earnestness of its desires, the innocence of its ends, and the continuance of its employment. This is the verification of that great prophecy which Christ made, that in "all the world the true worshippers should worship in spirit and in truth"—that is, with a pure mind, with holy desires for spiritual things, according to the mind of the Spirit, in the imitation of Christ's intercession, with perseverance, with charity, or love. Bishop Taylor. To call upon God in truth is, first, to repose an implicit confidence in the faithfulness of His promise, and to look for unlimited answers to prayer from the riches of His grace in Christ Jesus. But it is also, in the next place, to feel our own urgent need of the things for which we supplicate, and to realize an earnest and unfeigned concern to obtain them. "What things ye desire when ye pray," said the Lord, "believe that ye receive them and ye shall have them;" and hence we gather that the hearty desire, arising out of the consciousness of need, is an integral and inseparable part of genuine and effectual prayer. T. Dale. 18,19. God's people are a praying people, a generation of seekers, and such commonly are speeders. God never said to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye My face in vain. They seek His face, righteousness and strength, and He is found of them. The saints alone betake themselves to God and His help, run to Him as their sanctuary. They only sensibly need, and so alone crave and implore, Divine succor; and God will not suffer His people to lose the precious treasure of their prayers. "The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him; He will fulfil their desire, He will hear their cry." That God who prepares His people's heart to pray, prepares also His own ear to hear; and He that promiseth to hear before we call, will never deny to hearken when we cry unto Him. As Calvin saith, "Oppressions and afflictions make man cry, and cries and supplications make God hear." Anon. 18-20. "Nigh to those who call upon Him in truth," makes "in truth" emphatic, and suggests that sometimes men nominally, apparently, call upon God with no real sincerity, no sense of dependence, no feeling of want, no humble uplifting of the heart for His gracious help. To such callers God is by no means nigh. The real call that rises from a full and earnest soul, a broken and humble spirit, He can never despise. The Psalmist defines their character as those that "fear Him" and "love Him." C.—To genuine suppliants Jehovah is present—viz., in grace (for in His might He is everywhere); He fulfils the desire of them that fear Him, inasmuch as their will is also His, and grants them the salvation for which they pray. Those who in v. 19 were called those that fear Him, are called those that love Him in v. 20, after the example of the Decalogue. Fear and love of God belong inseparably together, for fear without love is an unfree, servile state of mind, and love without fear is audacious familiarity; the one dishonors the all-gracious One, the other the all-exalted One. All those, however, that love and fear Him, He preserves, while, on the other hand, He exterminates all wanton sinners. D. When God is slow in giving He only sets off His own gifts to advantage, He does not withhold them. Blessings long desired are sweeter when they come; if soon given, they lose much of their value. God reserves for you that which He is slow to give you, that you may learn to entertain a supreme desire and longing after it. Augustine.—Thou desirest to be rid of thy present trouble; the Lord shall rid thee out of trouble. Thou desirest to be delivered from temptation; the Lord shall deliver thee out of temptation. Thou desirest to be delivered from thy body of death; and the Lord shall change this thy vile body, that it may be like to His glorious body. Thou desirest to be in the presence of God, and among the angels in heaven; this thy desire also shall be fulfilled, and thou shalt be made equal to the angels. "Oh, but it is long first." Well, learn first to live upon thy portion in the promise of it, and that will make thy expectation of it sweet. God will fulfil thy desires; God will do it, though it tarry long: "Wait for it, because it will surely come, it will not tarry." Banyan. If the apparently ruthless march of events in the world's history seems sometimes to thrust us and our concerns all out of sight, here is the answer. God is not a man, to whom there is a difference between great and small. He can, and He alone can, reconcile the happiness, the holiness, the true interest of every soul with the real good of the whole; and though He is ruling the world, He is still the Father, and the loving Father, of every one of us. That yearning prayer which brings us nearer to Him, because it expresses our dependence on Him, shall assuredly be satisfied, even if it appear to be refused. A day will come when we shall look back on all the prayers which have gone up from our inmost hearts, and shall see that even those which have been most plainly denied have yet been, wonderful to say, most plainly granted. We shall see that, had we known what we then shall have learned, precisely that very thing has been done which our consciences would have bid us pray for; and that our prayer, so far from being unheard, has been treasured up in the counsels of God. It is this tender regard for each man's own longings, own wants; this watching over the movements and the needs of every separate soul; this fatherly care; this never-sleeping love; which Christ promises in His Father's name. We know not precisely what is best for us. We know not what will make us truly happy. We know not what will help us best in our struggle against temptations. And if we were to try to make a distinction between our mere passing wishes and that which our souls really needed, we should utterly fail. But we need not try. Let us take all our wishes, all our longings, all the promptings of our consciences, to the feet of our Father. He will hear and He will do. He will hear all we say. He will know what parts of our prayer are best for us to have, and what are not. And He will give us what His Fatherly love will choose. And therefore to all our prayers we will add, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." For this is the corresponding feeling on our parts. The answer to absolute care and infinite love is absolute resignation and absolute trust. The resignation and the trust are bound together. We must be resigned because we trust. Bishop Temple. It was one of the infrequent expressions of his inner life by the late Professor Stuart: "I have learned that the value of prayer depends not so much on its intensity in moods, or its regularity in times, as on its constancy as a continuous way of living. We need to live in a state of prayer." Suffering had taught him that. Few men reach that discovery, except through some sort of disciplinary trial. In spiritual experience, necessity is the mother of discovery, as it is of invention in the material world. Prayer as a state of holy living is abundantly recognized in Scripture. "Pray without ceasing." "Continuing instant in prayer." "In everything by prayer . . . let your requests be made known." "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same." "Praying always, with all prayer and supplication." And far back in the elder dispensation David said, "At evening and morning and noon will I pray." Constancy of devotional desire is inborn in the spirit of holy living. Augustine, Madame Guion, John Tauler, President Edwards, Edward Payson, and a host of others, were often overheard in fragmentary colloquy with God. Luther indulged with such freedom of speech in this sort of converse with God that in almost any other man it would have been irreverent. Zinzendorf used to write notes to "the Lord Christ." So strong was his faith in Christ's personal friendship, and his own need of that friendship as a daily solace, that once on a journey he sent back his companion that he might converse more freely with the Lord, with whom he talked audibly. Thomas à Kempis says: "He alone is a thousand companions; He alone is a world of friends. That man never knew what it was to be familiar with God, who complains of the want of friends while God is with him." Phelps. The key to the real life of godliness, intellectual, devotional, and practical, lies in "devotion." The man of God must be the man of prayer, and he who prays best will live best. What we all want is a more complete and perfect system and habit of both private and public devotion. That will, of course, include meditation, or the devout study of God's Holy Word, and no other study than a devout study is worth mentioning. Above all, it must begin and end in a contemplation of Jesus Christ, the Lord and Saviour of us all. It is He whom we must set before us at the beginning of our prayers; it is through Him we must pray, and it is to Him we must look for the answer to our prayers. And because devotion brings us nearer to Christ, because it puts Christ and Christ crucified before us as the very object of worship, meditation, contemplation, and action, therefore it is that the key to a life of godliness lies in a life of devotion. Bishop of Chichester. 20. That love Him.** Every man must go out of himself for enjoyment. Something in this universe besides himself there must be to bind the affections of every man. There is that within us which compels us to attach ourselves to something outward. There is a pent-up energy of love, gigantic for good or evil. Its right way is in the direction of our eternal Father, and then, let it boil and pant as it will, the course of the man is smooth. Expel the love of God from the heart, and then we have the riot of worldliness—a man of strong affections thrown off the line, tearing himself to pieces, and carrying desolation along with him. F. W. R.—If Christ ever wins the fort of the soul, the conquest must begin in the affections; for the understanding and will seem to be like a castle or fortified place; there is strength indeed in them, but the affections are the soldiers who manage those holds. The opposition is from these; and if the soldiers surrender, the place itself, though never so strong, cannot resist. South. The Lord prescreeth all them that love Him. They keep Him in their love, and He keeps them by His love. See how these favored ones have advanced from fearing the Lord and crying to Him, even to loving Him, and in that love they are secure from all danger. Mark the number of "alls" in these later verses of the Psalm. In each of these God is all in all. S. Sublimely the Psalmist closes with declaring his own personal purpose: "My mouth shall speak the praise of Jehovah"—now and evermore, with this mortal tongue and this human pen, now; and with my immortal song through the ages of the eternal future. And "let all flesh, all of human kind, men of every nation, bless His holy name forever, all along down the lapse of years till time shall be no more; and then begin their truly everlasting song! C. Praise the LORD, O my soul. 2. While I live will I praise the LORD: I will sing praises unto my God while I have any being. 3. Put not your trust in princes, Nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help. 4. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; In that very day his thoughts perish. 5. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, Whose hope is in the LORD his God: 6. Which made heaven and earth, The sea, and all that in them is; Which keepeth truth for ever: 7. Which executeth judgment for the oppressed; Which giveth food to the hungry: The LORD looseth the prisoners; 8. The LORD openeth the eyes of the blind; The LORD raiseth up them that are bowed down; The LORD loveth the righteous; 9. The LORD preserveth the strangers; He upholdeth the fatherless and widow; But the way of the wicked he turneth upside down. 10. The LORD shall reign for ever, Thy God, O Zion, unto all generations. THE remaining are all Praise-songs, each commencing with "HALLELUJAH;" i.e., a call to all the people to praise the Lord. Noticeably this word belongs to the later Hebrew, not being found in any Psalm ascribed to David, nor indeed in any of the Psalms of the first three books. In the Psalms of the age of the restoration it occurs very frequently. These Psalms obviously belong to the age of the restoration. C. These closing Psalms are impassioned calls to the universal praise of God. The vast whole of the visible and rational as well as the invisible and irrational creation is here summoned to praise the Lord. For His blessings upon the earth; for His glories in the heavens; for His rich, abundant bounties and His ever watchful and sustaining providences; for His wisdom, and power, and goodness, and especially for His sovereign mercy to man; for His love and grace to the Church, for the constitution of her ordinances, for the power He hath given unto her, and the final exaltation which He hath promised her—for all these blessings and hopes the inspired singer exhorts the universe of celestial, terrestrial, rational, and sentient creatures to unite in one general song of ardent, grateful praise. Above all and with peculiar distinction is the exhortation addressed to man, the temporary and accountable ruler of the earth; to those who behold and comprehend His wise and wondrous working. B. As we get toward the end, and as the book closes, it is Hallelujah, praise. As the ancient Church ceases to speak to us, as she lays down her lyre and ceases to touch it, the last tones are tones of heaven; as if the warfare were done, the conflict accomplished, and she were anticipating either the revelations which are to make her glorious here, the "new thing" which God is about to "create" when He places her under another dispensation, or as you and I (I trust) shall do when we come to die, anticipating the praise and occupation of that eternity and rest for which we hope in the bosom of God. Binney. The perfect naturalness of the Psalms appears, perhaps, most forcibly in their exultant freedom and joyousness of heart. It is true, as Lord Bacon says, that "if you listen to David's harp you will hear as many hearse-like airs as carols;" yet still the carols are found there more than anywhere else. "Rejoice in the Lord." "Sing ye merrily." "Make a cheerful noise." "Take the Psalm, bring hither the tabret, the merry harp, with the lute." "Oh, praise the Lord, for it is a good thing to sing praises unto our God." "A joyful and pleasant thing it is to be thankful." This, in fact, is the very meaning of the word "Psalm." The one Hebrew word which is their very pith and marrow is "Hallelujah." They express, if we may so say, the sacred duty of being happy. Be happy, cheerful, and thankful as ever we can, we cannot go beyond the Psalms. Stanley. 1. Hallelujah! Praise, oh my soul, Jehovah! The Hallelujah never appears in any Psalm which bears the name of David, and is indeed as characteristic of the later Psalms as the Selah is of the more ancient. A. 2. The prevailing character of the Divine revelation is joyful; and this appears in its psalmody. The Gospel, to all who understand it aright, is melody—music; the highest harmony of God with man, of man with man, of man with himself. It is throughout a noble hymn, swelling to the strain, “Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, good will to men;” and he who enters fully into its spirit cannot but have his soul suffused with a sacred joy that will overflow in utterance of praise. Ker.—Praise calls into exercise the highest faculties and affections of our nature. It requires little more than animal instinct to tell our wants and plead for relief with the importunity that cries give, give. But praise lifts us to a higher sphere and employs our noblest powers. There is no prayer in heaven, but God inhabits the praises of eternity. Praise puts us in the best receiving attitude before God. It opens the heart that He may come in and sup with us. H. J. V. Alas for that capital crime of the Lord’s people, barrenness in praises! Oh, how fully I am persuaded that a line of praises is worth a leaf of prayer, and an hour of praises is worth a day of fasting and mourning! J. Livingstone. 4. The primary idea of breath and the secondary one of spirit run into each other in the usage of the Hebrew word, ruah, so that either may be expressed in the translation without entirely excluding the other. His breath (or spirit) goeth forth. The spirit goeth free or inviolate in essence; death is not the end, but the outgoing of the soul, a transmigration or journey from one place to another. “It goeth forth;” so the character of our weakness we see in the issue; it is an argument of our eternity; for man indeed is perishing, but so is not his spirit. The phoenix goes forth or out of his ashes, “the spirit returneth to God who gave it;” that is, it abides still: and as in the body it pleased God to enclose the soul for a season, so it may as well exist elsewhere without it, if God will; for it hath no rise at all from the clay; yea, it bears in it immortality, an image of that breast whence it is breathed. T. Williamson. He returneth to his earth. The earth is “his.” It is “his” as it is the only property which he has in reversion. All that a man—a prince, a nobleman, a monarch, a millionaire—will soon have will be his grave, his few feet of earth. That will be his by the fact that for the time being he will occupy it, and not another man! But that, too, may soon become another man’s grave, so that even there he is a tenant only for a time; he has no permanent possession even of a grave. Barnes. His thoughts perish. With his breath his thoughts, or “purposes,” or “schemes,” however grand the conception, however masterly the execution, all come to an end. The science, the philosophy, the statesmanship of one age is exploded in the next. The men who are the masters of the world’s intellect to-day are discrowned to-morrow. In this age of restless and rapid change they may survive their own thoughts; their thoughts do not survive them. P. All the thinkings of men that are not really and thoroughly true, however beautiful and magnificent they may be, and whatever favor they may find with their parents or with man to whom they are presented, when men come to die they will find that they all perish and become nothing if they are not true; when the mind enters into the world of truth, pure truth and intellect, it will find it can carry nothing but truth with it. We may apply this to purposes, projects, and intentions: “In that very day his thoughts perish.” Binney.—As the purposes of all about worldly things perish in the approaches of death, so do the purposes of some about spiritual and heavenly things. How many have had purposes to repent, to amend their lives and turn to God, which have been prevented and totally broken off by the extremity of pain and sickness, but chiefly by the stroke of death when they have (as they thought) “been about to repent.” Caryl. The sowers for earth have their harvest here: Success in their schemes; quiet, intellectual enjoyment; exemption from pain and loss; the fruits of worldly-wise sagacity. And that is all. “When the breath goeth forth they return to their dust and all their thoughts perish.” The grave is not to them the gate of paradise, but simply the impressive mockery which the hand of death writes upon that body for which they lived, and with which all is gone. They reap corruption, for all they have toiled for decays! F. W. R. Whose hope is in the Lord. In spiritual as in earthly things there is great strength in hope, and therefore God’s people are carefully to cultivate that grace. A wellgrounded hope that having been made new creatures in Jesus Christ we are His; that with our names, though unknown to fame, written in the Book of Life we have grace in possession and heaven in prospect; that after a few more brief years, pure as the angels that sing before the throne, we shall be brought with gladness into the palace of the King, to be like Christ, and with Christ, seeing Him eye to eye and face to face—such hopes are powerful springs of action. The source of a peace that passeth understanding, nothing could be better calculated to wean our affections from the world and deepen our abhorrence of sin, and inflame our desires to be holy as God is holy. Guthrie. Hope is the ease; yea, the life of our hearts, which would otherwise break and even die within us. Despair is no small part of hell. God cherishes hope, as He is the lover of souls. Satan, our enemy, cherishes despair when his more usual way of presumption fails. Hope anticipates salvation as fear does evil. It is the hypocrite's hope that perishes, and all who hope for durable happiness on earth must be deceived. But "happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God, which made heaven and earth, which keepeth truth forever." Woe to me "if in this life only I had hope." But the righteous hath hope in his death. And hope maketh him not ashamed. Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. "Lay hold," then, oh my soul, "upon the hope set before thee;" it is thy "sure and steadfast anchor," without which thou wilt be as a shipwrecked vessel. It is an encouraging grace; it excites our "diligence," and helps "to full assurance unto the end." It is a desiring grace, and is earnest to obtain the glory hoped for. It is a comforting grace, for "the God of hope fills us with all joy and peace in believing, that we may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost." Shake off despondency, oh my soul, "and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Baxter. The assurance of hope rests on the promises of God. It is allied to faith; nay, it grows out of faith, and it increases with the increase of faith. It results from a firm, unshaken trust in God's gracious declarations. To see ourselves accepted, we must previously "see the things that are freely given us of God." As it is the open view of Gospel promises of free salvation through Jesus Christ which first brings us into vital union with our Redeemer, so it is the further application of the same promises to our own case, the seeing of ourselves as included in them, which gives us the joy of assurance. J. W. A. 6. Two reasons are here given for relying upon God: His almighty power as exercised and proved in the creation of the world, and His unchangeable fidelity. A.—He who made heaven can make a heaven for us, and make us fit for heaven. He who made the earth can preserve us while we are on earth, and help us to make good use of it while we sojourn upon it. He who made the sea and all its mysteries can steer us across the pathless deeps of a troubled life and make it a way for His redeemed to pass over. This God who still makes the world by keeping it in existence is assuredly able to keep us to His eternal kingdom and glory. Which keepeth truth forever. This is a second and most forcible justification of our trust; the Lord will never permit His promise to fail. He is true to His own nature, true to the relationships which He has assumed, true to His covenant, true to His Word, true to His Son. S. Truth is a word of frequent occurrence and of wide signification in the Bible. The primary meaning of the Greek word is openness. But in the Hebrew the primary idea of truth is that which sustains, which does not fail or disappoint our expectations. The true, therefore, is that which can be depended upon, which does not fail, or change, or disappoint. In this sense God is true as He is immutable and faithful. His promise cannot fail; His Word never disappoints. His Word abideth forever. When our Lord says, "Thy Word is truth," He says that all that God has revealed may be confided in as exactly corresponding to what really is, or is to be. His Word can never fail, though heaven and earth pass away. C. Hodge.—He is one "who keepeth truth forever." It is the central thought of the Psalm. For on this ground beyond all others is God the object of trust. He is true and His Word is truth, and that Word He keeps, not for a time, but forever. 7-9. These verses portray God's character as a ruler. It is such a God who is Zion's King (v. 10). Such an one men may trust, for He is not like the princes of the earth (v. 3). P. S. The Lord openeth the eyes. Here and everywhere the Scripture assumes that only those who have received Christ are really awake and truly see. Other men walk about like those that walk in their sleep. Objects are shadowy and indistinct to them. They do not seem to realize whither they are going, nor by what they are surrounded. They seem not to see or to be fastened only upon dreamlike fancies. The Christian is awake. He has done dreaming. He alone truly sees. What is shadow and what is substance is clear to him. Illusions have vanished. Earth, man, and time look to him as they are. Light upon the reality of things shines only in Christ. A. L. Stone. 9. Jehovah preserves strangers; orphan and widow He relieves; and the way of wicked men makes crooked. The stranger, the orphan, and the widow are constantly presented in the Law as objects of compassion and beneficence. Relieves, restores, raises up from their low condition. As a straight path is an emblem of prosperity, to render one's path crooked is to involve him in calamity. A.—He turneth aside. Rendered by the E. V. in Ecclesiastes, "made crooked." That which happens in the course of God's providence, and as the inevitable result of His righteous laws, is usually ascribed in Scripture to His immediate agency. P. The way of the wicked He turneth upside down. He overturns their plans, defeats their schemes, makes their purposes accomplish what they did not intend they should accomplish. The Hebrew word here means to bend, to curve, to make crooked, to distort; then, to overturn, to turn upside down. The same word is applied to the conduct of the wicked in Psalm 119: 78: "They dealt perversely with me." This is the eleventh reason why those who put their trust in God are happy. It is that God is worthy of confidence and love, because He has all the plans of wicked men entirely under His control. Barnes. A striking illustration of the folly of counting God out of one's plans for life is given in the course of William M. Tweed. Here was a man who sought wealth and power, and who for a time seemed successful in their pursuit. Apparently he did not propose to obey God or to live for a life to come. What he wanted was worldly prosperity. He thought he had it. He went to Congress. He gathered his millions. He controlled the material interests of the metropolis of his country. He openly defied public sentiment and courts of justice in the prosecution of his plans. He was a brilliant and therefore a dangerous example of successful villainy. But the promise of prosperity for the life which now is is only to the godly. As Tweed lay dying in a prison-house in the city he once ruled, his confession of bitter disappointment was, "My life has been a failure in everything. There is nothing I am proud of." If any young man wants to come to an end like this, the way to it is simple and plain. "The great God that formed all things both rewardrewardeth the fool and rewardeth transgressors." S. S. T. 10. And the beauty and glory of the case is that this precious, munificent, and righteous reign shall endure forever! The very God of Zion is to sit on the throne of the heavens and the earth through all generations. Oh, give His name all praise! C. Let our voices be in harmony with our conduct, lest haply our good voices give testimony against our evil conduct. Oh, what a happy Alleluia in heaven, where angels are the temple of God! For there must be the most perfect harmony of those who sing praise, where the singers enjoy a gladness free from anxiety; where no war in the members wars against the law of the mind; where there is no conflict with appetite wherein the victory of love can be endangered. Here, then, let us sing Alleluia while we are still in anxiety, that we may be able some day to sing it there free from anxiety. Even here, amid dangers, amid temptations, let Alleluia be sung both by ourselves and by others. For, it is written, "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." Therefore let us even in this world sing Alleluia. Man is still guilty; but God is faithful. Oh, what a happy Alleluia in the world to come! Oh, how free from anxieties! Oh, how free from adversaries! where no enemy will exist, where no friend is lost. Praises to God there, and praises to God here; but here sung by those that are anxious, there by those who are freed from anxiety; here by those who must die, there by those who will live forever; here in hope, there in possession of reality; here in the Way, there in the Country. Therefore let us sing for the solace of our toil; even as travellers are wont to sing, cheer thy toil by singing; sing, and walk on. Now, indeed, the glory of our God, the glory of our Christ is hidden, and with Him our own also is hidden. "But when Christ, your Life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory." Then there shall be Alleluia in reality; now we have it in hope. Hope sings it, love sings it now, love shall also sing it then; but now love sings it hungering, then love will sing it enjoying. Behold, you now hear the Word, and take delight in hearing it; and in your delight you praise God. If you love the dewdrops so much, how greatly will you love the actual fountain! Augustine. Song, Secular and Spiritual. Its Adaptations and Uses. Song, secular or sacred, is natural, in accordance with and demanded by our material and spiritual being. It is physically beneficial. It stirs the bodily energies and gives intensity and recruiting power to daily toil. It has special exclusive adaptations to our social nature. It is demanded by the social element in all intelligent creatures. Hail-fellowship among worldly men and holy fellowship among holy beings, angels and men, were impossible without it. It is the only vehicle by which mutual sentiments, tastes and sympathies can find common, simultaneous expression. It is the mighty instrument by which these sentiments, tastes, and sympathies, be they degrading or elevating, impure or holy, are deepened, strengthened, made more active and effective for evil or good. A single song was one of the most potent instrumentalities in achieving the French Revolution. A single choral of Martin Luther, with its Doxology, in various tongues, has contributed vastly to the advance of a pure Reformed Christianity over the earth. More than these physical and social effects is the influence of song upon the spiritual nature, upon the mind, the heart. Constituted man is with a susceptibility in every faculty to be touched and stirred to life and enjoyment by harmonious sounds. True harmony, so far as its own proper influence goes, is only quickening and beneficial alike to the understanding, the will, and the emotions. It refreshes, invigorates, stimulates, and elevates the tone of thought, of purpose, of aspiration, and feeling. Even upon the worldly spirit it has this effect. The voice of tender, plaintive song is the only thing that ever excites a serious thought or an unselfish desire in some world-loving, self seeking souls. But to the Christian it is a most powerful impulse, a most blessed help, solace, joy. It comes in to aid and cheer in all his experiences—toiling, struggling, fainting, rejoicing, sorrowing, living, and dying. Sacred song, springing from and expressing the soul of devotion, quickens into activity every spiritual grace of the believer; it helps to exalt, refine, and expand his whole spiritual being. It calls out most naturally and exercises most purely and effectively penitence, submission, gratitude, faith, and love. It aids him in the labors, the cares, the discouragements of life; in his struggles with temptation; in his burdening sense of unworthiness and guilt; in his endurance of trouble, pain, and affliction. It calms the troubled waves of his soul as did the voice of Jesus the stormy sea. When, in its wearying toils and wearing cares, in its deepest heart struggles and griefs, the trusting soul breaks forth in tenderest, sweetest songs, it is sustained and comforted, it is possessed with peace and joy, while it gathers strength and courage for future struggle and duty. "Nothing comforts me more in my greatest sufferings," said Baxter, "or seems more fit for me while I wait for death, than singing Psalms of praise to God." And as these are the blessed effects of devotional song upon the believer's spiritual life, so we know that the deepest feelings of the Christian do always find the most natural channel for their flow in such song. President Edwards writes: "I often used to sit and view the moon for continuance, and in the day spent much time in viewing the clouds and sky to behold the sweet glory of God in these things; in the mean time singing forth with a low voice my contemplations of the Creator and Redeemer." "I felt God, so to speak, at the first appearance of a thunderstorm, and used to take the opportunity at such times to view the clouds and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God's thunder, which oftentimes was exceedingly entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplation of my glorious God. While thus engaged it always seemed natural to me to sing or chant forth my meditations, or to put my thoughts in soliloquies with a singing voice." It has been thus with the most eminent saints. Living, they have found their sweetest, tenderest devotion and their deepest comfort, their simplest trust and their loftiest aspirations, their purest gratitude and their warmest affection, their firmest assurance, their brightest hopes, and their highest rapture in the same sacred songs of Zion. And to the dying Christian how precious, how comforting, how blessed these songs, as (we all well know) almost every death of the earnest, fervent believer testifies. Nearer as such an one has drawn to the presence of Jesus, has the music of that name refreshed the soul the more. Nearer as such an one has drawn to the glory and the joy of the ransomed throng, has he participated or desired to hear those songs of gratitude and praise which form a chief part in their Divine and lasting employ. By considerations conclusive, powerful, and touching as these—considerations personal to each—is the duty of sacred song in God's worship, in the closet, the family, and pre-eminently in the sanctuary urged upon all. B. 1. PRAISE YE THE LORD. For it is good to sing praises unto our God ; For it is pleasant, and praise is comely.2 The LORD doth build up Jerusalem ; He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel.3 He healeth the broken in heart, And bindeth up their wounds.4 He telleth the number of the stars ; He giveth them all their names.5 Great is our Lord, and mighty in power ; His understanding is infinite.6 The LORD upholdeth the meek : He bringeth the wicked down to the ground.7 Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving ; Sing praises upon the harp unto our God :8 Who covereth the heaven with clouds, Who prepareth rain for the earth, Who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains.9 He giveth to the beast his food, And to the young ravens which cry.10 He delighteth not in the strength of the horse : He taketh no pleasure in the legs of a man.11 The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, In those that hope in his mercy. 12. Praise the LORD, O Jerusalem ; Praise thy God, O Zion.13 For he hath strengthened the bars of thy gates ; He hath blessed thy children within thee.14 He maketh peace in thy borders ; He filleth thee with the finest of the wheat15 He sendeth out his commandment upon earth ; His word runneth very swiftly.16 He giveth snow like wool ; He scattereth the hoar frost like ashes17 He casteth forth his ice like morsels : Who can stand before his cold ?18 He sendeth out his word, and melteth them : He causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.19 He sheweth his word unto Jacob, His statutes and his judgments unto Israel.20 He hath not dealt so with any nation : And as for his judgments, they have not known them. PRAISE YE THE LORD ! It can scarcely be doubted that this Psalm has special reference to the restoration of Jerusalem after the captivity in Babylon, and it was probably used at the celebration of that joyful event recorded in Neh. 12 : 27-43. From beginning to end the poet connects God's special goodness to Israel, as now manifested, with His infinite power, wisdom, and goodness in the natural world. De Witt. The four remaining Psalms (147-150) are connected together and distinguished from what goes before by the Hallelujah with which they all begin and end ; by their joyous tone, unmixed with lamentation or complaint ; by their frequent allusions to some great deliverance recently experienced ; and by the peculiar way in which they bring together the exhibitions of God's glory in the works of nature and in His dealings with the Church. A. Like the last Psalm, and like those which follow it, this is evidently an anthem intended for the service of the second temple. It celebrates God's almighty and gracious rule over His people and over the world of nature, but mingles with this a special commemoration of His goodness in bringing back His people from their captivity and rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. In the allusions to these events in vs. 2, 3, and vs. 13, 14, we shall probably be justified in seeing the occasion of the Psalm. It may have been written for the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, which, as we learn from Neh. 12 : 27, was kept "with gladness, both with thanksgivings and with singing, with cymbals, psalteries, and with harps." It is, indeed, not improbable, as Hengstenberg suggests, that not this Psalm only, but the rest of the Psalms to the end of the book, are all anthems originally composed for the same occasion. The wall had been built under circumstances of no ordinary difficulty and discouragement (Neh. 2 : 17-4 : 23) ; its completion was celebrated with no common joy and thankfulness ; "for God had made them rejoice with great joy ; the wives also and the children had rejoiced; so that the joy of Jerusalem was heard even afar off." See Neh. 12: 27-43. P. In the seventh year of Artachschasta (Artaxerxes I. Longimanus) Ezra the priest had entered Jerusalem after a journey of five months with about two thousand exiles, for the most part out of Levite families (458 B.C.). In the twentieth year of the same gracious king (445 B.C.) came Nehemiah, his cup-bearer, in the capacity of a governor (Tirschāta). While Ezra used every endeavor to introduce the Mosaic law once more into the consciousness and the general character of the people, Nehemiah furthered the building of the city, and more especially of the walls and gates. It is the mood of the restoration period of Ezra and Nehemiah that we hear expressed in this and the two following Psalms even more distinctly than in the closely kindred preceding one. In this Psalm God is thanked for the restoration of Jerusalem, which is now again a city with walls and gates; in Psalm 148 for the restoration of the national independence; and in Psalm 149 for the restoration of the capability of joyously and victoriously defending themselves to the people long rendered defenceless and ignominiously enslaved. D. In this Psalm there is first a challenge to the worship of God, then an evoking of religious national sentiment, then a message of comfort and hope to the destitute and sorrowful, and last the interwoven theologic element in affirmation of the providence, power, and bounty of God. So throughout the devotional and poetic portions of the Hebrew Scriptures the theologic and emotional elements are so placed as to be counteractive in their influence upon the human spirit. Lest the devout affections should pass off into a feeble sentimentalism there is conjoined with the expression of emotion some reference to awe-inspiring attributes of the Divine nature; and again, lest the meditation of infinite power and purity should lead to pantheistic mysticism, the worshipper is reminded of his frailty, his dependence, and unworthiness. I. T. 1. This verse might perhaps be better rendered with the change of a single consonant: "Praise ye Jehovah, for He is good; sing unto our God, for He is lovely; comely is the hymn of praise." P.—Praise is good and acceptable to God our Saviour, whose glory is the great end of man's creation and redemption; and it is pleasant and comely for man, being the only return he can make for those and all other mercies; the offspring of gratitude, and the expression of love; the elevation of the soul, and the antepast of heaven; its own reward in this life and an introduction to the felicities of the next. Bishop Horne. For it is good to sing praises unto our God. It is good because it is right, because it is acceptable with God, beneficial to ourselves, and stimulating to our fellows. Singing the Divine praises is the best possible use of speech; it speaks of God, for God, and to God, and it does this in a joyful and reverent manner. Jehovah is our God, our covenant God, therefore let Him have the homage of our praise; and He is so gracious and happy a God that our praise may best be expressed in joyful song. S.—That the joyful should sing is as natural as that the afflicted should pray—rather more natural. Song as the expression of cheerfulness is something universal in human nature; there were always, both in Israel and among all other nations, songs of joy. Hence it is constantly mentioned in the prophets, by whom joyous singing is used as a frequent figure, even as they threaten that God will take away the song of the bridegroom and the bride, and so forth. The singing of men is in itself good and noble. The same God who furnished the birds of heaven with the notes wherein they unconsciously praise their Creator gave to man the power to sing. As David in his day took care that there should be practised singers for the sanctuary, we also should make provision for the Church's service of song, that God may have in all respects a perfect offering. How gracious and lovely is the congregation singing with the heart acceptable songs! Rudolf Stier. God has been pleased that on every side the useful should blossom out into the beautiful, and so speech has music wedded to it like an ethereal bride. But there is a reason for song that lies deeper in man's constitution still. It is found not in the ear and voice merely, but in the spirit. God has made the inner atmosphere of the soul's emotions and affections susceptible of the thrilling pulsations of music, as He has made the atmosphere around us capable of receiving and transmitting the quivering vibrations of sound. There is a power of song that addresses itself as truly to the higher emotional nature of man, and that stirs it as deeply as the breathing thoughts and burning words of eloquence itself. Ker. 2,3. In v. 2 we might read, "Jehovah is the builder of Jerusalem;" this rebuilding, then fresh in their eyes, is the work of His hands. "He will gather the outcasts of Israel together;" His scattered captives He will restore to their native land and raise them again to a place of honor among the nations. The captives who sat by the rivers of Babylon and wept as they remembered Zion, the Lord has met in mercy, wiped their tears away, and bound up their heart-wounds. C. 3-5. It is a noble thing to study God's universe. It is a nobler thing to be acquainted with Himelf. It is the noblest of all to unite these two; to feel the mercy of God's heart, and see the majesty of His handiwork, and to accept them both as godlike, and both as ours; "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds; He telleth the number of the stars, He calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power; His understanding is infinite." The conclusion of the whole matter is that he who feels that he has a soul will find his way into a spiritual world, and he who feels that he has sin will find a Divine fitness in the Gospel of Christ. And when he embraces it, he will come to see that "the stars in all their courses" fight for that Gospel. Both revelations are worthy of God, and each, rightly considered, contributes to the fulness of the other. But of the two, the Gospel is more needful to us. The "bright and morning star" is more to our soul's firmament than all the constellations of the sky. It is needed even the more for that vastness of creation which, without its guiding light, would bewilder and blind us, for truly viewed, the Gospel, instead of requiring a defence against astronomy, stands justified by it as a grand moral and spiritual necessity. Ker. 4-6. The train of thought which now leads the poet to the stars is plain from the primary passage Isa. 40 : 26, 27. To be acquainted with human sorrow and to relieve it, is an easy and small matter to Him who has assigned a number to the stars, calls them all by names which are the expression of their true nature which is well known to Him, the Creator. What Isaiah says (40 : 26, 28) is expressed here in v. 5 : Great is our Lord and mighty in power, and of His understanding there is no number; i.e., in its depth and fulness it is definable by no number. What a comfort for the Church upon its often labyrinthine and entangled ways! Its Lord is the Allwise as well as the Almighty. Its history is, like the universe, a work of profound and rich Divine understanding. It is a mirror of gracious love and righteous anger. Meek afflicted ones He strengthens; malevolent sinners, on the other hand, He abases to the earth, hurling deep down to the ground those who exalt themselves to the skies. D. #### 4. Tellethe the number of the stars. The number of the "stars," of "man's months," of his "steps," of the "hairs of his head," is fixed by like decree. Nature declares that the same hand shapes and numbers alike the ponderous planet and the falling tear; and David responds, "He telleth the number of the stars." "He healeth the broken in heart." "Put Thou my tears in Thy bottle; are they not in Thy Book?" The microscope reveals exquisite care in the adjustment of conditions for the tiny lives of the millions that tenant a raindrop. Paul says to his fellow-voyagers, leaning on the promise made to him in prayer, "There shall not a hair fall from the head of any of you." Is the one conception of a minute Providence more extravagant than the other? J. B. Thomas. He calleth them all by their names. Literally, "calleth names to all of them," an expression marking not only God's power in marshalling them all as a host (Isa. 40 : 26), but also the most intimate knowledge and watchful care, as that of a shepherd for his flock (John 10 : 3). P. The stars are innumerable, yet He counts them and knows the exact number of them, for they are all the work of His hands and the instruments of His providence; their bulk and power are very great, but He calleth them all by their names, which bespeaks His dominion over them to make what use of them He pleases. He musters them, He marshals them; they come and go at His bidding, and all their motions are under His direction. He mentions this as one instance of many to show that great is our Lord and of great power; He can do what He pleases, and of His understanding there is no computation, so that he can contrive everything for the best. Man's knowledge is soon drained, and you have his utmost length; hitherto his wisdom can reach and no farther; but God's knowledge is a depth that can never be fathomed. H. 6. The same Lord who with infinite power and unsearchable wisdom rules the stars in their courses rules also the world of man. The history of the world is a mirror both of His love and of His righteous anger. His rule and His order are a correction of man's anarchy and disorder. 7-11. A fresh burst of praise because of God's fatherly care, as shown in His provision for the wants of the cattle and the fowls of the air. And as He feeds the ravens, which have neither storehouse nor barn, but only cry to Him for their food, so among men His delight is not in those who trust in their own strength and swiftness, but in those who look to Him, fear Him, put their trust in His goodness. P. 8,9. One of the most prominent and striking features of this series of Psalms is the continual blending of God's agencies in nature with His works in His providential government. In the former he gives the rain of heaven and the grass on the mountains; in the latter He builds Jerusalem, restores the exiles, visits retribution of good or evil upon saints and sinners as they deserve. It seems to be a special aim with the writer (and with the inditing Spirit) to impress the great truth that the same God doeth all these things. C. To say that beauty, and order, and adaptation reign through all ranks of being is no more than to repeat an often-told tale. Observe first, the consummate beauty of God's arrangements in regard to mute, unorganized matter, from the grand but simple law which retains the planets in their orbits to that which forms the hidden crystals in the depths of the mine, or the frostwork on the window-pane, which melts with the first sunbeam. All is full of subjects for wonder and admiration. Let us rise one step, and from unorganized matter come to organic life. Life, the special gift of God, is not the result of any combination of matter. Every portion of the frame in which it resides might be reproduced by art, but the beautiful model most wait for vitality till it is breathed down from the Creator Himself. There is no part of the earth but is full of animal life, no animal that is not a study inexhaustible in its proofs of creative wisdom and providing love. It has often struck me that the more we think of the utter incapability of the lower tribes of creation for increase of knowledge and skill, and compare it with their perfect knowledge and skill in that which is given them to do, the more do we see the present and acting power and love of God. They are so helpless, yet so full of needful resources; so unconscious of wisdom, yet so wise; so reckless of the future, yet so provident; so incapable of high motives, yet so self-devoted in their affections, that it appears to me that between these extremes in the same beings, so wonderful, so inexplicable, there must come in, living and moving, and present day by day, the will of that gracious Father, the love of that Divine Son, the working of that blessed Spirit of wisdom, whose strength is made perfect in weakness, who hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, whose tender mercies are over all His works. Alford. 8. Maketh grass to grow upon the mountains. Not only in their power of growing without cultivation, but also in the peculiarities of their structure, the mountain grasses proclaim the hand of God. Instead of producing flowers and seed as the grasses in the tranquil valleys do, the young plants spring from them perfectly formed. They cling round the stem and form a kind of blossom. In this state they remain until the parent stalk withers and falls prostrate on the ground, when they immediately strike root and form independent grasses. This is a remarkable adaptation to circumstances; for it is manifest that were seeds instead of living plants developed in the ears of the mountain grasses, they would be useless in the stormy regions where they grow. They would be blown away far from the places they were intended to clothe, to spots foreign to their nature and habits, and thus the species would speedily perish. The more we think of it, the more we are struck with the wise foresight which suggested the creative fiat, "Let the earth bring forth grass." It is the most abundant and the most generally diffuse of all vegetation. It suits almost every soil and climate. Macmillan. Gather a single blade of grass, and examine for a minute, quietly, its narrow, sword-shaped strip of fluted green. Nothing, as it seems there, of notable goodness or beauty. And yet, think of it well, and judge whether of all the gorgeous flowers that beam in summer air, and of all strong and goodly trees pleasant to the eyes or good for food—stately palm and pine, strong ash and oak, scented citron, burdened vine—there be any by man so deeply loved, by God so highly graced as that narrow point of feeble green. And well does it fulfil its mission. Consider what we owe to the meadow grass, to the covering of the dark ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those soft, countless, and peaceful spears of the field! Follow but for a little time the thought of all that we ought to recognize in those words. All spring and summer is in them; the walks by silent, scented paths, the rest in noonday heat, the joy of the herds and flocks, the power of all shepherd life and meditation; the life of the sunlight upon the world, falling in emerald streaks and soft blue shadows, when else it would have struck on the dark mould or scorching dust; pastures beside the pacing brooks, soft banks and knolls of lowly hills, thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea; crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, softening in their fall the sound of loving voices. All these are summed in the simple words; and these are not all. Go out in the springtime, among the meadows that slope from the shores of the Swiss lakes to the roots of their lower mountains. There, mingled with the taller gentians and the white narcissus, the grass grows deep and free; and as you follow the winding mountain paths beneath arching boughs all veiled and dim with blossom—paths that forever droop and rise over the green banks and mounds sweeping down in scented undulation, steep to the blue water, studded here and there with new-mown heaps, filling all the air with fainter sweetness—look up toward the higher hills, where the waves of everlasting green roll silently into their long inlets among the shadows of the pines; and we may, perhaps, at last know the meaning of those quiet words of the one hundred and forty-seventh Psalm, “He maketh the grass to grow upon the mountains.” Ruskin. 9. Young ravens which cry. No bird is more careful of its young ones than the raven. To its habit of flying restlessly about in search of food to satisfy its own appetite and that of its young ones may perhaps be traced the reason of its being selected by the sacred writers as an object of God’s especial care. W. Houghton. 10. The best explanation of this verse is that it was intended to describe horse and foot, or cavalry and infantry, as forming the military strength of armies. It is not to those who trust in these that God is disposed to extend favor, nor do these advantages at all attract Him. A.—It is not the strength of armies, but the strength of grace that God is pleased to own. H. 11. Pleased (is) Jehovah with those fearing Him, with those hoping for His mercy. A.—They that fear the Lord; i.e., they that, recognizing their own feebleness, feel themselves dependent upon His omnipotence—it is in these that He delights, in such as, renouncing all self-confident dependence upon their own efforts, wait for His grace. D. Them that fear Him, those that hope in His mercy. A sincere Christian is known by both these—a fear of God, or a constant obedience to His commands, and an affiance, trust, and dependence upon His mercies. Sweetly are both these coupled, a uniform, sincere obedience to Him, and an unshaken constant reliance on His mercy and goodness! The whole perfection of the Christian life is comprised in these two, believing God and fearing Him, trusting in His mercy and fearing His name; the one maketh us careful in avoiding sin, the other dilligent to follow after righteousness; the one is a bridle from sin and temptations, the other a spur to our duties. Fear is our curb, and hope our motive and encouragement; the one respects our duty, and the other our comfort; the one allayeth the other. God is so to be feared as also to be trusted; so to be trusted as also to be feared. Such as both believe in God and fear to offend him are the only men who are acceptable to God and His people. God will take pleasure in them, and they take pleasure in one another. Manton.—His mercy is “great;” it is “plenteous;” it is “abundant;” it is “everlasting;” many times we are told that it “endureth forever;” it is “high as heaven;” nay, “above the heavens,” and the “earth is full” of it; God is “rich” in it; He “magnifies” it; He “delights in” it; while, as for the man who is its object, it “follows” him through life; it “compasses him about,” “crowns” him like a coronal. Dykes. 12. Again the Psalmist begins his hymn of praise, and now with a direct reference to the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the bright prospect which seemed to dawn upon the nation after its restoration. P. 12-20. The summons is addressed to the Church again gathered round Jerusalem on the soil of the promised land. The holy city has again risen out of its ruins; now once more it has gates which can stand open in broad daylight, and which, as the darkness falls, can be closed and bolted for the security of the community that as yet was small in point of numbers (Neh. 7: 1-4). The blessing of God rests once more upon the children of the holy mother-city. Its territory, which has experienced all the horrors of war, and which formerly resounded with the din of arms and lamentation and destruction, God has now, from being a field of battle, made into peace; and seeing the land can now again be cultivated in peace, the ancient promise is fulfilled, that God would feed His people, if they would only obey Him, with the fat of wheat. The God of Israel is indeed the Almighty Ruler of the world of nature. It is He that sends His mandate earthward; the Word is His messenger; i.e., it runs as swiftly as possible in order to discharge the commission upon which it is sent. It is He that sends down snowflakes like flocks of wool, so that the fields are covered with snow as with a white woollen warm cloth. He scatters hoar-frost about like ashes, so that trees are crusted over with the fine frozen dew or mist, as if they were powdered with ashes which the wind has blown hither and thither. Another time He casts down His ice as hailstones. It comes to pass, further, that God sends forth His word and makes them (snow, hoar-frost, and ice) melt away; He makes His thawing wind blow, the waters flow; i.e., as soon as the one takes place the other also takes place forthwith. This God now, who rules all things by His Word and fashions them according to His will, is the God of the revelation made known in the history of redemption, the revelation which has come to Israel, and as the bearer of which Israel takes the place of honor among the nations. D. 14. The devout Hebrew loved to remember that God's miracles were but the prelude to God's providence. And among the special benefits for which thanksgiving was rendered was this, that it was a land at once removed from the world's fields of strife and blessed with the world's chiefest cereals. God's grace was seen as much in their homes as in their history, and in their harvests as in their laws. Interior.—Peace and wheat! The two things are germane, joined together and inseparable. War is destruction and death. The fruits of the earth and all the best products of human industry wither before it; want and famine follow in its path. Peace is the essential condition of plenty, and of plenty, in all its forms, wheat is the appropriate symbol. Where the sower scatters the seed and the reaper gathers the harvest in safety; where children have abundance of bread; where the kneading trough and the pantry, the storehouse, the freight train, and the swift ships of commerce are all filled with the finest of the wheat—there all the arts that sustain and adorn human life must flourish, and there the Almighty Father blesses human industry with the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth. The wealth of nations and of individuals comes out of our mother earth. It does not consist in gold and silver; they are only its counters and the medium of exchange. It consists in that which will build our houses and keep us warm in winter, and furnish the means of transportation, and cover our nakedness and feed our hunger. And when we have more of these than we need, then with the surplus we can pay our debts and honestly increase our temporal comforts with the surplus industries and products of other lands. And this is just the process by which God has gradually turned the tide of prosperity to our shores, and fills every generous heart with devout thanksgiving. "He has made peace in our borders and filled us with the finest of wheat." H. J. V. Behind the snowy loaf is the mill-wheel; behind the mill the wheat-field; on the wheat-field falls the sunlight; above the sun is God. Russell. 16. Frosts are from God; with Him are the treasures of the snow and the hail (Job 38:22, 23), and out of these treasures He draws as He pleases. He giveth snow like wool; it is compared to wool for its whiteness (Isa. 1:18) and its softness; it falls silently and makes no more noise than the fall of a lock of wool; it covers the earth, and keeps it warm, like a fleece of wool, and so promotes its fruitfulness. See how God can work by contraries, and bring meat out of the eater, can warm the earth with cold snow. H. "The snowflake," as Professor Tyndall strikingly says, "leads back to the sun," so intimately related are all things to each other in this wonderful universe. It leads further and higher still, even to Him who is our sun and shield, the light and heat of all creation. The whole vast realm of winter, with its strange phenomena, is but the breath of God. S. In the range of inorganic nature, I doubt if any object can be found more perfectly beautiful than a fresh, deep snowdrift seen under warm light. Its curves are of inconceivable perfection and changefulness; its surface and transparency alike exquisite; its light and shade of inexhaustible variety and inimitable finish, the shadows sharp, pale and of heavenly color, the reflected lights intense and multitudinous, and mingled with the sweet occurrences of transmitted light. No mortal hand can approach the majesty or loveliness of it. Ruskin. Look, first, at the beauty of the snow. It makes a spiritual world of this dull, dark earth of ours; and the fields that seemed fit only for the growth of man's food and the tread of weary feet in the common labors of life, covered with its white, immaculate carpet, look like a celestial floor on which white-winged angels on lofty errands of mercy might alight from the kindred heavens. The snow-crystals are the blossoms of inorganic nature. Their beauty is not a chance endowment. It is God's Hall-mark, attesting that the work is His. Such beauty is a reflection of the Divine image, not something that God does, but something that He is, really and suitably a part of Himself. It awakens that curiosity about God which is an essential element of worship. He who arranged the particles of snow into such exquisite shapes of beauty can bring order out of our confusion and change our vile bodies and spirits into the likeness of Christ's. Look at the power of the snow. In a few hours God's little army of snowflakes does a work which defies all the resources of man to undo it, and before which he has to pause baffled and defeated. Look, further, at the service of the snow. "He giveth snow like wool," says the Psalmist. The comparison expressively indicates one of the most important purposes which the snow serves in the economy of nature. It covers the earth like a blanket during that period of winter sleep which is necessary to recruit its exhausted energies and prepare it for fresh efforts in spring. He who warms the tender latent life of the flowers by the snow, and moulds the quiet beauty of the summer landscape by the desolating glacier, makes the cold of adversity to cherish the life of the soul, and to round into spiritual loveliness the harshness and roughness of a carnal, selfish nature. Look at the Giver of the snow. The Psalmist had not the shadow of a doubt that God formed and sent the annual miracle of snow, as He had formed and sent the daily miracle of manna in the desert. It was a commonplace thing; it was a natural, ordinary occurrence; but it had the Divine sign upon it, and it showed forth the glory and goodness of God as strikingly as the most wonderful supernatural event in his nation's history. Macmillan. 17. He casteth forth His ice like morsels. Or, shivers of bread. It is a worthy saying of one from this text: The ice is bread, the rain is drink, the snow is wool, the frost a fire to the earth, causing it inwardly to glow with heat; teaching us what to do for God's poor. Trapp.—Who can stand before His cold? The beasts cannot; they retire into dens (Job 37: 8), they are easily conquered then. Men cannot, but are forced to take the benefit of fires or furs, or both, and all little enough where and when the cold is in extremity. We see not the causes when we feel the effects, and therefore we must call it His cold, it is of His sending, and therefore we must bear it patiently, and be thankful for warm houses and clothes and beds. 18. Thaws are from God; when He pleases He sendeth out His Word, and melteth them; the frost, the snow, the ice, are all dissolved quickly, in order to which He causes the wind, the south wind, to blow, and the waters which were frozen flow again as they did before. We are soon sensible of the change, but we see not the causes of it, but must resolve it into the will of the First Cause. And in it we must take notice not only of the power of God that He can so suddenly, so insensibly make such a great and universal alteration in the temper of the air and the face of the earth (what cannot He do that doeth this every winter, perhaps often every winter?), but also of the goodness of God; hard weather does not always continue—it would be sad if it should; He does not contend forever, but renews the face of the earth. H. The grass and flowers and trees are provided for and preserved by the physiological laws of their own growth, and the animal kingdom has the added power of instinct supplementing the physiological function of organs; structure, function, and instinct all working together in effective concert prepare the endangered species for the wintry frost and storms, and for the work of another spring when the round of life is once more to begin. The old story ever new, newer and better as we learn more of it at every repetition. P. A. Chadbourne. The soft gales from the south which bring a general thaw are from the Lord, as were those wintry blasts which bound the streams in icy bonds. Simple but effectual are the methods of Jehovah in the natural world; equally so are those which He employs in the spiritual kingdom; for the breath of His Holy Spirit breathes upon frozen hearts, and streams of penitence and love gush forth at once. Observe how in these two sentences the Word and the wind go together in nature. They attend each other in grace; the Gospel and the Holy Spirit co-operate in salvation. S. 19. When the Psalmist would praise God for the preservation of Israel and the restoration of Jerusalem, as he does in this Psalm, it is not to the wonderful miraculous events with which the history of Israel abounded that he directs attention, but to the common events of Providence and the ordinary appearances and processes of nature. He cannot think enough of the Omnipotent Creator and Ruler of the universe entering into familiar relations with His people and condescending to their humblest wants. It is the same God that "giveth snow like wool," who "shows His Word unto Jacob, and His statutes and commandments unto Israel." And the wonder of the peculiarity is enhanced by thoughts borrowed from the wonders of nature. Macmillan. 20. The ancient Israelites fed upon the dainties of the earth and the corn of heaven. Yet they were endowed with the richer blessings of being a light to enlighten the gentiles; they were a city set on a hill; they might have been philanthropists on the largest scale; they were the depositaries of knowledge inestimable. By their bright example all the surrounding tribes might have been won over to the true religion. In respect to their position, central, illuminating, furnished with attractive influ- ences, God had dealt with them as He had with no other nation. B. B. E. The most distinctive feature which is common to all the writers in the Old Testament, and peculiar to no one age or portion of the literature, while the classical authors of Greece and Rome, as well as the writings of Confucius, and even the Hymns of the Veda, may be said in comparison to be entirely devoid of it, is an unswerving faith in God, and a confident and firm reliance and dependence upon His unfailing goodness and mercy. We may truly say that, beyond the limits of the Old Testament, and those writings which have come under its influence and imbibed its spirit there is nothing that bears any adequate analogy to this feature. Here these ancient writings stand pre-eminent and unique. And this fact alone, as characterizing the best specimens of the nation who produced such a literature is sufficient to stamp them as the covenant people of God. If the Almighty were to make a covenant with any nation, we might surely pronounce beforehand that this is how it would manifest itself. But this in the Jewish nation is how it did manifest itself, as witnessed by the national literature; and seeing that a like manifestation was made in no other people, the inference is inevitable—nay, forced upon us, that their poet was warranted in his joyous and grateful outburst, He hath not dealt so with any nation. Leathes. There is not a moment of any day of our lives when nature is not producing scene after scene, picture after picture, glory after glory, and working still upon such exquisite and constant principles of the most perfect beauty, that it is quite certain it is all done for us and intended for our perpetual pleasure. And every man, wherever placed, however far from other sources of interest or of beauty, has this doing for him constantly. It is not in the broad and fierce manifestations of the elemental energies, nor in the clash of the hail, nor the drift of the whirlwind that the highest characters of the sublime are developed. God is not in the earthquake, nor in the fire; but in the still small voice. It is in quiet and subdued passages of unobtrusive majesty, the deep, and the calm, and the perpetual, that which must be sought ere it is seen, and loved ere it is understood; things which the angels work out for us daily, and yet vary eternally; which are never wanting and never repeated; which are to be found always, yet each found but once; it is through these that the lesson of devotion is chiefly taught, and the blessing of beauty given. Ruskin. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: Praise him in the heights. 2. Praise ye him, all his angels: Praise ye him, all his host. 3. Praise ye him, sun and moon: Praise him, all ye stars of light. 4. Praise him, ye heaven of heavens, And ye waters that be above the heavens. 5. Let them praise the name of the LORD: For he commanded, and they were created. 6. He hath also stablished them for ever and ever: He hath made a decree which shall not pass away. 7. Praise the LORD from the earth, Ye dragons, and all deeps: 8. Fire and hail, snow and vapour; Stormy wind, fulfilling his word: 9. Mountains and all hills; Fruitful trees and all cedars: 10. Beasts and all cattle; Creeping things and flying fowl: 11. Kings of the earth and all peoples; Princes and all judges of the earth: 12. Both young men and maidens; Old men and children: 13. Let them praise the name of the LORD; For his name alone is exalted: His glory is above the earth and heaven. 14. And he hath lifted up the horn of his people, The praise of all his saints; Even of the children of Israel, a people near unto him. Let the Heavens and the Earth PRAISE JEHOVAH. THIS Psalm abounds in the boldest personifications. It not only celebrates the Almighty rule of God over all the creatures He has made, but calls upon them all to utter His praise. De Witt.—The great Hallelujah chorus rises in this Psalm to a loftier strain, calling upon all that is in the heavens (other than God) and all that is upon the earth to unite in extolling the Great God with highest praises. With noticeable method and order vs. 1-6 group together the details of the upper, heavenly world; while vs. 7-14, in like manner, seize upon the salient points of this earthly sphere—first, the inanimate and the unintelligent orders; and lastly, the intelligent. C. In this splendid anthem the Psalmist calls upon the whole creation, in its two great divisions (according to the Hebrew conception) of heaven and earth, to praise Jehovah. Things with and things without life, beings rational and irrational, are summoned to join the mighty chorus. The Psalm is an expression of the loftiest devotion, and embraces at the same time the most comprehensive view of the relation of the creature to the Creator. P. In this Psalm the loftiest believing consciousness is united with the grandest possible view of the world. The Church appears here as the leader of the praising universe. It knows that its experiences have a central and universal significance for the collective life of creation; that the grace bestowed upon it is sufficient to transport all beings in heaven and on earth into joyous commotion. And it calls not only upon everything in heaven and on earth, that stands with it in fellowship of thought, of word, and of freedom, to praise God, but also upon sun, moon, and stars, water, earth, fire, and air, mountains, trees, and beasts; yea, even such phenomena of nature as hail, snow, and mist. D. It is but faintly and afar off that the ancient liturgies (except so far as they merely copied their originals) come up to the majesty and the wide compass of the Hebrew worship, such as it is indicated in the one hundred and forty-eighth Psalm. Neither Ambrose, nor Gregory, nor the Greeks, have reached or approached this level. Feeble, indeed, is the tone of these anthems of the ancient Church; sophisticated or artificial is their style. Nor would it be possible—it has never yet seemed so—to Christianize the Hebrew anthems, retaining their power, their earth-like richness, and their manifold splendors—which are the very splendors and the true riches and the grandeur of God's world—and withal attempered with expressions that touch to the quick the warmest human sympathies. As to the powers of sacred poetry, those powers were expanded to the full, and were quite expended too, by the Hebrew bards. What are modern hymns but so many laborious attempts to put in a new form that which, as it was done in the very best manner so many ages ago, can never be well done again, otherwise than in the way of a verbal repetition. I. T. 1. The thrice-repeated exhortation, "Praise . . . Praise . . . Praise," in this verse is not merely imperative, nor only hortative, but it is an exultant hallelujah. Geier. The call does not rise step by step from below upward, but begins forthwith from above in the highest and uttermost spheres of creation. The place from whence, above all, the praise is to resound, is the heavens; it is to resound in the heights—viz., the heights of heaven. D. 2. Praise ye Him, all His angels. Angels are first invoked, because they can praise God with humility, reverence, and purity. The highest are the humblest, the leaders of all created hosts are the most ready themselves to obey. Le Blanc.—They were already praising their Maker before the light of day, and they have never ceased their holy song. They praised Christ as God when they sang their Gloria in Excelsis at the incarnation, and they praised Him as man when they ministered to Him after His temptation and before His crucifixion. Lorinus. These blessed spirits surround the throne of God with endless praise and adoration. Admitted, as pure creatures, to see His face, the mere presence of God, the mere nearness of perfect goodness and love doth cause them to prostrate themselves in worship, and pour out themselves to Him in sacred hymns. Praise and worship seem to be the natural gesture of unfallen creatures in the presence of their Creator. In the simple, exulting loyalty of beings created, yet excellent in strength, yielding themselves up in cheerful uprightness and gladness of duty to be filled with His Spirit, in the presence of whom they stand, such creatures seem to render to their Maker, as they are perfect in their kind, and the more in proportion as they are more perfect in their kind, the tribute of thankful praise. Moberly. 3,4. Let the sun, the fount of light, and warmth, and gladness, the greater light which rules the day, the visible emblem of the uncreated wisdom, the Light which lighteth every man, the centre round whom all our hopes and fears, our wants and prayers, our faith and love, are ever moving; let the moon, the lesser light which rules the night, the type of the Church, which giveth to the world the light she gains from the Sun of Righteousness; let the stars, so vast in their number, so lovely in their arrangement and their brightness, which God hath appointed in the heavens, even as He hath appointed His elect to shine forever and ever; let all the heavens with all their wonders and their worlds, the depths of space above, and the waters which are above the firmament, the images of God's Holy Scripture and of the glorious and the mysteries contained therein—let these ever praise Him who made and blessed them in the beginning of the creation. Bargon. 4. This verse sublimely traverses the immensities which are the home of the most exalted dignities who wait on Deity, and then it descends to the firmament where the meteors flash forth, and where the heavens stoop to lift the clouds that aspire from earth. And the idea sustained is that all these vast realms, higher and lower, are one temple of unceasing praise. Venema. 5. Let them praise the name of the Lord; for He commanded, and they were created The name of Jehovah is written legibly upon His works, so that His power, wisdom, goodness, and other attributes are therein made manifest to thoughtful men, and thus His name is praised. The highest praise of God is to declare what He is. The Lord is to be extolled as creating all things that exist, and as doing so by the simple agency of His Word. He created by a command; what a power is this! Well may He expect those to praise Him who owe their being to Him. The voice which said, "Let them be," now saith, "Let them praise." 6. Submission to law is praise. Obedience is homage; order is harmony. In this respect the praise rendered to Jehovah from the "bodies celestial" is absolutely perfect. His almighty power upholds all things in their spheres, securing the march of stars and the flight of scraphs; and thus the music of the upper regions is never marred by discord. The eternal hymn is forever chanted; even the solemn silence of the spheres is a perpetual Psalm. S. 7-14. The call to praise Jehovah now turns in the second group of verses to the earth and everything that belongs to it in the widest compass. D. 7. The second great division of created things—that is, according to the Old Testament view, the earth. Sea-monsters, mentioned first, as at the bottom of the scale in creation, as in Gen. 1:21. P. 8. Winter has glories all of its own—"hail, snow, and vapor, stormy wind, fulfilling His word," who has appointed the seasons in their regular succession, and who has "marked the bounds that winter may not pass, and blunts its pointed fury." Doubtless, in ways which we cannot fathom, the hail and snow and wintry storm do fulfil His Word. But there are also ways in which, by their immediate effects in these northern homes of ours, they do directly His great will in binding together more strongly those family ties which are of His own ordaining. Our northern winters make home dearer than ever, and the social intercourse at "our ain fireside" binds us one to another in the exercise of the sweet charities of the household. The home which God, rejoicing in the tender name of Father, has built up, brings us nearer to Himself. God, who loves to show Himself as the Head of the great family of heaven and earth, specially blesses whatever promotes family union. J. A. Camden. The "stormy wind" is the swift messenger of God. The hurricane fulfils the Divine command. "Even the winds and the sea obey Him." The words of this verse have special use; for men are exceedingly apt to ascribe the violence of tempests to blind chance. Geier. The law of storms is unquestionably that of providential good, just as truly as the law of fair weather. And many an instructive moral might we gather from the lessons of storms, besides our observance of the manner in which God produces, controls, and uses them. As He hath His way in the whirlwind and the storm, so He hath in all our trials, which are the storms and tempests of our mortal pilgrimage, and in which, or under which, or through the means of which, the character justly and carefully disciplined, grows more in grace and ripens faster for glory than in serene and shining weather. Cheever. Nature's swift changes from heat to cold, and from storm to calm, are but ever-recurring intimations that God fulfils His work in many different ways. One cannot but feel awe at the touch of the zephyr when he remembers that the same power which moves it also whirls the cyclone; and one can face fearlessly the cyclone when he feels in his heart that He who thunders in the whirlwind is the same God who whispers in the zephyr. Heat and cold and the "stormy wind, fulfilling His Word," have each their place in God's world of nature; and joy and sorrow, and the sudden stroke of unexpected calamity, have each their place in His world of grace. When the Psalmist contemplated these changes in nature, as evidencing Divine power, he could not refrain from calling upon others to join with him in praising the Lord for all His goodness to the children of men; and surely his must be unseeing eyes and an unfeeling heart who, looking upon God's works in the kingdom of grace, does not praise God for the sorrow that strengthened, as well as the joy that cheered, and especially for those sudden strokes of chastisement which recalled the erring one from wandering in deceitful paths which lead down only to death. S. S. T. 9. The mountains and all hills, fruit-trees and all cedars. Not fruitful trees as distinguished from barren trees, but fruit-trees (literally, tree of fruit), as distinguished from forest-trees, here represented by the cedar, which is usually spoken of in Scripture as the noblest species, and therefore called the cedar of God. A. Mountains and all hills. What voices have the hills! How solemn the sounds of the mountains from their sublime solitudes! The mountains thunder, and the hills re-echo; but they speak peace and send down plenty to the vales in running rivulets. Le Blanc.—It was, indeed, absolutely necessary that such eminences should be created, in order to fit the earth in any wise for human habitation; for without mountains the air could not be purified, nor the flowing of the rivers sustained, and the earth must have become for the most part desert plain or stagnant marsh. But the feeding of the rivers and the purifying of the winds are the least of the services appointed to the hills. To fill the thirst of the human heart for the beauty of God's working, to startle its lethargy with the deep and pure agitation of astonishment, are their higher missions. They are as a great and noble architecture; first giving shelter, comfort, and rest; and covered also with mighty sculpture and painted legend. It is impossible to examine in their connected system the features of even the most ordinary mountain scenery without concluding that it has been prepared in order to unite as far as possible, and in the closest compass, every means of delighting and sanctifying the heart of man. But among the true mountains of the greater orders the Divine purpose of appeal at once to all the faculties of the human spirit becomes still more manifest. Inferior hills ordinarily interrupt in some degree the richness of the valleys at their feet; but the great mountains lift the lowlands on their sides. And whatever is lovely in the lowland scenery becomes lovelier in this change: the trees which grew heavily and stiffly from the level line of plain assume strange curves of strength and grace as they bend themselves against the mountain-side; they breathe more freely, and toss their branches more carelessly as each climbs higher, looking to the clear light above the topmost leaves of its brother tree; the flowers which on the arable plain fell before the plough, now find out for themselves unapproachable places where, year by year, they gather into happier fellowship, and fear no evil; and the streams which in the level land crept in dark eddies by unwholesome banks now move in showers of silver, and are clothed with rainbows, and bring health and life wherever the glance of their waves can reach. Ruskin. Fruitful trees. Rather fruit-trees; the fruit-bearing tree being representative of one division of the vegetable world, planted and reared by man: the "cedars" of the other, which are (Psalm 104: 16) of God's own plantation. So in v. 10 we have wild animals and domesticated animals. Aglen.—The praise of God is in the rustling voices of the trees. They fulfil His purpose in giving fruit to refresh, and shelter and shadow for a covert, and their murmur is the soft cadence that chants mercy and grace. Thus the trees of the wood redound to His glory. Le Blanc. The seeds which are to prolong the race, innumerable according to the need, are made beautiful and palatable, varied into infinitude of appeal to the fancy of man or provision for his service: cold juice, or glowing spice, or balm, or incense, softening oil, preserving resin, or lulling charm, and all these presented in forms of endless change. Fragility or force, softness and strength, in all degrees and aspects; unerring uprightness, as of temple pillars, or undivided wandering of feeble tendrils on the ground, mighty resistances of rigid arm and limb to the storms of ages, or wavings to and fro with faintest pulse of summer streamlet. Roots cleaving the strength of rock, or binding the transience of the sand; crests basking in sunshine of the desert, or hiding by dripping spring and lightless cave; foliage far tossing in entangled fields beneath every wave of ocean, clothing with variegated, everlasting films the peaks of the trackless mountains, or ministering at cottage doors to every gentlest passion and simplest joy of humanity. Being thus prepared for us in all ways, and made beautiful and good for food, and for building, and for instruments of our hands, this race of plants, deserving boundless affection and admiration from us, become, in proportion to their obtaining it, a nearly perfect test of our being in right temper of mind and way of life; so that no one can be far wrong in either who loves the trees enough, and every one is assuredly wrong in both who does not love them, if his life has brought them in his way. Ruskin. All cedars. Beautiful indeed is the pine forest in all seasons: in the freshness of spring, when the gnarled boughs are penetrated and mollified by the soft wind and the warm sun, and, thrilled with new life, burst out into fringes and tassels of the richest green and cones of the tenderest purple; beautiful in the sultry summer, when among its cool, dim shadows the cheated hours all day sing vespers, while the open landscape is palpitating in the scorching heat; beautiful in the sadness of autumn, when its unfading verdure stands out in striking relief amid changing scenes, that have no sympathy with anything earthly save sorrow and decay, and directs the thoughts to the imperishableness of the heavenly Paradise; beautiful exceedingly in the depth of winter, when the tiers of branches are covered with pure, unsullied wreaths of snow, sculptured by the wind into curves of exquisite grace. It is beautiful in calm, when the tree-tops scarce whisper to each other, and the twitter of the golden wren sounds loud in the expectant hush; it is more than beautiful in storm, when the wild fingers of the wind play the most mournful music on its great harp-strings, and its full diapason is sublime as the roar of the ocean on a rock-bound shore. It looks like a place made for worship, all its sentiments and associations seem of a sacred and solemn character. Nature, with folded hands, as Longfellow says, seems kneeling there in prayer. It certainly reminds us in various ways of the power, wisdom, and goodness of Him who thus spake by the mouth of His prophet: "I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the fir-tree, and the pine, and the box-tree together; that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it." Macmillan. 11-13. Every creature is full of the praise of God. The phenomena of nature—clouds, snow, rain, wind—are His messengers; the unchangeable laws, according to which the countless worlds above pursue their course, proclaim the glory of His omnipotent Word. In our own world, the animal and vegetable kingdoms, down to their lowest stages, bear the impress of the goodness and omnipotence of God, and are a song of praise upon His glorious attributes. But it belongs to man, above every creature, as the priest of nature, to give an audible expression to her universal praise; a service in which every rank, every age, and every generation have abundant cause for engaging. Anon. 12,13. The Psalms are Church songs, and all who belong to the Church are to sing them. "Both young men, and maidens; old men, and children; let them praise the name of the Lord." The ripe believer who can triumph in the steadfast hope of God's glory is to lend his voice to swell the song of the Church when she cries to God out of the depths; and the penitent, who is still sitting in darkness, is not to refrain his voice when the Church pours out in song her sense of God's love. The whole Church has fellowship in the Psalms. W. Binnie. Music is, beyond all other arts, the expression and vehicle of sympathy. No other art, no other mode of impression, equals music in its power to awaken a common feeling. The orator approaches it, but he deals chiefly with convictions; and conviction is a slow and hard path to feeling, while music makes a direct appeal. The united action of the full chorus and orchestra is a perfect transcript, down to the last and finest particular, of perfected human society. Music as an expression of feeling is a prophecy of that grander exercise of our nature for which we hope. It is the nature of feeling to express itself. Thought may stay behind silent lips; but when it becomes feeling, it runs to expression. Music is an illustration of this law of our emotions, and is the natural expression of deep feeling. History all along culminates in song. The summits of Jewish history from Miriam to David are vocal with Psalms. In some supernal sense, music will be the vocation of humanity when its full redemption is come. The summit of existence is feeling, the summit of character is sympathy, and music is the art-form that links them together. Music is the truest and most nearly adequate expression of the religious emotions, and so becomes prophetic of the destiny of man as a religious being. Music is creatively designed for religion, and not for anything else. It lends itself to almost every human feeling, down to the vilest, but always with suppression of its power. It is not until it is used for the expression of that wide range of feeling which we call religious that it discloses its full powers. Music is the art-path to God, in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Munger. 14. And He has raised up a horn for His people, praise for all His saints, for the children of Israel—a people near to Him. Hallelujah! While all the creatures before mentioned have abundant cause to praise God for His infinite perfection and His goodness to themselves, a peculiar obligation is incumbent on His people; first, for His distinguishing favor through all periods of their history; and then, for a special mercy recently experienced, the restoration from captivity, now completed by the renewal of the temple and the reconstruction of the city walls. This restoration is described by a favorite Davidic figure, as exalting or lifting up the horn of Israel. A.—The Israel of the exile had lost its horn, i.e., its reputation and its power for defence or attack. Now God has again given it a horn, and indeed a high one, i.e., He has helped it to attain again to a position of independence among the nations that commands respect. D. The whole creation, the heavens and their unnumbered worlds, all kingdoms of the material universe, are vocal with conscious or unconscious praise, declaring to His gratified ear His wondrous glory. We may not hear the vast harmony, infinite in variety as in strength, ceaselessly resounding through the illimitable firmaments which make the mighty fabric, a harmony to His fathomless spiritual sense ever audible. But we may hear the chorus of earth's voices to His praise, in the manifold sounds of winds and waters, gentle or terrible, the varied tones of the trees of the wood when played upon by the breath of the zephyr or the blast of the storm, with the manifold and many-toned utterances of the whole animal creation, all these manifold voices of earth, bespeaking God's power, wisdom, and goodness, entering our thoughtful souls, suggest not vaguely the universal ordaining of praise to God as the sublime end and duty of all His creation. B. The Being of God is a cause of rejoicing to the universe. Other things are drops, but this is the fountain. Other things are transient, insulated favors; fragments and atoms of beneficence; single flowers of mercy; single draughts of bliss; single odors, wafted from fields of fragrance, but God (let me speak reverently) is the very atmosphere, all comprehending and all-pervading, in which we live, and move, and have our being. Therefore, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord! He that would be joyful, let him be joyful in the Lord! The Book of Psalms is a chamber of holy voices, echo answering echo, deep calling unto deep, with the enthusiasm and rapture of adoring ecstasy and fearful love. We do but rehearse here what we shall utter above, when we call upon all things, silent or vocal, to praise the name of the Lord. J. W. A. A life of praise bringeth comfort to the soul, as standing in the sunshine bringeth light and warmth; or as laboring doth warm the body; or as the sight and converse of our dearest friend, or the hearing of glad tidings doth rejoice the heart, without any great reasoning or arguing the case. This is the way to have comfort by feeling, to be much in the hearty praises of the Lord. When we come to heaven we shall have our joy by immediate vision, and the delightful exercise of love and praise. And if you would taste the heavenly joys on earth, you must imitate the joys of heaven in the ceaseless utterance of praise. Anon. Sing unto the LORD a new song, And his praise in the assembly of the saints. 2. Let Israel rejoice in him that made him: Let the children of Zion be joyful in their King. 3. Let them praise his name in the dance: Let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp. 4. For the LORD taketh pleasure in his people: He will beautify the meek with salvation. 5. Let the saints exult in glory: Let them sing for joy upon their beds. 6. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth, And a two-edged sword in their hand; 7. To execute vengeance upon the nations, And punishments upon the peoples ; 8 To bind their kings with chains, And their nobles with fetters of iron ; THIS Psalm breathes the spirit of intense joy and eager hope which must have been in the very nature of things characteristic of the period which succeeded the return from the Babylonish captivity. Men of strong faith and religious enthusiasm and fervent loyalty must have felt that in the very fact of the restoration of the people to their own land was to be seen so signal a proof of the Divine favor, that it could not but be regarded as a pledge of a glorious future yet in store for the nation. The burning sense of wrong, the purpose of a terrible revenge, which was the feeling uppermost when they had first escaped from their oppressors (as in Psalm 137), was soon changed into the hope of a series of magnificent victories over all the nations of the world, and the setting up of a universal dominion. It is such a hope which is expressed here. P. 1. Sing unto the Lord a new song.** Sing, for it is the fittest method for expressing reverent praise. God is ever new in His manifestations ; His mercies are new every morning ; His deliverances are new in every night of sorrow ; let your gratitude and thanksgivings be new also. Our singing should be "unto the Lord ;" the songs we sing should be of Him and to Him, "for of Him, and to Him, and through Him are all things." S. Saints. (His) beloved, or, "them that love Him." A name repeated vs. 5 and 9, and therefore characteristic of the Psalm. P.—A title not to be restricted to the godly of the first times, but common to all that are saved in all after-times also, as Eph. 4 : 12. This name putteth mere morality and formal profession out of countenance, as the sun doth a glowworm. Saintship is a matter of Divine workmanship, and therefore it is far more remarkable than human excellence. In these times it is to be feared that the name is out of use, because holiness itself is out of fashion. T. Goodwin. 2. Rejoice, be joyful.** Cheerfulness and a festival spirit fills the soul full of harmony. It composes music for churches and hearts ; it makes and publishes glorifications of God ; it produces thankfulness, and serves the ends of charity ; and when the oil of gladness runs over, it makes bright and tall emissions of light and holy fires, reaching up to a cloud, and making joy round about. And therefore, since 9. To execute upon them the judgment written : it is so innocent, and may be so pious and full of holy advantage, whosoever can innocently minister to this holy joy does set forward the work of religion and charity. Bishop Taylor. —An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sadness to serve God with. Fuller. Give us the man who sings at his work ! Be his occupation what it may, he is equal to any of those who follow the same pursuit in silent sullenness. He will do more in the same time, he will do it better, he will persevere longer. One is scarcely sensible of fatigue while he marches to music. The very stars are said to make harmony as they revolve in their spheres. Wondrous is the strength of cheerfulness, altogether past calculation its powers of endurance. Efforts to be permanently useful must be uniformly joyous, a spiritual sunshine, graceful from very gladness, beautiful because bright. Carlyle. 4. The Lord** "taketh pleasure in His people," because they are His people ; those whom He has purchased by His blood, renewed by His Spirit, and redeemed by His power. He "taketh pleasure in them," because in them He is Himself honored and glorified ; because He sees in them the fruit of His suffering and mediation ; because of the work which He has already begun in them ; because they already exhibit some traces of His own image, some transcript of that mind which was in Him, who was "meek and lowly in heart." The Lord takes pleasure in His people, inasmuch as He delights in the exercise of their graces toward Him. He takes pleasure in their poor attempts to please Him, because they are attempts. He weighs not the worth or merit of the action, but the principle and motive from which it springs. So the Lord hath pleasure in the prosperity of His people. We are expressly told that "He rejoiceth over them with joy ;" that "He rejoiceth over them to do them good." 4. He will beautify the meek.** The scriptural term "meekness" is one which singularly characterizes and distinguishes the true Christian. It contains in itself a combination of graces, which are most evidently the fruit of the Spirit, and can grow on no other tree than on the Christian vine. As it respects God, it implies poverty of spirit ; humiliation of heart arising from a sense of guilt and a feeling of corruption ; submission to God's will ; silence and patience under His rod; acquiescence with His dispensations; and a surrender of our own natural desires and inclinations to His overruling appointments. As it respects man, meekness comprehends lowliness of mind, and a readiness to prefer others before ourselves; gentleness of disposition and behavior; forbearance under provocations; forgiveness of injuries; quietness of spirit, and moderation in pushing forward our own interest and benefit. These are the qualities which distinguish "the meek." E. Cooper. Virtue, wisdom, and goodness, those graces of character which constitute moral beauty, never lose their power of attraction. The beauty that shines forth from a pure and sweet-tempered Christian soul far transcends, in all those qualities which command and hold a worthy admiration, the transient charm of mere outward adornment either of nature or art. Meekness, patience, kindness, charitableness, a self-denying spirit—these are the vestments of the highest type of beauty—the kind which commands not only the admiration of the best of men, but is admired by God Himself. Hallock. Of meekness, one of the moderns (Rambach) has said, "It grows out of the ashes of self-love and on the grave of pride." Rooting itself deep in these antecedent beatitudes, in undesert, the sense of which is soul-poverty, and ill-desert, which worketh soul-sorrow, it holds itself ready to fall in with anything, the least or the worst, which God may give. This blessed frame of spirit toward God has its consequent and counterpart in the meek man's social temper. Dykes.—Meekness is that willingness to suffer wrong, or pain, or insult, from our neighbor patiently, and as a medicine from God, not a poison from man, which flows from the conviction that we deserve at God's hand far heavier chastisements than we receive; and that all things, even the unkindness of others, are permitted for our good, and may be converted into blessings. Monsell. There is scarcely a more beautiful or touching phenomenon than when prosperity, which elates a trivial or selfish nature, fills a worthier one, open to the perception of itself and others and of the infinite over all, with mingled lowliness and reverence. Certainly a pure and fixed serenity of spirit, an elevation of thought toward God, and a deepening consciousness of His overshadowing presence, are no unfitting accompaniments to outward successes or triumphs. "When I have ascended before men," says Lord Bacon, in that most sublime and affecting prayer which he composed a few years before his death, "I have descended in humiliation before Thee." Clulow. Meekness has its origin in the religious experience which we call conversion; for it is when the top root of human pride is broken by a thorough crushing down of the soul of its sinfulness before God; it is when the strong man, reduced to cry for mercy at the hands of infinite justice, is fain to receive forgiveness, and hope and peace with God, as unmerited gifts from the very grace of his Redeemer; it is then, and through that religious change, that the heart grows susceptible of true meekness. Then meekness enters, and a tender feeling that one who has himself done so much evil in his day ought to bear with the evil-doing of other men; that one who owes everything to mercy should be above all things merciful. Dykes.—Meekness is love at school; love at the Saviour's feet. It is Christian lowlihood. It is the disciple learning to know himself; learning to fear and distrust and abhor himself. It is the disciple practising the sweet but self-emptying lesson of putting on the Lord Jesus, and finding all his righteousness in that righteous other. It is the disciple learning the defects of his own character, and taking hints from hostile as well as friendly monitors. It is the disciple praying and watching for the improvement of his talents, the mellowing of his temper, and the amelioration of his character. It is the living Christian at the Saviour's feet, learning of Him who is meek and lowly, and finding rest for his own soul. Hamilton. 5. This verse has been fulfilled in solemn crises of saintly life. On beds of death, and at the scaffold and the stake, joy and glory have been kindled in the hearts of Christ's faithful witnesses. Le Blanc. 6-9. "God's praises in their mouths and a two-edged sword in their hand," for they were fresh from the wall-building of the city in which "they who builded on the wall and they that bare burdens, with one of his hands wrought in the work, and with the other hand held a weapon" (Neh. 4: 17). The whole passage looks back probably to the commission which God gave Israel to drive out the idolatrous Canaanites. So far as the letter of it is concerned, its form comes from the past, though in the spirit thereof its outlook may be into the future—the bloodless victories of truth over the hearts of the King's enemies. In the interpretation of this passage it would be quite unauthorized to ignore the great facts of the early history of Israel on the one hand, and not less so on the other hand to ignore the great facts of the future age, set forth even then in prophecy and fulfilled in the Gospel era under the Prince of Peace who gives His people only "the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God." The letter of our passage comes from the former; the spirit and the present meaning are amply revealed in the latter. C. 6. Let the high praises of God be in their mouth and a two-edged sword in their hand. Praise and power go ever hand in hand. The two things act and react upon each other. An era of spiritual force in the Church is always one of praise; and when there comes some grand outburst of sacred song, we may expect that the people of God are entering upon some new crusade for Christ. Cromwell's Ironsides were sneeringly called Psalm-singers; but God's Psalm-singers are always Ironsides. He who has a "new song in his mouth" is ever stronger, both to suffer and to labor, than the man who has a dumb spirit and a hymnless heart. When he sings at his work, he will both do more and do it better than he would without his song. Hence, we need not be surprised that all through its history the Church of God has travelled "along the line o music." W. M. Taylor. 7. To execute vengeance among the nations, punishments among the peoples. Not their own vengeance, but that of God, to whom alone it appertains. This is really nothing more than a prediction, that God would use His people as His instruments in punishing the nations by whom they had themselves been persecuted and oppressed. This was partially fulfilled in the successes of the Maccabees, but under a new and unexpected form, in the spiritual triumphs of the true religion, and its actual or prospective subjugation of the world. 9. As written may mean written in the book of God's decrees, there is no need of supposing a reference to any part of Scripture. If there be such reference, however, it is no doubt to the threatening in Deut. 32 : 41-43. To act as God's instruments in this great judicial process, so far from being a disgrace or hardship, is an honor reserved for all the objects of His mercy and subjects of His grace. The Psalm ends as it began, with Hallelujah! A. (The) judgment written. This has been explained to mean the judgment written in the law, and that either the extermination of the Canaanites, as a pattern for all future acts of righteous vengeance (Stier); or, in a more general sense, such judgments as those threatened in Deut. 32 : 40-43. But perhaps it is better to take it as denoting a judgment fixed, as committed to writing, to denote its unalterable character, written thus by God Himself. As in Isa. 65 : 6, God says, "Behold it is written before Me : I will not keep silence, but will recompense, even recompense into their bosom." It is an honor—that is, the subjection of the world described in the previous verses. But perhaps it is better to take the pronoun as referring to God: "He is a glory to all," etc.; i.e., either His glory and majesty are reflected in His people; or He is the author and fountain of their glory; or He is the glorious object of their praise. P. This honor have all His saints. All the godly shared in the triumphs of the Lord when He smote Israel's foes. We have like honor, but it is shown in victories of another sort. All the holy ones are sent upon errands by their holy Lord. The honors described in this Psalm are common to all the family of grace; and such service as the Lord appoints is to be undertaken by every one of them, without exception. The Lord honors all His chosen here, and He will glorify them all hereafter; this rule is without exception. Surely in this we have the best argument for glorifying the Lord, wherefore we close our new song with another Hallelujah, "Praise ye the Lord." S. It is in the analysis and study of the soul that the greatness of human life is best realized, and our indebtedness toward its Giver most deeply felt. This reflective reason; this heart, capable of a boundless expansion; this will, which may be trained to a freedom and an intensity of power—of what are these faculties so suggestive as of the knowledge, love, and service due to that Being of beings who is the End as He is the Author of this centre of complex and self-controlling life? H. P. L. What takes place in the government of the human family when ruled according to the dictates of nature and right, affords an image, imperfect but still true—a shadowing forth, faint yet faithful—of Divine Providence. Thus it is that the Christian religion qualifies and describes the action of God in the life of man. It exhibits God as ever present and accessible to man, as a father to his child; it exhorts, encourages, invites man to implore, to confide in, to pray to God. It reserves absolutely the answer of God to that prayer; He will grant, or He will refuse; we cannot penetrate His motives—"The ways of God are not our ways." Nevertheless, to prayer, ceaseless and ever renewed, the Christian dogma associates the firm hope that "nothing is impossible with God." This dogma is thus in full and intimate harmony with the nature of man; while recognizing his liberty, it does homage to his dignity; in tendering to him the resource of an appeal to God it provides for his weakness. In science, it suppresses not the mystery which cannot be suppressed; but in man's life, it solves the natural problem which weighs upon the soul. Guizot. The idea of religion which appears on the face of every Psalm is the idea of the unfailing tenderness of God, His understanding of every honest prayer, the certainty that in the vastness and the catastrophes of the world the soul in its own singleness has a refuge, is linked at the throne of the world to its own reward and strength, is held by the hand, is guided by the eye of One who cares for the weakest as much as He is greater than the greatest of His creatures. And there is no mood of mixed and varied feeling, no form of deep and yearning affection, no tone of absorbing emotion, in which this sense of what God is to the soul does not express itself in the Psalms. R. W. Church. 1. PRAISE YE THE LORD. PRAISE GOD IN HIS SANCTUARY: PRAISE HIM IN THE FIRMAMENT OF HIS POWER. 2 PRAISE HIM FOR HIS MIGHTY ACTS: PRAISE HIM ACCORDING TO HIS EXCELLENT GREATNESS. 3 PRAISE HIM WITH THE SOUND OF THE TRUMPET: PRAISE HIM WITH THE PSALTERY AND HARP. 4 PRAISE HIM WITH THE TIMBREL AND DANCE: PRAISE HIM WITH STRINGED INSTRUMENTS AND THE PIPE. 5 PRAISE HIM UPON THE LOUD CYMBALS: PRAISE HIM UPON THE HIGH SOUNDING CYMBALS. 1. HALLELUJAH, PRAISE GOD IN HIS SANCTUARY, PRAISE HIM IN HIS STRONG FIRMAMENT! 2 PRAISE HIM FOR HIS MIGHTY ACTS, PRAISE HIM ACCORDING TO THE ABUNDANCE OF HIS GREATNESS! 3 PRAISE HIM WITH THE SOUND OF HORNS, PRAISE HIM WITH HARP AND CITHERN! 4 PRAISE HIM WITH TIMBREL AND DANCE, PRAISE HIM WITH STRINGS AND PIPE! 5 PRAISE HIM WITH CLEAR CYMBALS, PRAISE HIM WITH CLANGING CYMBALS! 6 LET EVERYTHING THAT HATH BREATH PRAISE JEHOVAH, HALLELUJAH! D. THIS is the great closing hallelujah, or doxology, of the Psalter, in which every kind of musical instrument is to bear its part as well as the voice of man, in which not one nation only, but "everything that hath breath," is invited to join. P.—This is the last of a score of Psalms which declare their own intention as anthems, adapted for that public worship which was the glory and delight of the Hebrew people; a worship carrying with it the soul of the multitude by its simple majesty and by the powers of music, brought in their utmost force to recommend the devotions of earth in the hearing of heaven. Take it as a sample of this class, and bring the spectacle and the sounds into one, for the imagination to rest in. It was evidently to subserve the purposes of music that these thirteen verses are put together; it was no doubt to give effect first to the human voice, and then to the alternations of instruments—loud and tender and gay—with the graceful movements of the dance, that the anthem was composed and its chorus brought out, "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord! Praise ye the Lord!" And so did the congregated thousands take up their part with a shout, "even as the voice of many waters." I. T. The last three Psalms are a triad of wondrous praise, ascending from praise to higher praise, until it becomes exultation which knows no bounds. The joy overflows the soul, and spreads throughout the universe; every creature is drawn into the chorus. Heaven is full of praise, the earth is full of praise, praises rise from under the earth, "everything that hath breath" joins in the rapture. God is encompassed by a loving, praising creation. And each Psalm increases in praise, love, and joy unto this last, which is praise celebrating its ecstasy. The heir of God begins every sentence with Hallelujah; and his sentences are very short. The greatest number of words between any two Hallelujahs is four, and that only once; in every other instance, between one Hallelujah and another there are but two words. It is as though the soul gave utterance to its whole life and feeling in the one word, Hallelujah! The words, "Praise ye the Lord!" or "Praise Him!" "Praise Him!" "Praise Him!" are reiterated no fewer than twelve times in a short Psalm of six short verses. John Pulsford. 1. Praise Him both in earth and heaven. The sanctuary is the earthly one, and stands opposed to the firmament or heaven, called the firmament of His power, as being the most glorious proof and product of its exercise, and still the scene of its most striking exhibitions. The phrase is to be understood as comprehending the hosts of heaven, both inanimate and living, both material and spiritual. A. The sanctuary is manifestly here looked at as the temple of grace, the firmament as the temple of power. So the verse proclaims both grace and glory. Geier.—Praise God in His sanctuary. Where should He be praised but there where He does, in a special manner, both manifest His glory and communicate His grace? Praise God upon the account of His sanctuary, and the privileges which we enjoy by having that among us (Ez. 37 : 26). 2. Praise Him for His mighty acts;** for His mightinesses, so the word is; for all the instances of His might, the power of His providence, the power of His grace; what He has done in the creation, government, and redemption of the world; for the children of men in general, for His own Church and children in particular. H. 1,2. We are to praise Jehovah "in His sanctuary," in the place where His glory dwells, where His holiness shines forth with ineffable splendor; we are to praise Him in the wide expanse over which He has spread the tokens of His power, whether in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath; we are to praise Him for those omnipotent acts whereby He hath shown Himself to be above all gods; we are to praise Him in a manner suited to the excellent majesty of a Being whom all the heavens adore, and who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. His holiness, the infinity of His operations, the miraculous power which He has displayed, the unspotted excellence of His administration, call for loudest songs of praise from all whose reason enables them to rise to the contemplation of the great Supreme. J. Morison. 3. Praise Him with blast of trumpet! Praise Him with harp and lyre!** Here begins an enumeration of the instruments employed in public worship, and therefore necessarily associated with the idea of Divine praise. The trumpet was used to assemble the people, and would therefore excite many of the same associations with our church-bells. The other instruments were used as actual accompaniments of the Psalms performed in public worship. 4. Praise Him with timbrel and dance! Praise Him with strings and pipe!** The three great classes of instruments are here distinctly mentioned—namely, wind, stringed, and pulsatile. The last, represented by the drum or timbrel, still called by a kindred name in Arabic, is here accompanied by its inseparable adjunct dancing, which might seem misplaced in a list of instruments, and those employed in sacred music, but for the peculiar usages and notions of the ancient Hebrews, with respect to this external sign of joy. 5. Praise Him with cymbals of loud sound! Praise Him with cymbals of joyful noise!** The dominant idea, that of audibly expressed joy, is sustained to the last, where the cymbals are mentioned in both clauses, as an instrument peculiarly appropriated to occasions of unusual rejoicing. A. 6. Let everything that hath breath,** and, above all, the voice of man, as opposed to the dead instruments mentioned before. What more fitting close than this of the great "Book of Praises"? P. Let all breath praise Jehovah! Hallelujah. The very ambiguity of "all breath" gives extraordinary richness of meaning to this closing sentence. From the simple idea of wind instruments, mentioned in the context, it leads us, by a beautiful transition, to that of vocal, articulate, intelligent praise, uttered by the breath of living men, as distinguished from mere lifeless instruments. Then, lastly, by a natural association, we ascend to the idea expressed in the common version, "everything that hath breath," not merely all that lives, but all that has a voice to praise God. There is nothing in the Psalter more majestic or more beautiful than this brief but most significant finale, in which solemnity of tone predominates, without, however, in the least disturbing the exhilaration which the close of the Psalter seems intended to produce, as if in emblematic allusion to the triumph which awaits the Church and all its members, when through much tribulation they shall enter into rest. A. As the life of the faithful and the history of the Church, so also the Psalter, with all its cries from the depths, runs out into a Hallelujah. Hengstenberg.—God is the desired end of love, as the running brook is of thirst. Here is the true fountain of praise and worship, love ascending out of self to rejoice in God. This is the meaning of the Psalmist. Let all created life bow itself before the majesty of God, before the beauty of holiness, the glory of uncreated love. "Let everything that hath breath praise the Lord." Praise is a sacrifice most acceptable in the sight of God. Praise is most blessed for us. To live in a spirit of praise is to live a life as near to heaven as earth can be. H. E. Manning. Now that the Gospel is ordered to be preached to every human creature, it is required that every human creature praise the Lord. What have we our breath, our spirit for, but to spend it in praising God; and how can we spend it better? Prayers are called our breathings (Lam. 3 : 56). Let every one that breathes toward God in prayer, finding the benefit of that, breathe forth His praises too. Having breath, let the praises of God perfume our breath; let us be in this work as in our element; let it be to us as the air we breathe in, which we could not live without. Praise God with a holy love and delight; praise Him with an entire confidence in Christ; praise Him with a believing triumph over the powers of darkness; praise Him with an earnest desire toward Him and a full satisfaction in Him; praise Him by a universal respect to all His commands; praise Him by a cheerful submission to all His disposals; praise Him by rejoicing in His love and soaking yourselves in His great goodness; praise Him by promoting the interests of the kingdom of His grace; praise Him by a lively hope and expectation of the kingdom of His glory. The first three of the five books of Psalms (according to the Hebrew division) concluded with Amen and Amen; the fourth with Amen, Hallelujah; but the last, and in it the whole book, concludes only with Hallelujah, because the six last Psalms are wholly taken up in praising God, and there is not a word of complaint or petition in them. The nearer good Christians come to their end, the fuller they should be of the praises of God. Some think that this last Psalm is designed to represent to us the work of glorified saints in heaven, who are there continually praising God. Hallelujah is the word there (Rev. 19 : 1, 3), let us echo to it now as those that hope to join in it shortly. Hallelujah, praise ye the Lord! H. What a destiny, what a power hath poetry when inspired by God! When my spirit is excited, or devotional, or sad, and seeks for an echo to its enthusiasm, its devotion, or its melancholy, I do not open Pindar or Horace, or Hafiz, those purely academic poets; neither do I find within myself murmurings to express my emotion. I open the Book of Psalms, and there I find words which seem to issue from the soul of the ages, and which penetrate even to the heart of all generations, words which embody the eternal hymn, the personified prayer and complaint of all humanity! If we look back to that remote age when such songs resounded over the world; if we consider that while the lyric poetry of all the most cultivated nations only sang of wine, love, blood, and the victories of coursers at the games of Elidus, we are seized with profound astonishment at the mystic accents of the shepherd prophet Psalmists who speak to God the Creator as one friend to another, who understand and praise His great works, admire His justice, implore His mercy, and become, as it were, an anticipative echo of the evangelic poetry, speaking the soft words of Christ before His coming. Lamartine. Who is a Christian at all—who has any measure of spiritual discernment and sensibility, and does not love the Psalter? Not only so, but you who value the book as a whole, are almost sure to have your favorite Psalm or Psalms, that seem always to strike an answering chord within your breast. Is it the 8th, that song in the night of the Son of man? or the pastoral which every one knows—the 23d—a song which one has called the nightingale of the Psalms—“small and of a homely feather, but filling the air of the whole world with melodious joy?” Is it a song of Messiah—the 2d, 22d, or 110th? Is it the plaintive trustfulness of the 42d and 43d? Is it the song of the great marriage (45th), or of the kingdom (72d), or of the vineyard (80th)? Is it the sublime hymn of the covenant (89th), the odes of gratitude (103d and 116th), the celebration of God’s works (104th), or of His omnipresence and omniscience (139th)? Or, what think you of the ringing Hallelujah Psalms that conclude the whole Psalter, as some masterpiece of music ends with full clear resounding notes, that fill the ear and swell the soul? Nay, be not too partial; step not from one favorite Psalm to another, but go through the book in detail, and you will find that through field and flood, over the hills of Bashan, and down into shaded valleys, now far off in the desert, now in the deep with rolling billows, and now in the meadows by the margin of still waters, you are led in repentance, faith, self-conquest, patient endurance, and holy aspiration, onward to the joy of the ransomed of the Lord, and the ecstasy of heavenly praise. D. Fraser. [In addition to the large number of unknown writers, the list for the Psalms comprises nearly 750 names. The appended dates refer either to the year of publication or to that of the writer's decease. To many readers this will prove of great interest, as well as of value for general reference.] | J.W. A. A. | Wm. Abbott. Nehemiah Adams, D.D., d. 1878. Thomas Adams, 1614. William Adams, D.D., d. 1880. Joseph Addison, d. 1719. Rev. W. F. Adeney. Rev. R. Adkins. Felix Adler. Rev. A. S. Aglen. Henry Ainsworth, D.D., d. 1622. Rev. W. H. Aitken. James W. Alexander, D.D., d. 1859. J. Addison Alexander, D.D., d. 1860. Com. on the Psalms. Rev. Thomas Alexander. Bp. William Alexander. Witness of Psalms to Christ. Wm. L. Alexander, D.D., d. 1884. Abp. Alfric, d. 1051. Henry Alford, D.D., d. 1871. Henry Allon, D.D., d. 1892. Vincent Alsop, d. 1703. Isaac Ambrose, d. 1674. Bp. Lancelot Andrews, d. 1626. Bp. Edward G. Andrews. Samuel J. Andrews, D.D. An Unknown Writer. Thomas Armitage, D.D. Johan Arndt, d. 1767. Thomas Arnold, D.D., d. 1842. William Arnot, D.D., d. 1875. John Arrowsmith, d. 1659. Simeon Ash, d. 1662. Bartholomew Ashwood, 1688. Merle D'Aubigne, d. 1872. Augustine, d. 430. | Peter Baro, d. 1621. Basil, d. 379. William Bates, D.D., d. 1699. Richard Baxter, d. 1691. Paul Bayne, d. 1617. E. R. Beadle, D.D. Benj. Beddome, 1752. Henry W. Beecher, d. 1887. Lyman Beecher, D.D., d. 1863. Willis J. Beecher, D.D. A. J. F. Behrends, D.D. Robert Bellarmine, d. 1621. J. A. Bengel, d. 1752. Bernard de Clairvaux, d. 1153. John Beveridge, d. 1793. E. Bersier, D.D., d. 1891. Rev. R. A. Bertram. Bp. Wm. Beveridge, d. 1708. Bibliotheca Sacra. Thomas Binney, D.D., d. 1874. William Binnie, D.D., d. 1886. History, Teachings and Use of Psalms. Edward C. Bissell, D.D. Samuel Blackerty, 1674. Prof. John S. Blackie. William G. Blaikie, D.D. George D. Boardman, D.D. Zachary Bogan, d. 1659. Robert Bolton, 1637. Andrew A. Bonar, D.D. Horatius Bonar, D.D., d. 1890. Rev. Robert Bond. Rev. Barton Bouchier, d. 1865. Rev. Francis Bourdillon. Prof. Francis Bowen, d. 1890. Rev. George Bowen. A. K. N. Boyd, D.D. John Boys, D.D., d. 1625. Rev. Charles Bradley, d. 1871. William Bradshaw, d. 1618. James Brand, D.D. Sir David Brewster. William Bridge, d. 1680. Rev. Charles Bridges, d. 1869. Exposition of Psalm, 119. John Brinsley, d. 1665. | | --- | --- | --- | | A. B. | Clement E. Babb, D.D. Francis Bacon, d. 1626. Sir Richard Baker, d. 1645. George Bancroft, d. 1891. Albert Barnes, d. 1870. Isaac Barrow, D.D., d. 1677. John H. Barrows, D.D. | | J. A. Broadus, D.D. Rev. S. A. Brooke. Bp. Phillips Brooks. Thomas Brooks, d. 1682. W. R. Brooks, D.D. Rev. Archibald G. Brown. David Brown, D.D. John Brown, D.D., d. 1858. Rev. J. Baldwin Brown. Sir Thomas Browne, d. 1682. James Buchanan, D.D., d. 1870. William Buckland, D.D., d. 1856. Wm. Ives Budington, D.D., d. 1879. C. C. J. Bunsen, d. 1860. Wm. M. Bunting, D.D. John Bunyan, d. 1688. Rev. George Burder, d. 1832. Rev. Samuel Burder, d. 1839. John W. Burgon, D.D., d. 1888. Edmund Burke, d. 1797. Bp. Gilbert Burnet, d. 1715. Jabez Burns, D.D., d. 1876. E. F. Burr, D.D. D. J. Burrell, D.D. Jeremiah Burroughs, d. 1646. N. C. Burt, D.D., 1874. George Bush, D.D., d. 1859. H. B. Horace Bushnell, D.D., d. 1876. Rev. C. H. Butcher. Bp. Joseph Butler, d. 1752. B. J. Glentworth Butler, D.D. H. Montagu Butler, D.D. W. A. B. Wm. Archer Butler, D.D., d. 1848. Wm. J. Butler, D.D. George W. Cable. John Caird, D.D., d. 1892. Edward Calamy, d. 1666. Rev. Gordon Calthrop. Thomas Calvert, d. 1679. John Calvin, d. 1574. Rev. J. A. Camden. Rev. Jas. M. Campbell. R. S. Candlish, D.D. d. 1873. Richard Capel, d. 1656. Thomas Carlyle, d. 1881. Bp. Wm. Boyd Carpenter. H. S. Carpenter, D.D. Rev. Alexander Carson, d. 1844. Joseph Caryl, d. 1673. Thomas Case, d. 1682. A. Caspars, D.D. Robert Cawdray, 1600. P. A. Chadbourne, D.D., d. 1883. T. C. Thomas Chalmers, D.D., d. 1847. Jacob Chamberlain, D.D. T. W. C. Talbot W. Chambers, D.D. Wm. W. Champneys, D.D., d. 1875. Samuel Chandler, D.D., d. 1756. C. Chapman, D.D. Stephen Charnock, d. 1680. Theodore Christlieb, D.D. Chrysostom, d. 407. George B. Cheever, D.D., d. 1888. Christian Treasury. Richard W. Church, D.D., d. 1890. M. T. Cicero. Adam Clarke, D.D., d. 1832. Samuel Clarke, D.D., d. 1682. David Clarkson, d. 1686. C. C. Rev. C. Clemance. Richard Clerke, d. 1634. John Clifford, D.D. Rev. Wm. B. Clulow, d. 1882. Thomas Cobbet, d. 1685. Rev. Ingram Cobbin, 1837. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, d. 1834. John Collinges, D.D., d. 1690. C. C. Colton, d. 1832. Eustace R. Conder, D.D. Lord Congleton, d. 1842. Congregationalist (Boston). Congregationalist (London). Cook. F. C. Cook, D.D. Bib. Com. Psalms. Joseph Cook. Prof. Josiah Cooke. Rev. Edward Cooper, d. 1833. William Cooper, 1663. Josiah Copley, d. 1884. Victor Cousin, d. 1867. Henry Cowles, D.D., d. 1881. Com. on Psalms. William Cowper, 1612. Samuel Cox, D.D. The Pilgrim Psalms. John Cragge, 1657. Daniel Creswell, D.D., d. 1844. George Croly, D.D., d. 1860. Timothy Cruso, d. 1697. Ralph Cudworth, D.D., d. 1688. John Cumming, D.D., d. 1881. E. L. Curtis, D.D. T. L. Cuyler, D.D. Jean Daille. R. W. Dale, D.D. Thomas Dale, D.D. Prof. James D. Dana. A. B. Davidson, D.D. Samuel Davies, D.D., d. 1761. Rev. George Dawson, d. 1876. Sir J. Wm. Dawson, LL.D. Rev. William Dawson. John Day, 1619. C. F. Deems, D.D. John De Liefde. D. Franz Delitzsch, D.D., Com. on Psalms. Prof. M. S. De Vere. John DeWitt, D.D. Thomas Dick, D.D., d. 1857. David Dickson, d. 1662. Dictionary of Bible (Wm. Smith). Francis, Viscount Dillon. Jean Diodati, d. 1649. Philip Doddridge, D.D., d. 1751. Marcus Dods, D.D. John Donne, d. 1631. George Downame, d. 1634. Prof. Henry Drummond. Rev. James Drummond, 1864. Rev. R. Duckworth. M. B. M. Duncan, 1837. William Dunlop, d. 1720. J. Duns, 1868. Rev. A. E. Dunning. Joseph T. Duryea, D.D. Timothy Dwight, D.D., d. 1817. William Dyer, 1696. Daniel Dyke, d. 1614. Jeremiah Dyke, d. 1620. J. Oswald Dykes, D.D. Zachary Eddy, D.D., d. 1891. A. E. Alfred Edersheim, D.D., d. 1889. Rev. R. M. Edgar. B. B. E. Bela B. Edwards, D.D., d. 1844. John Edwards, D.D., d. 1716. Jonathan Edwards, D.D., d. 1758. Bp. Chas. J. Ellicott. C. J. E. C. J. Elliott, D.D. Bib. Com. Psalms. Epictetus, 100. E. Erskine, D.D., d. 1754. Thomas Erskine, 1823. Rev. Jas. H. Evans, d. 1849. G. H. A. Ewald, D.D., d. 1876. Examiner (N. Y.). Rev. Fred. W. Faber, d. 1863. P. F. Patrick Fairbairn, D.D., d. 1845. Samuel Fairclough, 1650. Anthony Farindon, d. 1658. Fred'k W. Farrar, D.D. A. R. Fausset, D.D. Studies in Psalms. Daniel Featley, d. 1636. Owen Felltham, 1637. Fenelon, d. 1715. John Flavel, d. 1691. Robert Flint, D.D. George P. Fisher, D.D. Samuel W. Fisher, D.D., d 1879. George Forbes, D.D. Voice of God in Psalms. J. F. John Foster, d. 1843. Christopher Fowler, 1678. Mark Frank, d. 1664. Benjamin Franklin, d. 1790. D. F. Donald Fraser, D.D., d. 1892. William Fraser, D.D., d. 1879. Andrew Fuller, d. 1815. Thomas Fuller, d. 1661. Rev. C. W. Furse. Rev. E. Garbett, d. 1887. Rev. Charles Garrett, 1886. Thomas Gataker, d. 1654. John D. Geden, D.D., d. 1886. Martin Geier, d. 1681. Alex. Gerard, D.D., d. 1795. J. Monro Gibson, D.D. Edwin H. Gifford, D.D., 1865. John Gill, d. 1771. George Gilfillan, d. 1878. E. H. G. E. H. Gillett, D.D., d. 1875. Rev. John J. Given, d. 1881. Wm. E. Gladstone. Rev. Richard Glover, 1881. Francis Godet, D.D. John M. Good, D.D., d. 1827. Rev. Francis Goode, 1848. Rev. Chas. J. Goodhart, 1848. Bp. Harvey Goodwin, d. 1892. John Goodwin, d. 1665. Philip Goodwin, 1658. Thomas Goodwin, d. 1679. Wm. H. Goold, 1851. A. J. Gordon, D.D. Robert Gordon, D.D., 1854. John Gore, 1635. "Gotthold," C. Scriver, d. 1693. William Gouge, d. 1653. E. M. G. Edward M. Goulburn, D.D. G. M. Grant, D.D. William Grant, d. 1876. Andrew Gray, D.D., 1616. W. H. G. Wm. Henry Green, D.D. Gregory Nazianzen, d. 389. Richard Greenham, d. 1521. William Greenhill, d. 1677. Benj. Grosvenor, d. 1758. Alex. Grosse, 1632. Henry Grove, d. 1738. Francois Guizot, d. 1874. William Gurnall, d. 1679. T. G. Thomas Guthrie, D.D., d. 1873. George Hakewell, d. 1649. Robert Haldane, d. 1842. Rev. J. W. Haley, 1875. Sir Henry Halford, d. 1844. Arthur Hallam, d. 1833. C. Cuthbert Hall, D.D. Bp. H. Bp. Joseph Hall, d. 1656. Robert Hall, D.D., d. 1831. Rev. J. N. Hallock. James Hamilton, D.D., d. 1867. Humphrey Hardwick, 1644. Nathaniel Hardy, d. 1670. Rev. Augustus W. Hare, d. 1834. Bp. Francis Hare, 1740. Rev. Julius C. Hare, d. 1855. Rev. S. A. Harlow. Rev. George Harpur, 1862. Rev. Henry Harris. J. H. John Harris, D.D., d. 1856. Robert Harris, D.D., d. 1658. Rev. J. C. Harrison. George Hartwig, M.D., 1853. F. R. Havergal, d. 1879. Rev. Robert Hawker, d. 1827. Hiram C. Haydn, D.D. Fred'k H. Hedge, D.D., d. 1890. Alex. Henderson, d. 1646. E. W. Hengstenberg, D.D., d. 1845. H. Matthew Henry, D.D., d. 1714. Com. on Psalms. Bp. J. P. K. Henshaw, d. 1852. J. G. Herder, d. 1803. S. E. Herrick, D.D. Hilary, d. 367. John Hill, d. 1746. Sir Richard Hill, d. 1808. Thomas Hill, 1642. Edward Hitchcock, D.D., d. 1864. Roswell D. Hitchcock, D.D., d. 1887. Charles Hodge, D.D., d. 1878. Moses D. Hoge, D.D. Matthew Hole, d. 1730. O. W. Holmes, M.D. Rev. Wm. B. Homer, d. 1841. Rev. E. P. Hood. H. H. Herman Hooker, D.D., d. 1857. Richard Hooker, d. 1600. John Hooper, d. 1555. Thos. W. Hooper, D.D. M. H. Mark Hopkins, D.D., d. 1887. Bp. George Horne, d. 1792. Expos. of Psalms. Henry Horne. Anthony Horneck, D.D., d. 1697. Bp. Samuel Horsley, d. 1806. Thomas Horton, d. 1673. Bp. Wm. W. How, 1861. John Howe, D.D., d. 1705. William Howitt, d. 1879. Wayland Hoyt, D.D. Rev. G. H. Hubbard. Alex. Von Humboldt, d. 1859. Leigh Hunt. Bp. Frederick D. Huntington. William Huntington, d. 1813. Hermann Hupfield, D.D., d. 1866. Bp. John F. Hurst. Henry Hurst, d. 1690. W. R. H. Hutton. Prof. Thos. H. Huxley. Edward Hyde, D.D., 1658. Rev. W. D. Hyde. Rev. J. R. Illingworth. Interior (Chicago). Joseph Irons, d. 1852. Edward Irving, d. 1834. Arthur Jackson, d. 1666. J. J. Bp. John Jackson, d. 1885. Thomas Jacombe, d. 1687. Rev. J. Angell James, d. 1859. William Jay, D.D., d. 1853. Henry Jeanes, d. 1662. Bp. John Jebb, d. 1833. William Jenkyn, d. 1685. G. S. H. J. G. S. H. Johnson, D.D. Bib. Com. Psalms. Joseph H. Jones, D.D. Wm. Jones (of Nayland), d. 1800. Edward Judson, D.D. M. M. Kalisch, 1858. Immanuel Kant, d. 1804. William Kay, D.D. d. 1886. The Psalms. John Keble, D.D., d. 1866. Thomas a Kempis, d. 1471. John Ker, D.D., d. 1886. Rev. Charles Kingsley, d. 1875. A. F. Kirkpatrick, D.D. Camb. Bib. Psalms. John Kitchin, 1660. John Kitto, D.D., d. 1854. F. W. Krummacher, D.D., d. 1868. Lamartine. Rev. William Landels. J. P. Lange, D.D., d. 1884. John Langley, 1644. Samuel Lavington, d. 1807. Edmond Layfielde, 1630. Stanley Leathes, D.D. Thomas LeBlanc, d. 1669. Joseph LeConte. Rev. Joseph Leckie, 1884. Ledger (Phila.) Samuel Lee, D.D., d. 1691. L. Abp. Robert Leighton, d. 1684. F. Lenormant, 1869. T. L. Tayler Lewis, LL.D., d. 1877. Wm. H. Lewis, D.D. 1852. H. P. L. Henry P. Liddon, D.D. d. 1890. John Lightfoot, D.D., d. 1675. Bp. J. B. Lightfoot, d. 1889. John Lillie, D.D. d. 1867. Abraham Lincoln, d. 1865. Rev. J. Knox Little, 1881. Adam Littleton, d. 1694. Rev. J. Livingstone. John Locke, d. 1704. Rev. N. Loraine, 1885. John Lorinus, d. 1634. James Russell Lowell, d. 1891. Bp. Robert Lowth, d. 1787. Martin Luther, d. 1546. Thomas Lye, d. 1684. Rev. W. H. Lyttleton, d. 1884. Alexander McCaul, D.D., d. 1863. James McCosh, D.D. Henry M. McCracken, D.D. Donald Macdonald, D.D. F. W. Macdonald. George Macdonald. J. R. Macduff, D.D. Rev. Alex. Mackennal, 1885. Rev. Chas. Mackintosh, 1875. A. M. Alexander Maclaren, D.D. Sermons and Studies in many vols. and serials. John Maclaurin, d. 1754. Norman McLeod, D.D., d. 1872. N. McMichael, D.D., 1860. Pilgrim Psalms. Hugh Macmillan, D.D. Ministry of Nature; Bible Teachings in Nature; Two Worlds are Ours; etc. Bp. William C. Magee, d. 1891. William Makelvie, 1863. Asa Mahan, D.D., d. 1889. Card. Henry E. Manning, d. 1892. H. L. Mansel, D.D., d. 1871. T. M. Thomas Manton, d. 1667. Edward Marbury, 1649. Henry March, 1823. Fredk. G. Marchant, 1882. Rev. J. H. Martin. Rev. Samuel Martin, d. 1878. James Martineau. Henry Martyn, d. 1812. E. M. Erskine Mason, D.D., d. 1850. John Mason, d. 1763. William Mason, d. 1791. Samuel Mather, 1705. Fredk. D. Maurice, D.D., d. 1872. Peter G. Medd, D.D. Joseph Mede, d. 1638. Rev. Enoch Mellor, d. 1881. Henry Melvill, D.D., d. 1871. Armand de Mestral, 1856. Rev. C. W. Miller, 1883. J. R. M. J. R. Miller, D.D. H. H. Milman, D.D., d. 1868. John Milton, d. 1674. Prof. O. M. Mitchell, d. 1862. G. B. Bp. George Moberly, d. 1885. C. B. Moll, D.D. Lange Psalms. Rev. Capel Molyneux. Adolph Monod, D.D., d. 1856. Rev. J. S. B. Monsell. Aubrey L. Moore. Rev. Daniel Moore. Bp. James Moorhouse. Hannah More, d. 1833. Rev. John Morison, 1829. Exposition of Psalms. Rev. Walter Morison, 1871. Robert Mossom, 1657. James B. Mozley, D.D., d. 1878. T. T. Munger, D.D. James G. Murphy, D.D., 1875. Com. on Psalms. Rev. Arthur Mursell, 1878. Wolfgang Musculus, d. 1563. Rev. James Neil, 1882. Francis W. Newman. Card. John H. Newman, d. 1890. John Newton, d. 1807. Bp. Thos. Newton, d. 1782. William Nicholson, d. 1672. Robert Nisbet, 1863. Rev. Philip Norton, 1885. O. G. F. Ochler, D.D. Rev. John Offord, 1867. John Owen, D.D., d. 1683. Rev. Francis E. Paget, 1844. Rev. George Paine. Benjamin M. Palmer, D.D. Theodore Parker, d. 1860. C. H. P. Chas. H. Parkhurst, D.D. Rev. A. J. Parry. Blaise Pascal, d. 1662. Francis L. Patton, D.D. William W. Patton, D.D., d. 1890. Andrew P. Peabody, D.D. Rev. M. G. Pearse, 1887. Henry Pendlebury, d. 1695. John Pennington, d. 1656. P. Bp. J. J. Stewart Perow ne. Book of Psalms. Thomas T. Perowne, D.D. A. P. Austin Phelps, D.D., d. 1890. Rev. George Phillips, 1846. Joseph C. Philpot, D.D., d. 1869. Rev. Sam'l E. Pierce, 1818. A. T. Pierson, D.D. Rev. David Pitcairn, 1846 A. W. Pitzer, D.D. Elias Pledger, 1677. Pliny, d. 110. Wm. S. Plumer, D.D., d. 1880. The Psalms. E. H. Plumptre, D.D., d. 1892. Matthew Pool, d. 1679. Wm. B. Pope, D.D. Popular Science Monthly. E. S. Porter, D.D. J. L. Porter, D.D., d. 1889. George Potts, D.D., d. 1864. Rev. P. B. Power, 1862. Viscountess Powerscourt. John Prideaux, d. 1650. Rev. Arthur Pridham, 1869. John Pulsford, 1857. William Pulsford, d. 1886. Wm. M. Punshon, D.D., d. 1880. E. B. Pusey, D.D., d. 1882. Francis Quarles, d. 1644. Pasquier Quesnel, d. 1719. A. R. Robert Rainy, D.D. Alexander Raleigh, D.D., d. 1880. Edward A. Rand, D.D. Rev. W. S. Randall. Nathaniel Ranew, 1670. J. E. Rankin, D.D. George Rawlinson, D.D. Rev. R. D. B. Rawnsley. Francis Raworth, 1656. Bp. C. P. Reichel, 1882. Edouard G. Reuss. North British Review, etc. Edward Reyner, d. 1670. Bp. Edward Reynolds, d. 1676. Henry R. Reynolds, D.D. Jean Paul Richter. James H. Riggs, D.D. E. G. Robinson, D.D. Frederick W. Robertson, D.D., d. 1853. Ralph Robinson, d. 1655. Robert Robertson, d. 1790. S. R. Stuart Robinson, D.D., d. 1881. Rev. George Rogers, 1882. Timothy Rogers, d. 1729. William Romaine, d. 1795. John J. Rousseau, d. 1778. John Row, 1677. John Ruskin. Rev. J. S. Russell, 1887. Samuel Rutherford, d. 1661. John Ryland, D.D., d. 1825. Rev. R. H. Ryland, 1853. Rev. N. G. Salter, 1840. Samuel Salter, 1740. Bp. Robert Sanderson, d. 1663. Adolph Saphir, D.D., 1870. A. F. Schauffler, D.D. F. E. D. Schleiermacher, d. 1834. Sir Walter Scott, d. 1832. Henry M. Scudder, D.D. William Secker, d. 1660. Obadiah Sedgwick, 1658. William Sedgwick, 1648. John Selden, d. 1654. Rev. Ambrose Serle, d. 1815. Rev. C. C. Shackford. Abp. James Sharpe, d. 1679. Thomas Shaw, D.D., d. 1751. John Sheffield, 1654. George Shepard, D.D., d. 1868. Thomas Shepherd, 1671. Bp. Thomas Sherlock, d. 1761. William Sherlock, D.D., d. 1707. J. M. Sherwood, D.D., d. 1890. Richard Sibbes, d. 1635. Edward Sidney, 1866. Rev. Charles Simeon, d. 1836. Sir J. Y. Simpson, d. 1870. Bp. Matthew Simpson, d. 1884. Samuel Slater, 1704. Rev. F. E. Smith. Henry Smith, d. 1561. Henry B. Smith, D.D., d. 1877. R. Payne Smith, D.D. Samuel Smith, 1620. Sydney Smith, d. 1845. Hugo Sommer. Charles H. Spurgeon, d. 1892. Robert South, D.D., d. 1716. Rev. John Spalding. Ichabod S. Spencer, D.D., d. 1854. John Spencer, d. 1695. Rev. Chas. Stanford, 1873. A. P. Stanley, D.D., d. 1881. Rev. William M. Statham, 1885. Wm. A. Stearns, D.D. Rev. T. H. Steel. Richard Steele, d. 1692. Rev. John Stephen, 1861. Rudolph Stier, D.D., 1859. Andrew L. Stone, D.D., d. 1891. John S. Stone, D.D., d. 1882. Richard Salter Storrs, D.D., d. 1873. Richard Salter Storrs, D.D. John Stoughton, D.D. Thomas Stoughton, 1616. H. B. Stowe. Rev. Hugh Stowell, d. 1865. William Strong, d. 1654. William Struther, 1633. Daniel de Superville, d. 1728. Leonard Swain, D.D. George Swinnock, d. 1673. William Symington, D.D., d. 1862. Joseph Symonds, 1653. Archibald Symson, d. 1631. I·T. Abp. A. C. Tait, d. 1882. Rev. E. S. Talbot. Isaac Taylor, d. 1865. Spirit of Hebrew Poetry. Bp. Jeremy Taylor, d. 1667. N. W. Taylor, D.D., d. 1858. Thomas Taylor, d. 1632. F. T. Wm. M. Taylor, D.D. Bp. Frederick Temple. F. Aug. G. Tholuck, D.D., d. 1877. Com. on Psalms. Jesse B. Thomas, D.D. Rev. J. H. Thomas. Chas. L. Thompson, D.D. J. P. T. Joseph P. Thompson, D.D., d. 1879. J. H. T. Wm. M. Thompson, D.D. J. H. T. J. H. Thornwell, D.D., d. 1862. Bp. Anthony W. Thorold. Joseph F. Thrupp, D.D., d. 1867. Com. Psalms. C. F. Thwing, D.D. Abp. Tillotson, d. 1694. S. S. T. Sunday School Times (Phila.) A. M. Toplady, D.D., d. 1776. John Trapp, d. 1669. Abp. R. C. Trench, d. 1886. H. B. Tristram, D.D. H. Clay Trumbull, D.D. Rev. Robert Tuck. Wm. H. Tucker, 1840. Rev. Richard Tudor, d. 1882. John Tullock, D.D., d. 1886. Rev. Sharon Turner, d. 1847. Rev. W. K. Tweedie. Thomas Tymme, 1634. Francis W. Upham, L.L.D. Rev. Joseph Vance. C. W. Van Develde, 1854. H. J. V. Henry J. Van Dyke, D.D., d. 1891. Henry Van Dyke, D.D. J. J. Van Oosterzee, D.D., d. 1882. Franciscus Vatablus, d. 1547. J. V. James Vaughan, D.D. Hermann Venema, d. 1787. Ralph Venning, d. 1673. Rev. Jas. H. Vidal, 1863. Antonio Vieyra, d. 1697. Bp. J. H. Vincent. V. Marvin R. Vincent, D.D. Gates into Psalm-Country; Sermons 3 vols. Alexander Vinet, D.D., d. 1847. S. D. Waddy, D.D. Charles Wadsworth, D.D. Rev. George Wagner, 1862. Rev. William Walford, d. 1850. Robert Walker, D.D., d. 1783. Isaac Walton, d. 1683. Ralph Wardlan, D.D., d. 1853. Rev. R. Warner. John Warren, 1656. Pres. Wm. F. Warren, D.D. Bp. Richard Watson, d. 1816. Thomas Watson, d. 1689. Benjamin Weiss, 1856. John Welsh, d. 1676. Rev. N. Woolsey Wells. John Welsh, d. 1622. Bp. Brooke Foss Westcott. Westminster Ass'y Annotations, 1651. Abp. R. Whately, d. 1863. Henry Kirke White, d. 1806. John Whitlock, 1858. John G. Whittier. Bp. Sam'l Wilberforce, d. 1873. Daniel Wilcox, d. 1733. Robert Wilkinson, 1612. Rev. W. F. Wilkinson. Matthew Wilks. Edward Willan, 1645. Griffith Williams, 1636. Isaac Williams, D.D., 1864. W. R. W. William R. Williams, D.D., d. 1885. Thomas Williamson, 1630. John Willison, d. 1750. Sir Charles Wilson. William Wilson, d. 1873. E. C. Wines, D.D., d. 1879. Rev. Octavius Winslow, 1874. David Winters. William Wishart, d. 1727. Hermann Witsius, D.D., d. 1708. R. Wolcombe, 1612. Rev. John G. Wood, 1869. Theodore D. Woolsey, D.D., d. 1889. Bp. Christopher Wordsworth, d. 1885. Abraham Wright, d. 1690. Prof. Charles A. Young. Rev. E. K. Young. Richard Young, d. 1665. Robert Young, LL.D. Francis N. Zabriskie, D.D., d. 1891. # Date Due | D 8-31 | | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | F 21 '44 | | | | | O 18 '45 | | | | | | | | | | JAN 1 '50 | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | THE Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon. THE REVISED TEXT; WITH COMMENTS SELECTED FROM THE CHOICEST, MOST ILLUMINATING AND HELPFUL THOUGHTS OF THE CHRISTIAN CENTURIES. 1892. | | PAGE | | --- | --- | | Introductory, | 5 | | Chapter I., | 15 | | “ II., | 25 | | “ III., | 29 | | “ IV., | 33 | | “ V., | 39 | | “ VI., | 45 | | “ VII., | 49 | | “ VIII., | 54 | | “ IX., | 58 | | “ X., | 67 | | “ XI., | 72 | | “ XII., | 77 | | “ XIII., | 81 | | “ XIV., | 85 | | “ XV., | 92 | | “ XVI., | 97 | | “ XVII., | 102 | | “ XVIII., | 105 | | “ XIX., | 107 | | “ XX., | 115 | | “ XXI., | 118 | | “ XXII., | 125 | | “ XXIII., | 131 | | “ XXIV., | 136 | | “ XXV., | 139 | | “ XXVI., | 140 | | “ XXVII., | 144 | | “ XXVIII., | 147 | | “ XXIX., | 153 | | “ XXX., | 157 | | “ XXXI., | 160 | | “ XXXII., | 167 | | “ XXXIII., | 171 | | “ XXXIV., | 177 | | “ XXXV., | 182 | | “ XXXVI., 1-25, | 185 | | “ XXXVI., 26-33, XXXVII., | 189 | | “ XXXVIII., 1-38, | 195 | | “ XXXVIII., 39-41, XXXIX., | 209 | | “ XL. | 213 | | “ XLI., XLII., 1-6, | 213 | | “ XLII., 7-17 | 222 | | Introductory, | 228 | | --- | --- | | Chapter I., | 233 | | “ II., | 242 | | “ III., | 247 | | “ IV., | 261 | iv | Chapter | V., | PAGE | | --- | --- | --- | | “ | VI., | 272 | | “ | VII., | 276 | | “ | VIII., | 284 | | “ | IX., | 286 | | “ | X., | 291 | | “ | XI., | 295 | | “ | XII., | 300 | | “ | XIII., | 308 | | “ | XIV., | 312 | | “ | XV., | 318 | | “ | XVI., | 329 | | “ | XVII., | 336 | | “ | XVIII., | 345 | | “ | XIX., | 350 | | “ | XX., | 358 | | “ | XXI., | 362 | | “ | XXII., | 370 | | “ | XXIII., | 373 | | “ | XXIV., | 384 | | “ | XXV., | 395 | | “ | XXVI., | 399 | | “ | XXVII., | 403 | | “ | XXVIII., | 406 | | “ | XXIX., | 410 | | “ | XXX., | 416 | | “ | XXXI., | 420 | | “ | | 426 | | Introductory, | | 431 | | --- | --- | --- | | Chapter | I., | 440 | | “ | II, | 447 | | “ | III, | 452 | | “ | IV. | 466 | | “ | V. | 469 | | “ | VI. | 477 | | “ | VII. | 480 | | “ | VIII., IX, 1-6, | 489 | | “ | IX., 7-18, | 497 | | “ | X. | 503 | | “ | XI. | 507 | | “ | XII., 1-7, | 512 | | “ | XII., 8-14, | 521 | | Introductory, | | 531 | | --- | --- | --- | | Chapter | I., | 545 | | “ | II., | 549 | | “ | III., | 556 | | “ | IV., 1-16; V., 1, | 558 | | “ | V., 2-16, | 563 | | “ | VI., 1-13; VII., 1-5, | 567 | | “ | VII., 6-13; VIII., 1-14, | 570 | NOTE.—A few changes have been made in the Revised Text, mainly in accordance with the rendering preferred by the American Committee; and some variant readings have been added in parenthesis. B. ONE word resplendent with light, lying at the foundation of all the Jewish conceptions, set their minds at rest upon the origin and nature of things: In the beginning God created. Hence the greater minds among the Jews directed their thoughts to the problems of practical life. The result of these labors is given us in five books, which form, as it were, the code of the Hebrew wisdom. The subjects treated in them relate, not to the study of Being, but to the purely practical question of right living; they even exhaust it. These books are—Job, in which is revealed the art of suffering well; the Psalms, which give us a model of true prayer; Proverbs, in which is taught the art of acting rightly in all circumstances; Ecclesiastes, which treats of the right manner of enjoying the good things granted to man here below; and finally, in the Song of Songs, the wisdom of the Israelites rises to the contemplation of the supreme art—that of true and pure love. Godet. The Hebrew classical poetry of the Solomonic school, which is devoted to Wisdom (Khokma), has a common character in all the five principal poetical books—Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles, and Ecclesiastes—which is so unique and so clearly displayed that there can be no possible mistaking it wherever it may be found; nor could a work of that kind have been produced outside of the mental and spiritual atmosphere in which these originated. On its surface and by the help of its external accessories, the Book of Job has an archaic and an Arabic aspect; but below these, as its chief quality, are the soul and substance of the Hebrew Wisdom. Curry. The Book of Job belongs distinctively to the so-called Wisdom literature of the Hebrews; being indeed, of all the products of that literature, the grandest in the reach and ripeness of its thought, and the completest in its literary form. What the Hebrews called Wisdom corresponds to what other nations call philosophy. The books classified under that name contain the thoughts of earnest and observant minds on life, on conduct, on worldly prudence, on Divine things, on the mystery that encompasses the world. And they introduce us to a class of men, of whom otherwise little is known, the “wise men,” who in an unofficial way, and with objects less purely religious, taught and had influence along with priests and prophets in shaping the spiritual life of the Hebrew people. “The law shall not perish from the priest,” said the men who rejected Jeremiah’s prediction of evil (18:18), “nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet.” Each of these three classes had its work to do in the Hebrew state, and each has left its record in the Hebrew literature. The Law and the Prophets, mighty as are their influence and doctrine, leave an important part unsupplied; they are supplemented, as they need to be, by the utterances of Wisdom. J. F. G. The Book of Job does not appear to come exactly into either of the two great divisions of Hebrew poetry. It has epic features. It has a beginning, middle, end. It has the unities of time, place, and subject. It has its centre—one great thought, around which all others revolve. It has much of the charm of a lively drama. The six or eight characters which appear in it have marked characteristic differences. The book has great resemblance to a Greek tragedy, e.g., the Philoctetes of Sophocles. Again, it is a wonderful composition for its lyrical feeling. In pathos, in lofty flights of imagination, in delicate imagery, it takes a very high rank. Then it has brief, sententious proverbs, sometimes extending into lengthened exhortations and highly wrought descriptions. The book exhibits the highest reach of all Hebrew poetry and art. B. B. E.—In boldness of imagery and descriptive power, in fervid eloquence and sublimity of thought, there is nothing equal to it in the whole range of ancient and modern poetry. "The language of the Book of Job," says M. Renan, "is at once the most limpid, condensed, and classical Hebrew. We find in it all the qualities of the antique style, such as conciseness, frequent obscurity and abruptness of expression, as if the words were struck out by blows of a hammer, together with a breadth of phrase which seems always to leave some hidden meaning to be discerned, and a delightful ring like that of hard and pure metal." F. Bowen. I call the Book of Job, apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written with pen. One feels, indeed, as if it were not Hebrew; such a noble universality, different from noble patriotism or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble book; all men's book. It is our first oldest statement of the never-ending problem—man's destiny and God's ways with him here on this earth. And all in such free, flowing outlines; grand in its sincerity, in its simplicity, in its epic melody and repose of reconciliation. Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconciliation; oldest choral melody as of the heart of mankind, so soft and great; as the summer midnight, as the world with its seas and stars! There is nothing written. I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit. Thomas Carlyle. It is without exaggeration that one in our own time has written of this extraordinary book as "a book of which it is to say too little to say it is unequalled of its kind, and which will one day, perhaps, when it is allowed to stand upon its own merits, be seen towering up alone far away above all the poetry of the world." Its author lives in the imperishable monument of his genius. "With his unsullied name," says Herder, "he has consigned to oblivion all that was earthly; and leaving his book for a memorial below, is engaged in a yet nobler song in that world where the voice of sorrow and mourning is unheard, and where the morning stars sing together." Aglen. Its most striking features are depth and boldness of speculative inquiry, of research, not only into what may be known of the dealings of God with man, but of the principles on which those dealings rest. The characters stand out each and all in broad, strong outline, with traits of surpassing delicacy and vigor. The historical narrative is clear and rapid, with the simplicity and grace of antique letters; the dialogues full of vehement outbursts, vivid imagery, and sudden alternations of passionate struggles, and deep, calm, earnest contemplation of spiritual truths. The reader is irresistibly impressed with the reality of the transactions, with the truth and naturalness of the feelings brought into play. Nor is this impression weakened when we consider the style of Job. All critics recognize its grand, archaic character. Firm, compact, sonorous as the ring of pure metal, severe and at times rugged, yet always dignified and majestic, the style belongs essentially to a period when thought was slow, and laboring for utterance, but profound and intensely concentrated, full of weighty and oracular sayings, such as were fit to be engraved upon rocks with a pen of iron and in characters of molten lead. Cook. As to the speeches, whether reported verbatim or only for substance of thought, the poetic form and dress being given with the writer's own hand, with free allowance for his own literary taste and skill in setting forth the differing views, it may be remarked: 1. The tone of high and well-sustained literary culture and finish, coupled with poetic genius, forbids the supposition of an off-hand discussion reported verbatim. 2. The literary style is one and not many, indicating the work of one mind. If each one of the six speakers had been precisely reported, it is simply impossible that there should not have been more diversity in literary merit and finish than is apparent here. H. C. # Relative Position and Teaching of the Book. The history of Job is one among a great body of signal facts illustrative of God's ways with men and of His plan of grace. The Book of Job is one of a long series of inspired writings through which it has pleased God to make known His will and to reveal Himself. The books of Moses contain God's covenant with Israel as a nation. The historical books record His dealings with the people as such. The books of the prophets make known His will to Israel and concerning Israel as the people of God. These set forth the general principles and methods of the Divine administration. The promises and threatenings concern the entire body of the people or some considerable section of them, and individuals share the fortunes of the mass. But Job stands alone and by himself. He is dealt with as an individual, not as one of a certain race or nation, and particularly not as one of the chosen seed or covenant people, to which he does not even belong. In his history we see the righteousness of God in its relations not to Israel, but to an individual man. The righteousness of God in its more general and obvious manifestations is assumed as the starting-point. This is taken for granted as well understood and agreed upon between Job and his friends at the outset. But a crisis occurs in Job's spiritual history in which the opinions that they have hitherto entertained are not adequate. A state of affairs arises at variance with their defective notions of the Divine righteousness. In the struggle that ensues, new light is imparted, and more accurate conceptions are reached. God's righteousness had been inadequately apprehended in two respects, belonging severally to the two poles of Old Testament truth or the two phases of Old Testament instruction, the Law and the Gospel. The question that agitates the soul of Job is that of his personal relation to God. Is he the object of the Divine displeasure, or will God accomplish his salvation? But in fact he knew neither the extent of the Divine displeasure nor the greatness of God's salvation. The righteousness of God condemned more in him than he suspected; while that which he looked upon as a sentence of condemnation was a measure of God's grace. W. H. G. The Great Solved Problem of the Book, and How it was Solved. It is Job himself, the man Job, with his bewilderment of doubt, his utter honesty with himself and the world, his outreaching faith, his loyalty through all darkness and mystery to what is godlike, who is the solution of the Job-problem, far more truly than Job's words, or the words of Elihu, or the august address from the whirlwind. How God deals with men, and how men may interpret His dealings; why God sees fit to afflict the righteous; these are indeed important questions, and not to be ignored; but more vital still is the question what Job is, becomes, achieves, in the fiery trial of God's unexplained visitation. In the answer to that personal question lies the supreme answer to all the rest. It is not a mere author that we find here, but a man. And as we trace the progress of Job's soul, step by step, revealed to us through his own words and through the attacks of his friends, we shall be brought to a contemplation of greatness in life and character such as, for sublimity, it will be hard to parallel in literature, however highly we may value the divinest creations of an Æschylus or a Milton. Thus, in the person and spiritual history of Job, we are brought back to the narrative basis which, so long as we consider only the discourses of the poem, we are in danger of ignoring. Under these discourses we are to trace not the building of a system, but the progress of a character, tried, developed, victorious; for they reveal how the patriarch works out, or perhaps we may better say embodies, the solution of a great problem. What, then, is the problem, if such is its solution? We need not look far for the answer to this question. The problem, propounded by Satan at the outset, and tested by permission of Jehovah, is, "Doth Job fear God for nought?" This is, of course, the sneer of utter selfishness against all that is loyal and disinterested; it asks, in effect, Is there such a thing as whole-souled, self-forgetting service of God, just for His sake and for righteousness' sake? And Job's life, as it is traced in the glowing, indignant, faith-inspired words of his complaint, is the triumphant answer. Job does fear God for naught—that is, his integrity is no vulgar barter for wages, as Satan supposes, but deeply founded in the truth of things, so deeply that he takes leave of friends, of family, of life; nay, of God Himself, as he has hitherto regarded God, in order to be true. And if Job, a man like ourselves, has wrought out the answer, then the answer exists in humanity. There is such a thing as disinterested piety, and it contains whole worlds of faith and insight. Or, to gather the history before us into a sentence: There is a service of God which is not work for reward: it is a heart-loyalty, a hunger after God's presence, which survives loss and chastisement; which in spite of contradictory seeming cleaves to what is godlike as the needle seeks the pole; and which reaches up out of the darkness and hardness of this life to the light and love beyond. This, if we must chill it down from the glow of its personal and poetic utterance to a generalization, is what the Book of Job stands for. But of this answer, as of the problem, the hero is as little aware as the rest. Wrought out in darkness and anguish, it is known only to those celestial spectators who rejoice, and to that scoffing spirit who is discomfited by it. For the answer is not put in words, nor made a didactic issue; it is lived. J. F. G. The Main Question Discussed by Job and his Friends; and its Twofold Answer in the Discourses of Elihu and of Jehovah. It is virtually the one question of life which meets us at every turn, which out of the pale of revelation is enveloped in impenetrable obscurity, and which, even with the light shed upon it by the promises of the Gospel, is by no means devoid of profound mystery—namely, the unequal distribution of suffering in the world, and the blindness with which the righteous rather than the wicked appear to be selected as its victims. Leathes.—The question discussed in the Book of Job is one of the most difficult in theological science. Why does not a just God treat men in the present life according to their character? Why does vice so often go unpunished? Job's friends cut the knot by denying the fact. To uphold their side of the question, they misrepresented the general experience of man. Job felt the difficulty, but could not solve it. He was fully conscious of his own integrity, and he could not see why he was visited with such unparalleled sufferings. To the depth of emotion consequent on the discussion of this theological question, the whole compass of Greek poetry, perhaps, supplies no parallel. B. B. E. Among the mysteries of God's providence there is perhaps no mystery greater than the law by which suffering is meted out in the world. It is not a mystery that sin should bring forth sorrow; it is not a mystery that pain, disease, and death should be the fruit of man's fall. The really difficult problem is not the problem of suffering in the abstract; it is the problem of the meting out of suffering on any theory; it is the problem why the innocent are called upon to suffer while the guilty too often escape; it is the problem why the purest, simplest of our race should drain the cup of sorrow, while the ungodly have more than their hearts desire, and have neither affliction in their life nor pain in their death. This is the problem which comes before us in that grandest of poems, which has ever sounded the deeps of the human heart, the poem of Job. We have in this book the problem worked out, and three answers given. First is the answer of the three friends who come to condole with Job in his affliction. One after another they repeat the same commonplaces of their creed—God is just, and therefore God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. If a man suffers, he suffers because he deserves it. The sufferer himself indignantly repudiates this belief. It is of no use to tell him he has been a hypocrite, an evil-doer; he denies the accusation; he will be true to God and to the method of His justice so far as he knows it, but he must be true to his conscience; he will not say, "I am guilty," when he knows he is innocent. But there is another theory of suffering which approaches more nearly to the truth, which is also given in the Book of Job. Elihu declares that God's purpose in chastisement is the purification of His servant. Here certainly is a step in advance. To see a purpose of love in affliction is to turn it into a blessing. But the mystery of suffering is not fully explained even when this purifying power is assigned to it. There is a suffering which is not even for the salvation or purification of the individual soul, but for the glory of God. If we look at the prelude of the book, we learn this lesson. Satan insinuates that the piety of Job is a selfish piety. His challenge strikes at the nature of God Himself. And God accepts the challenge. This is the key to the enigma, though Job knew nothing of it. Surely no more noble part can be assigned to any man than to be the champion of God. Men may mock at the Gospel and its promises; they may charge the followers of the Crucified with selfish aims and sordid motives; but one saint, who knows that the glory of God is in his hands, shall answer the sneer. His submission, self-sacrifice, and love shall compel the world to confess that God is love, and that man loves God for Himself. Perowne. The first half of the correct, positive solution of the problem, consisting in the presentation of the chastening and purifying aim of unmerited suffering (that is, sufferings not direct punishments for specific sins), is contributed by the discourses of Elihu. They seek, in a way which accords with Prov. 3: 11, to exhibit the sufferings of the righteous man as chastisements and means of purification, having "the sin of the righteous man indeed for their ground, but having for their motive not God's wrath, but His love, aiming to refine and to advance the sufferer." (Dillmann.) The other half of the positive solution of the problem, consisting in the exhibition of the suffering of the righteous as ordained to prove them and to test their innocence, finds expression in the discourses of Jehovah, in His judicial arbitration between the contending parties, as well as in His actual restoration of Job's former prosperity. According to this, the profoundest solution, in which the whole scope of the book culminates, and finds its definitive authoritative expression, the afflictions of the innocent are "means of proving and testing, which, like chastisements, find their motive in the love of God. Their object is not, however, the purging away of the sin which may still cling to the righteous man, but, on the contrary, the manifestation and testing of his righteousness." (Delitzsch.) A. B. D. The hardest, the severest, the last lesson which man has to learn upon this earth, is submission to the will of God. It is the hardest lesson, because to our blinded eyesight it often seems a cruel will. It is a severe lesson, because it can be only taught by the blighting of much that had been most dear. It is the last lesson, because when a man has learned that, he is fit to be transplanted from a world of wilfulness to a world in which one will alone is loved, and only one is done. All that saintly experience ever had to teach resolves itself into this, the lesson how to say affectionately, "Not as I will, but as Thou wilt." Slowly and stubbornly our hearts acquiesce in that. The holiest, so far as he has mastered the lesson, will acknowledge that many a sore and angry feeling against his God had to be subdued, many a dream of earthly brightness broken, and many a burning throb stilled in a proud, resentful heart, before he was willing to suffer God to be sovereign in His own world, and do with him and his as seemed to Him best. The earliest record that we have of this struggle in the human bosom is found in the Book of Job. It is the most ancient statement we have of the perplexities and miseries of life, so graphic, so true to nature, that it proclaims at once that what we are reading is drawn from life. What is the Book of Job but the record of an earnest soul's perplexities? What falls from Job's lips is the musing of a man half-stunned, half-surprised, looking out upon the darkness of life, and asking sorrowfully why are these things so? F. W. R.—There are, from his point of view, two conflicting elements: the theory of retribution, which seems to him inseparable from faith in the justice of God, and the unwavering testimony of his conscience, which, in his present circumstances, protests against this theory; hence his perplexity. The conflict within him is not between good and evil, but between good and good—between the justice of God affirmed by his conscience, and his relative innocence, no less firmly attested by that inner and sacred voice; so much so, that he feels himself driven logically either to give the lie to his conscience, if he would still uphold the justice of God, or deny God, if he would maintain the truth of his conscience. Terrible position! which constitutes precisely the climax of the trial of which he is unconsciously the subject. Godet. Job's experience touches our deepest life at many a point. Every one is called to suffer and be strong, every one meets with mysteries on the right hand and on the left, confusing and bewildering, whose solution must be left to the future. The struggle of Job is repeated over and over again in the experience of earnest souls, though the form and conditions of it are ever changing. Gilbert. That the Book of Job is anterior to the exodus from Egypt is evident from the fact that we find in it no allusion of any sort to the events of the bondage in Egypt or to the deliverance—events which would have furnished most striking illustrations of the great subjects discussed in the book. Neither is there any allusion to or use made of the law given by Moses—the priesthood, sacrificial ritual, usages, institutions or Sabbaths of the Mosaic law, which must in some form have been referred to by a man of Job's piety living in the vicinity of Egypt and of the Israelites, if the events recorded in Job had occurred after the time of Moses. It is hardly conceivable that if these discussions of the great questions of Providence and sin and retribution had occurred after the revelation to Moses and the institutions of religion appointed under that revelation, the mind of such men could have utterly ignored his existence. This entry is longer than a Bible module can hold. The rest is at https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/butler/