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Charles H. Spurgeon's Treasury of David |
Psalm 119: | Darby | Geneva | Gill | Jamieson Faussett Brown | Large Print | Matthew Henry | Matthew Henry Concise | Spurgeon | Wesley | Index | Bible Gateway |
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| Psalm 119: Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings |
| Verses 1-44 | Verses 45-88 | Verses 89-132 | Verses 133-176 |
Preface - Introduction - Notes - Exposition - Works Upon This Psalm
Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings - Hints to the Village Preacher
Verse 133. Order my steps in thy word. As before he sought mercy, so now he seekers grace. There are many that seek mercy to forgive sin, who seek not grace to deliver them from the power of sin: this is to abuse God's mercy, and turn his grace into wantonness. He that prayeth for mercy to forgive the guilt of sin only, seeks not that by sin he should not offend God; but that he may sin and not hurt himself: but he who craves deliverance also from the commanding power and deceit of sin, seeks not only a benefit to himself, but grace also to please and serve the Lord his God. The first is but a lover of himself; the second is a lover of God, more than of himself. And truly he never knew what it was to seek mercy for sin past, who with it also earnestly sought not grace to keep him from sin in time to come. These benefits cannot be divided: he who hath not the second whosoever he flatter himself may be assured that he hath not gotten the first. William Cowper.
Verse 133. Order my steps in thy word. It is written of Boleslaus, one of the kings of Poland, that he still carries about him the picture of his father, and when he was to do any great work or set upon any design extraordinary, he would look on the picture and pray that he might do nothing unworthy of such a father's name. Thus it is that the Scriptures are the picture of God's will, therein drawn out to the very life. Before a man enter upon or engage himself in any business whatsoever, let him look there, and read there what is to be done; what to be undone; and what God commands, let that be done; what he forbids, let that be undone; let the balance of the sanctuary weigh all, the oracles of God decide all, the rule of God's word be the square of all, and his glory the ultimate of all intendments whatsoever. From Spencer's "Things New and Old."
Verse 133. Order my steps. Nbh hachen, make them firm;let me not walk with a halting or unsteady step. Adam Clarke.
Verse 133. Order my steps, etc. The people of God would not only have their path right, but their steps ordered; as not their general course wrong (as those who walk in the way of everlasting perdition), so not a step awry; they would not miss the way to heaven, either in whole or in part. Thomas Manton.
Verse 133. My steps. Speaking of the steps of the Temple, Bunyan says, "These steps, whether cedar, gold, or stone, yet that which added to their adornment, was the wonderment of a Queen. And whatever they were made of, to be sure, they were a shadow of those steps, which we should take to, and in the house of God. Steps of God, Ps 75:13. Steps ordered by him, Ps 37:23 Steps ordered in his word, Ps 64:133. Steps of faith, Ro 4:12. Steps of the spirit, 2Co 7:18. Steps of truth, 3Jo 1:4. Steps washed with butter, Job 29:6. Steps taken before, or in the presence of God. Steps butted and bounded by a divine rule. These are steps indeed." -- John Bunyan, in "Solomon's Temple Spiritualized."
Verse 133. Let not any iniquity, etc. True obedience to God is inconsistent with the dominion of any one lust, or corrupt affection. I say, though a man out of some slender and insufficient touch of religion upon his heart, may go right for a while, and do many things gladly; yet that corruption which is indulged, and under the power of which a man lieth, will at length draw him off from God; and therefore no one sin shall have dominion over us. When doth sin reign, or have dominion over us? When we do not endeavour to mortify it, and to cut off the provisions that may feed that lust. Chrysostom's observation is, the apostle does not say, let it not tyrannize over you, but, let it not reign over you; that is, when you suffer it to have a quiet reign in your hearts. Thomas Manton.
Verse 133. Let not any iniquity have dominion over me. I had rather be a prisoner to man all my life than be a bondage to sin one day. He says not, Let not this and the other man rule over me; but "let not sin have dominion over mo." Well said! There is hope in such a man's condition as long as it is so. Michael Bruce, 1666.
Verse 134. Deliver me from the oppression of man. 1. "Man" by way of distinction. There is the oppression and tyranny of the Devil and sin; but the Psalmist doth not mean that now: Heminum non daemonum, saith Hugo. 2. "Man" by way of aggravation. Homo homini lupus:no creatures so ravenous and destructive to one another as man. It is a shame that one man should oppress another. Beasts do not usually devour those of the same kind; but, usually, a man's enemies are those of his own household: Mt 10:36. The nearer we are in bonds of alliance, the greater the hatred. 3. "Man" by way of diminution. And to lessen the fear of this evil, this term Adam is given them, to show their weakness in comparison of God. Thou art God; but they that are so ready and forward to oppress and injure us are but men; thou canst easily overrule their power and break the yoke. I think this consideration chiefest, because of other places. "Who art thou, that thou shouldest be afraid of a man that shall die, and of the son of man which shall be made as grass; and forgettest the Lord thy maker, that hath stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth; and hast feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor, as if he were ready to destroy? and where is the fury of the oppressor?" Isa 41:12-13. Thomas Manton.
Verse 134. From the oppression of man. Some render it, "from the oppression of Adam; "as Jarchi observes; and Arama interprets it of the sin of Adam, and as a prayer to be delivered or redeemed from it; as the Lord's people are by the blood of Christ. John Gill.
Verse 135. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant. The face of God shines upon us, when, in his providence, we are guided and upheld; also when we are made to share in the good things of his providence, and when we are placed in a position wherein we can do much good. Much more does the face of God shine upon us, when we are favoured with tokens of his gracious favour; for then we grow under the consciousness of a loving God, with rich supplies of his grace and Spirit. John Stephen.
Verse 135. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant. Oftentimes the wrongful dealings of men, of others, and of ourselves, like a cloud of smoke arising from the earth and obscuring the face of the sun, hide from us for a while the light, of the countenance of God: but he soon clears it all away, and looks down upon us in loving mercy as before, lighting for us the path of obedience, and brightening our way unto himself. "Plain Commentary, " 1859.
Verse 135. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant. The believer's incessant cry is, Let me see "the King's face." This is a blessing worth praying for. It is his heart's desire, his present privilege, and what is infinitely better, his sure, everlasting prospect-- "They shall see his face." Re 22:4. Charles Bridges.
Verse 135. Make thy face to shine... and teach me. Blessed is the man whom eternal Truth teacheth, not by obscure figures and transient sounds, but by direct and full communication. The perceptions of our senses are narrow and dull, and our reason on those perceptions frequently misleads us. He whom the eternal Word condescends to teach is disengaged at once from the labyrinth of human opinions. For "of one word are all things"; and all things without voice or language speak of him alone: he is that divine principle which speaketh in our hearts, and without which there can be neither just apprehension nor rectitude of judgment. O God, who art the truth, make me one with thee in everlasting life! I am often weary of reading, and weary of hearing; in thee alone is the sum of my desire! Let all teachers be silent, let the whole creation be dumb before thee, and do thou only speak unto my soul! Thy ministers can pronounce the words, but cannot impart the spirit; they may entertain the fancy with the charms of eloquence, but if thou art silent they do not inflame the heart. They administer the letter, but thou openest the sense; they utter the mystery, but you reveal its meaning; they point out the way of life, but you bestow strength to walk in it; they water, but thou givest the increase. Therefore do thou, O Lord, my God, Eternal Truth! speak to my soul! lest, being outwardly warmed, but not inwardly quickened, I die, and be found unfruitful. "Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth." "Thou only hast the words of eternal life." -- Thomas a Kempis, 1380-1471.
Verse 135. Make thy face to shine teach me, etc. God hath many ways of teaching; he teaches by book, he teaches by his fingers, he teaches by his rod; but his most comfortable and effectual teaching is by the light of his eye: "O send out thy light and thy truth; let them lead me: let them bring me unto thy holy hilt:" Ps 42:3. Richard Alleine (1611-1681), in "Heaven Opened."
Verse 135. Make thy face to shine... teach me thy statutes. God's children, when they beg comfort, also beg grace to serve him acceptably. For by teaching God's statutes is not meant barely a giving speculative knowledge of God's will; for so David here; "Make thy face to shine"; and "Teach me thy statutes." -- Thomas Manton.
Verse 136. Rivers of waters run down my eyes. Most of the easterners shed tears much more copiously than the people of Europe. The psalmist said rivers of waters ran down his eyes; and though the language is beautifully figurative, I have no doubt it was also literally true. I have myself seen Arabs shed tears like streams. John Gadsby.
Verse 136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, etc. Either because mine eyes keep not thy law, so some. The eye is the inlet and outlet of a great deal of sin, and therefore it ought to be a weeping eye. Or rather, they, i.e., those about me: Ps 119:139. Note, the sins of sinners are the sorrows of saints. We must mourn for that which we cannot mend. Matthew Henry.
Verse 136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, etc. David's afflictions drew not so many tears from him as the sins of others; not his banishment by his son, as the breach of God's law by the wicked. Nothing went so to his heart as the dishonour of God, whose glory shining in his word and ordinances, is dearer to the godly than their lives. Elijah desired to die when he saw God so dishonoured by Ahab and Jezebel. The eye is for two things, sight and tears: if we see God dishonoured, presently our eyes should be filled with tears. William Greenhill, 1591-1677.
Verse 136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, etc. Godly men are affected with deep sorrow for the sins of the ungodly. Let us consider the nature of this affection.
1. It is not a stoical apathy, and affected carelessness; much less a delightful partaking with sinful practices.
2. Not a proud setting off of their own goodness, with marking the sin of others as the Pharisee did in the gospel.
3. Not the derision and mocking of the folly of men, with that "laughing philosopher": it comes nearer to the temper of the other who wept always for it.
4. It is not a bitter, bilious anger, breaking forth into railings and reproaches, nor an upbraiding insultation.
5. Nor is it a vindictive desire of punishment, venting itself in curses and imprecations, which is the rash temper of many, but especially of the vulgar sort.
The disciples' motion to Christ was far different from that way, and yet he says to them, "We know not of what spirit ye are." They thought they had been of Elijah's spirit, but he told them they were mistaken, and did not know of what a spirit they were in that motion. Thus heady zeal often mistakes and flatters itself. We find not here a desire of fire to come down from heaven upon the breakers of the law, but such a grief as would rather bring water to quench it, if it were falling on them. "Rivers of waters run down mine eyes." -- Robert Leighton.
Verse 136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, etc. The Lord requireth this mourning bitterly for other men's sins to keep our hearts the more tender and upright; it is an act God useth to make us more careful of our own souls, to be troubled at the sins of others, at sin in a third person. It keepeth us at a great distance from temptation. This is like quenching of fire in a neighbour's house: before it comes near thee, thou runnest with thy bucket. There is no way to keep us free from the infection, so much as mourning. The soul will never agree to do that which it grieved itself to see another do. And, as it keepeth us upright, so also humble, fearful of Divine judgment, tender lest we ourselves offend, and draw down the wrath of God. He that shrugs when he seeth a snake creeping upon another, will much more be afraid when it cometh near to himself. In our own sins we have the advantage of conscience scourging the soul with remorse and shame; in bewailing the sins of others, we have only the reasons of duty and obedience. They that fight abroad out of love to valour and exploits, will certainly fight at home out of love to their own safety. Thomas Manton.
Verse 136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, etc. Thus uniformly is the character of God's people represented-- not merely as those who are free from-- but as "those that sigh and cry for-- all the abominations that are done it, the midst of the land": Eze 9:4 And who does not see what an enlarged sphere still presents itself on every side for the unrestrained exercise of Christian compassion? The appalling spectacle of a world apostatized from God, of multitudes sporting with everlasting destruction-- as if the God of heaven were "a man that he should lie" is surely to force "rivers of waters" from the hearts of those that are concerned his honour. What a mass of sin ascends as a cloud before the Lord, a single heart! Add the aggregate of a village-- a town-- a country-- a world! every day-- every hour-- every moment. Well might the "waters rise to an overflowing tide, ready to burst its barriers." -- Charles Bridges.
Verse 136. Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep not law. The vices of the religious are the shame of religion: the sight this hath made the stoutest champions of Christ melt into tears. David was one of those great worthies of the world, not matchable in his time yet he weeps. Did he tear in pieces a bear like a kid? Rescue a lamb will the death of a lion? Foil a mighty giant, that had dared the whole of God? Did he like a whirlwind, bear and beat down his enemies bel him; and now, does he, like a child or a woman, fall weeping? Yes, had heard the name of God blasphemed, seen his holy rites profaned, his statutes vilipended, and violence offered to the pure chastity of that virgin, religion; this resolved that valiant heart into tears: "Rivers of waters run down mine eyes." -- Thomas Adams.
Verse 136. My soul frequently spent itself in such breathings after conformity to the law of God as the one hundred and nineteenth Psalm is with throughout: "O that my ways were directed to keep thy My heart breaketh through the longing it hath to thy commands at times; incline my heart that I may keep them alway unto the end, "the like. This appeared further in a fixed dislike of the least inconformity: to the law, either in myself or others. Now; albeit I was always affected with my own or others' breaches, yet this was my burden; I always that rivers of tears might run down mine eyes, because I, or transgressors, kept not God's law. Thomas Halyburton, 1674-1712.
Verse 136. If we grieve not for others, their sin may become Eze 4:8 1Co 5:2. William Nicholson.
S. Jerome, whom most of the medievalists follow, explains Tsaddi as meaning justice or righteousness, which, however, is mru, tsedek But he is so far right that there is a play in this strophe on the sound of the initial letter, as in the case of Gemol;for the very first word, righteous, is mru, tsaddik, and the whole scope of the strophe is the strong grasp which even the young and inexperienced soul can have of righteousness amidst the troubles of the world. Neale and Littledale.
All these verses begin with Tzaddi, the eighteenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet; Ps 119:137,142,144, with some form of the word which we render righteous, or righteousness; each of the remainder with a wholly different word. William S. Plumer.
Verse 137. Righteous art thou, O LORD, etc. Here David, sore troubled with grief for the wickedness of his enemies, yea, tempted greatly to impatience and distrust, by looking to their prosperous estate, notwithstanding their so gross impiety, doth now show unto us a three fold ground of comfort, which in this dangerous temptation upheld him. The first is, a consideration of that which God is in himself; namely, just and righteous: the second, a consideration of the equity of his word; the third, a view of his constant truth, declared in his working and doing according to his word. When we find ourselves tempted to distrust by looking to the prosperity of the wicked, let us look up to God, and consider his nature, his word, his works, and we shall find comfort. Righteous art thou. This is the first ground of comfort-- a meditation of the righteousness of God's nature; he alters not with times, he changes not with persons, he is, alway and unto all, one and the same righteous and holy God. Righteousness is essential to him, it is himself; and he can no more defraud the godly of their promised comforts, not let the wicked go unpunished in their sins, than he can deny himself to be God, which is impossible. William Cowper.
Verse 137. Righteous art thou, O LORD, etc. Essentially, originally, and of himself; naturally, immutably and universally, in all his ways and works of nature and grace; in his thoughts, purposes, counsels, and decrees; in all the dispensations of his providence; in redemption, in the justification of a sinner, in the pardon of sin, and in the gift of eternal life through Christ. "And upright are thy judgments." They are according to the rules of justice and equity. He refers to the precepts of the word, the doctrines of the gospel, as well as the judgments of God inflicted on wicked men, and all the providential dealings of God with his people, and also the final judgment. John Gill.
Verse 137. Righteous art thou, O LORD, etc. Here is much to keep the children of God in awe. The Lord is a righteous God: though they have found mercy and taken sanctuary in his grace, the Lord is impartial in his justice. God that did not spare the angels when they sinned, nor his Son when he was a sinner by imputation, will not spare you, though you are the dearly beloved of his soul: Pro 11:31. The sinful courses of God's children occasion bitterness enough; they never venture upon sin, but with great Joss. If Paul give way to a little pride, God will humble him. If any give way to sin, their pilgrimage will be made uncomfortable. Eli falls into negligence and indulgence, then is the ark of God taken, his two sons are slain in battle, his daughter-in-law dies, he himself breaks his neck. Oh! the wonderful tragedies that sin works in the houses of the children of God! David, when he intermeddled with forbidden fruit, was driven from his palace, his concubines defiled, his own son slain; a great many calamities did light upon him. Therefore the children of God have cause to fear; for the Lord is a just God, and they will find it so. Here upon earth he hath reserved liberty to visit their iniquity with rods, and their transgression with scourges. I must press you to imitate God's righteousness: "If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him": 1Jo 2:29. You have a righteous God; and this part of his character you should copy out. Thomas Manton.
Verse 137. David's great care, when he was under the afflicting hand of God, was to clear the Lord of injustice. Oh! Lord, saith he, there is not the least show, spot, stain, blemish, or mixture of injustice, in all the afflictions thou hast brought upon me. I desire to take shame to myself, and to set to my seal, that the Lord is righteous, and that there is no injustice, no cruelty, nor no extremity in all that the Lord hath brought upon me. He sweetly and readily subscribes unto the righteousness of God in those sharp and smart afflictions that God exercised him with. "Righteous art thou, O LORD, and upright are thy judgments." God's judgments are always just; he never afflicts but in faithfulness. His will is the rule of justice; and therefore a gracious soul dares not cavil nor question his proceedings. Thomas Brooks.
Verse 137. The hundred and thirty-seventh verse, like the twenty-fifth, is associated with the sorrows of an Imperial penitent (Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. 46). When the deposed and captive Emperor Maurice was led out for execution by the usurper Phocas, his five sons were previously murdered one by one in his presence; and at each fatal blow he patiently exclaimed, "Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright are thy judgments." -- Neale and Littledale.
Verse 138. Thy testimonies that thou hast commanded are righteous and very faithful. The force of this expression is much feebler than that of the original, which literally may be rendered, "Thou hast commanded righteousness thy testimonies, and truth exceedingly. "So the Septuagint hath it. Righteousness and truth were his testimonies; the testimonies were one with his righteousness and truth. The English translation gives the quality of the testimonies; the Hebrew gives that which is commanded; as if we might say, Thou hast enjoined righteousness to be thy testimonies, and truth exceedingly. John Stephen.
Verse 138. Thy testimonies. The word of God is called his testimony, both because it testifies his will, which he will have us to do; as also because it testifies unto men truly what shall become of them, whether good or evil. Men by nature are curious to know their end, rather than careful to mend their life; and for this cause seek answers where they never get good: but if they would know, let them go to the word and testimony; they need not to seek any other oracle. If the word of God testify good things unto them, they have cause to rejoice; if otherwise it witnesseth evil unto them, let them haste to prevent it, or else it will assuredly overtake them. William Cowper.
Verse 138. Righteous and very faithful. Literally, "faithfulness exceedingly." Harsh and severe as they may seem, they are all thoroughly for man's highest good. William Kay.
Verse 139. My zeal hath consumed me. "Zeal" is a high degree of love; and when the object of that love is ill treated, it vents itself in a mixture of grief and indignation, which are sufficient to wear and "consume" the heart. This will be the case where men rightly conceive of that dishonour which is continually done to God by creatures whom he hath made and redeemed. But never could the verse be uttered, with such fulness of truth and propriety, by any one, as by the Son of God, who had such a sense of his Father's glory, and of man's sin, as no person else ever had. And, accordingly, when his zeal had exerted itself in purging the temple, St. John tells us, "his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal thine house hath eaten me up." The place where it is so written Ps 69:9, and the passage is exactly parallel to this before us. Horne.
Verse 139. My zeal hath consumed me, etc. Zeal is the heat or tension of the affections; it is a holy warmth, whereby our love and an are drawn out to the utmost for God, and his glory. Now, our love to and his ways, and our hatred of wickedness, should be increased, because ungodly men. Cloudy and dark colours in a table, make those that are and lively to appear more beautiful; others' sin should make God and godliness more amiable in thine eyes. Thy heart should take fire by striking on such cold flints. David by a holy antiperistasis, did kindle from of coldness: "My zeal hath consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten words." Cold blasts make a fire to flame the higher, and burn the hotter -- George Swinnock.
Verse 139. My zeal hath consumed me. The fire of zeal, like the fire which consumed Solomon's sacrifice, cometh down from heaven; and zealots are not those salamanders that always live in the fire of hatred contention; but seraphs, burning with the spiritual fire of divine And there true zeal inflames the desires and affections of the soul. If it be true zeal, then tract of time, multitude of discouragements, falseness of deserting the cause, strength of oppositions, will not tire out a man's s Zeal makes men resolute, difficulties are but whetstones to their fortitude steels men's spirits with an undaunted resolution. This was the zeal burned in the disciples (Luke 24), that consumed David here, and up the very marrow of Christ: Joh 2:17. Abraham Wright.
Verse 139. My zeal hath consumed me. There are divers kinds of there is a zeal of the world, there is a zeal of the flesh, there is a zeal of religion, there is a zeal of heresy, and there is a zeal of the true God. First, we see the zeal of the world maketh men to labour day night to get a transitory thing. The zeal of the flesh torments me minds early and late for a momentary pleasure. The zeal of heresy maketh travel and compass sea and land, for the maintaining and increasing of opinion. Thus we see every man is eaten up with some kind of zeal. The drunkard is consumed with drunkenness, the whoremonger is spent with his whoredom, the heretic is eaten with heresies. Oh, how ought this to ashamed, who are so little eaten, spent, and consumed with the zeal of word! And so much the rather, because godly zeal leaveth in us advantage and a recompence, which the worldly and carnally zealous have not. For when they have spent all the strength of their bodies, powers of their mind, they have no gain or comfort left, but torment conscience; and when they are outwardly spent, they are inwardly never better: whereas the godly being concerned for a good thing, and eaten with the zeal of God's glory, have this notable privilege and profit, howsoever their outward man perisheth and decayeth, yet their inward is still refreshed and nourished to everlasting life. Oh, what a benefit to be eaten up with the love and zeal of a good thing! -- Richard Greenham.
Verse 139. Have forgotten thy words. A proper phrase to set forth in the bosom of the visible church who do not wholly deny and reject word and rule of Scripture, but yet live on as though they had it: they do not observe it; as if God had never spoken any such thing, given them any such rule. They that reject and condemn such things as word enforces, surely do not remember to do them. Thomas Manton.
Verse 140. Thy word is very pure. In the original, "tried, purified, like gold in the furnace, "absolutely perfect, without the dross vanity and fallibility, which runs through human writings. The more we try the promises, the surer we shall find them. Pure gold is so fixed, Boerhaave, informs us of an ounce of it set in the eye of a glass furnace for two months, without losing a single grain. George Horne.
Verse 140. Thy word is very pure; therefore, etc. The word of God is not only "pure, "free from all base admixture, but it is a purifier;it cleanses from sin and guilt every heart with which into comes into contact. "Now ye are clean, "said Jesus Christ to his disciples, "by the word which I have spoken unto you": Joh 15:3. It is this its pure quality combined with its tendency to purify every nature that yields to its holy influence, that endears it to every child of God. Here it is that he finds those views of the divine character, those promises, those precepts, those representations of the deformity of sin, of the beauty of holiness, which lead him, above all things, to seek conformity to the divine image. A child of God in his best moments does not wish the word of God brought down to a level with his own imperfect character, but desires rather that his character may be gradually raised to a conformity to that blessed word. Because it is altogether pure, and because it tends to convey to those who make it their constant study a measure of its own purity, the child of God loves it, and delights to meditate in it day and night. John Morison.
Verse 140. Thy word is very pure. Before I knew the word of God in spirit and in truth, for its great antiquity, its interesting narratives, its impartial biography, its pure morality, its sublime poetry, in a word, for its beautiful and wonderful variety, I preferred it to all other books; but since I have entered into its spirit, like the Psalmist, I love it above all things for its purity; and desire, whatever else I read, it may tend to increase my knowledge of the Bible, and strengthen my affection for its divine and holy truths. Sir William Jones, 1746-1794.
Verse 140. Thy word. Let us refresh our minds and our memories with some of the Scripture adjuncts connected with "the word, "and realize, in some degree at least, the manifold relations which it bears both to God and our souls. It is called "the word of Christ, " because much of it was given by him, and it all bears testimony to him...It is called "the word of his grace, "because the glorious theme on which it loves to expatiate is grace, and especially grace as it is seen in Christ's dying love for sinful men. It is called ololov tou staurou, "the word of the cross" (1Co 1:18), because in the crucifixion of the divine Redeemer we see eternal mercy in its brightest lustre. It is called "the word of the gospel, "because it brings glad tidings of great joy to all nations. It is called "the word of the kingdom, "because it holds out to all believers the hope of an everlasting kingdom of righteousness and peace. It is called "the word of salvation, "because the purpose for which it was given is the salvation of sinners. It is called "the word of truth, "because, as Chillingworth says, it has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth without mixture of error for its contents. And we will only add, it is called "the word of life, "because it reveals to a sinful, perishing world the doctrines of life and immortality. IV. Graham, in "A Commentary on the First Epistle of John, "1857.
Verse 140. Therefore thy servant loveth it. Love in God is the fountain of all his benefits extended to us; and love in man is the fountain of all our service and obedience to God. He loved us first to do us good; and hereof it comes that we have grace to love him next to do him service. Love is such a duty that the want thereof cannot be excused in any; for the poorest both may and should love God: yet without it all the rest thou canst do in his service is nothing; nay, not if thou shouldest give thy goods to the poor, and offer thy body to be burned. Small sacrifices, flowing from faith and love, are welcome to him, where greater without these are but abomination to him. Proofs of both we have in the widow's mite and Cain's rich oblation; whereof the one was rejected, the other received. Happy are we though we cannot say, "We have done as God commands, "if out of a good heart we can say, -- "We love to do what he commands." -- William Cowper.
Verse 140. Therefore thy servant loveth it. Of all our grounds and reasons of love to the word of God, the most noble and excellent is to love the word for its purity. This showeth indeed that we are made partakers of the Divine nature: 2Pe 1:4. For I play you mark, when we hate evil as evil, and love good as good, we have the same love and hatred that God hat Is. When once we come to love things because they are pure, it is a sign that we have the same love that God hath. Thomas Manton.
Verse 140. Thy servant loveth it. Otherwise, indeed, the Psalmist would not have been the Lord's servant at all. But he glories in the title because he delights in the pure service. John Stephen.
Verses 140-141. God's own utterance is indeed without spot, and therefore not to be carped at; it is pure, fire proved, noblest metal, therefore he loves it, and does not, though young and lightly esteemed, care for the remonstrances of his proud opponents, who are older and more learned than himself. Franz Delitzsch.
Verse 141. I am small and despised, or, I have been. Some versions render it young; as if it had respect to the time of his anointing by Samuel, when he was overlooked and despised in his father's family (1Sa 16:11 17:28); but the word here used is not expressive of age, but of state, condition, and circumstances; and the meaning is, that he was little in his own esteem, and in the esteem of men, and was despised; and that on account of religion, in which he was a type of Christ (Ps 24:6 Isa 53:3), and which is the common lot of good men, who are treated by the world as the filth of it, and the offscouring of all things. John Gill.
Verse 141. I am small. They that love God may be reduced to a mean, low, and afflicted condition; the Lord seeth it meet for divers reasons: 1. That they may know their happiness is not in this world, and so the snore long for heaven, and delight in heavenly things. 2. It is necessary to cut off the provisions of the flesh and the fuel of their lusts. A rank soil breeds weeds; and when we sail with a full stream we are apt to be carried away with it. 3. That they may be more sensible of his displeasure against their sins and scandalous carriage by which they have dishonoured him, and provoked the pure eyes of his glory. 4. That they may learn to live upon the promises, and learn to exercise suffering graces; especially dependence upon God, who can support us without a temporal, visible interest. 5. That God may convince the enemies that there is a people that do sincerely serve him, and not for carnal, selfish ends: Job 1:6. That his glory may be more seen in their deliverance; and therefore, before God doth appear for his children, he bringeth them very low. Thomas Manton.
Verse 141. Small. This applies to David in his early days of trouble and persecution. It is difficult to find any other individual to whom it is so suitable. James G. Murphy.
Verse 141. A notable example to the shame of them, that perhaps will serve and praise God in their prosperity, and when they are increased; but let affliction or want come, and then they have little heart to do it. Abraham Wright.
Verse 141. Yet do not I forget thy precepts. God observeth what we do in our trouble: "If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god: shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart": Ps 44:20-21. 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. In our poor and despicable condition we see more cause to love the word than we did before; because we experience supports and comforts which we have thereby: "Knowing that tribulation worketh patience, " etc. (Ro 5:3); "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ": 2Co 1:5. God hath special consolations for his afflicted and despised people, and makes their consolation by Christ to run parallel with, and keep pace with, their sufferings for Christ. Thomas Manton.
Verse 141. Yet do not I forget thy precepts. We see by experience that our affection leaves anything from the time it goes out of our remembrance. We cease to love when we cease to remember; but earnest love ever renews remembrance of that which is beloved. The first step of defection is to forget what God hath commanded, and what we are obliged in duty to do to him; and upon this easily follows the offending of God by our transgression. Such beasts as did not chew their cud, under the law were accounted unclean, and not meet to be sacrificed unto God: that was but a figure, signifying unto us that a man who hath received good things from God, and doth not think upon them, cannot feel the sweetness of them, and so cannot be thankful to God. William Cowper.
Verse 142. Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. Here the law of God is honoured by the additional encomium, that it is everlasting righteousness and truth; as if it had been said, that all other rules of life, with whatever attractions they may appear to be recommended, are but a shadow, which quickly vanishes away. The Psalmist, no doubt, indirectly contrasts the doctrine of the law with all the human precepts which were ever delivered, that he may bring all the faithful in subjection to it, since it is the school of perfect wisdom. There may be more of plausibility in the refined and subtle disquisitions of men; but there is in them nothing firm or solid at bottom, as there is in God's law. This firmness of the divine law he proves in the following verse from one instance-- the continual comfort he found in it when grievously harassed with temptations. And the true test of the profit we have reaped from it is, when we oppose to all the distresses of whatever kind which may straiten us, the consolation derived from the word of God, that thereby all sadness may be effaced from our minds. David here expresses something more than he did in the preceding verse; for there he only said that he reverently served God, although from his rough and hard treatment he might seem to lose his labour; but now when distressed and tormented, he affirms that he finds in the law of God the most soothing delight, which mitigates all griefs, and not only tempers their bitterness, but also seasons them with a certain sweetness. Assuredly when this taste does not exist to afford us delight, nothing is more natural than for us to be swallowed up of sorrow. John Calvin.
Verse 142. Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness. Not only righteous at the first giving out, but righteous in all ages and times; and should we slight this rule that will hold for ever? In the world, new lords, new laws; men vary and change their designs and purposes; privileges granted today may be repealed tomorrow; but this wold will hold true for ever. Our justification by Christ is irrevocable; that part of righteousness is everlasting. Be sure you are justified now upon terms of the gospel, and you shall be justified for ever: your forgiveness is an everlasting forgiveness, and your peace is an everlasting peace: "I will remember their sin no more": Jer 31:34. So the other righteousness of sanctification, it is for ever; approve yourselves to God now, and you will approve yourselves at the day of judgment. Thomas Manton.
Verse 142. Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, etc. The original is better expressed thus, "Thy righteousness is righteousness everlastingly, and thy law is truth. "So the Septuagint. The English translation expresses the perpetuity of the righteousness, the original expresses also the character of it...God's righteousness is essentially and eternally righteousness. The expressions are absolute; there is only this righteousness, and only this truth. John Stephen.
Verse 142. Thy law is the truth. 1. It is the chief truth. There is some truth in the laws of men and the writings of men, even of heathens; but they are but sorry fragments and scraps of truth, that have escaped since the fall. 2. It is the only truth; that is, the only revelation of the mind of God that you can build upon. It is the rule of truth. 3. It is the pure truth. In it there is nothing but the truth, without the mixture of falsehood; every part is true as truth itself. It is true in the promises, threatenings, doctrines, histories, precepts, prohibitions. 4. It is the whole truth. It containeth all things necessary for the salvation of those that yield up themselves to be instructed by it. Thomas Manton.
Verse 143. Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me: yet thy commandments are my delights. This is strange, that in the midst of anguish David had delight: but indeed the sweetness of God's word is best perceived under the bitterness of the cross. The joy of Christ and the joy of the world cannot consist together. A heart delighted with worldly joy cannot feel the consolations of the Spirit; the one of these destroys the other: but in sanctified trouble, the comforts of God's word are felt and perceived in a most sensible manner. Many a time hath David protested this delight of his in the word of God; and truly it is a great argument of godliness, when men come not only to reverence it, but to love it, and delight in it. Let this be considered by those unhappy men who hear it of custom, and count it but a weariness. Abraham Wright.
Verse 143. Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me, or "found me, "etc. We need not take pains, as many do, "to find trouble and anguish; "for they will, one day, "find us." In that day the revelations of God must be to us instead of all worldly "delights" and pleasures, which will then have forsaken us; and how forlorn and desolate will be our state if we should have no other delights, no other pleasures, to succeed them, and to accompany us into eternity. Let our study be then in the Scriptures, if we expect our comfort in them in time to come. George Horne.
Verse 143. Trouble and anguish have taken hold on me. You may conceive a bold figure here, as if Trouble and Anguish were being sent out against the helpless sons of men. These, like enemies, were going round. Instead of seizing upon the wicked, they had found the righteous man. So it was by the ordering of God. I suppose many of us have remarked, that the believer is never long at ease. He is in the world; he is in the flesh; there is indwelling sin; there are enemies around; there is the great enemy; besides all this, the Lord, for wise purposes, hides his face. Then the believer is in trouble and anguish. John Stephen.
Verse 143. Have taken hold on me. Hebrew, found me. Like dogs tracking out a wild beast hiding or fleeing. A.R. Fausset.
Verse 143. Thy commandments are my delights. Delight in moral things (saith Aquinas) is the rule by which we may judge of men's goodness or badness. Delectatio est quies voluntatis in bono. Men are good and bad as the objects of their delight are: they are good who delight in good things, and they are evil who delight in evil things. Thomas Manton.
Verse 144. The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting. Thy moral law was not made for one people, or for one particular time; it is as imperishable as thy nature, and of endless obligation. It is that law by which all the children of Adam shall be judged. "Give me understanding." To know and practise it. "And I shall live." Shall glorify thee, and live eternally; not for the merit of having done it, but because thou didst fulfil the work of the law in my heart, having saved me from condemnation by it. Adam Clarke.
Verse 144. Give me understanding, and I shall live. I read it in connection with the preceding clause; for although David desires to have his mind enlightened by God, yet he does not conceive of any other way by which he was to obtain an enlightened understanding than by his profiting aright in the study of the law. Further, he here teaches that men cannot, properly speaking, be said to live when they are destitute of the light of heavenly wisdom; and as the end for which men are created is not that, like swine or asses, they may stuff their bellies, but that they may exercise themselves in the knowledge and service of God, when they turn away from such employment their life is worse than a thousand deaths. David therefore protests that for him to live was not merely to be fed with meat and drink, and to enjoy earthly comforts, but to aspire after a better life, which he could not do save under the guidance of faith. This is a very necessary warning; for although it is universally acknowledged that man is born with this distinction, that he excels the lower animals in intelligence, yet the great bulk of mankind, as if with deliberate purpose, stifle whatever light God pours into their understandings. I indeed admit that all men desire to be sharp witted; but how few aspire to heaven, and consider that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Since, then, meditation upon the celestial life is buried by earthly care, men do nothing else than plunge into the grave, so that while living to the world, they die to God. Under the term life, however, the prophet denotes the utmost he could wish. Lord, as if he had said, although I am already dead, yet if thou art pleased to illumine my mind with the knowledge of heavenly truth, this grace alone will be sufficient to revive me. John Calvin.
Verse 144. Give me understanding, and I shall live. The saving knowledge of God's testimonies is the only way to live. There is a threefold life. 1. Life natural. 2. Life spiritual, and, 3. Life eternal. In all these considerations may the point be made good.
First. Life is taken for the life of nature, or the life of the body, or life temporal, called "this life" in Scripture: 1Co 15:19; 1Ti 4:8. Life is better preserved in a way of obedience than by evil doing; that provoketh God to cast us off, and exposes us to dangers. It is not in the power of the world to make us live or die a day sooner or longer than God pleaseth. If God will make us happy, they cannot make us miserable: therefore, "Give me understanding, and I shall live"; that is, lead a comfortable and happy life for the present. Prevent sin, and you prevent danger. Obedience is the best way to preserve life temporal: as great a paradox as it seems to the world, it is a Scripture truth, "Keep my commandments, and live" (Pr 4:4); and, "Take fast hold of instruction; let her not go: keep her; for she is thy life" (verse 13); and, "Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour" (Pr 3:16); and, "She is a tree of life" (verse 18). The knowledge and practice of the word is the only means to live comfortably and happily here, as well as for ever hereafter.
Secondly. Life spiritual;that is twofold, the life of justification, and the life of sanctification.
1. The life of justification: "The free gift came upon all men unto justification of life": Ro 5:18. He is dead, not only on whom the hangman hath done his work, but also he on whom the judge hath passed sentence, and the law pronounces him dead. In this sense we were all dead, and justification is called justification to life; there is no living in this sense without knowledge: "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many": Isa 43:11. We live by faith, and faith cometh by hearing, and hearing doeth no good unless the Lord giveth understanding; as meats nourish not unless received and digested.
2. The life of sanctification: "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins": Eph 2:. And men live not properly till they live the life of grace; they live a false, counterfeit life, not a blessed, happy, certain, and true life. Now, this life is begun and carried on by saying knowledge: "The new man which is renewed in knowledge": Col 3:10. Again, men are said to be "alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them": Eph 4:18. They that are ignorant are dead in sin: life spiritual cometh by knowledge. Hence begins the change of the inward man, and thenceforth we live. "Give me understanding, "ut vere in te vivare, that the true life began in me may grow and increase daily, but never be quenched by sin.
Thirdly. Life everlasting, or our blessed estate in heaven. So it is Said of the saints departed, they all live unto God: Lu 20:38. And this is called the water of life, the tree of life, the crown of life; properly this is life. What is the present life in comparison of everlasting life? The present life, it is "mars vitalis", a living death; or "mortalis vita", a dying life, a kind of death; it is always in flux, like a stream: it runneth from us as fast as it cometh to us: "He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not": Joh 14:2. We die as fast as we live: it differeth but as the point from the line where it terminates. It is not one and the same, no permanent thing; it is like the shadow of a star in a flowing stream. Its contentments are base and low, called "the life of thine hand": Isa 57:10. It is patched up of several creatures, fain to ransack the storehouses of nature to support a ruinous fabric. And compare it with the life of grace here, it doth not exempt us from sin, nor miseries. Our capacities are narrow. We are full of fears, and doubts, and dangers; but in the life of glory we shall neither sin nor sorrow any more. This is meant here: "The righteousness of thy testimonies is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live"; it is chiefly meant of the life of glory. This is the fruit of saving knowledge, when we so know God and Christ as to come to God by him. Thomas Manton.
Verse 144. I shall live. I shall be kept from those sins which deserve and bring death. Matthew Pool.
Verse 145. I cried with my whole heart. As a man cries most loudly when he cries with all his mouth opened; so a man prays most effectually when he prays with his whole heart. Neither doth this speech declare only the fervency of his affection; but it imports also that it was a great thing which he sought from God. And thou, when thou prayest, pray for great things; for things enduring, not for things perishing: pray not for silver, it is but rust; nor for gold, it is but metal; nor for possessions, they are but earth. Such prayer ascends not to God. He is a great God, and esteems himself dishonoured when great things with great affection are not sought from him. William Cowper.
Verse 145. I cried with my whole heart. In all your closet duties God looks first and most to your hearts: "My son, give me thine heart": Pr 23:26. It is not a piece, it is not a corner of the heart, that will satisfy the Maker of the heart; the heart is a treasure, a bed of spices, a royal throne wherein he delights. God looks not at the elegancy of your prayers, to see how neat they are; nor yet at the geometry of your prayers, to see how long they are; nor yet at the arithmetic of your prayers, to see how many they are; nor yet at the music of your prayers, nor yet at the sweetness of your voice, nor yet at the logic of your prayers; but at the sincerity of your prayers, how hearty they are. There is no prayer acknowledged, approved, accepted, recorded, or rewarded by God, but that wherein the heart is sincerely and wholly. The true mother would not have the child divided. God loves a broken and a contrite heart, so he loathes a divided heart: Ps 51:17; Jas 1:8. God neither loves halting nor halving; he will be served truly and totally. The royal law is, "Thou shalt love and serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul." Among the heathens, when the beasts were cut up for sacrifice, the first thing the priest looked upon was the heart, and if the heart was naught, the sacrifice was rejected. Verily, God rejects all those sacrifices wherein the heart is not. Prayer without the heart is but as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Prayer is only lovely and weighty, as the heart is in it, and no otherwise. It is not the lifting up of the voice, nor the wringing of the hands, nor the beating of the breasts, nor an affected tone, nor studied motions, nor seraphical expressions, but the stirrings of the heart, that God looks at in prayer. God hears no more than the heart speaks. If the heart be dumb, God will certainly be deaf. No prayer takes with God, but that which is the travail of the heart. Thomas Brooks.
Verse 146. I cried unto thee. The distressed soul expresses itself in strong cries and tears. Of old they cried unto the Lord, and he heard them in their distress. So Israel at the Red Sea. The men of the Reformation thus expressed themselves in earnest prayer, and found relief. Luther at the Diet of Worms, when remanded for another day, spent the long night in the loud utterance of prayer, that he might appear for his Lord before an august earthly assembly. Our reading of the covenanting times will remind us of many instances of the same. We may think of John Welch, going into his garden night after night, in a night covering, and crying to the Lord to grant him Scotland. The expression of prayer, however, is manifold as the frame of the spirit. Intense feeling will beget strong cries in prayer; but prayer that is uttered under realizing views of our gracious God will be mild, and often delivered as it were in whispers. So was Alexander Peden accustomed to pray, as if he had been engaged in calm converse with a friend... But when the feeling is intense, when wrath lies heavy upon us, when danger is apprehended as near, when the Lord is conceived to be at a distance, or when there is eager desire after immediate attainment-- in all these cases there will be the strong cries. Such seems to have been the state of the Psalmist's mind when he poured forth the expressive utterance of this part. John Stephen.
Verse 146. Brief as are the petitions, the whole compass of language could not make them more comprehensive. "Hear me." The soul is in earnest, the whole heart is engaged in the "cry." "Save me" -- includes a sinner's whole need-- pardon, acceptance, access, holiness, strength, comfort, heaven, -- all in one word-- Christ. The way of access is not indeed mentioned in these short ejaculations. But it is always implied in every moment's approach and address to the throne of grace. "Hear me" in the name of my all prevailing Advocate. "Save me" through him, whose name is Jesus the Saviour. Charles Bridges.
Verse 146. I cried unto thee. A crying prayer pierces the depths of heaven. We read not a word that Moses spake, but God was moved by his cry. Ex 14:15. It means not an obstreperous noise, but melting moans of heart. Yet sometimes the sore and pinching necessities and distresses of spirit extort even vocal cries not unpleasant to the inclined ears of God. "I cried unto God with my voice, "says David, "and he heard me out of his holy hill": Ps 3:4. And this encourages to a fresh onset: "Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God": Ps 5:2. "Give ear unto my cry: hold not thy peace at my tears": Ps 39:12. Another time he makes the cave echo with his cries. "I cried, I cried. Attend unto my cry, for I am brought very low." -- Samuel Lee (1625-1691), in "The Morning Exercises."
Verse 146. I cried unto thee; save me. In our troubles, we must have recourse to God, and sue to him by prayer and supplication for help and deliverance in due time; because he is the author of our trouble. In mercies and afflictions, our business lieth not with men, but God; by humble dealing with him we stop wrath at the fountain head: he that bindeth us must loose us; he is at the upper end of causes, and whoever be the instruments of our trouble, and how malicious soever, God is the party with whom we are to make our peace; for he hath the absolute disposal of all creatures, and will have us to acknowledge the dominion of his providence and our dependence upon him. In treaties of peace between two warring parties, the address is not made to private soldiers, but to their chief: "The Lord hath taken away, "saith Job; "When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?" Job 34:29. Thomas Manton.
Verse 146. Save me, and I shall keep the testimonies. The servants of God regard life itself as chiefly desirable on account of the opportunity which it affords for serving God: "Save me, that I may keep thy testimonies, "is the prayer of the believer in the day of trouble and conflict. "To me to live, "says he, "is Christ, and to die is gain." How unlike is this to the wicked! Their whole desire in the day of trouble is expended on the wish to escape calamity; they have no desire to be delivered from sin, no wish to be conformed to God! -- John Morison.
Verse 146. Save me. From my sins, my corruptions, my temptations, all the hindrances that lie in my way, that I may "keep thy testimonies." We must cry for salvation, not that we may have the case and comfort of it, but that we may have an opportunity of serving God the more cheerfully. Matthew Henry.
Verse 146. God hears us, that we should hear him. Thomas Manton.
Verse 147. I prevented the dawning of the morning. The manner of speech is to be marked. He saith he prevented the morning watch, thereby declaring that he lived, as it were, in a strife with time, careful that it should not overrun him. He knew that time posts away, and in running by wearieth man to dust and ashes. But David pressed to get before it, by doing some good in it, before that it should spur away from him. And this care which David had of every day, alas, how may it make them ashamed who have no care of a whole life! He was afraid to lose a day; they take no thought to lose months and years without doing good in them: yea, having spent the three ages of their life in vanity and licentiousness, scarce will they consecrate their old and decrepit age to the Lord. William Cowper.
Verse 147. I prevented the dawning of the morning, etc. Those that make a business of prayer will use great vigilance and diligence therein. I say, that make a business of prayer; others that use it as a compliment and customary formality, will not be thus affected; they do it as a thing by-the-by, or a work that might well be spared, and do not look upon it as a necessary duty; but if a man's heart be in it, he will be early at work, and follow it close, morning and night: his business is to maintain communion with God, his desires will not let him sleep, and he gets up early to be calling upon God. "But unto thee have I cried, O Lord: and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee." Ps 88:13. Thus will good men even break their sleep to give themselves to prayer, and calling upon the name of God. Thomas Manton.
Verse 147. I prevented the dawning of the morning. It is a grievous thing if the rays of the rising sun find thee lazy and ashamed in thy bed, and the bright light strike on eyes still weighed down with slumbering sloth. Knowest thou not, O man, that thou owest the daily firstfruits of thy heart and voice to God? Thou hast a daily harvest, a daily revenue. The Lord Jesus remained all night in prayer, not that he needed its help, but putting an example before thee to imitate. He spent the night in prayer for thee, that thou mightest learn how to ask for thyself. Give him again, therefore what he paid for thee. Ambrose.
Verse 147. I prevented the dawning of the morning. David was a good husband, up, early at it: at night he was late at this duty: "At midnight will I rise to give thanks unto thee": Ps 119:62. This surely was his meaning when he said he should dwell in the house of the Lord for ever; he would be ever in the house of prayer... I wish that when I first open my eyes in the morning, I may then, in soul ejaculatory prayer, open my heart to my God, that at night prayer may make my bed soft, and lay my pillow easy; that in the daytime prayer may perfume my clothes, sweeten my food, oil the wheels of my particular vocation, keep me company upon all occasions, and gild over all my natural, civil, and religious actions. I wish that, after I have poured out my prayer in the name of Christ, according to the will of God, having sowed my seed, I may expect a crop, looking earnestly for the springing of it up, and believing assuredly that I shall reap in time if I faint not. George Swinnock.
Verse 147. I prevented the dawning of the morning. Early prayers are undisturbed by the agitating cares of life, and resemble the sweet melody of those birds which sing loudest and sweetest when fewest cars are open to listen to them. O my soul, canst thou say that thou hast thus "prevented the dawning of the morning" in thy approaches to God? Has the desire of communion with heaven raised thee from thy slumbers, shaken off thy sloth, and carried thee to thy knees? -- John Morison.
Verse 147. And cried. Here is a repetition of the same prayer, "I cried"; yea, again I cried, and a third time, "I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried." We use to knock at a door thrice, and then depart. Our Lord Jesus "prayed the third time, saying the same words" (Mt 26:44), "Father, if it he possible, let this cup pass from me." So the apostle Paul: "For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me": 2Co 12:8. So, "And he stretched himself upon the child three times, and cried unto the Lord, and said, O Lord my God, I pray thee, let this child's soul come into him again": 1Ki 17:21. This, it seemeth, was the time in which they expected an answer in weighty cases; and yet I will not confine it to that number; for here we are to reiterate our petitions for one and the same thing as often as occasion requireth, till it be granted. Thomas Manton.
Verse 147. Poets have delighted to sing of the morning as "Mother of the Dews, ""sowing the earth with orient pearl"; and many of the saints rising up from their beds at the first blush of dawn have round the poetry of nature to be the reality of grace as they have felt the dews of heaven refreshing their spirit. Hence morning exercises have ever been dear to the enlightened, heaven cloying souls, and it has been their rule, never to see the face of man till they have first seen the face of God. The breath of morn redolent of the smell of flowers is incense offered by earth to her Creator, and living men should never let the dead earth excel them; truly living men tuning their hearts for song, like the birds, salute the radiant mercy which reveals itself in the east. The first fresh hour of every morning should be dedicated to the Lord whose mercy gladdens it with golden light. The eye of day openeth its lids, and in so doing opens the eyes of hosts of heaven protected slumberers; it is fitting that those eyes should first look up to the great Father of Lights, the fount and source of all the good upon which the sunlight gleams. It augurs for us a day of grace when we begin betimes with God; the sanctifying influence of the season spent upon the mount operates upon each succeeding hour. Morning devotion anchors the soul so that it will not very readily drift far away from God during the day; it perfumes the heart so that it smells fragrant with piety until nightfall; it girds up the soul's garments so that it is less apt to stumble, and feeds all its rowers so that it is not permitted to faint. The morning is the gate of the day, and should be well guarded with prayer. It is one end of the thread on which the day's actions are strung, and should be well knotted with devotion. If we felt more the majesty of life we should be more careful of its mornings. He who rushes from his bed to his business and waiteth not to worship, is as foolish as though he had not put on his clothes, or cleansed his face, and as unwise as though he dashed into battle without arms or armour. Be it ours to bathe in the softly flowing river of communion with God, before the heat of the wilderness and the burden of the way begin to oppress us. C.H.S.
Verse 147. I hoped in thy word. Even if there should not be actual enjoyment, at least let us honour God by the spirit of expectancy. Charles Bridges.
Verses 147, 148. The student of theology and the minister of the word should begin the day with prayer, and this chiefly to seek from God, that he may rightly understand the word of God, and be able to teach others. Solomon Gesner Brethren, note this! -- C.H.S.
Verse 147, 148. See here:
1. That David was an early riser, which perhaps contributed to his eminency. He was none of those that say, "Yet a little sleep."
2. That he began the day with God; the first thing he did in the morning, before he admitted any business, was to pray; when his mind was most fresh and in the best frame. If our first thoughts in the morning be of God, it will help to keep us in his fear all the day long.
3. That his mind was so full of God and the cares and delights of his religion, that a little sleep served his turn, even in "the night watches, "when he awaked from his first sleep, he would rather meditate and pray, than turn him and go to sleep again. He esteemed the words of God's mouth more than his necessary repose, which we can as ill want as our food: Job 23:12.
4. That he would redeem time for religious exercises; he was full of business all day, but that will excuse no man from secret devotion; it is better to take time from sleep, as David did, than not find time for prayer. And this is our comfort when we pray in the night, that we can never come unseasonably to the throne of grace, if we may have access to it at all hours. Baal may be asleep, but Israel's God never slumbers, nor are there any hours in which he may not be spoken with. Matthew Henry.
Verse 148. Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word. You will all admit that this is the language of an ardent, earnest, and painstaking student. David represents himself as "rising early, and late taking rest, "on purpose that he might employ himself in the study of God's word. "He meditates in this word, "the expression implying close and patient thought; as if there were much in the word which was not to be detected by a cursory glance, and which required the strictest application both of the head and the heart. The Bible is a book in which we may continually meditate, and yet not exhaust its contents. When David expressed himself in the language of our text, Holy Writ-- the word of God-- was of course a far smaller volume than it now is, though, even now, the Bible is far from a large book. Yet David could not, so to speak, get to the end of the book. He might have been studying the book for years, -- nay, we are sure that he had been, -- and yet, as though he were just entering on a new course of reading, with volume upon volume to peruse, lie must rise before day to prosecute the study. "Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word."
The same remark may be made upon precepts which enjoin continued study of the Bible. Is there material for that study? Unless there be, the precepts will become out of place; the Scriptural student will have exhausted the Scriptures; and what is he to do then? He can no longer obey the precepts, and the precepts will prove that they cannot have been made for perpetuity-- for the men of all ages and all conditions. . . . Here is a servant of God, who, from his youth upward, has been diligent in the study of the Bible. Year after year he has devoted to that study, and yet the Bible is but a single volume, and that not a large volume. "Well, then, "you might be inclined to say, "the study must surely by this time have exhausted the book! There can be nothing new for him to bring out; nothing which he has not investigated and fathomed." Ah, how you mistake the Bible! What a much larger book it must be than it seems! In place of having exhausted it, the royal student speaks as though there were more work before him than he knew how to compass. "Mine eyes prevent the night watches, that I might meditate in thy word." -- Henry Melvill.
Verse 148. "Mine eyes prevent the night watches." The Hebrew word means a watch-- a part of the night, so called from military watches, or a dividing of the night to keep guard. The idea of the Psalmist here is, that he anticipated these regular divisions of the night in order that he might engage in devotion. Instead of waiting for their return, he arose for prayer before they recurred; so much did his heart delight in the service of God. The language would seem to be that of one who was accustomed to pray in these successive "watches" of the night; the early, the middle, and the dawn. This may illustrate what occurs in the life of all who love God. They will have regular seasons of devotion, but they will often anticipate those seasons. They will be in a state of mind which prompts them to pray; when nothing will meet their state of mind but prayer; and when they cannot wait for the regular and ordinary season of devotion; like a hungry man, who cannot wait for the usual and regular hour of his meals. The meaning of the phrase, "Mine eyes prevent, "is that he awoke before the usual time for devotion. Albert Barnes.
Verse 148. Mine eyes prevent the night watches, etc. His former purpose is yet continued, declaring his indefatigable perseverance in prayer. Oh, that we could learn of him to use our time well! At evening he lay down with prayers and tears; at midnight he rose to give thanks; he got up before the morning light to call upon the Lord. This is to imitate the life of angels, who ever are delighted to behold the face of God, singing alway a new song without wearying. This is to begin our heaven upon earth: Oh, that we could alway remember it! -- William Cowper.
Verse 148. Night watches. The Jews, like the Greeks and Romans, divided the night into military watches instead of hours, each watch representing the period for which sentinels or pickets remained on duty. The proper Jewish reckoning recognized only three such watches, entitled the first, "or beginning of the watches" (La 2:19), "the middle watch" (Jud 7:19), and "the morning watch" (Ex 14:24; 1Sa 11:11). These would last respectively from sunset to 10 p.m.; from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m.; and from 2 a.m. to sunrise. It has been contended by Lightfoot that the Jews really reckoned four watches, three only of which were in the dead of the night, the fourth being in the morning. This, however, is rendered improbable by the use of the term "middle, "and is opposed to Rabbinical authority. Subsequently to establishment of Roman supremacy, the number of watches was increased four which was described either according to their numerical order, as the case of the "fourth watch" (Mt 14:25), or by the terms" midnight, cock crowing, and morning" (Mr 13:35). These, terminated at 9 p.m., midnight, 3 a.m., and 6 a.m. Conformably to this, the guard of soldiers was divided into four relays (Ac 12:4), showing that the Roman regime was followed in Herod's army. Watchmen appear have patrolled the streets of the Jewish towns (So 3:3 5:7; Ps 127:1) where for "maketh" we should substitute "watcheth"; Ps 130:6. William Latham Beyan, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, 1863.
Verse 150. They are far from thy law. Truly it should greatly all the godly, to remember that such as are their enemies are God's also. Since they are far from the obedience of God's law, what marvel be also far from the duty of love which they owe us? It may content want that comfort in men which otherwise we might and would have, we consider that God wants his glory in them. Let this sustain us see that godless men are enemies unto us. William Cowper.
Verse 150. If we can get a carnal pillow and bolster under our we sleep and dream many a golden dream of ease and safety. Now, God, who is jealous of our trust, will not let us alone, and therefore will put us upon sharp trials. It is not faith, but sense, we live upon before; faith, if we can depend upon God when "they draw near that follow mischief:" "I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about": Ps 3:6. A danger at distance is but imagined, it worketh otherwise when it is at hand. Christ himself had other thoughts of approaching danger than danger at a distance: "Now is my soul troubled": Joh 12:27. This vessel of pure water was troubled though he discovered no dross. Thomas Manton.
Verses 150-151. Our spiritual enemies, like David's earthly persecuters are ever present and active. The devouring "lion, "or the insinuating "serpent" is "nigh to follow after mischief"; and so much the more dangerous, as his approaches are invisible. Nigh also is a tempting, ensnaring world; and nearer still, a lurking world of sin within, separating us from communion with our God. But in turning habitually and immediately to our stronghold, we can enjoy the confidence-- "Thou art near, O Lord." Though "the High and Lofty One, whose name is Holy" -- though the just and terrible God, yet art thou made nigh to thy people, and they to thee, "by the blood of the cross." And thou dost manifest thy presence to them in "the Son of thy love." -- Charles Bridges.
Verses 150-151. They are "nigh" to persecute and destroy me; thou art nigh, O Lord, to help me. J.J. Stewart Perowne.
Verses 150-151. They draw nigh. ..."Thou art near." From the meditation of his enemies' malice he returns again to the meditation of God's mercy; and so it is expedient for us to do, lest the number and greatness and maliciousness of our enemies make us to faint when we look unto them. It is good that we should cast our eyes upward to the Lord; then shall we see that they are not so near to hurt us as the Lord our God is near to help us; and that there is no evil in them which we have cause to fear, but we shall find in our God a contrary good sufficient to preserve us. Otherwise we could not endure, if when Satan and his instruments come near to pursue us, the Lord were not near to protect us. William Cowper.
Verse 151. Thou art near, O Lord. How sweetly and how often has this thought been brought home to some forsaken and forgotten one! "When my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up, "was the comfort of one in that deep affliction. And in the first out breaking of the heart, how sweetly has the conviction come, like some whisper of peace, "I am with thee!" And I have no doubt that many and many a time in those hours of solitary prayer, when before the dawning of the morning, and before the night watches, or the Psalmist arose at midnight to commune with God, when no voice broke on the stillness, and every sound was hushed save the beating of his own heart, then had David heard the whisper of God's Holy Spirit, "I am near, ""Fear not, I am with thee." -- Barton Bouchier.
Verse 151. Thou art near, O Lord. This was once man's greatest blessing, and source of sweetest consolation. It was the fairest flower which grew in Paradise; but sin withered it, the flower faded, it drooped, it died. Ge 3:8 4:16. It must be so once more; the flower must once again bloom, again it must revive; even upon earth must it blossom, or in heaven it will never put forth its fragrance.
Thou art near. Even in thy works of "creation", in the sun in his glory, in the moon in her softness, gleaming in the firmament, I see thee. In the balm of this fragrant air, in the light of this cheerful day, in the redolence of these shrubs around me, whose flowery tops, as they drink in the soft and gentle shower as it falls, seem to breathe forth a fresh perfume in gratitude to him who sends it. In the melody of these birds which fill the air with their Songs, thou, O Lord, art near. I perceive thee not with my bodily eyes, although by these I discern thy workmanship, and with the eye of the mind behold thee in thy works, a present God.
Thou art near. Even in the book of thy providence, dark and mysterious though it be, I see thee. There do I read thy wisdom, as developed in thy world, thy church, thy saints, thy servant before thee; the wisdom that guides, the wisdom that guards, the wisdom that bestows, the wisdom that encourages, the wisdom that corrects, that kills and makes alive. There do I read thy power, thy justice, thy faithfulness, thy holiness, thy love.
But it is in thy Son, thy beloved Son, that I most clearly and distinctly see thee as near. If in creation, if in providence, thou art near, in him thou art very near. O Lord. Near as a sin forgiving God. Ro 8:1. Near as a promise-keeping God. 2Co 1:20. Near as a prayer hearing God. Joh 16:20; Ps 145:18. Near as a covenant keeping God. Heb 8:10. Near as a gracious, tender Father. Joh 20:17.
Thou art near, O Lord. O that I might live in the constant sense of thy nearness to me! How often, far too often, alas, do I seem quite to forget it!
Art thou near? Then may I realizingly remember, that by the blood of thy dear Son, and by that alone, have I been brought nigh (Eph 4:13); that it required nothing less than the stoop of Deity, and the sufferings and death of Iris perfect humanity, to remove those hindrances which interposed between a holy God and an unholy creature. Oh, to walk before thee with a grateful spirit, and with a broken, contrite heart!
Art thou near? Then may I walk as before thee, as seeing thee, in holy fear, in filial love, in simple faith, in child like confidence. Ge 17:1. When sin would tempt and solicit indulgence, when the world presents some new allurement, when Satan would take advantage of constitution, society, circumstances, oh, that I may ever remember "Thou art near."
If my dearest comforts droop and die, if friends are cool, if the bonds once the firmest, the closest, the tenderest, are torn asunder and dissevered, yet may I still remember, "Thou art near, O Lord, "and not afar off. And when the solemn moment shall come, when heart and flesh shall fail, when all earthly things are seen with a dying eye, when I hear thee say, "Thou must die, and not live, "then, oh then may I remember, with all the composedness of faith, and all the liveliness of hope, and all the ardour of love, "Thou art near, O Lord." -- James Harington Evans, 1785-1849.
Verse 151. All thy commandments are truth. His meaning is, -- Albeit, O Lord, the evil will of wicked men follows me because I follow thee; yet I know thy commandments are true, and that it is not possible that thou canst desert or fail thy servants who stand to the maintenance of thy word. Then, ye see, David's comfort in trouble was not in any presumptuous conceit of his own wisdom or strength, but in the truth of God's promises, which he was persuaded could not fail him. And here also he makes a secret opposition between the word of the Lord and the word of his enemies. Sometimes men command, but without reason; sometimes they threaten, but without effect. Herod's commanding, Rabshakeh's railing, Jezebel's proud boasting against Elijah, may prove this. But as to the Lord our God he is alway better than his word, and his servants shall find more in his performance hereafter than now they can perceive in his promise: like as his enemies should find more weight in his judgments than now they can apprehend in his threatenings. William Cowper.
Verse 152. This portion of our psalm endeth with the triumph of faith over all dangers and temptations. "Concerning thy testimonies, " the revelations of thy will, thy counsels for the salvation of thy servants, "I have known of old, "by faith, and by my own experience, as well as that of others, "that thou hast founded them for ever"; they are unalterable and everlasting as the attributes of their great Author, and can never fail those who rely upon them, in time or in eternity. George Horne.
Verse 152. I have known of old. It was not a late persuasion, or a thing that he was now to learn; he always knew it since he knew anything of God, that God had owned his word as the constant rule of his proceedings with creatures, in that God had so often made good his word to him, not only by present and late, but by old and ancient experiences. Well, then, David's persuasion of the truth and unchangeableness of the word was not a sudden humour, or a present fit, or a persuasion of a few days' standing; but he was confirmed in it by long experience. One or two experiences had been no trial of the truth of the word, they might seem but a good hit; but his word ever proveth true, not once or twice, but always; what we say "of old, "the Septuagint reads kat adxas, "from the beginnings"; that is, either--
1. From my tender years. Timothy knew the Scriptures from a child (2Ti 3:15); so David very young was acquainted with God and his truth.
2. Or, from the first time that he began to be serious, or to mind the word in good earnest, or to be a student either in God's word or works, by comparing providences and promises, he found concerning his testimonies that "God had founded them for ever."
3. Lastly, "of old" may be what I have heard of all foregoing ages, their experience as well as mine: "Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded:" Ps 22:4,5. Thomas Manton.
Verse 152. Let us mark this eternal basis of "the testimonies of God." The whole plan of redemption was emphatically "founded for ever": the Saviour was "foreordained before the foundation of the world." The people of God were "chosen in Christ before the world began." The great Author "declares the end from the beginning, "and thus clears his dispensations from any charge of mutability or contingency. Every event in the church is fixed, permitted, and provided for-- not in the passing moment of time; but in the counsels of eternity. When, therefore, the testimonies set forth God's faithful engagements with his people of old, the recollection that they are "founded for ever" gives us a present and unchangeable interest in them. And when we see that they are grounded upon the oath and promise of God-- the two "immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie" -- we may truly "have strong consolation" in venturing every hope for eternity upon this rock; nor need we be dismayed to see all our earthly dependencies-- "the world, and the lust, and the fashion of it-- passing away" before us. Charles Bridges.
Verse 154. Plead my cause, and deliver me, etc. Albeit the godly under persecution have a good cause, yet they cannot plead it except God the Redeemer show himself as Advocate for them; therefore prayeth the Psalmist, "Plead my cause." When God the Redeemer pleadeth a man's cause, he doth it to purpose and effectually: "Plead my cause, and deliver me." Except the Lord's clients shall find new influence from God from time to time in their troubles, they are but as dead men in their exercise; for, "Quicken me" imports this. Till we find lively encouragement given to us in trouble we must adhere to the word of promise: "Quicken me according to thy word." What the believer hath need of, that God hath not only a will to supply, but also an office to attend it, and power to effectuate it, as here he hath the office of an Advocate and of a powerful Redeemer also, wherein the believer may confidently give him daily employment, as he needeth: "Plead my cause, and deliver me: quicken me according to thy word." -- David Dickson.
Verse 154. Plead my cause, and deliver me, etc. He now supposes himself to be arraigned before the tribunal of men, as he certainly was in their general charges against him; arraigned, too, in his helplessness, without a name, without state; in such way as one disowned would be arraigned. He prays the Lord to come in and plead his cause; so should he be redeemed; for this is the import of the original. As it were, he regards himself as one sold to corrupt judges, or at all events, as one that has lost his standing in society in the estimation of men. But if the Lord will come, and maintain the cause of his servant, his servant shall be redeemed indeed. There is good confidence in this prayer; the man of God is acquainted with the way of the Lord, and he makes his believing application. O how much do we need to know the Lord's righteous character in our seasons of great distress! Now the Lord pleads the cause of his own by the power of the truth; he pleads it also in his providences of divers kinds; he acts upon the hearts, and the hopes, and the fears of men; and in many wondrous ways he pleads his people's cause. He redeems his saints from all evil; and if not together from all evil in this world, certainly from all evil as concerns the world to come. John Stephen.
Verse 154. Plead my cause, and deliver me, etc. In this verse are three requests, and all backed with one and the same argument. In the first, he intimates the right of his and that he was unjustly vexed by wicked cause, men; therefore, as burdened with their calumnies, he desireth God to undertake his defence: "Plead my cause." In the second, he represents the misery and helplessness of his condition; therefore, as oppressed by violence, he saith, "Deliver me; "or, as the words will bear, "Redeem me". In the third, his own weakness, and readiness to faint under this burden; therefore he saith, "Quicken me." Or, in short, with respect to the injustice of his adversaries, "Plead my cause; "with respect to the misery of his own condition, "Deliver me; "with respect to the weakness and imbecility of his own heart, "Quicken me." The reason and ground of asking, "According to thy word." This last clause must be applied to all the branches of the prayer: "Plead my cause, ""according to thy word; ""deliver me, ""according to thy word; ""quicken me, ""according to thy word:" for God in his word engages for all: to be advocate, Redeemer, and fountain of life. The word that David buildeth upon was found either in the general promises made to them that kept the law, or in some particular promise made to himself by the prophets of that time. Thomas Manton.
Verse 154. Plead my cause, and deliver me. A wicked woman once brought against Dr. Payson an accusation, under circumstances which seemed to render it impossible that he should escape. She was in the same packet, in which, many months before, he had gone to Boston. For a time, it seemed almost certain that his character would be ruined. He was cut off from all resource except the throne of grace. He felt that his only hope was in God; and to him he addressed his fervent prayer. He was heard by the Defender of the innocent. A "compunctious visiting" induced the wretched woman to confess that the whole was a malicious slander. From Asa Cummings' Memoir of Edward Payson.
Verse 154. Plead my cause. I do not know that David meant, by calling upon God to plead his cause, anything more than that he should vindicate his innocence, and make it manifest to all, by delivering him out of the hand of all his enemies; but whether he had an ulterior reference or no, the word powerfully and sweetly recalls to every Christian heart him who was indeed to be the Advocate for poor sinners, even Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins. Barton Bouchier.
Verse 154. Plead my cause. The children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of God. Which made David here pray to God that he would plead his cause, and be his Advocate against all their lies. He trusted not to the equity of his own cause, but to the Lord. From whence we gather, that the cause why our oppressors prevail oft against us is, because we trust too much in our own wits, and lean too much upon our own inventions; opposing subtilty to subtilty, one evil device to another, matching and maintaining policy by policy, and not committing our cause to God. Abraham Wright.
Verse 154. Deliver. Not as in Ps 119:153, but a word meaning to redeem, or to save by avenging. The corresponding participle is rendered redeemer, avenger, revenger, kinsman, near kinsman, next kinsman. William S. Plumer.
Verse 154. Quicken me. Here, again, we are called to consider the bearing of the pious mind. Ever and anon, the great desire of the man of God is to advance in the divine life. He makes spiritual gain of everything. He seeks his goodly pearls out of strange conditions; the reason is, his heart is in these things. Deliverance from temporal evil, deliverance from spiritual evil, both were sought; but along with these, ever does the man of God take up the prayer to be quickened. Certainly we may understand him as seeking life. Such is the import of the phraseology; but in a man like David, the life he seeks must be the highest. He desires spiritual life above all things; he wants to get more into a blessed assimilation to God, that so he may enjoy the highest good. So pants the heaven born soul...Give the believer this, and this will set him above all the ills of life. And this and all good had been promised in the word. So he prays, "Quicken me according to the word." He goes upon the word for everything; he cannot be self deceived there. Judge of yourselves, my brethren, by your spiritual aspirations. Nothing less will prove you to be of the Lord's redeemed. John Stephen.
Verses 154, 156, 159. Quicken me. Pray to be quickened, as the Psalmist often does, and look unto Jesus, who is a quickening spirit: 1Co 15:45. "The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." As he has given you life, so he is ready to give it more and more abundantly; this will make you to live to him, and to be unweariedly active for him. Nathanael Vincent, in "A Present for such as have been Sick and Recovered," 1693.
Verse 155. Salvation is far from the wicked. The Lord is almighty to pardon; but he will not use it for thee an impenitent sinner. Thou hast not a friend on the bench, not an attribute in all God's name will speak for thee. Mercy itself will sit and vote with the rest of its fellow attributes for thy damnation. God is able to save and help in a time of need, but upon what acquaintance is it that thou art so bold with God, as to expect his saving arm to be stretched forth for thee? Though a man rise at midnight to let in a child that cries and knocks at his door, yet he will not take so much pains for a dog that lies howling there. This presents thy condition, sinner, sad enough, yet this is to tell thy story fairest; for that almighty power of God which is engaged for the believer's salvation, is as deeply obliged to bring thee to thy execution and damnation. What greater tie than an oath? God himself is under an oath to be the destruction of every impenitent soul. That oath which God sware in his wrath against the unbelieving Israelites, that they should not enter into his rest, concerns every unbeliever to the end of the world. In the name of God consider, were it but the oath of a man, or a company of men that, like those in the Acts, should swear to be the death of such an one, and thou wert the man, would it not fill thee with fear and trembling, night and day, and take away the quiet of thy life, till they were made thy friends? What then are their pillows stuffed with, who can sleep so soundly without any horror or amazement, though they be told that the almighty God is under an oath of damning them body and soul, without timely repentance? -- William Gurnall.
Verse 155. Salvation! What music is there in that word. Music that never tires, but is always new, that always rouses yet always rests us! It holds in itself all that our hearts would say. It is sweet rigour to us in the morning, and in the evening it is contented peace. It is a song that is always singing itself deep down in the delighted soul. Angelic ears are ravished by it up in heaven; and our Eternal Father himself listens to it with adorable complacency. It is sweet even to him out of whose mind is the music of a thousand worlds. To be saved! What is it to be saved in the fullest and utmost meaning? Who can tell? Eye hath not seen, nor car heard. It is a rescue, and from such a shipwreck! It is a rest, and in such an unimaginable home! It is to lie down for ever in the bosom of God, in an endless rapture of insatiable contentment. Frederick William Faber, 1853.
Verses 155-156. Salvation is far from the wicked. "Great are thy tender mercies, O LORD." When the godly do think and speak of the damnable condition of the wicked, they should not be senseless of their own ill deserving, nor of God's grace which hath made the difference between the wicked and them. David Dickson.
Verse 156. Great are thy tender mercies, O LORD. Two epithets he ascribes to God's mercies; first, he calls them "great, "and then he calls them "tender" mercies. They are great in many respects: for continuance, they endure for ever; for largeness, they reach unto the heavens, and are higher than they; yea, they are above all the works of God. And this is for the comfort of poor sinners, whose sins are many and great: let them not despair; his mercies are greater and more; for since they are greater than all his works, how much more greater than thou and all thy sinful works!...The other epithet he gives them is, that they ale "tender" mercies; because the Lord is easy to be entreated; for he is slow unto wrath, but ready to show mercy: S. James saith that the wisdom which is from above is "gentle, peaceable, easy to be entreated." If his grace in his children make them gentle and easy to be entreated, what shall we think of himself? Since he will have such pity in us poor creatures, that seventy times seven times in the day he will have us to forgive the offences of our brethren; Oh, what pity and compassion abound in himself! Thus we see our comfort is increased; that as his mercies are great, so are they tender; easily obtained, where they are earnestly craved. William Cowper.
Verse 156. The Psalmist, when speaking of the wretched condition of "the wicked, "is naturally led to adore the mercies of the Lord which had "made him to differ." For indeed to this source alone must we trace the distinction between us and them. Charles Bridges.
Verse 157. Persecutors. A participle from the verb rendered pursue, chase. "Enemies, "as in verse 139, the authors of my distress. Until men are hunted and hounded by many enemies, who for the time have power, and are withal fierce and to some extent unscrupulous, they can have but a faint conception of the anguish of the prophet when he experienced the evils noted in this verse. Yet they did not move him from his constancy and integrity. William S. Plurner.
Verse 158. I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved. Celerinus in Cyprian's Epistles, acquaints a friend with his great grief for the apostasy of a woman through fear of persecution; which afflicted him so much, that at the feast of Easter (the Queen of feasts in the primitive church) he wept night and day, and resolved never to know a moment's delight, till through the mercy of God she should be recovered. Charles Bridges.
Verse 158. I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved. Oh, if you have the hearts of Christians or of men in you, let them yearn towards your poor ignorant, ungodly neighbours. Alas, there is but a step betwixt them and death and hell: many hundred diseases are waiting ready to seize on them, and if they die unregenerate they are lost for ever. Have you hearts of rock, that cannot pity men in such a case as this? If you believe not the word of God, and the danger of sinners, why are you Christians yourselves If you do believe it, why do you not bestir yourself to the helping of others? Do you not care who is damned, so you be saved? If so, you have sufficient cause to pity yourselves, for it is a frame of spirit utterly inconsistent with grace: should you not rather say, as the lepers of Samaria, is it not a day of glad tidings, and do we sit still and hold our peace 2Ki 7:9. Hath God had so much mercy on you, and will you have no mercy on your poor neighbours? You need not go far to find objects for your pity: look but into your streets, or into the next house to you, and you will probably find some. Have you never an ignorant, an unregenerate neighbour that sets his heart on things below, and neglects eternity? What blessed place do you live in, where there is none such? If there be not some of them in thine own family, it is well; and yet art thou silent? Dost thou live close by them, or meet them in the streets, or labour with them, or travel with them, or sit and talk with them, and say nothing to them of their souls, or the life to come? If their houses were on fire, thou wouldst run and help them; and wilt thou not help them when their souls are almost at the fire of hell? If thou knewest but a remedy for their diseases thou wouldst tell it them, or else thou wouldst judge thyself guilty of their death. Richard Baxter (1615-1691), in "The Saints' Everlasting Rest."
Verse 158. Grieved, because they kept not thy law. I never thought the world had been so wicked, when the Gospel began, as now I see it is; I rather hoped that every one would have leaped for joy to have found himself freed from the filth of the Pope, from his lamentable molestations of poor troubled consciences, and that through Christ they would by faith obtain the celestial treasure they sought after before with such vast cost and labour, though in vain. And especially I thought the bishops and universities would with joy of heart have received the true doctrines; but I have been lamentably deceived. Moses and Jeremiah, too, complained they had been deceived. Martin Luther.
Verse 158. Grieved. The word that is here translated "grieved" is from "katat", that signifies to loathe, abhor, and contend. I beheld the transgressors, and I loathed them; I beheld the transgressors, and I abhorred them; I beheld the transgressors, and I contended with them; but not so much because they were mine enemies, as because they were thine. Thomas Brooks.
Verse 158. The day when I first met Colonel Gardiner at Leicester, I happened to preach a lecture from Ps 114:158: "I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word." I was large in describing that mixture of indignation and grief, strongly expressed by the original word there, with which a good man looks on the varying transgressors of the divine law; and in tracing the causes of that grief, as arising, from a regard to the divine honour, and the interest of a Redeemer, and a compassionate concern for the misery such offenders bring on themselves, and for the mischief they do to the world about them. I little thought how exactly I was drawing Colonel Gardiner's character under each of those heads; and I have often reflected upon it as a happy providence, which opened a much speedier way than I could have expected, to the breast of one of the most amiable and useful friends which I ever expect to find upon earth. We afterwards sung a hymn, which brought over again some of the leading thoughts in the sermon, and struck him so strongly, that on obtaining a copy of it, he committed it to his memory, and used to repeat it with so forcible an accent, as showed how much every line expressed of his very soul. In this view the reader will pardon my inserting it; especially as I know not when I may get time to publish a volume of these serious though artless compositions, which I sent him in manuscript some years ago, and to which I have since made very large additions:
Arise, my tenderest thoughts, arise,
o torrents melt my streaming eyes;
And thou, my heart, with anguish feel
Those evils which thou canst not heal.
See human nature sunk in shame;
See scandals pour'd on Jesus' name;
The Father wounded through the Son;
The world abused, and souls undone.
See the short course of vain delight
Closing in everlasting night;
In flames that no abatement know,
Though briny tears for ever flow.
My God, I feel the mournful scene;
My bowels yearn o'er dying men,
And fain my pity would reclaim,
And snatch the firebrands from the flame.
But feeble my compassion proves,
And can but weep where most it loves;
Thy own all saving arm employ,
And turn these drops of grief to joy.
-- Philip Doddridge, in "The Life of Colonel Garainer."
Verse 159. Consider how I love thy precepts. Search me. Behold the evidence of my attachment to thy law. This is the confident appeal of one who was conscious that he was truly attached to God; that he really loved his law. It is similar to the appeal of Peter to the Saviour (Joh 21:17), "Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee." A man who truly loves God may make this appeal without impropriety. He may he so confident, so certain, that he has true love for the character of God, that he may make a solemn appeal to him on the subject, as he might appeal to a friend, to his wife, to his son, to his daughter, with the utmost confidence that he loved them. A man ought to have such love for them, that he could affirm this without hesitation or doubt; a man ought to have such love for God, that he could, affirm this with equal confidence and propriety. Albert Barnes.
Verse 159. Consider how I love thy precepts. He saith not, consider how I perform thy precepts; but how I love them. The comfort of a Christian militant, in this body of sin, is rather in the sincerity and fervency of his affections than in the absolute perfection of his actions. He fails many times in his obedience to God's precepts, in regard of his action; but love in his affection still remains; so that both before the temptation to sin, and after it, there is a grief in his soul, that he should find in himself any corrupt will or desire, contrary to the holy will of the Lord his God; and this proves an invincible love in him to the precepts of God. William Cowper.
Verse 159. Consider, etc. Translate (the Hebrew being the same as in verse 158) "Behold how I love thy precepts, "as is evinced in that when "I beheld the transgressors I was grieved." He begs to God to behold this, not as meritorious of grace, but as a distinctive mark of a godly man. A. R. Fausset.
Verse 159. I love thy precepts: quicken me. The love wherewith he loved God came from that love wherewith God first loved him. For by seeing the great love wherewith God loved him, he was moved and refereed to love God again. So that his meaning is thus much: Thou seest, Lord, that I am an enemy to sin in myself, for I forget not thy law; thou seest that I am an enemy to sin in others, for I am grieved to see them transgress thy law; wherefore, O Lord, "quicken me, "and let thy loving mercy whereby thou hast created me and redeemed me in Christ, whereby thou hast delivered me from so many troubles, and enriched me with so many and continual benefits, renew, revive, quicken, and restore me. Richard Greenham.
Verse 159. Quicken me. Often as the Psalmist had repeated his prayer for quickening grace, *it was not a "vain repetition, "or an empty sound. Each time was it enlivened with abundant faith, intense feeling of his necessity, and the vehemency of most ardent affection. If the consciousness of the faintness of our strength and the coldness of our affections should lead us to offer this petition a hundred times a day in this spirit, it would never fail of acceptance. Charles Bridges.
*Nine times is the petition urged, verses 25, 37, 40, 88, 107, 149 154, 156, and 159.
Verse 159. According to thy lovingkindness. We need not desire to be quickened any further than God's lovingkindness will quicken us. Matthew Henry.
Verse 160. Thy word is true from the beginning. Literally, "The beginning of thy word is truth, "in antithesis to the "enduring for ever, "in the future, in the next clause. Cocceius and Hengstenberg take it, "The sum of thy word is true, "as in Nu 26:2 31:26. But the antithesis noticed above in the English version is thus lost; and the old versions support the English version. Also, if it were "the sum, " the plural ought to follow, viz., "of thy words, "not "word." -- A. R. Fausset.
Verse 160. Thy word is true from the beginning, etc. As if he should say, I believe that thou wilt thus quicken me, because the very beginning of thy word is most just and true; and when thou didst first enter into covenant with me, I did find that thou didst not deceive me, not beguile me. And when by thy Spirit thou madest me believe thy covenant, thou meanest truth; and I know that as thou didst promise, thou wilt perform, for thou art no more liberal in promising than faithful and just in performing, and thy judgment will be as righteous as thy promise is true. I know that as soon as thou speakest, truth proceedeth from thee; and even so I know thou wilt defend and preserve me, that thy judgments may shine as righteous in thee. Richard Greenham.
Verse 160. Thy word is true from the beginning, etc. God's commandment and promise is exceeding broad, reaching to all times. Was a word of command "the guide of thy youth"? I assure thee it will be as good a staff of thine age. A good promise is a good nurse, both to the young babe and to the decrepit old man. Your apothecaries' best cordials in time will lose their spirits, and sometimes the stronger they are, the sooner. But hath a promise cheered thee, say, twenty, thirty, forty years ago? Taste it but now afresh, and thou shalt find it as fresh, and as full of refreshment as ever. If it hath been thy greatest joy in thy joyful youth, I tell thee, it hath as much joy in it for thy sad old age. That may be said of God's word, which the prophet saith of God himself (Isa 46:4): "And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you." Doth not the Psalmist say as much here, "Thy word is true from the beginning"? It's well, it begins well. But will it last as well? Yes: he adds, "and every one of thy righteous judgments endureth for ever." Answerable to which is that other expression (verse 152), "Concerning thy testimonies, I have known of old that thou hast founded them for ever." "For ever, "and "founded for ever." O sweet expression! O grounded comfort! Brethren, get acquainted with God's word and promise as soon as you can, and maintain that acquaintance everlastingly; and your knowledge of it shall not either go before, or go beyond its truth. Know it as soon and as long as you will or can, and you shall never find it tripping or failing; but you may after long experience of God say of it, "I have known of old that thou hast founded it for ever." -- Anthony Tuckhey, 1599-- 1670.
Verse 161. Princes have persecuted me. The evil is aggravated from the consideration that it is the very persons who ought to be as bucklers to defend us, who employ their strength in hurting us. Yea, when the afflicted are stricken by those in high places, they in a manner think that the hand of God is against them. There was also this peculiarity in the case of the prophet, that he had to encounter the grandees of the chosen people-- men whom God had placed in such honourable stations, to the end they might be the pillars of the Church. John Calvin.
Verse 161. Without a cause. I settle it as an established point with me, that the more diligently and faithfully I serve Christ, the greater reproach and the more injury I must expect. I have drank deep of the cup of slander and reproach of late, but I am in no Wise discouraged; no, nor by, what is much harder to bear, the unsuccessfulness of my endeavours to mend this bad world. Philip Doddridge.
Verse 161. Without a cause. We know what persecutions the body of Christ, that is, the holy Church, suffered from the kings of the earth. Let us therefore here also recognize the words of the Church: "Princes have persecuted me without a cause." For how had the Christians injured the kingdoms of the earth? Although their King promised them the kingdom of heaven, how, I ask, had they injured the kingdoms of earth? Did their King forbid his soldiers to pay and to render due service to the kings of the earth? Saith he not to the Jews who were striving to calumniate him, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's"? Mt 22:21. Did he not even in his own person pay tribute from the mouth of a fish? Did not his forerunner, when the soldiers of this kingdom were seeking what they ought to do for their everlasting salvation, instead of replying." Loose your belts, throw away your arms, desert your king, that ye may wage war for the Lord, "answer, "Do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely; and be content with wages?" Lu 3:14. Did not one of his soldiers, his most beloved your companion, say to his fellow soldiers, the provincials, so to speak, of Christ, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers"? and a little lower he addeth, "Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour. Owe no man anything, but to love one another." Ro 13:1,7,8. Does he not enjoin the Church to pray even for kings themselves? How, then, have the Christians offended against them? What due have they not rendered? In what have not Christians obeyed the monarchs of earth? The kings of the earth therefore have persecuted the Christians without a cause. Augustine.
Verse 161. But my heart standeth in awe of thy word. If there remains any qualm of fear on thy heart, fear from the wrath of bloody men threatening thee for thy profession of the truth, then to a heart inflamed with the love of truth, labour to add a heart filled with the fear of that wrath which God hath in store for all that apostatize from the truth. When you chance to burn your finger, you hold it to the fire, which being a greater fire draws out the other. Thus, when thy thoughts are scorched, and thy heart scared with the fire of man's wrath, hold them a while to hell fire, which God hath prepared for the fearful (Re 21:8), and all that run away from truth's colours (Heb 10:39), and thou wilt lose the sense of the one for fear of the other. Ignosee imperator, saith the holy man, tu carcerem, Dens gehennam minatur;"Pardon me, O Emperor, if I obey not thy command; thou threatenest a prison, but God a hell." Observable is that of David: "Princes have persecuted me without a cause: but my heart standeth in awe of thy word." He had no cause to fear them that had no cause to persecute him. One threatening out of the word, that sets the point of God's wrath to his heart, scares him more than the worst that the greatest on earth can do to him. Man's wrath, when hottest, is but a temperate climate to the wrath of the living God. They who have felt both have testified as much. Man's wrath cannot hinder the access of God's love to the creature, which hath made the saints sing in the fire, in spite of their enemies' teeth. But the creature under God's wrath is like one shut up in a close oven, no crevice is open to let any of the heat out, or any refreshing in to him. William Gurnall.
Verse 161. My heart standeth in awe of thy word. There is an awe of the word, not that maketh us shy of it, but tender of violating it, or doing anything contrary to it. This is not the fruit of slavish fear, but of holy love; it is not afraid of the word, but delighteth in it, as it discovereth the mind of God to us; as in the next verse it is written, "I rejoice at thy word." This awe is called by a proper name, reverence, or godly fear; when we consider whose word it is, namely, the word of the Lord, who is our God, and hath a right to command what he pleaseth; to whose will and word we have already yielded obedience, and devoted ourselves to walk worthy of him in all well pleasing; who can find us out in all our failings, as knowing our very thoughts afar of (Ps 139:2), and having all our ways before him, and being one of whom we read, -- "He is a holy God; he is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins" (Jos 24:19), that is to say, if we impenitently continue in them. Considering these things we receive the word with that trembling of heart which God so much respects. Thomas Manton.
Verse 161. In awe of thy word. I would advise you all, that come to the reading or hearing of this book, which is the word of God, the most precious jewel, and most holy relic that remaineth upon earth, that ye bring with you the fear of God, and that ye do it with all due reverence, and use your knowledge thereof, not to vain glory of frivolous disputation, but to the honour of God, increase of virtue, and edification both of yourselves and others. Thomas Cranmer, 1489-1555.
Verse 161. Awe of thy word. They that tremble at the convictions of the word may triumph in the consolations of it. Matthew Henry.
Verse 162. I rejoice at thy word, as one that findeth great spoil. He never came to an ordinance but as a soldier to the spoil, after a great battle, as having a constant warfare with his corruptions that fought against his soul. Now he comes to see what God will say to him, and he will make himself a saver or gainer, and get a booty out of every commandment, promise, or threatening he hears. John Cotton (1585-1652), in "The way of life."
Verse 162. I rejoice at thy word. "Euripides, "saith the orator, "hath in his well composed tragedies more sentiments than sayings; " and Thucydides hath so stuffed every syllable of his history with substance, that the one runs parallel along with the other; Lysias's works are so well couched that you cannot take out the least word but you take away the whole sense with it; and Phocion had a special faculty of speaking much in a few words. The Cretians, in Plato's time (however degenerated in St. Paul's), were more weighty than wordy; Timanthes was famous in this, that in his pictures more things were intended than deciphered; and of Homer it is said that none could ever peer him for poetry. Then how much more apt and apposite are these high praises to the book of God, rightly called the Bible or the book as if it were, as indeed it is, both for fitness of terms and fulness of truth, the only book to winch (as Luther saith) all the books in the world are but waste paper. It is called the word, by way of eminency, because it must be the butt and boundary of all our words; and the scripture, as the lord paramount above all other words or writings of men collected into volumes, there being, as the Rabbins say, a mountain of sense hanging upon every tittle of it, whence may be gathered flowers and phrases to polish our speeches with, even sound words, that have a healing property in them, far above all filed phrases of human elocution. Thomas Adams.
Verse 162. As one that findeth great spoil. This expressive image may remind us of the inward conflict to be endured in acquiring the spoils of this precious word. It is so contrary to our natural taste and temper, that habitual self-denial and struggle with the indisposition of the heart can alone enable us to "find the spoil." But what "great spoil" is divided as the fruit of the conflict! How rich and abundant is the recompense of the "good soldier of Jesus Christ, "who is determined through the power of the Spirit to "endure hardness, "until he overcome the reluctance of his heart to this spiritual duty. He shall "rejoice in finding great spoil." Sometimes -- as the spoil with which the lepers enriched themselves in the Syrian camp-- it may be found unexpectedly. Sometimes we see the riches and treasures contained in a passage or doctrine, long before we can make it our own. And often when we gird ourselves to the conflict with indolence, and wanderings, under the weakness of our spiritual perceptions and the power of unbelief, many a prayer, and many a sigh is sent up for Divine aid, before we are crowned with victory, and are enabled, as the fruit of our conquest joyfully to appropriate the word to our present need and distress. Charles Bridges.
Verse 163. I hate and abhor lying, etc. One sees here how the light on David's soul was increasing more and more unto the perfect day. In the earlier part of this psalm, David in the recollects of his own sin had prayed, "Remove from me the way of lying, "and the Lord had indeed answered his prayer, for he now declares his utter loathing of every false way: "I hate and abhor lying." And we see, in some measure, the instrument by which the Holy Spirit wrought the change: "Thy law do I love"; nay, as he adds in a later verse, "I love them exceedingly." And so it ever must be, the heart must have some holier object of its affection to fill up the void, or there will be no security against a relapse into sin! might talk for ever on the sin, the disgrace, and the danger of lying, and though at the time and for a time my words might have some influence, yet, unless the heart be filled with the love of God and of God's law, the first temptation would prove too powerful. The Bible teaches us this in a variety of ways. God says to Israel, not only "cease to do evil, "but, "learn to do well." And still more pointedly does the apostle, when he was warring against drunkenness, say, "Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, -- but be filled with the Spirit." -- Barton Bouchier.
Verse 163. I hate and abhor lying. "Lying, "according to Scripture usage, not only signifies speaking contrary to what one thinks, but also thinking contrary to the truth of things, and, particularly, the giving to other of that worship and glory which are due to the true God alone to think and act aside from God's truth. The men who persecuted that godly man thought of earthly prosperity and power as they should not have thought; they judged God's servant falsely, and they thought wickedly Of God himself. The man of God took a view of these things; he saw wickedness and the vileness of them, and he continued-- "Falsehood I hate and abhor: thy law do I love." From all the false and delusive ways of men, from all the pride and pomp that surround courts, from the sinful and pursuits of worldly men, as well as from the ostentatious idolatry heathen nations, he could turn with heart delight to the contemplation Jehovah, in that wonderful ritual which manifested the divine mercy in vicarious sacrifices, and observances, and festivals; and to that holy law which was given as man's rule of duty and grateful obedience, and these he loved as the manifestations of God's grace. John Stephen.
Verse 163. I hate and abhor lying: not only "hate" it, nor simply I "abhor" it, but "hate and abhor, "to strengthen and increase the sense, and make it more vehement. Where the enmity is not great against the sin, the matter may be compounded and taken up; but David will have nothing to do with it, for he saith, -- I loathe and abhor it, and hate it with a deadly hatred. Slight hatred of a sinful course is not sufficient to guard us against ft. Thomas Manton.
Verse 163. Sin seemeth to have its name from the Hebrew word "sana", to hate, the word here used, because it is most of all to be hated, as the greatest evil, as that which setteth us furthest from God the greatest good. None can hate it but those that love the law of God; for all hatred comes from love. A natural man may be angry with his sin, but hate it he cannot; nay, he may leave it, but not loathe it; if he did, he would loathe all sin as well as any one sin. Abraham Wright.
Verse 163. Lying. All injustice is abominable: to do any sort of wrong is a heinous crime, but lying is that crime which, above all others, tendeth to the dissolution of society and disturbance of human life; which God therefore doth most loathe, and men have reason especially to detest. Of this the slanderer is most deeply guilty. "A witness of Belial scorneth judgment, and the month of the wicked devoureth iniquity, "saith the wise man: Pr 19:28. He is indeed, according to just estimation, guilty of all kinds of injury, breaking all the second table of commands respecting our neighbour. Most distinctly he beareth false witness against his neighbour: he doth covet his neighbour's goods, for 'tis constantly out of such an irregular desire, for his own presumed advantage, to dispossess his neighbour of some good, and transfer it on himself, that the slanderer uttereth his tale: he is also a thief and robber of his good name, a deflowerer and defiler of his reputation, an assassin and murderer of his honour. So doth he violate all the rules of justice, and perpetrates all sorts of wrong against his neighbour. Isaac Barrow.
Verse 164. Seven times a day do I praise thee. Affections of the soul cannot long be kept secret; if they be strong they will break forth in actions. The love of God is like a fire in the heart of man, which breaks forth, and manifests itself in the obedience of his commandments, and praising him for Ins benefits; and this is it which David now protests, that the love of God was not idle in his heart, but made him fervent and earnest m praising God, so that" seven times a day" he did praise God. For by this number the carefulness of holy devotion is expressed, and the fervency of his love. In praising God he could not be satisfied, saith Basil. William Cowper.
Verse 164. Seven times a day do I praise thee. "As every grace, " says Sibbes, "increaseth by exercise of itself, so doth the grace of prayer. By prayer we learn to pray." And thus it was with the Psalmist; he often times anticipated the dawning of the morning for his exercise of prayer; and at midnight frequently arose to pour out his soul in prayer; now he adds that "seven times in a day, "or as we might express it, "at every touch and turn, "he finds opportunity for and delight in praise. Oh for David's spirit and David's practice! -- Barton Bouchier.
Verse 164. Seven times a day do I praise thee. A Christian ought to give himself up eminently to this diary without limits. Walter Marshall.
Verse 164. Seven times a day do I praise thee. Not as if he had seven set hours for this duty every day, as the Papists would have it, to countenance their seven canonical hours, but rather a definite number is put for an indefinite, and so amounts to this, -- he did very often in a day praise God; his holy heart taking the hint of every providence to carry him to heaven on this errand of prayer and praise. William Gurrnall.
Verse 164. Seven times a day. Some of the Jewish Rabbis affirm that David is here to be understood literally, observing, that the devout Hebrews Were accustomed to praise God twice in the morning, before reading the ten commandments, and once after; twice in the evening before reading the same portion of inspiration, and twice after; which makes up the number of seven times a day. James Anderson's note to Calvin in loc.
Verse 165. Great peace have they which love thy law. Amidst the storms and tempests of the world, there is a perfect calm in the breasts of those, who not only do the will of God, but "love" to do it. They are at peace with God, by the blood of reconciliation; at peace with themselves, by the answer of a good conscience, and the subjection of those desires which war against the soul; at peace with all men, by the spirit of charity; and the whole creation is so at peace with them that all things work together for their good. No external troubles can rob them of this "great peace, "no "offences" or stumbling blocks, which are thrown in their way by persecution, or temptation, by the malice of enemies, or by the apostasy of friends, by anything which they see, hear of, or feel, can detain, or divert them from their course. Heavenly love surmounts every obstacle, and runs with delight the way of God's commandments. George Horne.
Verse 165. Great peace have they which love thy law. There have been Elis trembling for the ark of God, and Uzzahs putting out their hand in fear that it was going to fall; but in the mids't of the deepest troubles through which the church has passed, and the fiercest storms that have raged about it, there have been true, faithful men of God who have never despaired. In every age there have been Luthers and Latimers, who have not only held fast their confidence, but whose peace has deepened with the roaring of the waves. The more they have been forsaken of men, the closer has been their communion with God. And with strong hold of him and of his promises, and hearts that could enter into the secret place of the Most High, although there has been everything without to agitate, threaten, and alarm, they have been guided into perfect peace. James Martin, in, "The Christian Mirror, and other Sermons," 1878.
Verse 165. Great peace have they which love thy law. Clearness of conscience is a help to comfortable thoughts. Yet observe, that peace is not so much effected as preserved by a good conscience and conversation; for though joy in the Holy Ghost will make its nest nowhere but in a holy soul, yet the blood of Christ only can speak peace; "being justified by faith, we have peace:" Ro 5:1. An exact life will not make, but keep conscience quiet; an easy shoe does not heal a sore foot, but it keeps a sound one from hurt. Walking with God according to gospel rules hath peace entailed upon it, and that peace is such a treasure, as thereby, a Christian may have his rejoicing from himself. Ga 6:4,16. His own heart sings him a merry tune, which the threats and reproaches of the world cannot silence. The treasure of comfort is not expended in affliction; death itself doth not exhaust but increase and advance it to an eternal triumph. O the excellency and necessity of it! Paul laid it up for a death-bed cordial: "Our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience:" 2Co 1:12. And Hezekiah dares hold it up to God, as well as cheer up himself with it on approaching death. A conscience good in point of integrity will be good also in point of tranquillity: "The righteous are bold as a lion": they have great peace that love and keep God's commandments: Pr 28:1 Ps 119:165. And saith the apostle, "If our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God" (1Jo 3:2), and I may add also, towards men. Oh! what comfort and solace hath a clear conscience! A conscientious man hath something within to answer accusations without; he hath such a rich treasure as will not fail in greatest straits and hazards. I shall conclude this with a notable saying of Bernard: -- "The pleasures of a good conscience are the Paradise of souls, the joy of angels, a garden of delights, a field of blessing, the temple of Solomon, the court of God, the habitation of the Holy Spirit." -- Oliver Heywood.
Verse 165. Great peace. Note that for "peace" the Hebrew word is mylw, shalom:it signifies not only "peace, "but also perfection, wholeness, prosperity, tranquillity, healthfulness, safety, the completion and consummation, of every good thing; and so it is frequently taken by the Hebrews; hence in salutations, wishing one the other well, they say, Pl mylw, shalom lekha, i.e, "peace be with thee"; as if one should say, "may all things be prosperous with thee." -- Thomas Le Blanc.
Verse 165. They which love thy law. To love a law may Seem strange; but it is the only true divine life. To keep it because we are afraid of its penalties is only a form of fear or prudential consideration. To keep it to preserve a good name may be propriety and respectability. To keep it because it is best for society may be worldly self interest. To keep it because of physical health may be the policy of epicurean philosophy. To keep it because we love it is to show that it is already part of us-- has entered into the moral texture of our being. Sin then becomes distasteful, and temptations lose their power. W.M. Statham, quoted in "Atictoilette Commentary on the Psalms," 1879.
Verse 165. And nothing shall offend them. Hebrew, "they shall have no stumbling block." 1Jo 4:10, "There is none occasion of stumbling in him" who abides in the light, which makes him to see and avoid such stumblingblocks. Wealth, tribulation, temptation, which are the occasion to many of falling (Isa 8:14,15; Ez 3:20 7:19 14:3 4:7), are not so to him. A.R. Faussett.
Verse 165. Learn the true wisdom of those of you who are new creatures, and who love God's holy law. All of you who are really brought to Christ are changed into his image, so that you love God's holy law. "I delight in the law of God after the inward man." "The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart": Psalm 19. The world says: What a slave you are! you cannot have a little amusement on the Sabbath-- you cannot take a Sabbath walk, or join a Sabbath tea party; you cannot go to a dance or a theatre; you cannot enjoy the pleasures of sensual indulgence-- you are a slave. I answer: Christ had none of these pleasures. He did not want them: nor do we. He knew what was truly wise, and good, and happy, and he chose God's holy law. He was the freest of all beings, and yet he knew no sin. Only make me free as Christ is free-- this is all I ask. "Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them." -- Robert Murray M Cheyne, 1813-1843.
Verse 165. Nothing shall offend them. They that have this character of God's children, will not the stumbled at God's dispensations, let them he never so cross to their desires, because they have a God to fly unto in all their troubles, and a sure covenant to rest upon. Therefore the reproaches cast upon them, and on the way of God, do not scandalize them; for they have found God in that very way which others speak evil of; they are not so offended by anything that attends the way of God, as to dislike or forsake that way. Nevertheless we must take heed that we be not offended. John Bunyan.
Verse 166. LORD, I have hoped for thy salvation, etc. This is the true posture in which all the servants of God should desire to be found-- hoping in his mercy, and doing his commands. How easy were it to demonstrate the connection between the mental feeling here recognized, and the obedience with which it is here associated! It is the hope of salvation which is the great and pervading motive to holiness, and it is the consciousness of obedience to the will of God which strengthens our hope of interest in the divine mercy. John Morison.
Verse 166. Lord, I have hoped for thy salvation. This saying he borrowed from good old Jacob. Ge 49:18. John Trapp.
Verse 166. I have done thy commandments. Set upon the practice of what you read. A student in physics doth not satisfy himself to read over a system or body of physics, but he falls upon practising physics: the life blood of religion his in the practical part. Christians should be walking Bibles. Xenophon said, "Many read Lycurgus's laws, but few observe them." The word written is not only a rule of knowledge, but a rule of obedience; it is not only to mend our sight, but to mend our pace. David calls God's word "a lamp unto his feet" (Ps 119:105). It was not only a light to his eyes to see by, but to his feet to walk by. By practice we trade with the talent of knowledge, and turn it to profit. This is a blessed reading of Scripture, when we fly from the sins which the word forbids, and espouse the doctrines which the word commands. Reading without practice will be but a torch to light men to hell. Thomas Watson.
Verses 166-168. He that casts the commands behind his back is very presumptuous in applying the promises to himself. That hope which is not accompanied with obedience will make a man ashamed. He that has learned the word of God knows that the law is not made void by faith, but established: Ro 3:31. Christ the church's Head and Prophet, in his sermon upon the mount shows the extent of the law, requiring purity in the heart and thoughts, as well as in the life and actions, and condemns them "who shall break the least of these commands and shall teach men so"; but "those that teach and do them, "he owns as great in his kingdom: Mt 5:19. The law spoken on Mount Sinai is established by the Legislator Christ in Mount Zion as a rule of righteousness. And they who are rightly instructed, "which walk according to this rule, "will have both heart and conversation ordered according to its direction, and "peace and mercy will be upon them, " and hereby they will show themselves to be indeed the Israel of God. Nathanael Vincent.
Verse 167. My soul hath kept thy testimonies; and I love them exceedingly. Should he not have said, first, I have loved thy commandments, and so have kept them? Doubtless he did so; but he ran here in a holy and most heavenly circle, I have kept them and loved them, and loved them and kept them. If we love Christ, we shall also live the life of love in our measure, and his commandments will be most dear when himself is most precious. Thomas Shepard, in "The Sound Believer", 1671.
Verse 167. My soul. It is a usual phrase among the Hebrews, when they would express their vehement affection to anything, to say, "My soul": as Ps 103:1 104:1, "My soul, praise thou the Lord, "and Luke 1. "My soul doth magnify the Lord." -- Richard Greenham.
Verse 167. I love them exceedingly. It is only a reasonable return to God; for the Father loved me so exceedingly as not to spare his own Son, but to give him up for me; and the Son loved me so exceedingly that he gave himself to me, and gave me back to myself when I was lost in my sins, original and actual. Gerhohus (1093-1169), in Neale and Littledale.
Verse 167-168. Let not our consciousness of daily failures make us shrink from this strong expression of confidence. It is alleged as an evidence of grace, not as a claim of merit, and therefore the most humble believer need not hesitate to adopt it as the expression of Christian sincerity before God. David aspired to no higher character than that of a poor sinner: but he was conscious of spirituality of obedience, "exceeding love" to the divine word, and an habitual walk under the eye of his God-- the evidences of a heart (often mentioned in the Old Testament)" perfect with him." -- Charles Bridges.
Verse 168. I have kept thy precepts, for all my ways are before thee. When men are some way off in a king's eye they will be comely in their carriage; but when they come into his presence chamber to speak with him they will be most careful. Because saints are always in God's sight, their constant deportment must be pious and seemly. George Swinnock.
Verse 168. I have kept thy precepts, etc. The Hebrew word yne, shamar, that is here rendered "kept, "signifies to keep carefully, diligently, studiously, exactly. It signifies to keep as men keep prisoners, and to keep as a watchman keeps the city or the garrison; yea, to keep as a man would keep his very life. But now mark what was the reason that David kept the precepts and the testimonies of the Lord so carefully, so sincerely, so diligently, so studiously, and so exactly. Why, the reason you have in the latter part of the verse, "for all my ways are before thee." O sirs! it is as necessary for him that would be eminent in holiness, to set the Lord always before him, as it is necessary for him to breathe. In that 31st of Job you have a very large narrative of that height and perfection of holiness that Job bad attained to, and the great reason that he gives you, for this is in the 4th verse, "Doth not he see my way, and count all my steps?" The eye of God had so strong an influence upon his heart and life, that it wrought him up to a very high pitch of holiness. Thomas Brooks.
Verse 168. All my ways are before thee. That God seeth the secrets of our heart, is a point terrible to the wicked but joyful to the godly. The wicked are sorry that their heart is so open: it is a boiling pot of all mischief, a furnace and forge house for evil. It grieveth them that man should hear and see their words and actions; but what a terror is this-- that their Judge, whom they hate, seeth their thought! If they could deny this, they would. But so many of them as are convinced and forced to acknowledge a God, are shaken betimes with this also-- that he is All seeing. Others proceed more summarily, and at once deny the Godhead in their heart, and so destroy this conscience of his All knowledge. But it is in vain: the more they harden their heart by this godless thought, the more fear is in them; while they choke and check their conscience that it crow not against them it checks them with foresight of fearful vengeance and for the present convinceth them of the omniscience of God, the more they press to suppress it. But the godly rejoice herein; it is to them a rule to square their thoughts by; they take no liberty of evil thinking, willing, wishing, or affecting, in their hearts. Where that candle shineth, all things are framed as worthy of him and of his sight, whom they know to be seeing their heart. William Struther, 1633.
Verse 168. All my ways are before thee. Walk, Christian, in the view of God's omniscience; say to thy soul, cave, videt Deus;take heed, God seeth. It is under the rose, as the common phrase is, that treason is spoken, when subjects think they are far enough from their king's hearing; hut did such know the prince to be under the window, or behind the hangings, to their discourse would be more loyal. This made David so upright in his walking: "I have kept thy precepts, for all my ways are before thee." If Alexander's empty chair, which his captains, when they met in counsel, set before them, did awe them so as to keep them in good order; how helpful would it be to set before ourselves the fact that God is looking upon us! The Jews covered Christ's face, and then buffeted him: Mt 14:65. So does the hypocrite; he first says in his heart, God sees not, or at least forgets that he sees, and then he makes bold to sin against him; like that foolish bird, which runs her head among the reeds, and thinks herself safe from the fowler, as if because she did not see her enemy, therefore he could not see her. Te mihi abscondam, non me tibi (Augustine). I may hide thee from my eye, but not myself from thine eye. William Gurnall.
This commences a new division of the psalm, indicated by the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet, the letter Tau, corresponding to our "t," or "th." -- Albert Barnes.
Verse 169. Let my cry come near before thee, O LORD. That is, as some will have it, Let this whole preceding Psalm, and all the petitions (whereof we have here a repetition) therein contained, be highly accepted in heaven. John Trapp.
Verse 169. Let my cry come near before thee, O LORD. We are now come to the last section of this psalm, wherein we see David more fervent in prayer than he was in the first, as ye shall easily observe by comparing them both together. The godly, the longer they speak to God, are the more fervent and earnest to speak to him; so that unless necessity compel them, they desire never to intermit conference with him. Many prayers hath he made to God in this psalm: now in the end he prays for his prayers, that the Lord would let them come before him. Some men send out prayers, but God turns them into sin, and puts them away back from him: therefore David seeks favour to his prayers. William Cowper.
Verse 169. Give me understanding. This was the prayer of Solomon (1Ki 3:9), and we are told that it pleased the Lord, and as a reward he added temporal prosperity, which the young king had not asked. Yet Solomon meant less by his prayer than his father David did; for we see in him little trace of the deep devotion for which his father was so remarkable. The Psalmist here prays a deep prayer which can only be answered by the Holy Ghost himself enlightening the soul. The understanding is a most important member of our spiritual frame. Conscience is the understanding exercised upon moral questions, and if that be not right, where shall we be? Our understanding of the word of God comes by teaching, but also through experience: we understand hardly anything till we experience it. Such an enlightening experience is the gift of God, and to him we must look for it in prayer. C.H.S.
Verse 169. Give we understanding. The especial work of the Holy Spirit in the illumination of our minds unto the understanding of the Scripture is called "understanding." The Psalmist prays "Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law" (verse 34). So the apostle speaks to Timothy: "Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things": 2Ti 2:7. Besides his own consideration of what was proposed unto him, which includes the due and diligent use of all outward means, it was moreover necessary that God should give him understanding by an inward effectual work of his Spirit, that he might comprehend the things wherein he was instructed. And the desire hereof, as of that without which there can be no saving knowledge of the word, for advantage by it, the Psalmist expresses emphatically, with great fervency of spirit in verse 144: "The righteousness of thy testimony is everlasting: give me understanding, and I shall live." Without this he knew that he could have no benefit by the everlasting righteousness of the testimonies of God. All understanding, indeed, however it be abused by the most, is the work and effect of the Holy Ghost for "the inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding": Job 32:8. So is this spiritual understanding in an especial manner the gift of God. In this "understanding" both the ability of our mind and the due exercise of it is included. This one consideration, that the saints of God have with so much earnestness prayed that God would give them understanding as to his mind and will as revealed in the word, with his reiterated promises that he would so do, is of more weight with me than all the disputes of men to the contrary. No farther argument is necessary to prove that men do not understand the mind of God in the Scripture in a due manner, than their supposal and confidence that so they can do without the communication of a spiritual understanding unto them by the Holy Spirit. This self confidence is directly contrary unto the plain, express testimonies of the word. John Owen.
Verse 169. Give me understanding. Why should the man of God here pray for understanding? Had he not often prayed for it before? Was he a novice in knowledge, being a prophet? Doth not our Saviour Christ reprehend repetitions and babbling in prayer? True it is our Saviour Christ doth reprehend that babbling which is without faith and knowledge and a feeling of our wants; but he speaketh not against those serious repetitions which proceed from a plentiful knowledge, abundant faith, and lively feeling of our necessities. Again, although it cannot be denied but lie was a man of God, and had received great grace, yet God giveth knowledge to his dearest saints in this life but in part, and the most which we see and know is but little. Besides, when we have knowledge, and knowledge must be brought into practice, we shall find such difficulties, such waywardness, such forgetfulness, such wants, that although we have had with the prophet a very good direction in the general things of the word, which are universal and few, yet we shall find many distractions in our practices, which must be particular and many; and we shall either fail in memory by forgetfulness, or in judgment by blindness, or in affection by dulness. So easily may we slip when we think we may hold our journey on. Wherefore the man of God, through that examination which he took of his heart and affections, seeing those manifold straits and difficulties, prayeth in the verse following, not for the renewing of men in general in their troubles, but for the considering of his own particular condition. Richard Greenham.
Verse 169. According to the word. David here seeks understanding not carnally, for the wisdom of the flesh is death: but he seeks understanding according to God's word. Without this the wisdom of man is foolishness; and the more subtil he seems to be in his ways, the more deeply he involves himself in the snare of the devil. "They have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?" Jer 8:9. But seeing he was an excellent prophet, and protested before that he had more understanding than the ancients, yea, than his teachers; how is it that he still prays for understanding? In answer to this we are to know, that there is a great difference between the gifts of nature and grace. Nature ofttimes gives to man very excellent gifts, as rare memory, knowledge, quick wit, strength, external beauty; but therewithal it teacheth not man to consider that in which he is wanting; whereof it comes to pass, that he waxeth proud of that which he hath. This is a common thing to men in the state of nature, that of small gifts they conceive a great pride: but grace, as it gives to man more excellent gifts than nature can afford, so it teacheth him to look unto that which he wants, that he be not puffed up by considering that which he hath, but carried in all humility of heart to pray for that which he wants. Abraham Wright.
Verse 170. Let my supplication come before thee, etc. The sincere worshipper cannot be contented with anything short of actual intercourse with God. The round of duty cannot please where the spirit of grace and supplication has not been vouchsafed. A filial disposition will pour itself forth in earnest longings after communion with God. Nor will the hope of gracious audience be founded on any other plea save that of the sure word of Jehovah's promise. It is in accordance with that word, and not in opposition to it, that the child of God expects to be heard. All his deliverance he feels to be from the Lord, and all that he looks for from heaven he anticipates in answer to prayer. O for more of that faith which makes its appeal to the divine veracity, and which looks with steadfast eye to the promise of a covenant keeping God. John Morison.
Verse 170. Let my supplication come before thee. Observe the order of the words here and in the preceding verse. First we had, "Let my cry come near; "then "Give me understanding, "and that "according to thy word, "and now we have "Let my prayer enter in (LXX., Syr., Arb., Vulg.,)before thee." Just so, if you wish for an interview with a man of very high rank, first you come near his house, then you ask for information and instruction as to his intentions, then you ask permission to enter, lest you should be driven away and refused admittance. Knock therefore at the door of the heavenly palace: knock, not with your bodily hand, but with the right hand of prayer. For the voice can knock as well as the hand, as it is written, "It is the voice of my Beloved that knocketh": So 5:2. And when you have knocked, see how you go in, lest after entering you should not get the sight of the King. For there are many who make their way into palaces, and do not at once get an audience of an earthly sovereign, but have to watch constantly to obtain an interview at last. Nor have they the choice of the opportunity, they come when they are sent for, and then present their petition, if they wish to be favourably received. Ambrose, in Neale and Littledale.
Verse 171. My lips shall utter praise. You have stood at the fountain head of a stream of water, and admired while it bubbled up, and ran down in a clear little rivulet, till at length it swelled the mighty river. Such is the allusion here. The heart taught of God, cannot contain itself, but breaks out in praise and singing. This would be the effect of divine illumination, and this would be felt to be a privilege, yea, and a high duty. Have you not found so, believers, specially on common occasions? Be assured, such utterances are the sign of a renewed heart; yea, of a heart filled with all gratitude of right feeling. John Stephen.
Verse 171. My lips shall utter praise, etc.
O make me, Lord, thy statutes learn!
Keep in thy ways my feet,
Then shall my lips divinely burn;
Then shall my songs be sweet.
Each sin I cast away shall make
My soul more strong to soar;
Each deed of holiness shall wake
A strain divine the more.
My voice shall more delight thine ear
The more I wait on time;
The service bring my song more near
The angelic harmony.
T. H. Gill, in "Breathings of the Better Life" 1881.
Verse 172. My tongue shall speak of thy word. One duty of thankfulness promised by David is, to speak of God's words for the edification of others. Every Christian man, as he is a priest to offer sacrifice unto God, so is he a prophet to teach his brethren; for unto us all stands that commandment, "Edify one another in their most holy faith." But, alas, ye shall see many Christians now, who at their tables, and in their companies, can speak freely upon any subject; only for spiritual matters, which concern the soul, there they are dumb, and cannot say with David, "My tongue shall speak of thy word." -- William Cowper.
Verse 173. Let thine hand help me. David having before made promises of thankfulness, seeks now help from God, that he may perform them. Our sufficiency is not of ourselves, but of God; to will and to do are both from him. In temporal things men ofttimes take great pains with small profit; first, because they seek not to make their conscience good; next, because they seek not help front God: therefore they speed no better than Peter, who fished all night and got nothing till he cast his net in the name of the Lord. But in spiritual things we may far less look to prosper, if we call not for God's assistance: the means will not profit us unless God's blessing accompany them. There is preaching, but for the most part without profit; there is prayer, but it prevails not; there is hearing of the word, but without edifying; and all because in spiritual exercises instant prayer is not made unto God, that his hand may bc with us to help us. Abraham Wright.
Verse 173. I have chosen thy precepts. Hath God given you a heart to make choice of his ways? O bless God! There was a time when you went on in giving pleasing to the flesh, and you saw then no better thing than such a kind of life, and the Lord hath been pleased to discover better things to you, so as to make you renounce your former ways, and to make choice of another way, in which your souls have found other manner of comforts, and satisfactions, and contentments than ever you did before. Bless God as David did: "Blessed be the Lord who hath given me counsel"...Seeing God hath thus inclined your heart to himself, be for ever established in your choice: seeing God hath shown to you his ways, as Pilate said in another case, "That I have written I have written": so say you, "That I have chosen I have chosen." -- Jeremiah Burroughs, in "Moses his Choice."
Verses 173-174. I have chosen. My delight. Cheerfulness accompanies election of a thing. Lumpishness is a sign we never chose it, but were forced to it. Such cheerfulness in service procures cheerfulness in mercies: Isa 64:5, "Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness." He puts to his hand to help such an one. Christ loves not melancholy and phlegmatic service; such a temper in acts of obedience is a disgrace to God and to religion: to God, it betrays us to have jealous thoughts of God, as though he were a hard master; to religion, it makes others think duties are drudgeries, and not privileges. -- Stephen Charnock.
Verse 174. I have longed for thy salvation, 0 LORD, ere. The thing which we learn hence out of David's joining these two together, I long for salvation, and thy law is my delight, is this, that it is not enough for a man to say, he longs and desires to be saved, unless he makes a conscience to use the appointed means to bring him thereunto. It had been but hypocrisy in David to say he longed for salvation, if his conscience had not been able to witness with him that the law was his delight. It is mere mockery for a man to say he longeth for bread, and prayeth to God every day to give him his daily bread, if he yet walk in no calling, or else seek to get it by fraud and rapine, not staying himself at all upon God's providence. Who will imagine that a man wishes for health, who either despiseth or neglects the means of his recovery? God hath in his own wisdom appointed a lawful means for every lawful thing; this means, being obediently used, the comfortable obtaining of the end may be confidently looked for; the means being not observed, to think to attain to the end is mere presumption. God will deliver Noah from the flood, but Noah must be "moved with reverence, "and "prepare the ark" (Heb 11:7), or else he could not have escaped. He would save Lot from Sodom, but yet Lot must hurry him out quickly, and not look behind him till he have entered Zoar: Ge 19:17. He was pleased to cure Hezekiah of the plague, but yet Hezekiah must take "a lump of figs, and lay it upon his boil:" Isa 38:21. He vouchsafed to preserve Paul and company at sea, yet the sailors must "abide in the ship, "else ye cannot be saved, saith Paul: Ac 27:31. Samuel Hieron, 1572-1617.
Verse 174. I have longed for thy salvation. It is God's salvation proper that he must desire-- "thy salvation" -- for nothing else could satisfy his pure mind-- perfect peace with God, perfect purity and perfect hope. Now, if you ask what was God's way of delivering, and what was his way of salvation, the answer is, it was set forth in his word, and was what the Psalmist calls his "law." God's salvation and his law were discerned to be one. "I have longed for thy salvation, O LORD; and thy law is ray delight." -- John Stephen.
Verse 174. I have longed for thy salvations, O LORD. "Salvation, "by the "hand, "or arm of Jehovah, (which is often in Scripture a title of Messiah,)hath been the object of the hopes, the desires, and "longing" expectations of the faithful, from Adam to this hour, and will continue so to be until he, who hath already visited us in great humility, shall come again in glorious majesty to complete our redemption and take us to himself. George Horne.
Verse 174. I have longed for thy salvation, O LORD. For a present salvation from the guilt and power of sin, and for future salvation, in the full and everlasting enjoyment of God in heaven. David had the happiness to be a partaker, both of pardoning mercy and of sanctifying grace; yet still he longed for more of this salvation, that is, for a more assured faith of pardoning mercy, and larger measures of sanctifying grace. A gracious soul is insatiable; the more it hath received, the more it desires to receive. Enjoyment, instead of surfeiting, sharpens the appetite. Nay, so sweet is the relishing of spiritual things, that every renewed taste of them quenches the thirst for other things. Thy law is my delight. Here David chooses the term "law" for denoting the whole revelation of God's will, to remind us of the inseparable connexion between privilege and duty, faith and obedience, holiness and comfort; and to teach us that we ought to be thankful to God for the direction he hath given us in the road to heaven, no less than for the promises by which we are assured of the possession of it. Robert Walker, 1716-1783.
Verse 174. Thy law is my delight. Religion will decay or flourish, as it is our duty or our delight. The mind is incapable of continued exertion for duty; but it readily falls in with "delight." Thus our duties become our privileges, while Christ is their source and life. Every step of progress is progress in happiness. This verse of which experience is the best interpreter is the believer's language in his lively, as well as in his fainting state. For the more be knows and enjoys of tim divine presence, the more he longs to know and enjoy it. Charles Bridges.
Verse 174. Delight, in the plural, "delights, "as in verses 24, 77, 92, 143. God's word is an abundant source of pleasure to his people. William S. Plumer.
Verse 175. Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee, etc. This verse containeth three things,
First, David's petition for life: "Let my soul live." "My soul; "that is, myself: the soul is put for the whole man. The contrary: "Let me die with the Philistines, "said Samson (Jud 21:30); Hebrew, margin, "Let my soul die." His life was sought after by the cruelty of his enemies; and he desireth God to keep him alive.
Secondly, His argument from the aim of his life; "And it shall praise thee." The glorifying of God was his aim. The fruit of all God's benefits to profit us, and praise God. David professes that all the days of his life he would live in the sense and acknowledgment of such a benefit.
Thirdly, The ground of his hope and confidence in the last clause: "And let thy judgments help me." Our hopes of help are grounded on God's judgments, whereby is meant his word. There are judgments decreed, judgments executed; doctrinal judgments, and providential judgments, That place intimates the distinction: "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil:" Ec 8:11. There is sententia lata et dilata. Here God's judgments are put for the sentence pronounced; and chiefly for one part of them, the promises of grace. As also, "I have hoped in thy judgments:" Ps 119:43. Promises are the objects of hope. Thomas Manton.
Verse 175. Let my soul live. What is the life that the Psalmist is now praying for, but the salvation for which he had just expressed his longing? The taste that he has received makes him hunger for a higher and more continued enjoyment-- not for selfish gratification, but that he might employ himself in the praise of his God. Indeed, as we have drawn towards the close of this Psalm, we cannot but have observed that character of praise to pervade his experience, which has been generally remarked in the concluding Psalms of this sacred book. Much do we lose of spiritual strength for want of occupying ourselves more in the exercise of praise. Charles Bridges.
Verse 175. Live and praise. The saint improves his earthly things for an heavenly end. Where layest thou up thy treasure? Dost thou bestow it on thy voluptuous appetite, thy hawks and thy hounds; or dost thou lock it up in the bosom of Christ's poor members? What use makest thou of thy honour and greatness? To strengthen the hands of the godly or the wicked? And so of all thy other temporal enjoyments. A gracious heart improves them for God; when a saint prays for these things, he hath an eye to some heavenly end. If David prays for life, it is not that he may live, but "live and praise God." When he was driven from his regal throne by the rebellious arms of Absalom see what his desire and hope were, 2Sa 15:25: "The king said unto Zadok, Carry back the ark of God into the city: if I shall find favour in the eyes of the LORD, he will bring me again, and shew me both it, and his habitation." Mark, not shew me my crown, my palace, but the ark, the house of God. William Guruall.
Verse 175. Live and praise. Liveliness of soul is the Spirit's gift, and it will show itself in abounding praises. Henry Law.
Verse 175. Let thy judgments help me. In the second clause it would be harsh to understand the word "judgments" of the commandments, to which it does not properly belong to give help. It seems, then, that the prophet, perceiving himself liable to numberless calamities -- even as the faithful, by reason of the unbridled license of the wicked, dwell in this world as sheep among wolves, -- calls upon God to protect him in the way of restraining, by his secret providence, the wicked from doing him harm. It is a very profitable doctrine, when things in the world are in a state of great confusion, and when our safety is in danger amid so many and varied storms, to lift up our eyes to the judgments of God, and to seek a remedy in them. John Calvin.
Verses 175-176.
Though like a sheep estranged I stray,
Yet have I not renounced thy way.
Thine hand extend; thine own reclaim;
Grant me to live, and praise thy name.
--Richard Mant.
Verse 176. I have gone astray like a lost sheep. Though a sheep go astray, yet it is soon called back by file voice of the shepherd: "My sheep hear my voice." Thus David when he went against Nabal was called back by the Lord's voice in a woman; and when he had slain Uriah he was brought again by Nathan. And therefore if we will be sheep, then though we sometimes go astray, yet we must be easily reclaimed. Richard Greenhorn.
Verse 176. I have gone astray like a lost sheep, driven out by storm, or dark day, or by the hunting of the dogs chased out from the rest of the flock. David Dickson.
Verse 176. I have gone astray like a lost sheep, etc. And this is all the conclusion-- "a lost sheep!" This long psalm of ascriptions, praises, avowals, resolves, high hopes, ends in this, that he is a perishing sheep. But, stay, there is hope-- "Seek thy servant." "I have gone astray like a lost sheep." The original is of the most extensive range, comprehending all time past, and also the habitual tendencies of the man. The believer feels that he had gone astray when the grace of God found him; that he had gone astray many times, had not the grace of God prevented it. He feels that he went astray on such and such unhappy occasions. He also feels that he hath gone astray in all that he hath done; and indeed that he is astray now. But the word expresses the habitual tendency likewise -- I go astray like a lost sheep, and this rendering is in keeping with the prayer, "Seek thy servant." The third member is also properly rendered in keeping with it: "I go astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments." All this is descriptive of the remaining corruption that is in the believer. He is not unmindful of the Lord; he has the root of the matter in him, the seed of divine life; yet he does go astray; whence the necessity of the prayer: "Seek thy servant." Isaiah's description of men, although conveyed in the same terms, is evidently more sweeping, as the context words show: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." This would seem to apply to the race of man. Rather is the experience of the Psalmist similar to that described by the apostle Paul: "I find a law, that when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God, after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." And the Psalmist had the same remedy at the early period, as had the apostle in the later times; for God's salvation is one. The Psalmist's remedy was, "Seek thy servant; "the apostle's, :"O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." -- John Stephen.
Verse 176. I have gone astray. The original word signifies either the turning of the foot, or the turning of the heart, or both, out of the way. "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; "that is, I have been deceived, and so have gone out of the way of thy holy commandments. Satan is an ill guide, and our hearts are no better: he that follows either, quickly loseth himself; and until God seeketh us (as David prays in the next words), we cannot find our way when we are once out of it. Joseph Caryl.
Verse 176. I have gone astray. Gotthold one day saw a farmer carefully counting his sheep as they came from the field. Happening at the time to be in an anxious and sorrowful mood, he gave vent to his feelings and said: Why art thou cast down, my soul? and why disquieted with vexing thoughts? Surely thou must be dear to the Most High as his lambs are to this farmer. Art thou not better than many sheep? Is not Jesus Christ thy shepherd? Has not he risked his blood and life for thee? Hast thou no interest in his words: "I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand"? Joh 10:28. This man is numbering his flock; and thinkest thou that God does not also count and care for his believing children and elect, especially as his beloved Son has averred, that the very hairs of our head are all numbered? Mt 10:30. During the day, I may perhaps have gone out of the way, and heedlessly followed my own devices; still, at the approach of evening, when the faithful Shepherd counts his lambs, he will mark my absence, and graciously seek and bring me back. Lord Jesus, "I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments." -- Christian Striver (1629-1693), in Gotthold's Emblems.
Verse 176. I have gone astray, etc. Who is called "the man after God's own heart"? David, the Hebrew king, had fallen into sins enough -- blackest crimes-- there was no want of sin. And, therefore, unbelievers sneer, and ask, "Is this your man after God's own heart?" The sneer, it seems to me, is but a shallow one. What are faults, what are the outward details of a life, if the inner secret of it, the remorse, temptations, the often baffled, never ended struggle of it, be forgotten?...David's life and history, as written for us in those psalms of his, I consider to be the truest emblem ever given us of a man's moral progress and warfare here below. All earnest souls will ever discover in it the faithful struggle of an earnest human soul towards what is good and best. Struggle often baffled-- sore baffled -- driven as into entire wreck; yet a struggle never ended, ever with tears, repentance, true unconquerable purpose begun anew. Thomas Carlyle, (1795-1881), in "Heroes and Hero Worship."
Verse 176. For I do not forget thy commandments. In all my wandering; with my consciousness of error; with my sense of guilt; I still do feel that I love thy law, thy service, thy commandments. They are the joy of my heart, and I desire to be recalled from all my wanderings, that I may find perfect happiness in thee and in thy service evermore. Such is the earnest wish of every regenerated heart. For as such a one may have wandered flora God, yet he is conscious of true attachment to him and his service; he desires and earnestly prays that he may be "sought out, "brought back, and kept from wandering any more. Albert Barnes.
Verse 176. For I do not forget thy commandments. The godly never so fall but there remains in them some grace, which reserves a hope of medicine to cure them: so David here. Albeit he transgressed some of God's commandments, yet he fell not into any full oblivion of them. William Cowper.
Verse 176. I do not think that there could possibly be a more appropriate conclusion of such a Psalm as this, so full of the varied experience and the ever changing frames and feelings even of a child of God, in the sunshine and the cloud, in the calm and in the storm, than this ever clinging sense of his propensity to wander, and the expression of his utter inability to find his way back without the Lord's guiding hand to restore him; and at the same time with it all, his fixed and abiding determination never to forget the Lord's commandments. What an insight into our poor wayward hearts does this verse give us-- not merely liable to wander, but ever wandering, ever losing our way, ever stumbling on the dark mountains, even while cleaving to God's commandments! But at the same time what a prayer does it put into our mouths, "Seek thy servant, "-- "I am thine, save me." Yes, blessed be God! there is One mighty to save. "Kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." -- Barton Bouchier.
As far as I have been able, as far as I have been aided by the Lord, I have treated throughout, and expounded, this great Psalm. A task which more able and learned expositors have performed, or will perform better; nevertheless, my services were not to be withheld from it on that account, when my brethren earnestly required it of me. Augustine.
| Verses 1-44 | Verses 45-88 | Verses 89-132 | Verses 133-176 |
Preface - Introduction - Notes - Exposition - Works Upon This Psalm
Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings - Hints to the Village Preacher
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