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If to any man these songs are unsavory, the reason is found in the blindness and depravity of the human heart. Hengstenberg: “The Psalms are expressions of holy feeling, which can be understood by those only, who have become alive to such feeling.”
Some of the Jews deny to David the title of prophet; but in Acts 2:30 Peter expressly calls him a prophet. In whatever sense the word prophet may be taken, it surely belongs to David. He was a great teacher. He predicted many great events. No man can consistently deny inspiration to the Psalms without denying it to all the Scriptures. If the Psalms are inspired it is easy to understand why they should be so powerful in their influence over the minds and hearts of men. They are a fire and a hammer. They are life and spirit.
If any ask, why should a divinely inspired and devotional book be so hard to be understood, and lead to so considerable diversity of interpretation? the answer has been given a thousand times: The human mind is very weak, and liable to many prejudices and to much darkness; and the things of God are very excellent and glorious. The fact that the book is highly devotional and experimental takes nothing from the difficulty; for the near we are to the throne, the more dazzling is its effulgence found to be; and the more deeply truth enters into our spirits, the less able do we feel ourselves to tell its relations and describe its beauties. The Psalms were written a long time ago, in an age and country very diverse from our own, and in a language so peculiar as to have now no parallel. In his preface to the book of Psalms with notes, the learned Creswell thus accounts for much of the difficulty: “The Hebrew is not only a dead language, but the oldest of all dead languages; it is, moreover, the language of a people that lived under institutions and in a climate very different from those of our own country, so that the idioms with which it abounds cannot but be strange to our habits of thinking, and our modes of speech; nor have we any book but the Bible itself to consult for an illustration of these phraseological peculiarities The pancity of the words also contained in that ancient tongue is such, that the same Hebrew term very often bears a great variety of significations, the connection of which with each other cannot always be satisfactorily ascertained: and, again, there are words, each of which is found but once in the whole volume of Scripture, so that their meanings can only be conjectured, either from their affinity to other words, or from the purport of the passage where they occur.
No doubt every sin deserves God’s terrible and eternal displeasure, and all ought to say so. But personal ill-desert is not confined to those, who shall be lost. The righteous are not saved because they have not sinned, nor because they have sinned less than others, nor because they do not deserve perdition. Their salvation is wholly gratuitous. Every regenerate man has a strong sense of the justice of his own destruction, if God should finally cast him off. Yet no good man uses any form of imprecatory words, respecting himself. And he has no right to use such phrases merely to convey the idea that the thing is just. For there are other modes, well known to pious men, of doing the same thing. It would be just in God to damn the world, but in saying that, we may not seem to ask him to do it. On the contrary we should pray for all, who are in the land of the living, and have not sinned unto death, even while we confess that no man deserves anything but wrath. It should never be forgotten, however, that all such passages are based upon the fact that the punishment of the wicked will be perfectly just.
To say that nothing in the Old Testament is a type of Christ unless in the New Testament it is expressly declared to be so is as contrary to reason as to say that no prophecy of the Old Testament relates to Christ unless it is quoted as such in the New. The entire old dispensation was full of figures. So Paul teaches in Hebrews 10:1. On the other hand fanciful men will pervert anything. In explaining God’s word we must exercise sobriety. The Scripture calls on men to use common sense. Lacking this, they will err whatever may be the rules of interpretation adopted by them. They must prove all things.
Both the Psalmist and the Saviour began their teachings with pronouncing blessedness to be the portion of God’s people.
The righteous hates the thought of sin, and so walks not with the impious. It is next said that this blessed man standeth not in the way of sinners. He seeks no intimacy with them as his companions. If he mingles with them, they are a grief to him. And he sitteth not in the seat of the scornful. In Scripture, scorning expresses the indifference and hatred of the wicked towards divine things. They contemn God. Nor is anything more expressive of the deadly malice of the wicked towards the righteous than the cruel mockings, to which the latter are often exposed. The natural tendency of all sin is to lead to outbreaking and deadly despite towards all that is good. Proud and haughty scorner is the name of all, who long resist divine calls and mercies. Bradley: “And in the habitation of scorners hath not dwelt.” If this is an improvement on our version, it is not obvious.
Like prayer, Luke 18:7, meditation is to be pursued day and night, not reluctantly, but joyously, not merely in God’s house, or on the Lord’s day, but whenever other duties do not forbid, “with such incessant study,” says J. H. Michaelis, “that even when the act ceases, there is no abatement of the pious affection.” Nor does the true child of God slight any part of divine truth. He loves it all. Bates says, “Habitual and delightful thoughts are the best discovery of our hearts and our spiritual state. Words and actions may be overruled and counterfeit for divers reasons, but thoughts are the invisible productions of the soul, and without fear or mask, without restraint or disguise, undissemblingly discover the disposition of the heart. Thoughts are the immediate offspring of the soul; and as the waters that immediately flow from the spring are strongest of the mineral, so the thoughts are most deeply tinctured with the affections. A saint is therefore described by his ‘meditating in the law of God day and night,’ which is the natural and necessary effect of his delight in it.”
The great difference between saints and sinners shall soon appear, for the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous. God has a perfect understanding of the real character of his people. His omniscience is their guaranty against their being at last confounded with the wicked. Charnock: “Without such a knowledge and discerning, men would not have their due; nay, a judgment just for the matter would be unjust in the manner, because unjustly passed, without an understanding of the merit of the cause. It is necessary, therefore, that the Supreme Judge of the world should not be thought to be blindfold when he distributes his rewards and punishments, and muffle his face when he passes his sentence. It is necessary to ascribe to him the knowledge of men’s thoughts and intentions; the secret wills and aims; the hidden works of darkness in every man’s conscience, because every man’s work is to be measured by the will and inward frame. It is necessary that he should perpetually retain all those things in the indelible and plain records of his memory, that there may not be any work without a just proportion of what is due to it. This is the glory of God to discover the secrets of all hearts at last; as 1 Cor. 4:5: The Lord shall bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of all hearts, and then shall every man have praise of God. This knowledge fits him to be a judge.” The reason why the ungodly shall not stand in judgment, is because God knows their ways, which is implied in his knowing the way of the righteous.
It has ever been and will ever be true that if men would be saved, they must forsake bad company, v. 1. He who goes with a multitude to do evil, shall go with a multitude to suffer punishment. “The companion of fools shall be destroyed.” He who persistently walks, and stands, and sits with the ungodly, shall lie down with them in hopeless sorrow. Bishop Hall: “I have often wondered how the fishes can retain their fresh taste, and yet live in salt waters, since everything partakes of the nature of the place where it abides, and of that which is around it. So it is with evil company, for besides that it blemisheth our reputation, and makes us thought evil of though we be good, it also inclines us insensibly to ill, and works in us, if not an approbation, yet a less dislike to those sins to which our eyes and ears are thus continually inured. For this reason, by the grace of God I will ever shun it. I may have a bad acquaintance, but I will never have a wicked companion.”
Let the difference between sin and holiness, saints and sinners never be denied, never be forgotten. Eternity alone will show how great it is.
3. Wicked men naturally grow worse and worse. They first walk in evil courses; then they stand in the way of sinners; at length they sit in the scorner’s chair. Ruffin: “To walk in the counsel of the ungodly is to consent to their wicked plots. To stand in the way of sinners is to persevere in evil works. To sit in the seat of the scornful is to teach others the evil which one practises himself.” No one all of a sudden becomes very vile. There are crises in the lives of the wicked, but the approach to them is gradual. The unregenerate are very blind. The scorner thinks he is very philosophic, and free from whims and prejudices; but he is the dupe of his passions, the servant of sin, and the slave of the devil. Who has ever seen a candid infidel? Scorning is an old artifice to keep conscience quiet. Hengstenberg: “Religions mockery is as old as the fall.” Beware of it and of all that leads to it. When a man commences a downward course, there is no telling where he will stop. Grace may arrest him at any stage in this life. Death may suddenly terminate his earthly career. Left to himself his eternal indoing is certain. Even scoffing alarms him not, for the further he goes, the blinder he is. All sin hardens the heart, stupefies the conscience, and shuts out the light of truth. 4. Let no man think himself safe, because others, who lead a similar life, are not alarmed at their condition, v. 1. There is often a peculiar stillness just before the earthquake. Probably the sun rose as fair on the morning of the overthrow of the cities of the plain as it ever had done. The ungodly all around us may be making merry at threatened judgments. But that will not avert them. The sneers of the ungodly prove wrath to be near at hand. Their “judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.” 2 Pet. 2:3.
If any ask, what are the foundations of the advantages of the righteous over the ungodly, it is easy to show some of them. First, the just man has truth on his side. His hopes and his cause are not based in falsehood, in error, in deception, in disguise, in fiction, in fancy. Truth will outlive all its opposites, though for a time it may fall in the streets. So that any wise man would accept a good title to an acre, rather than a spurious title to leagues of land, would rather be charged with a murder, of which he was innocent, than be guilty of a murder, of which he was innocent, than be guilty of a murder, of which he was unsuspected. A truthful claim to a penny is really worth more than a fictitious claim to a pound.
12. The doctrine of eternal judgment is no novelty, v. 5. It was preached with awful solemnity to the sinners of the old world. Jude 14, 15. It is clearly taught in the first Psalm. “Ewald justly refers the words [of verse 5] to the progression of the divine righteousness, which is perpetually advancing, though not every moment visible. All manifestations of punitive righteousness are comprehended in it. ‘For God will bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil.’ ” Eccle. 12:14. Let the wicked prepare to meet their God. There must be a judgment. God has said so. Justice requires it. 13. One of the most striking effects of the last judgment will be a perfect and eternal separation between the righteous and the wicked, v. 5. Thenceforth they can meet no more for ever. Here they often live together, protected by the same laws, inhabiting the same city, frequenting the same places of worship, of business and of recreation, members of the same family, or lying in the same bed; and yet when on the last day they shall part, their intercourse shall never be renewed, while eternity endures. The apparent confusion of things in this present state will all give way to a great and blessed clearing up and an eternal separation of the sheep from the goats.
15. The miseries of the wicked will in part be social, v. 5. They shall not stand in the congregation of the righteous; but they shall mingle with all the vile and malignant of fallen angels and incorrigible men. Isa. 14:9–19. Their doom and woes will be dreadful. Christ “will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Matt. 3:12. To denote eternal and irretrievable ruin God has employed a variety of speech indicating insufferable anguish. The way of the ungodly shall perish. And all the woe of the wicked shall be the fruit of their own doings. They shall reap what they have sowed, and not something else. Their way leads to hell and no where else. 16. It should be a great business of our lives to examine ourselves, whether we are righteous or ungodly. To this end in part this whole Psalm is given us. An aversion to this duty is no good sign. We have all much cause for noting the words of Luther: “When Scripture speaks of the ungodly, take heed that thou thinkest not, as the ungodly ever do, as if it referred to Jews and heathens, or, perhaps also to other persons; but present thyself also before this word, as what respects and concerns also thee. For a right-hearted and gracious man is jealous of himself, and trembles before every word of God.” The truth will come out. No man will make his case worse by honestly looking into it. Some have escaped a dreadful overthrow by finding out in time that they were self-deceived. Amyrald: “Although the providence of God, whose ways are sometimes unsearchable, does not always place so remarkable a distinction between the righteous and the wicked, still the future life shall so distinguish them, that no one shall be longer able to doubt, who they are that follow the path of true prosperity.” Of all the follies of men none can be worse than that of hiding from themselves their true condition and character. 17. Let us learn the art of applying God’s word to our own cases. Whoever thus employs this Psalm shall be much profited. It is a poor thing to hide the truth from our hearts by a mere regard to the letter of Scripture. Criticism, when cold, is as likely to mislead us as anything else. We must have divine illumination and spiritual unction, else all our learning will but make us the greater fools. Many a man’s knowledge, because unsanctified, serves but as a torch to light him to hell. He trusts in himself that he is in no danger, because he studies the Scriptures with taste and judgment, but forgets that spiritual discernment is essential to salvation. McCheyne’s method of applying Scripture was to turn each verse into a prayer.
The great mass of wicked men lose their souls without intending any such thing.
To laugh and have in derision are forms of expression borrowed from human emotions and actions. To let us know the divine mind and determination, God is said to repent, to be angry, to be pitiful, because these phrases are understood by us, and so we get some idea of our Maker. But God is without passions. He weeps not. He laughs not. In Job 41:29, it is said that “Leviathan langheth at the shaking of a spear.” No one is thus led to suppose that this sea-monster has any emotion corresponding to laughter among men, but as men in a state of safety, and sure of a victory over their adversaries, may and sometimes do laugh them to scorn, even when they are in the height of their power, so God derides the assaults of his foes. Henry: “Sinners’ follies are the just sport of God’s infinite wisdom and power; and those attempts of the kingdom of Satan, which in our eyes are formidable, in his are despicable.”
Then they would surely have those reverential sentiments, which invariably characterize true piety, and so would obey the call so solemnly and earnestly made, Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling. Though in these last three verses kings and rulers are by name addressed, yet it is as heads of the people, so that all are included in the call to obedience. In all acceptable service rendered to Jehovah several things must unite. It must be sincere. Without this God abhors all offerings, however decent or costly. A service known to be feigned is offensive to all right-minded men. Much more must it be so to God. In serving him we must confine ourselves to things which he has commanded. It is only when people draw near to God with their mouth, and honor him with their lips, but have removed their heart far from him, that their fear towards him is taught by the precepts of men. Is. 29:13. Christ says, Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I have commanded you. John 15:14. Nor may our religious service be reluctant; it must be willingly rendered. God hates a grudging giver. Love is the fulfilling of the law. If we love we will obey. Our service must also be faithful. We must not be double-minded. We cannot divide our hearts between God and the world. We cannot serve God and mammon. And we must serve God with fear. Our approaches to him must not be familiar, but reverent; not easy, but awful. God is indeed on a throne of grace, but that is no less glorious and suited to inspire reverence than a throne of judgment. It is a remarkable fact that all false and corrupt forms of religion either generate that fear which has torment—a servile fear— or degenerate into an irreverent presumption, leading men to come before God as the horse rusheth into the battle. Such do not keep their feet when they go to the house of God; but are less ready to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools. We must also serve God with joy. “Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness.” Isa. 64:5. A good master delights not in seeing his servants exhibiting dejection of spirit. Let kings and subjects, rulers and people all serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling. None is so high as not to need the friendship of God; none so low as to be beneath the divine notice. Henry: “Even kings themselves, whom others serve and fear, must serve and fear God; there is the same infinite distance between them and God, that there is between the meanest of their subjects and him.”
Prayer is a good preparation for sleep. After David had cried unto the LORD, he says, I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.
The best of parents may have the worst of children. David had his Absalom. This is not common, but it is possible. The effects of a pious education are often not manifest until the heart of parents is nearly broken by the wickedness of their offspring. In some cases indeed those who have had the best examples and instructions live and die in sin. Grace is not hereditary. God is a sovereign.
How foolish are they who rely for happiness on popular favor. Nothing is more fickle. David may long reign and do good, but when the rebellion comes, the masses turn against him, v. 1. It was always so. One while Israel says there is none like Moses. Very soon trouble comes; then they murmur against him. The very people, who one moment pronounce Paul a murderer pursued by divine vengeance, the next moment say he is a God. The very crowd who cry, Hosanna to the son of David, in three days clamor for his crucifixion. Popular breath is as fickle as the wind, and as light as vanity. The want of it is proof against no man’s worth. The possession of it confirms no man’s title to esteem.
Great crimes ordinarily cannot be concealed. It seems to be God’s plan to bring to light foul deeds, even when committed by great and good men. Our saying is, Murder will out. God can summon so many witnesses that exposure may follow at any moment. The chattering of a nest of birds made one confess parricide. The distress of Joseph’s brethren made them acknowledge their guilt concerning their brother. Absalom seems to have been David’s favorite son. 2 Sam. 13:39. Yet he was the sharpest thorn that ever pierced the side of his father. Thus God brings out the evil deeds of David and punishes them before the sun. He knows how to make the iron enter into the soul of his erring people.
8. But let God’s servants beware of despair. Let them cling to him the more closely, the sharper their sorrows are. Despair may do a prodigious deed of valor; it never performed a great work of faith or of patience. Let every child of God often say to his soul, Hope thou in God. Let the saints never believe the tempter when he says, There is no help for them in God. Humble and obedient trust in God is always safe and wise, vv. 2, 3.
We never act more wisely than when we do right and rely on God for protection of our lives and persons, and for the defence of our good names. He is our shield, and defends us. He is our glory, and our honor is safe in his hands, v. 3. God is himself the hope of Israel.
How small a thing fatally depresses the wicked. David in flight is confident. Ahithophel at court is in despair and hangs himself.
Let no man be surprised at having bitter and inveterate enemies, v. 2. Even old friends often turn against the godly. Venema: “The esteem and favor of men is very deceitful and variable.” Let us not revile our slanderers, but warn them and call them to repentance. Calvin: “While nothing is more painful to us than to be falsely condemned, and to endure at one and the same time, wrongful violence and slander; yet to be ill spoken of for doing well is an affliction, which daily befalls the saints. And it becomes them to be so exercised under it as to turn away from all the enticements of the world, and to depend wholly upon God alone.” Our duty is done when we see to it that evil reports respecting ourselves are false, or, if true, that we heartily repent of the matter of them. 7. Let those who live under good governments set an example of contentment, moderation and obedience to the laws, and not unite with brawlers in railing against rulers and laws, which secure to them all the blessings they may reasonably expect. He, who resists a lawful government, resists God. He, who rails at it, rails at him who established it, v. 2. 8. It is a small matter to be judged of man’s judgment. Those who love vanity and lies, rather commend than condemn us by their censures, v. 2. We must make it our business by holy lives to prove their calumnies false. 9. The wicked know not what they do when they annoy and persecute God’s servants, vv. 2, 3. Not only of widows in Israel but of all his people on earth God is the avenger. Dickson: “The cause of the world’s despising piety in the persons of God’s afflicted children is the gross ignorance of the precious privileges of the Lord’s sincere servants.”
Let us learn to judge righteous judgment. How often the wicked judge by outward appearances. With many success and prosperity are the test of a righteous cause. Outward calamities never prove any one out of God’s favor, though many wicked men think otherwise.
Whenever men try to be holier than God’s law, they fall into confusion.
True religion is ready to make sacrifices, v. 5. It brings its offerings with a willing mind and an unsparing hand. To the grudging and reluctant it may be said. You will never get to heaven at such a rate.
Great perils commonly precede great preferments. David found it so. The way to any great attainment is usually steep and rough. This is true in everything. It is especially true in moral attainments. Let not the children of God be discouraged through the greatness of their way. No strange thing has happened to them.
In v. 7 there is an allusion to the happy life of the agriculturist. It was a great mercy when for his sins man was sentenced to hard labor, God permitted that labor commonly to be in the open air, under the light of the sun, and generally on each man’s own premises. Of all the innocent temporary joys of earth, few exceed those of the farmer. No life is more independent.
Self-examination is a duty of true religion under all dispensations. Were men not very insensible to the value of eternal things, they would be more engaged in this duty. No doubt, some “are afraid and unwilling to look into their hearts, lest they should be convinced and overargued by conscience of their woful condition. Home is too hot for them.” But surely a wise man will deal honestly with himself before the day of final trial shall come. Every evening specially invites to this duty. Then silence reigns; the world is absent; sleep, the very image of death, summons us to think of eternal things, v. 8. Even some of the heathen practised a nightly review of their moral conduct during the day.
A good man asks for a spirit of prayer. He begs that he may not be left to wander on without any right desires after God.
For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness. To him that has righteousness on his side, it is for an anchor of hope that God is righteous and abhors iniquity. The Lord not only has no pleasure in any wickedness, but he has great delight in all goodness. Morison says the negative form gives emphasis to the words used in this clause. The nature of God determines the course of providence. He will at length check wickedness. The word EL, here rendered God, signifies strong or mighty when used as an adjective, and might or power when used as an abstract term. It here means God, the mighty God, the Almightly. As a name of God standing alone it is chiefly, if not exclusively, found in the poetic parts of Scripture. It occurs about two hundred and forty times in the Hebrew Bible, and in a majority of cases refers to the true God. This God hates sin. “If all sin were punished here, men would despair of mercy, but if no sin were punished here, men would deny a providence.”
To the renewed soul it is a great comfort that in the next world neither evil itself nor wicked beings shall dwell with or near God’s redeemed ones.
The foolish shall not stand in thy sight. Fry, Hengstenberg, and Alexander, for foolish read proud; Horne: mad; Ainsworth: insane boasters; Dimock: the profane; Cobbin: the madly profane; the Septuagint: transgressors of the law; several ancient versions, bad; others, malignant; John Rogers’ translation reads, Soche as be cruell may not stande in thy syght. All sin is folly and madness. On this point all rational beings will at last come to the same conclusion. There will be no diversity of judgment on this matter in the last day. All sin is in its own nature malignant and mischievous. Its natural tendency is to ruin and wretchedness. It would produce far more misery on earth than it does, were it not for the restraints put upon it by the Lord. All sin is cruelty to one’s soul, to one’s race, to a bleeding Saviour. All sin is proud and insolent. It affects independence of God. It swells and struts. It exalts itself against God. It is fond of high looks and proud imaginations. It trades in self-conceit, selfdeception and fearful presumption. All sin is utterly opposed to God. As fire and water resist each other, as light and darkness are utterly diverse, so God resists the proud. His nature is wholly opposed to it. He cannot cease to abhor it, without ceasing to be God. No creature has any adequate conception of the evil of sin. None but God comprehends it. Because it is so vile, those who love it shall not stand in God’s sight. They shall not be owned as servants; they shall not be heard in their petitions; they shall not accomplish their designs; they shall fall before terrible judgments; they shall fall in the great day of trial. The overflowing scourge shall sweep them away. The reason is found in the divine purity. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Those do greatly slander God, who teach that he will punish sin only because it is opposed to his law or his will, and not because it is opposed to his infinite, eternal, unchangeable rectitude. So repugnant to God’s nature is iniquity, that he would not save even his elect, except in a way that should fully and forever put away both the guilt and stain of sin, and bring all conceivable odium on transgression. God would not even spare his Son, when he stood in the place of sinners, lest he might seem to spare sin. Could he cease to hate it, he would cease to be worthy of love and confidence. Nor is it merely some forms of sin that God abhors, but he hates all workers of iniquity. Nor does he hate sin in general, as some men profess to do, but countenance it in detail.
hypocritical. Let those who indulge in any species of untruthfulness remember the dreadful examples made of Gehazi, Ananias and Sapphira. Let them read the many terrible woes denounced in Scripture against falsehood, noting even the dreadful sayings of the last chapter in the Bible, Rev. 22:15. Truly God’s face is set against those who invent, retail, or willingly believe falsehood. The Psalmist here says God shall destroy such. The dreadfulness of the destruction threatened against these wicked men is elsewhere described. When God destroys the ruin is utter, the wrath is terrible. God also marks for punishment the murderer. The Lord will abhor the bloody man; Gill and Horsley render it: The man of blood; Calvin and Horne: The blood-thirsty; The Septuagint, Ethiopic, Vulgate, Anderson and Morison: The man of bloods; several ancient versions, The shedder of blood; for man of blood, Jebb suggests man of bloodshed; some think that the plural form, bloods, in the Hebrew, points to the fact that men who once shed innocent blood are commonly ready to do it again; others suppose it is merely the Hebrew idiom, expressing no more than a bloody man; Mudge and Dodd think that a man of blood is one “whose blood, for any capital crime, is due to justice; on whom is blood, or the debt of blood;” i.e., he is a man who ought to be put to death. That God’s anger burns terribly against every form of murder is certain. No sentence of human law is more accordant with the revealed will of God than this, that the murderer should be capitally punished. The Lord abhors such men. In most cases his providence so orders it that those guilty of blood are detected and punished in this world. In the world to come they must, without repentance, meet a dreadful doom. The LORD also abhors the deceitful man, or as Horsley renders it, The man of guile; Fry: The man of fraud. Men may attempt to practise fraud on God, may be full of guile in all their apparent devotions, may be hypocrites and so lose their souls. Or they may flatter, slander, backbite, cheat, or deceive their neighbors. In either case God’s abhorrence is against them. If the only thing in the way of the deliverance of God’s people is that it involves the destruction of the men of falsehood, of blood, of deceit and of fraud, God will not stand at that. He would destroy a world of sinners rather than permit one of his people to be finally overthrown. He is righteous.
Lead me, O LORD, in thy righteousness, because of mine enemies. What a prayer! how suitable to every member of the church militant! How fitting to the occasion are these words! Instead of enemies, Morison is inclined to read, Lookers on; Horsley reads, Them that watch me; and several, My observers. Every servant of God is a spectacle to angels and men. He is watched over by angels, and he is watched by wicked men, who hope to see him commit some great error. Every good man knows something of the plague of his own heart, and knows it is not to be trusted. But at this time, besides his spiritual foes, David had many personal and perhaps national enemies, whose hatred was deadly. One error on his part might blight all his prospects. And so he says, Lead me. If God guide us, we shall be safe. If he forsake us, we shall all go astray. Divine conduct is the only sure preservative against superlative folly. In thy righteousness is another appeal to God to judge between him and his foes, and a prayer to God for preservation in the way of righteousness, which includes two things, the spirit of submission to God’s method of saving sinners by imputed righteousness and of obedience to God’s righteous precepts.
The very plans of the wicked will in the end prove their overthrow. Let them fall (or they shall fall) by their own counsels. Just as Haman was hanged on the gallows he erected for another, so the wicked are continually falling by devices designed to overwhelm others. If God let a man have his own way he will soon be in hell. A withdrawal of restraint, of wisdom, and of mercy, will at once complete any one’s ruin.
Hengstenberg: “God would not be God, if he should suffer them to go unpunished;” Morison says the original “implies the opposition and resistance not only of open rebellion, but also of an unbelieving, cavilling, and disputatious spirit.” In character, temper, and destiny the wicked are quite the opposite of the righteous.
But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice. In this world those who have the least right to rejoice often seem to be the most merry; and those who have the greatest cause of joy often seem to be the most sad. But things shall not always stand thus. God will in due time put all right. The righteous who now walk by faith and take God at his word, though they walk in darkness and have no light, shall soon commence a new career—a career of uninterrupted and unending joy and triumph. Accordingly he says, Let them ever shout for joy. Ever, both here and hereafter. “Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh.” Luke 6:21. Let them learn to rejoice in tribulation; let them make known their inward comforts and supports; let them make their boast in God; let them not keep silence when they should shout for joy. For all this there is good cause. Because thou defendest them. Waterland: Thou shalt overshadow them. Who can harm those that are the apple of God’s eye, are in the hollow of his hand, and abide under the shadow of the Almighty? It matters not who assaults when God defends. The hand of God as safely protects against a world in arms as against one little worm. Therefore, Let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee. To love God’s name is to love him and all, by which he has made himself known. All the righteous have this love. All of them think upon God’s name, cherish it, glory in it. To hear it lightly spoken of gives them pain. To hear it blasphemed shocks their sensibilities. But when it is honored, extolled, praised, they are happy. They delight in God’s name, titles, attributes, works, word, worship, ordinances, and people. The saints joy in God, not in the creature. In the world they have tribulation; but in him they are joyful. Alexander renders all the clauses of this verse in the future tense thus: And all trusting in thee shall be glad; forever shall they shout for joy, and thou wilt cover over them; and in thee shall exult the lovers of thy name. This is both declarative and prophetic. It cannot fail. Some suppose that David is praying that God’s people may rejoice on account of the deliverances shown to him. This may be so. But a righteous man wishes God’s people to be happy even if he himself should see much sorrow. True piety is benevolent. Could it have its way the saints should never shed another bitter tear. But true piety is also humble, and knows its own ignorance and quarrels not with God for his needful chastisements. God’s nature is the basis of all spiritual comforts. And so it is said: 12. For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous. Both in the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures the same words are used whether to express the act of the creature blessing God, or the act of God blessing the creature; and yet there is a great difference between these. When man blesses God, the utmost he can do is to make known his desires that God may be honored by himself and all others. But when God blesses one he not only speaks good concerning him, but that good is sure to be accomplished. Man’s blessing is optative; God’s, authoritative.
1. In prayer it is well to resort to the aid of language to express our thoughts and petitions, v. 1. “Take with you words and turn to the Lord,” Hos. 14:2. It is well to have definite conceptions of what we need. 2. If God gives us a heart to pray, he will give us a blessing in answer to our prayers, v. 1. All his names, all his offices, all his promises secure thus much. He hears our sighs; he knows their meaning; he can and will attend to our case. 3. Meditation and prayer are kindred duties, v. 1. Each leads to the other. They dwell together. Bates: “Meditation before prayer is like the tuning of an instrument and setting it for the harmony. Meditation before prayer doth mature our conceptions and exercise our desires.” In Genesis 24:63, our translators put the word meditate in the text, but in the margin they put the word pray. No man can devoutly meditate without praying, or devoutly pray without meditating. 4. If in prayer words should be wanting, and we should be conscious of no more than breathing, sighing, meditation, others have been in like straits, v. 1. Let us not then be discouraged. He who will not quench the smoking flax can hear a breath, as well as a cry, a moan as well as words, a meditation as well as a speech. 5. Idolatry must be very hateful to God. As the sovereign of an empire must set himself against those who would cut off his revenue; so Jehovah must abhor all those practices, which deprive him of the tribute of prayer and praise, supplication and thanks giving, which are his due, v. 2. All sin is a wrong to God. That which hinders, or corrupts his worship is a direct affront, a daring robbery. 6. True prayer is never careless or listless. It is earnest. It is importunate. It thinks. It also cries, v. 2. Delay of the answer for a season but inflames its desires. 7. No wickedness should drive us from God’s throne of grace. If our own sins rise up against us, let them impel us to plead for mercy. And we see David here urged on to prayer by the wickedness of those who sought his destruction. If the wicked curse, let us pray; if they lie, let us pray; if they flatter, let us pray; if they shed the blood of the saints, let us pray, vv. 1, 2, 3. 8. If we would have the LORD for our God, let us also take him for our King, v. 2. If we reject his laws, it is certain we reject his grace. If we refuse his yoke, we surely do not accept his mercy.
True submission and obedience to God will not make us dull but lively in his service, v. 3. It will arouse the spirit of devotion, v. 2. True religion is not quietism, nor stoicism, nor atheism. It brings the soul into communion with God. It arouses all its activities. It gives wondrous energy. It stirs up thought at midnight. It begets habits of devotion. It goes not by fits and starts. 11. Every well spent day must be begun with God, v. 3. It is right he should have our first and best thoughts. Gill: “The morning is a proper time for prayer, both to return thanks for refreshing sleep and rest, for preservation from dangers by fire, by thieves and murderers, and for renewed mercies in the morning; as also to pray to God to keep from evil and dangers the day following; to give daily food, and to succeed in business and the employments of life; and for a continuation of every mercy, temporal and spiritual.”
13. Wrong views of the character of God spoil all religion, v. 4. When man’s hope is built on the idea that God is like his erring creatures, that he is not holy, just, or true, all his solemn services are worthless, and his prospects are dismal. God is inflexibly just. If he saves a sinner who believes, he will so do it as to condemn sin in the flesh. Impunity is unknown in God’s government. 14. Because God is holy, all who love holiness shall triumph over all who love wickedness, v. 4. There is no bond of sympathy so strong and enduring as that, which results from similarity of moral character. God cannot but love his own image. He cannot but hate the image of the wicked one. Light and darkness may be so mingled as to produce a twilight, but God and wickedness can never dwell together. Charnock: “Holiness can no more approve of sin than it can commit it.”
15. There must be something inconceivably monstrous in all impiety, else God would not so often put upon it the brand of folly, v. 5. Dickson: “Let wicked men seem never so wise politicians among men, yet they shall be found mad fools before God, selling heaven for trifles of earth, holding war with the Almighty, and running upon their own destruction in their self-pleasing dreams, to the loss of their life and estate, temporal and eternal.” God’s views of sin may be learned from such places as Hab. 1:13; Zech. 8:17; Amos 5:21–23; Isa. 1:14; Jer. 44:4. Charnock: “Sin is the only primary object of God’s displeasure.” It cannot be shown that God hates anything but sin. 16. Persecutors, heretics, false teachers, deceivers, and haters of all goodness are no novelty. Good men have always been hated, hunted, harassed by evil doers. Demas will forsake the church. Diotrephes will form parties. Absalom and his friends will seize on the temple. But the triumph of the wicked is short. If workers of iniquity abound, no new thing has happened, v. 5. 17. Because God is holy and man sinful, regeneration is necessary. God, and sinners who love iniquity, cannot dwell together, vv. 4, 5, 6. To except happiness in heaven without a new nature is more foolish than any dream of madmen. Men may believe the world is flat or round, that it moves or stands still, and yet be virtuous, and happy, and on the road to heaven. But without a new heart no man can be saved. Christ justly expressed amazement that Nicodemus, a master in Israel, supposed to know the Old Testament Scriptures, should be ignorant of this doctrine. 18. There must be future retribution because God is holy, because men are not here dealt with according to their characters, because God has determined to destroy the wicked, and because that destruction comes not in this life, v. 6. This doctrine is implied in hundreds of texts, where it is not declared.
All hypocrisy is vain. Nothing is more idle, v. 6. We never can impose on the Almighty. Morison: “Let all workers of deceit, all hypocritical pretenders, whether in the intercourse of life or in the fellowship of the church, know that they are hateful in the divine sight; that their prayers will not be heard; that their offerings will not be accepted; that nothing short of repentance and deep contrition of spirit will be associated with the returning smile of divine mercy and compassion. Continuing in their present course of deceit and falsehood, they can expect to meet nothing but the wrath of an angry God.” No wickedness on earth is more common than the various forms of deceit. 20. God is not the author of sin. He abhors it. Nothing is so repugnant to his nature, vv. 4, 5, 6. He permits sin, but he does not approve it. He overrules sin, but he hates it. He may sustain in being very wicked men while they commit sin, but he never works wickedness. To charge him with being the author of sin is blasphemy. 21. Honesty is the best policy. It commonly appears so in this life; invariably, in the next, v. 6. The perpetual toil and scuffle of the false man to make things stick together and to preserve appearances might warn him of worse trouble yet to come. Morison: “Let the sentiment of this verse teach the importance of candor, and benevolence, and sincerity in all the intercourses of life. How many there are who will meet you as friends, and give you the right hand of good brotherhood, while they are stabbing you in the dark, and whispering something, even in the ear of your familiar friend, which may lesson you in his esteem. And yet these very dastardly characters will not dare to breathe in your presence any other sentiments save those of kindness and respect. Let such men remember, that in the holy scriptures, lying and murder are the invariable companions of deceit, and treachery, and circumvention.” When God utterly forsakes a man, he soon confounds all moral distinctions. To such a one black is white, bitter is sweet, evil is good. Many of the vices are cognate. They dwell together.
Neither in fact, nor in the esteem of good men is there any substitute for the public worship of God, v. 7. Take away from the pious of earth all the recollections, impressions, purposes, refreshments, encouragements, hopes, joys, and other graces, which owe their origin, or their vigor to the house of God, and what a change would be witnessed. It is a great mercy in God to give us public ordinances. They reprove, cheer, warn, reclaim, animate, strengthen all God’s people.
To ask for light on our path is therefore the same as praying not to be led into temptation. Satan loves to fish in muddy water. Mental confusion is unfriendly to the steady course of piety. Let us beg God to make crooked things straight. Dickson: “So much the more as the godly are sensible of their own blindness, and weakness, and readiness to go out of the right way, so much the more do they call for, and depend upon God’s directing them.” 27. The Scriptures speak one uniform and unmistakable language respecting the universal and dreadful depravity of man, v. 9. There was no stronger language used on this subject by David than we find in Genesis 6:5. And when Paul would prove Jew and Gentile all lost he finds no more fitting testimony than in this Psalm. Rom. 3:13. Compliments to unregenerate men respecting their goodness are as much out of place as praise of a corpse for its beauty. They are all dead. Morison: “There has been a mournful uniformity in the character of the wicked in all ages.” 28. Dickson: “Among other motives to make the godly take heed of their carriage in time of trial, this is one; they have to do with a false world, and hollow-hearted men, who will make false pretences of what is not their intention, and will make promise of what they mind not to perform, and will give none but rotten and poisonable advice, gilded with false flattery, and all to deceive the godly and draw them into a snare,” v. 9. 29. The ruin of the incorrigibly wicked is inevitable, v. 10. Everything is against them. God, with all his nature, plans and providence, the inherent weakness and wretchedness of their cause, the multitude of their offences, the heinous character of their rebellion, unite with all the teachings of Scripture and all the worship of God’s people in making the overthrow of the impenitent beyond all doubt certain. God’s people cannot thank him that no weapon formed against Zion shall prosper, nor pray, Thy kingdom come, nor adore God for one of his attributes, nor cry, God be merciful to me a sinner, nor repeat a prophecy concerning the final triumph of truth and righteousness, without pointing to great principles, all of which say, The ungodly shall perish. 30. But the righteous are safe, v. 11. All, that makes sure the ruin of the wicked, renders certain the victory of the righteous. God is with them, defends item, blesses them. 31. We ought to pray for God’s people, v. 11. They need our prayers. They have a right to them on the score of brotherhood.
With believers when things get to the worst then they get better. To them darkness is the harbinger of light; grief, of gladness; humility, of exaltation; death, of life. The whole Psalm teaches thus. 2. Let men beware how they harden themselves in sin by pleading the falls of David. If they resemble him only in sinfulness, they will miserably perish. Unless like him they repent, they are undone forever. And this repentance must be speedy, for as Augustine says, “Though after this life repentance be perpetual, it is in vain.” 3. It is better to weep now when God will hear than hereafter when mercy shall be clean gone forever. To us sinners sorrow must come. The wise prefer to mourn when mourning for sin shall be followed by peace and joy.
The pious man has no reason to prevent himself and others from seeing into his heart. His strength is in God, and so he can lay open his weakness. The ungodly, on the other hand, consider it as a reproach to look upon themselves in their weakness, and to be looked upon by others in it. Even when smarting with pain inwardly, he feigns freedom from it, so long as he can.”
This Psalm shows us what extreme and terrible sufferings of conscience may come upon a good man after sad departures from God. It is thought by some that the convictions and distresses of the real children of God, when aroused to a sense of their backsliding and guilt, far surpass the anguish of the same persons at the time of their first conversion. No doubt this is often so. Let the people of God flee from sin as from hell. It will bring the pains of hell into their consciences. Spiritual distress and spiritual conflicts are the worst trials on earth. 7. But whatever our afflictions may be, let us betake ourselves to God, v. 1. The child, that falls into the bosom of parental faithfulness, shortens the stroke and breaks the force of the rod, which is lifted in chastisement. Morison: “Whether we contemplate the maladies of the soul, or those of the body, we are equally compelled to turn to Jehovah as the great Physician.” The sooner we learn this lesson, the better for us. The very name, Jehovah, rightly understood must encourage all to pour their tale of sorrow into his ear.
Amazing is God’s kindness in not punishing his people as they deserve, v. 1. This is their only hope. This is a sufficient hope. “Fear thou not, O Jacob my servant, saith the LORD: for I will make a full end of all the nations whither I have driven thee: but I will not make a full end of thee, but correct thee in measure; yet I will not leave thee wholly unpunished,” Jer. 46:28. Jehovah will discriminate between saints and sinners. He will not punish them alike, Gen. 18:25.
If God hears our prayers once, it should encourage us to hope that he will hear us again, v. 9.
27. As what is promised to one believer is also promised to all, so that which is denounced against one enemy of God, is alike denounced against all of like character. The result of the conflict between David and his foes is a sample of what shall fall out in every like case. Let the righteous rejoice. Let sinners tremble. 28. Let us never fall into the error of the wicked, who have long and always delighted in deriding the suffering people of God, and especially in making light of their pious grief for sin. Dickson: “The insulting of enemies over the godly when the Lord’s hand is heavy upon them, because it reflecteth upon religion and upon God’s glory, is a main ingredient in the sorrow of the godly,” v. 7. There is a great difference between “encouraging the exercise of a salutary repentance,” and provoking feelings of “unmitigated despair.” 29. How apt God is to punish in kind. David’s enemies pursued him till he was sore vexed. In the end they were sore vexed themselves, vv. 3, 10. Compare Judges 1:5–8; 2 Sam. 22:27; Ps. 18:26; 109:17, 18; Matt. 5:7; Jas. 2:13. 30. All is well that ends well. Horne: “Many of the mournful Psalms end in this [triumphant] manner, to instruct the believer, that he is continually to look forward, and solace himself with beholding that day, when his warfare shall be accomplished; when sin and sorrow shall be no more; when sudden and everlasting confusion shall cover the enemies of righteousness; when the sackcloth of the penitent shall be exchanged for a robe of glory, and every tear become a sparkling gem in his crown: when to sighs and groans shall succeed the songs of heaven, set to angelic harps, and faith shall be resolved into the vision of the Almighty.”
I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness: and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high. Hengstenberg: “The righteousness and the praise shall correspond.” God’s righteousness is boundless, so shall be his honors. The truly devout do not willingly limit their praises of the LORD. This is the first place in the Psalms where we find Jehovah called the Most High. We first meet with the word thus rendered in Gen. 14:18. It occurs several times in the Pentateuch, and often in later books. It is found more than twenty times in the Psalms. God is the Most High in his glorious elevation of nature, of counsel, and of government. There is none like him. There is none with him. There is none beside him. He is not only in all and through all; but he is above all and over all God blessed forever.
7. The opposition of carnal men to truth and piety is fierce, cruel and deadly, v. 2. Aroused, they are like wild beasts. Dickson: “If God do not interpose himself, for defence of his unjustly slandered servants, there is nothing to be expected from wicked enemies enraged, but merciless beastly cruelty.”
Humility does not require of us to acknowledge the truth of false charges brought against us. What humility demands is a judgment of ourselves, not below the truth, nor above it, but according to it, vv. 3–5.
God’s dealings with the wicked are useful. “The Lord is known by the judgments which he executeth.” Ps. 9:16. “When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.” Is. 26:9. Bad as the world is, it should be unspeakably worse, were it not that God holds it in check by the severity of his dealings with some, whom he sets up as beacons; yea, by the checks he gives to all.
We may therefore plead with God not to yield his government, nor even to seem to do so, v. 8. The world is most at peace when good laws human and divine are uniformly enforced.
Though in a given contest with man we may be wholly innocent, and may so say before heaven and earth, vv. 3, 4, 5, 8; yet we must be careful not to plead that as before God we are without sin, or even that we are not heinous sinners.
23. The stability of the saint is as great as the instability of the sinner, v. 9. Whatever makes for one of these makes for the other also.
It is on the common truths of religion we must chiefly rely to stir us up, and support us, vv. 9–11. That which is recondite is seldom of much service. Men are not saved by metaphysics, nor by truths hard to be understood by the docile, but by simple and plain truths.
Let not the wicked think that God’s forbearance is connivance at sin, v. 11 God is really and terribly angry with the wicked all the time. Henry: “As his mercies are new every morning toward his people, so his anger is new every morning against the wicked.”
God’s wrath against persecutors burns with dreadful intensity. Scott: “Persecutors must expect his severest vengeance … The persecuted servants of God will be celebrating his praises, and rejoicing in his favor, while their persecutors are cast into the pit of destruction, and enduring the wrath of their righteous Judge, and all their subtle projects will concur in bringing about this final event.” Henry: “Of all sinners, persecutors are set up as the fairest marks of divine wrath; against them more than any other God has ordained his arrows. They set God at defiance, but cannot set themselves out of the reach of his judgments.” Morison: “It is both our wisdom and our safety to leave all our persecutors and slanderers in the hands of our Almighty deliverer. He can ‘restrain their wrath, and make the remainder thereof to praise him.’ Or he can change their cruel purpose, and awaken in their bosoms feelings of gentleness and benevolence.” 32. The very misery of the wicked should convince them of their sin and folly. They have travail, but the result is vanity. They project, and the result is failure. Nothing satisfies. All the time the stones, which the wicked are throwing into the air, are falling on themselves. Saul was killed by the Philistines whom he wished to employ to kill David. “And the Jews, who excited the Romans to crucify Christ, were awfully destroyed by the Romans, and numbers of them crucified.” Henry: “The sinner takes a great deal of pains to ruin himself, more pains to damn his soul than, if directed aright, would save it.” If the wicked were not blind, they would see all this. Even here their bad passions, counsels and lies hurt them more than others, vv. 15, 16. Luther: This is the incomprehensible nature of the divine judgment, that God catches the wicked with their own plots and counsels and leads them into the destruction, which they had themselves devised.” If these things are so in this life, where nothing is finished, what may we not expect in the next?
After a deliverance not to give hearty thanks is monstrous. Good manners require us to praise our Deliverer. Chrysostom: “Let us praise the Lord perpetually; let us never cease to give thanks in all things, both by our words, and by our deeds. For this is our sacrifice; this is our oblation; this is the best liturgy, or divine service; resembling the angelical manner of living. If we continue thus singing hymns to him, we shall finish this life inoffensively, and enjoy those good things also which are to come.”
Many verses of this Psalm show that the truths of religion, which are often the least dwelt on are the most useful. God’s perfections and government are a great study. Let us often recur to them and other foundation truths.
Scott: “Let us under all our trials look unto the Saviour. He alone was perfect in righteousness, yet none was ever reviled, slandered, and hated as he was. He lived and died doing good to his enemies, and praying for them.” We never err in looking to Jesus for example, or precept, or strength, or wisdom, or righteousness.
The enmity of men against God is also manifest by the way in which God’s name is treated. It is continually profaned and blasphemed, even by millions, who know the third commandment, and the terrible doom of him, who violates it. There are more hard speeches uttered on this earth against God than against any thousand wicked men or any thousand fallen angels. Men would not curse and contemn God as they do, if they did not cordially hate him. See too how they reject and despise his laws. They break them every day openly, wilfully, insultingly. “The carnal mind is enmity against God; it is not subject to his law, neither indeed can be,” Rom. 8:7. If men did not hate God, they would not hate his people as they have always done. From the first generation of men to this hour, the blood of the saints has been crying to heaven. Millions on millions have died cruel deaths for no other reason than that they were followers of the Lamb. Besides, the Bible expressly says that unregenerate men hate God, and all goodness; that they hate him without a cause; that they hate him continually.
When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained. As in all curious workmanship men use the fingers, so in condescension to our capacities God is said to have made the heavens by his fingers, though he is without bodily parts. Such a mode of speech is no more liable to mislead than any other form of figurative language.
A view of the firmament by night seems to have begotten at once the most elevated conceptions and the most devout affections. Astronomy is a sublime science. It always was so. It carries our contemplations far out into the boundless fields of space, and shows us creation. But theology is a still sublimer science. It takes the honest inquirer far beyond the remotest star up to God. The one shows us nature; the other, nature’s author; the former, creation; the latter, the Creator. There is nothing in any of the heavenly bodies, which renders them objects in any way fit to receive worship. It is evident to any one that they are not intelligent, nor independent. He, who worships them must be as truly sottish as he who worships a brute. All idolatry is stupid, though not all equally indecent. But a devout admiration of the works of God is promotive of true piety. The heavens bear no marks of self-existence. The Psalmist very properly calls them God’s heavens. His kingdom ruleth over all. He fills immensity. The number of the stars is known to be immense. Though our earth is more than ninety-five millions of miles from the sun, yet the planet Neptune is more than thirty-one times further. No man would be able in one hundred and sixty-five years to count the miles between the sun and that distant world, whose year is equal to 164 of ours. But the nearest fixed star is many thousands of times further from our sun than any of the known planets. And the number of the fixed stars is countless. Six thousand men busily counting for a whole day, from morning till night, could not raise their aggregate total as high as the number of the smallest sized stars. There are known to be at least 300, 000, 000 of them. The probability is that these are but as a drop of the bucket, or as the small dust of the balance compared with the whole. Our sun is more than a million times larger than our earth. And there may be worlds a million times larger than the sun. If on the day that Adam and Eve were created, a messenger had been started from the Sun to announce to the inhabitants of Neptune the creation of man on earth, and if he had travelled day and night at the rate of fifty miles an hour in a straight line, he would not yet have reached his destination nor delivered his message. The Lord is a great God. Infants praise him. The heavens declare his name to be great above that of all others. It is excellent in all the earth. It is excellent in every respect. The next verse finishes the sentence here begun: 4. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man that thou visitest him? For remarks on the words rendered man, and son of man, see Introduction, § 16. Whether the views there suggested by Piscator, Venema, and others be correct on not, Calvin well observes that “the prophet teaches that God’s wonderful goodness is displayed the more brightly in that so glorious a Creator, whose majesty shines resplendently in the heavens, graciously condescends to adorn a creature, so miserable and vile as man is, with the greatest glory, and to enrich him with numberless blessings.” However considered man had an humble origin. He was of the earth, earthy. In some respects he is inferior to other creatures. He is not so long-lived, so strong, so active, or in his gait so elegant as some beasts, over whom at creation God gave him perfect dominion, and over whom to some extent he still has authority. The word rendered visitest is of frequent occurrence, being found in twenty-eight of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament. It is used in a good sense in Gen. 21:1; 50:24, 25; Ruth 1:6; 1 Sam. 2:21; Ps. 65:9; 80:14; in a bad sense in Ex. 20:5; 32:34; Job 35:15; Ps. 89:32, and in many other places. Indeed it is often in our English Bible rendered punish. So that if the context did not give another sense we might paraphrase it thus, Man is so feeble, so frail, and compared with God, so insignificant that it fills me with wonder that thou regardest him in any way, either to govern or to judge, to bless or to curse him. I marvel that thou leavest him not as an atom too small to be accounted of at all. The pious John Newton tells us that at one stage of his religious experience he was greatly distressed, not with a fear of being punished for his sins so much as with an apprehension that God would entirely overlook him. The poet Pollok has described a very similar feeling in one understood to be himself. But the whole Psalm shows that David is speaking of the kindly visits, the merciful regards of God. Calvin paraphrases the words thus: “This is a marvellous thing, that God thinks upon men, and remembers them continually.” If we take visitest in a good sense, then the force of the whole is much heightened. If to notice at all is condescension, to notice favorably is amazing loving-kindness.
We must not give up the truths of natural religion, v. 1. We must maintain them and insist on them. They are as clear as they are necessary. They are declared in all the earth.
