TITLE. A Psalm of David, to bring
remembrance. David felt as if he had been forgotten of his God,
and, therefore, he recounted his sorrows and cried mightily for
help under them. The same title is given to Psalm 70, where in
like manner the psalmist pours out his complaint before the
Lord. It would be foolish to make a guess as to the point in
David's history when this was written; it may be a commemoration
of his own sickness and endurance of cruelty; it may, on the
other hand, have been composed by him for the use of sick and
slandered saints, without special reference to himself.
DIVISION. The Psalm opens with a
prayer, Ps 38:1; continues in a long complaint, Ps 38:2-8;
pauses to dart an eye to heaven, Ps 38:9; proceeds with a second
tale of sorrow, Ps 38:10-14; interjects another word of hopeful
address to God, Ps 38:15; a third time pours out a flood of
griefs, Ps 38:16-20; and then closes as it opened, with renewed
petitioning, Ps 38:21-22.
EXPOSITION
Verse 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath.
Rebuked I must be, for I am an erring child and thou a careful
Father, but throw not too much anger into the tones of thy
voice; deal gently although I have sinned grievously. The anger
of others I can bear, but not thine. As thy love is most sweet
to my heart, so thy displeasure is most cutting to my
conscience. Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
Chasten me if thou wilt, it is a Father's prerogative, and to
endure it obediently is a child's duty; but, O turn not the rod
into a sword, smite not so as to kill. True, my sins might well
inflame thee, but let thy mercy and longsuffering quench the
glowing coals of thy wrath. O let me not be treated as an enemy
or dealt with as a rebel. Bring to remembrance thy covenant, thy
fatherhood, and my feebleness, and spare the servant.
Verse 2. For thine arrows stick fast in me. By
this he means both bodily and spiritual griefs, but we may
suppose, especially the latter, for these are most piercing and
stick the fastest. God's law applied by the Spirit to the
conviction of the soul of sin, wounds deeply and rankles long;
it is an arrow not lightly to be brushed out by careless
mirthfulness, or to be extracted by the flattering hand of self
righteousness. The Lord knows how to shoot so that his bolts not
only strike but stick. He can make convictions sink into the
innermost spirit like arrows driven in up to the head. It seems
strange that the Lord should shoot at his own beloved ones, but
in truth he shoots at their sins rather than them, and those who
feel his sin killing shafts in this life, shall not be slain
with his hot thunderbolts in the next world. And thy hand
presseth me sore. The Lord had come to close dealings with
him, and pressed him down with the weight of his hand, so that
he had no rest or strength left. By these two expressions we are
taught that conviction of sin is a piercing and a pressing
thing, sharp and sore, smarting and crushing. Those who know by
experience "the terrors of the Lord, "will be best
able to vouch for the accuracy of such descriptions; they are
true to the life.
Verse 3. There is no soundness in my flesh because
of thine anger. Mental depression tells upon the bodily
frame; it is enough to create and foster every disease, and is
in itself the most painful of all diseases. Soul sickness tells
upon the entire frame; it weakens the body, and then bodily
weakness reacts upon the mind. One drop of divine anger sets the
whole of our blood boiling with misery. Neither is there any
rest in my bones because of my sin. Deeper still the malady
penetrates, till the bones, the more solid parts of the system,
are affected. No soundness and no rest are two sad deficiencies;
yet these are both consciously gone from every awakened
conscience until Jesus gives relief. God's anger is a fire that
dries up the very marrow; it searches the secret parts of the
belly. A man who has pain in his bones tosses to and fro in
search of rest, but he finds none; he becomes worn out with
agony, and in so many cases a sense of sin creates in the
conscience a horrible unrest which cannot be exceeded in anguish
except by hell itself.
Verse 4. For mine iniquities are gone over mine
head. Like waves of the deep sea; like black mire in which a
man utterly sinks. Above my hopes, my strength, my life itself,
my sin rises in its terror. Unawakened sinners think their sins
to be mere shallows, but when conscience is aroused they find
out the depth of iniquity. As an heavy burden they are too
heavy for me. It is well when sin is an intolerable load,
and when the remembrance of our sins burdens us beyond
endurance. This verse is the genuine cry of one who feels
himself undone by his transgressions and as yet sees not the
great sacrifice.
Verse 5. My wounds stink and are corrupt because of
my foolishness. Apply this to the body, and it pictures a
sad condition of disease; but read it of the soul, and it is to
the life. Conscience lays on stripe after stripe till the
swelling becomes a wound and suppurates, and the corruption
within grows offensive. What a horrible creature man appears to
be in his own consciousness when his depravity and vileness are
fully opened up by the law of God, applied by the Holy Spirit!
It is true there are diseases which are correctly described in
this verse, when in the worst stage; but we prefer to receive
the expressions as instructively figurative, since the words
"because of my foolishness" point rather at a moral
than a physical malady. Some of us know what it is to stink in
our own nostrils, so as to loathe ourselves. Even the most
filthy diseases cannot be so foul as sin. No ulcers, cancers, or
putrifying sores, can match the unutterable vileness and
pollution of iniquity. Our own perceptions have made us feel
this. We write what we do know, and testify what we have seen;
and even now we shudder to think that so much of evil should lie
festering deep within our nature.
Verse 6. I am troubled. I am wearied with
distress, writhing with pain, in sore travail on account of sin
revealed within me. I am bowed down greatly. I am brought
very low, grievously weakened and frightfully depressed. Nothing
so pulls a man down from all loftiness as a sense of sin and of
divine wrath concerning it. I go mourning all the day long.
The mourner's soul sorrow knew no intermission, even when he
went about such business as he was able to attend, he went forth
like a mourner who goes to the tomb, and his words and manners
were like the lamentations of those who follow the corpse. The
whole verse may be the more clearly understood if we picture the
Oriental mourner, covered with sackcloth and ashes, bowed as in
a heap, siting amid squalor and dirt, performing contortions and
writhings expressive of his grief; such is the awakened sinner,
not in outward guise, but in very deed.
Verse 7. For my loins are filled with a loathsome
disease—a hot, dry, parching disorder, probably
accompanied by loathsome ulcers. Spiritually, the fire burns
within when the evil of the heart is laid bare. Note the
emphatic words, the evil is loathsome, it is in the loins,
its seat is deep and vital—the man is filled with it.
Those who have passed through the time of conviction understand
all this. And there is no soundness in my flesh. This he
had said before, and thus the Holy Spirit brings humiliating
truth again and again to our memories, tears away every ground
of glorying, and makes us know that in us, that is, in our
flesh, there dwelleth no good thing.
Verse 8. I am feeble. The original is
"benumbed, "or frozen, such strange incongruities and
contradictions meet in a distracted mind and a sick body—it
appears to itself to be alternately parched with heat and
pinched with cold. Like souls in the Popish fabled Purgatory,
tossed from burning furnaces into thick ice, so tormented hearts
rush from one extreme to the other, with equal torture in each.
A heat of fear, a chill of horror, a flaming desire, a horrible
insensibility—by these successive miseries a convinced sinner
is brought to death's door. And sore broken. Crushed as
in a mill, pounded as in a mortar. The body of the sick man
appears to be all out of joint and smashed into a palpitating
pulp, and the soul of the desponding is in an equally wretched
case; as a victim crushed under the car of Juggernaut, such is a
soul over whose conscience the wheels of divine wrath have
forced their awful way. I have roared by reason of the
disquietness of my heart. Deep and hoarse is the voice of
sorrow, and often inarticulate and terrible. The heart learns
groanings which cannot be uttered, and the voice fails to tone
and tune itself to human speech. When our prayers appear to be
rather animal than spiritual, they are none the less prevalent
with the pitiful Father of mercy. He hears the murmur of the
heart and the roaring of the soul because of sin, and in due
time he comes to relieve his afflicted. The more closely the
preceding portrait of an awakened soul is studied in the light
of experience, the more will its striking accuracy appear. It
cannot be a description of merely outward disorder, graphic as
it might then be; it has a depth and pathos in it which only the
soul's mysterious and awful agony can fully match.
Verse 9. Lord, all my desire is before thee. If
unuttered, yet perceived. Blessed be God, he reads the longings
of our hearts; nothing can be hidden from him; what we cannot
tell to him he perfectly understands. The psalmist is conscious
that he has not exaggerated, and therefore appeals to heaven for
a confirmation of his words. The good Physician understands the
symptoms of our disease and sees the hidden evil which they
reveal, hence our case is safe in his hands. And my groaning
is not hid from thee.
"He takes the meaning of our tears,
The language of our groans."
Sorrow and anguish hide themselves from the observation of
man, but God spies them out. None more lonely than the broken
hearted sinner, yet hath he the Lord for his companion.
Verse 10. My heart panteth. Here begins another
tale of woe. He was so dreadfully pained by the unkindness of
friends, that his heart was in a state of perpetual palpitation.
Sharp and quick were the beatings of his heart; he was like a
hunted roe, filled with distressing alarms, and ready to fly out
of itself with fear. The soul seeks sympathy in sorrow, and if
it finds none, its sorrowful heart throbs are incessant. My
strength faileth me. What with disease and distraction, he
was weakened and ready to expire. A sense of sin, and a clear
perception that none can help us in our distress, are enough to
bring a man to death's door, especially if there be none to
speak a gentle word, and point the broken spirit to the beloved
Physician. As for the light of mine eyes, it also is gone
from me. Sweet light departed from his bodily eye, and
consolation vanished from his soul. Those who were the very
light of his eyes forsook him. Hope, the last lamp of night, was
ready to go out. What a plight was the poor convict in! Yet
here, we have some of us been; and here should we have perished
had not infinite mercy interposed. Now, as we remember the
lovingkindness of the Lord, we see how good it was for us to
find our own strength fail us, since it drove us to the strong
for strength; and how right it was that our light should all be
quenched, that the Lord's light should be all in all to us.
Verse 11. My lovers and my friends stand aloof from
my sore. Whatever affection they might pretend to, they kept
out of his company, lest as a sinking vessel often draws down
boats with it, they might be made to suffer through his
calamities. It is very hard when those who should be the first
to come to the rescue, are the first to desert us. In times of
deep soul trouble, even the most affectionate friends cannot
enter into the sufferer's case; let them be as anxious as they
may, the sores of a tender conscience they cannot bind up. Oh,
the loneliness of a soul passing under the convincing power of
the Holy Ghost! And my kinsmen stand afar off. As the
women and others of our Lord's acquaintances from afar gazed on
his cross, so a soul wounded for sin sees all mankind as distant
spectators, and in the whole crowd finds none to aid. Often
relatives hinder seekers after Jesus, oftener still they look on
with unconcern, seldom enough do they endeavour to lead the
penitent to Jesus.
Verse 12. They also that seek after my life lay
snares for me. Alas! for us when in addition to inward
griefs, we are beset by outward temptations. David's foes
endeavoured basely to ensnare him. If fair means would not
overthrow him, foul should be tried. This snaring business is a
vile one, the devil's own poachers alone condescend to it; but
prayer to God will deliver us, for the craft of the entire
college of tempters can be met and overcome by those who are led
of the Spirit. They that seek my hurt speak mischievous
things. Lies and slanders poured from them like water from
the town pump. Their tongue was for ever going, and their heart
fore ever inventing lies. And imagine deceit all the day
long. They were never done, their forge was going from
morning to night. When they could not act they talked, and when
they could not talk they imagined, and schemed, and plotted.
Restless is the activity of malice. Bad men never have enough of
evil. They compass sea and land to injure a saint; no labour is
too severe, no cost too great if they may utterly destroy the
innocent. Our comfort is, that our glorious Head knows the
pertinacious malignity of our foes, and will in due season put
an end to it, as he even now sets a bound about it.
Verse 13. But I, as a deaf man, heard not. Well
and bravely was this done. A sacred indifference to the slanders
of malevolence is true courage and wise policy. It is well to be
as if we could not hear or see. Perhaps the psalmist means that
this deafness on his part was unavoidable because he had no
power to answer the taunts of the cruel, but felt much of the
truth of their ungenerous accusations. And I was as a dumb
man that openeth not his mouth. David was bravely silent,
and herein was eminently typical of our Lord Jesus, whose
marvellous silence before Pilate was far more eloquent than
words. To abstain from self defence is often most difficult, and
frequently most wise.
Verse 14. Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and
in whose mouth are no reproofs. He repeats the fact of his
silence that we may note it, admire it, and imitate it. We have
an advocate, and need not therefore plead our own cause. The
Lord will rebuke our foes, for vengeance belongs to him; we may
therefore wait patiently and find it our strength to sit still.
Verse 15. David committed himself to him that judgeth
righteously, and so in patience was able to possess his soul.
Hope in God's intervention, and belief in the power of prayer,
are two most blessed stays to the soul in time of adversity.
Turning right away from the creature to the sovereign Lord of
all, and to him as our own covenant God, we shall find the
richest solace in waiting upon him. Reputation like a fair pearl
may be cast into the mire, but in due time when the Lord makes
up his jewels, the godly character shall shine with unclouded
splendour. Rest then, O slandered one, and let not thy soul be
tossed to and fro with anxiety.
Verse 16. For I said, hear me, lest otherwise they
should rejoice over me. The good man was not insensible, he
dreaded the sharp stings of taunting malice; he feared lest
either by his conduct or his condition, he should give occasion
to the wicked to triumph. This fear his earnest desires used as
an argument in prayer as well as an incentive to prayer. When
my foot slippeth, they magnify themselves against me. The
least flaw in a saint is sure to be noticed; long before it
comes to a fall the enemy begins to rail, the merest trip of the
foot sets all the dogs of hell barking. How careful ought we to
be, and how importunate in prayer for upholding grace! We do not
wish, like blind Samson, to make sport for our enemies; let us
then beware of the treacherous Delilah of sin, by whose means
our eyes may soon be put out.
Verse 17. For I am ready to halt. Like one who
limps, or a person with tottering footsteps, in danger of
falling. How well this befits us all. "Let him that
thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." How small a
thing will lame a Christian, how insignificant a stumbling block
may cause him to fall! This passage refers to a weakness caused
by pain and sorrow; the sufferer was ready to give up in
despair; he was so depressed in spirit that he stumbled at a
straw. Some of us painfully know what it is to be like dry
tinder for the sparks of sorrow; ready to halt, ready to mourn,
and sigh and cry upon any occasion, and for any cause. And my
sorrow is continually before me. He did not need to look out
of window to find sorrow, he felt it within, and groaned under a
body of sin which was an increasing plague to him. Deep
conviction continues to irritate the conscience; it will not
endure a patched up peace; but cries war to the knife till the
enmity is slain. Until the Holy Ghost applies the precious blood
of Jesus, a truly awakened sinner is covered with raw wounds
which cannot be healed nor bound up, nor mollified with
ointment.
Verse 18. For I will declare mine iniquity. The
slander of his enemies he repudiates, but the accusations of his
conscience he admits. Open confession is good for the soul. When
sorrow leads to hearty and penitent acknowledgment of sin it is
blessed sorrow, a thing to thank God for most devoutly. I
will be sorry for my sin. My confession will be salted with
briny tears. It is well not so much to bewail our sorrows as to
denounce the sins which lie at the root of them. To be sorry for
sin is no atonement for it, but it is the right spirit in which
to repair to Jesus, who is the reconciliation and the Saviour. A
man is near to the end of his trouble when he comes to an end
with his sins.
Verse 19. But mine enemies are lively, and they are
strong. However weak and dying the righteous man may be, the
evils which oppose him are sure to be lively enough. Neither the
world, the flesh, nor the devil, are ever afflicted with
debility or inertness; this trinity if evils labour with mighty
unremitting energy to overthrow us. If the devil were sick, or
our lusts feeble, or Madame Bubble infirm, we might slacken
prayer; but with such lively and vigorous enemies we must not
cease to cry mightily unto our God. And they that hate me
wrongfully are multiplied. Here is another misery, that as
we are no match for our enemies in strength, so also they
outnumber us as a hundred to one. Wrong as the cause of evil is,
it is a popular one. More and more the kingdom of darkness
grows. Oh, misery of miseries, that we see the professed friends
of Jesus forsaking him, and the enemies of his cross and his
cause mustering in increasing bands!
Verse 20. They also that render evil for good are
mine adversaries. Such would a wise man wish his enemies to
be. Why should we seek to be beloved of such graceless souls? It
is a fine plea against our enemies when we can without injustice
declare them to be like the devil, whose nature it is to render
evil for good. Because I follow the thing that good is.
If men hate us for this reason we may rejoice to bear it: their
wrath is the unconscious homage which vice renders to virtue.
This verse is not inconsistent with the writer's previous
confession; we may feel equally guilty before God, and yet be
entirely innocent of any wrong to our fellow men. It is one sin
to acknowledge the truth, quite another thing to submit to be
belied. The Lord may smite me justly, and yet I may be able to
say to my fellow man, "Why smitest thou me?"
Verse 21. Forsake me not, O Lord. Now is the
time I need thee most. When sickness, slander, and sin, all
beset a saint, he requires the especial aid of heaven, and he
shall have it too. He is afraid of nothing while God is with
him, and God is with him evermore. Be not far from me.
Withhold not the light of thy near and dear love. Reveal thyself
to me. Stand at my side. Let me feel that though friendless
besides, I have a most gracious and all sufficient friend in
thee.
Verse 22. Make haste to help me. Delay would
prove destruction. The poor pleader was far gone and ready to
expire, only speedy help would serve his turn. See how sorrow
quickens the importunity of prayer! Here is one of the sweet
results of affliction, it gives new life to our pleading, and
drives us with eagerness to our God. O Lord my salvation.
Not my Saviour only, but my salvation. He who has the Lord on
his side has salvation in present possession. Faith foresees the
blessed issue of all her pleas, and in this verse begins to
ascribe to God the glory of the expected mercy. We shall not be
left of the Lord. His grace will succour us most opportunely,
and in heaven we shall see that we had not one trial too many,
or one pang too severe. A sense of sin shall melt into the joy
of salvation; grief shall lead on to gratitude, and gratitude to
joy unspeakable and full of glory.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
TITLE. The first word, MIZMOR, or Psalm, is the
designation of forty-four sacred poems, thirty-two of which are
ascribed to David. The English reader must observe, that this
word is not the same in the original Hebrew as that which forms
the general title of the book of Psalms; the latter expressing a
Hymn of Praise. The word Psalm, however, as used both in
the context and in the titles of the individual compositions, is
uniformly Mizmor in the original; a term which accurately
defines their poetical character. To explain its proper meaning
I must have recourse to the beautiful and accurate definition of
Bishop Lowth. "The word Mizmor signifies a
composition, which in a peculiar manner is cut up into
sentences, short, frequent, and measured by regular
intervals." ...He adds that Zamar means to cut or
prune, as applied to the removing superfluous branches from
trees; and, after mentioning the secondary sense of the word,
"to sing with a voice or instrument, "gives it as his
opinion, that Mizmar may be more properly referred to the
primary sense of the root, so as to mean a poem cut up into
short sentences, and pruned from all superfluity of words, which
is the peculiar characteristic of the Hebrew poetry. John
Jebb.
Title. The title that David gives this Psalm is worth
your notice. A Psalm of David to bring to remembrance.
David was on his deathbed as he thought, and he said it shall be
a Psalm of remembrance, to bring sin to remembrance, to confess
to God my uncleannesses with Bathsheba, to bring to my
remembrance the evils of my life. Whenever God brings thee under
affliction, thou art then in a fit plight to confess sin to God,
and call to remembrance thy sins. Christopher Love.
Title. The Psalm is to bring to remembrance.
This seems to teach us that good things need to be kept alive in
our memories, that we should often sit down, look back, retrace,
and turn over in our meditation things that are past, lest at
any time we should let any good thing sink into oblivion. Among
the things which David brought to his own remembrance, the first
and foremost were, (1) his past trials and his past
deliverances. The great point, however, in David's Psalm is
to bring to remembrance, (2) the depravity of our nature.
There is, perhaps, no Psalm which more fully than this describes
human nature as seen in the light which God the Holy Ghost casts
upon it in the time when he convinces us of sin. I am persuaded
that the description here does not tally with any known disease
of the body. It is very like leprosy, but it has about it
certain features which cannot be found to meet in any leprosy
described either by ancient or modern writers. The fact is, it
is a spiritual leprosy, it is an inward disease which is here
described, and David paints it to the very life, and he would
have us to recollect this. A third thing the Psalm brings to our
remembrance is, (3) our many enemies. David says, that
his enemies laid snares for him, and sought his hurt, and spoke
mischievous things, and devised and imagined deceits all the day
long. "Well, "says one, "how was it that David
had so many enemies?" How could he make so many? Must he
not have been imprudent and rash, or perhaps morose? It does not
appear so in his life. He rather made enemies by his being
scrupulously holy. His enemies attacked him, not because he was
wicked, but as he says, in this very Psalm, they were his
enemies because he loved the thing which is good. The ultimate
result of the religion of Christ is to make peace everywhere,
but the first result is to cause strife. Further, the Psalm
reminds us of, (4) our gracious God. Anything which
drives us to God is a blessing, and anything which weans us from
leaning on the arm of flesh, and especially that weans us from
trying to stand alone, is a boon to us. C. H. S
Whole Psalm. The most wonderful features in this
Psalm, are the depth of misery into which the psalmist gradually
plunges in his complaints in the first part of it, the sudden
grasp at the arm of mercy and omnipotence that is made in Ps
38:8, and the extreme height of comfort and consolation that it
reaches in the end. Benjamin Weiss.
Verse 1. O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath.
But is it not an absurd request, to require God not to rebuke me
in his anger; as though I thought he would rebuke me if he were
not angry? Is it not a senseless suit to pray to God not to
chasten me in his displeasure, as though he would chasten me if
he were not displeased? The most froward natures that are, will
yet be quiet as long as they be pleased: and shall I have such a
thought of the great yet gracious God, that he should be pleased
and yet not be quiet? But, O my soul, is it all one, to rebuke
in his anger and to rebuke when he is angry? He may rebuke when
he is angry, and yet restrain and bridle in his anger; but to
rebuke in his anger is to let loose the reins to his anger; and
what is it to give the reins to his anger, but to make it outrun
his mercy? And then what a miserable case should I be in, to
have his anger to assault me, and not his mercy ready to relieve
me? To have his indignation fall upon me when his lovingkindness
were not by to take it off! Oh, therefore, rebuke me not in
thine anger, O God, but let thy rebuking stay for thy mercy;
chasten me not in thy displeasure, but let thy lovingkindness
have the keeping of thy rod. Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 1. Neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure,
etc. Both these words, which we translate to chasten, and
hot displeasure, are words of a heavy and of a vehement
signification. They extend both to express the eternity of God's
indignation, even to the binding of the soul and body in eternal
chains of darkness. For the first, jasar, signifies in
the Scriptures, vincire, to bind, often with ropes, often
with chains; to fetter, or manacle, or pinion men that are to be
executed; so that it imports a slavery, a bondage all the way,
and a destruction at last. And so the word is used by Rehoboam,
"My father chastised you with whips, but I will chasten you
with scorpions." 1Ki 12:11. And then, the other word, chamath,
doth not only signify hot displeasure, but that effect of
God's hot displeasure which is intended by the prophet
Esay: "Therefore hath he poured forth his fierce wrath, and
the strength of battle, and it hath set him on fire round about,
yet he knew it not, and it burned him, yet he laid it not to
heart." These be the fearful conditions of God's hot
displeasure, to be in a furnace, and not to feel it; to be in a
habit of sin, and not know what leads us into temptation; to be
burnt to ashes, and so not only without all moisture, all holy
tears, but, as ashes, without any possibility that any good
thing can grow in us. And yet this word, chamath, hath a
heavier signification than this; for it signifies poison itself,
destruction itself, for so it is twice taken in one verse:
"Their poison is like the poison of a serpent" Ps
58:4; so that this hot displeasure is that poison of the
soul, obduration here, and that extension of that obduration, a
final impenitence in this life, and an infinite impenitableness
in the next, to die without any actual penitence here, and live
without all possibility of future penitence for ever hereafter.
David therefore foresees, that if God rebuke in anger, it
will come to a chastening in hot displeasure. For what
should stop him? For, "if a man sin against the Lord, who
will plead for him?" says Eli. "Plead thou my cause,
" says David; it is only the Lord that can be of counsel
with him, and plead for him and that Lord is both the judge and
angry too. John Donne.
Verse 2. For thine arrows stick fast in me.
First, we shall see in what respect he calls them arrows:
and therein, first, that they are alienae, they are shot
from others, they are not in his own power; a man shoots not an
arrow at himself; and then that they are veloces, swift
in coming, he cannot give them their time; and again, they are vix
visibiles, though they be not altogether invisible in their
cunning, yet there is required a quick eye, and an express
diligence and watchfulness to avoid them; so they are arrows in
the hand of another, not his own; and swift as they come, and
invisible before they come. And secondly, they are many arrows,
the victory lies not in escaping one or two. And thirdly, they stick
in him: they find not David so good proof as to rebound back
again, and imprint no sense: and they stick Fast: though
the blow be felt and the wound discerned, yet there is not a
present cure, he cannot shake them off; infixae sunt, and
then, with all this, they stick fast in him; that is, in
all him; in his body and soul; in him, in his thoughts and
actions; in him, in his sins and in his good works too; infixae
mihi, there is no part of him, no faculty in him, in which
they stick not; for (which may well be another consideration),
that hand, which shot them, presses him: follows
the blow, and presses him sore, that is, vehemently. But
yet (which will be our conclusion), sagittae tuae, thy
arrows, and manus tua, thy hand, these arrows that
are shot, and this hand that presses him so sore, are the
arrows, and the hand of God; and therefore, first, they
must have their effect, they cannot be disappointed; but yet
they bring their comfort with them, because they are his,
because no arrows from him, no pressing with his hand, comes
without that balsamum of mercy to heal as fast as he
wounds. John Donne.
Verse 2. Thine arrows stick fast. Though
importunity be to God most pleasing always, yet to us it is then
most necessary when the cheerful face of God is turned into
frowns, and when there is a justly conceived fear of the
continuance of his anger: and have I not just cause to fear it,
having the arrows of his anger sticking so fast in me? If he had
meant to make me but a butt, at which to shoot his arrows, he
would quickly, I suppose, have taken them up again; but now that
he leaves them sticking in me, what can I think, but that he
means to make me his quiver; and then I may look long enough
before he come to pluck them out. They are arrows, indeed, that
are feathered with swiftness, and headed with sharpness; and to
give them a force in flying, they are shot, I may say, out of
his crossbow, I am sure his bow of crosses; for no arrows can
fly so fast, none pierce so deep, as the crosses and afflictions
with which he hath surprised me: I may truly say surprised me,
seeing when I thought myself most safe, and said, "I shall
never be moved, "even then, these arrows of his anger
lighted upon me, and stick so fast in my flesh, that no arm but
his that shot them, is ever able to draw them forth. Oh, then,
as thou hast stretched forth thine arm of anger, O God, to shoot
these arrows at me, so stretch forth thine arm of mercy to draw
them forth, that I may rather sing hymns than dirges unto thee;
and that thou mayest show thy power, as well in pardoning as
thou hast done in condemning. Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 2. Thine arrows. Arrows are (1) swift,
(2) secret, (3) sharp (4) killing instruments. They are
instruments drawing blood and drinking blood, even unto
drunkenness De 32:42; afflictions are like arrows in all these
properties. 1. Afflictions often come very speedily, with a
glance as an arrow, quick as a thought. 2. Afflictions come
suddenly, unexpectedly; an arrow is upon a man afore he is
aware, so are afflictions. Though Job saith, the thing he feared
came upon him, he looked for this arrow before it came; yet
usually afflictions are unlooked for guests, they thrust in upon
us when we dream not of them. 3. They come with little noise; an
arrow is felt before, or, as soon as it is heard; an arrow flies
silently and secretly, stealing upon and wounding a man,
unobserved and unseen. Lastly, all afflictions are sharp, and in
their own nature killing and deadly. That any have good from
them, is from the grace of God, not from their nature. Joseph
Caryl.
Verse 2. Let no one think these expressions of
penitence Ps 38:1-4 overstrained or excessive. They are the
words of the Holy Spirit of God, speaking by the mouth of the
man after God's own heart. If we were as repentant as David, we
should bring home to ourselves his language; as it is, our
affections are chilled, and therefore we do not enter into his
words...And let us observe how all the miseries are referred to
their proper end. The sin is not bewailed merely on account of
its ill effect on the guilty one, but on account of the despite
done to God. The psalmist's first thought is the "anger"
of the Lord, and his hot displeasure. It is not the
"arrows" that afflict him so much as that they are
God's. "Thine arrows stick fast in me, and thy hand
presseth me." The reason why there is no health in his
flesh is because of God's displeasure. Such is true contrition,
"not the sorrow of the world which worketh death, but the
sorrow that worketh repentance not to be repented of." A
Commentary on the Seven Penitential Psalms. Chiefly from Ancient
Sources, (by A.P.F.) 1847.
Verse 2. Thy hand presseth me sore. Not the
hand of Egypt or Ashur; then it were hand for hand, a duel of
some equality: hand to hand; here forces and stratagems might
achieve a victory: but Thy hand. The weight of a man's
blow is but weak, according to the force and pulse of his arm;
as the princes of Midian answered Gideon, when he bade his son
try the dint of his sword upon them; "Rise thou, and fall
upon us: for as the man is, so is his strength." Jud 8:21.
But "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the
living God." Heb 10:31. As Homer called the hands of
Jupiter ceirez aeptoi, hands whose praise could not be
sufficiently spoken; which some read ceires aaptoii,
hands inaccessible, irresistible for strength: all the gods in
heaven could not ward a blow of Jupiter's hand. This hand never
strikes but for sin; and where sin is mighty his blow is heavy. Thomas
Adams.
Verse 3. Thine anger...my sin. I, alas! am as
an anvil under two hammers; one of thine anger, another of my
sin; both of them beating incessantly upon me; the hammer of
thine anger beating upon my flesh and making that unsound; the
hammer of my sin beating upon my bones and making them unquiet;
although indeed both beat upon both; but thine anger more upon
my flesh, as being more sensible; my sin more upon my bones, as
being more obdurate. God's anger and sin are the two efficient
causes of all misery; but the procatarctic (as applied to
diseases, signifies the exciting cause) cause indeed is sin:
God's anger, like the house that Samson pulled upon his own
head, falls not upon us but when we pull it upon ourselves by
sin. Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 3. My flesh...my bones. I know by the
unsoundness of my flesh that God is angry with me; for if it
were not for his anger my flesh would be sound: but what
soundness can there be in it now, when God's angry hand lies
beating upon it continually, and never ceaseth? I know by the
unquietness of my bones that I have sin in my bosom; for if it
were not for sin my bones would be quiet. But what quietness can
be in them now, when sin lies gnawing upon them incessantly with
the worm of remorse? One would think my bones were far enough
removed and closely enough hidden from sins doing them any hurt:
yet see the searching nature, the venomous poison of sin, which
pierceth through my flesh, and makes unquietness in my very
bones. I know my flesh is guilty of many faults, by which it
justly deserves unsoundness; but what have my bones done? for
they minister no fuel to the flames of my flesh's sensuality;
and why then should they be troubled? But are not my bones
supporters of my flesh, and are they not by this at least
accessory to my flesh's faults? As accessories, then, they are
subject to the same punishment the flesh itself is, which is the
principal. Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 3. neither is there any rest in my bones
because of my sin. A Christian in this life is like
quicksilver, which hath a principle of motion in itself, but not
of rest: we are never quiet, but as the ball upon the racket, or
the ship upon the waves. As long as we have sin, this is like
quicksilver: a child of God is full of motion and disquiet...We
are here in a perpetual hurry, in a constant fluctuation; our
life is like the tide; sometimes ebbing, sometimes flowing; here
is no rest; and the reason is because we are out of centre.
Everything is in motion till it comes at the centre; Christ is
the centre of the soul; the needle of the compass trembles till
it comes to the North Pole. Thomas Watson.
Verse 3. Learn here of beggars how to procure succour
and relief. Lay open thy sores, make known thy need, discover
all thy misery, make not thy case better than it is. Beggars by
experience find that the more miserable they appear to be, the
more they are pitied, the more succoured; and yet the mercies of
the most merciful men are but as drops in comparison of the
oceans of God's mercies; and among men there are many, like the
priest and Levite in the parable Lu 10:30-32, that can pass by a
naked, wounded man, left half dead, and not pity him nor succour
him. But God, like the merciful Samaritan, hath always
compassion on such as with sense of their misery are forced to
cry out and crave help. Read how Job, Job 6:1-30 and Job 7:1-21;
David, Ps 38:3, etc., Hezekiah, Isa 38:10, etc., and other like
saints poured out their complaints before the Lord, and withal
observe what mercy was showed them of the Lord, and you may have
in them both good patterns how to behave yourselves in like
cases, and good encouragement so to do. This is it which God
expects of us, and whereunto he desireth to bring us, that
seeing our own emptiness and insufficiency, and the impotency
and disability of others to help us, we should in all humility
fly to his mercy. William Gouge.
Verse 4. For mine iniquities are gone over mine
head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy for me. David
proceeds to a reason why his prayer must be vehement, why these
miseries of his are so violent, and why God's anger is
permanent, and he finds this all to be, because in his sins, all
these venomous qualities, vehemence, violence, and continuance,
were complicated, and unwrapped; for he had sinned vehemently,
in the rage of lust, and violently, in the effusion of blood,
and permanently, in a long and senseless security. They are all
contracted in this text into two kinds, which will be our two
parts in handling these words: first, the Supergressae super,
"Mine iniquities are gone over my head, "there is
the multiplicity, the number, the succession, and so the
continuation of his sin; and then, the Gravatae super,
"My sins are as a heavy burden, too heavy for me, "there
is the greatness, the weight, the insupportableness of his sin.
St. Augustine calls these two distinctions or considerations of
sin, ignorantiam, et difficultatem; first that David was
ignorant, that he saw not the tide, as it swelled up upon him, abyssus
abyssum, depth called upon depth; and all thy waters, and
all thy billows are gone over me (says he in another place); he
perceived them not coming till they were over him, he discerned
not his particular sins then when he committed them, till they
came to the supergressae super, to that height that he
was overflowed, surrounded, his iniquities were gone over his
head; and in that St. Augustine notes ignorantiam, his
inobservance, his inconsiderations of his own case; and then he
notes difficultatem, the hardness of recovering, because
he that is under water hath no air to see by, no air to hear by,
he hath nothing to reach to, he touches not ground, to push him
up, he feels no bough to pull him up, and therein that further
notes difficultatem, the hardness of recovering. Now
Moses expresses these two miseries together, in the destruction
of the Egyptians, in his song, after Israel's deliverance, and
the Egyptians' submersion, "The depths have covered
them" (there is the supergressae super, their
iniquities, in that punishment of their iniquities, were gone
over their heads), and then they sank into the bottom like a
stone (says Moses), there is the gravatae super, they
depressed them, suppressed them, oppressed them, they were under
them, and there they must lie. The Egyptians had, David had, we
have, too many sins to swim above water, and too great sins to
get above water again when we are sunk. John Donne.
Verse 4. As an heavy burden they are too heavy for
me. No strength is so great but it may be overburdened;
though Samson went light away with the gates of Gaza, yet when a
whole house fell upon him it crushed him to death. And such,
alas! am I; I have had sin as a burden upon me ever since I was
born, but bore it a long time as light as Samson did the gates
of Gaza; but now that I have pulled a whole house of sin upon
me, how can I choose but be crushed to death with so great a
weight? And crushed, O my soul, thou shouldest be indeed, if God
for all his anger did not take some pity on thee, and for all
his displeasure did not stay his hand from further chastening
thee. Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 4. It is of singular use to us, that the
backslidings of the holy men of God are recorded in Holy Writ.
Spots appear nowhere more disagreeable than when seen in a most
beautiful face, or on the cleanest garment. And it is expedient
to have a perfect knowledge of the filthiness of sin. We also
learn from them to think humbly of ourselves, to depend on the
grace of God, to keep a stricter eye upon ourselves, lest
perhaps we fall into the same or more grievous sins. Ga 6:1. Herman
Witsius, D.D., 1636-1708.
Verses 4-5. It is only when we can enter into all
that is implied here that we begin to see our exceeding
sinfulness. There is a certain feeling of sin which does not
interfere with our pride, and self respect. We can have that
sort of feeling, and say pretty earnestly, Mine iniquities
are gone over mine head: as an heavy burden they are too heavy
for me. But it is otherwise with us when we get to know
ourselves better, and to feel ourselves loathsome in our
wickedness, when our folly and meanness and ingratitude oppress
us, and we begin to loathe ourselves, and can enter into verse
five. Our wounds, once an object of self pity, and something in
which we could claim sympathy and healing from our friends, have
become corrupt, because of the meanness and folly we feel
to be in us. We hide them now, for if they were seen, would not
"lovers and friends stand aloof from our sore"? Then
we are silent except to God, "For in thee, O Lord,
do I hope; thou wilt hear, O Lord my God, "Ps 38:15.
O love of God that turns not away! O blessed Jesus, that turneth
not away from the leprous man that fell upon his face and said,
"If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean, but put forth
thine hand and touched him, saying, `I will: be thou
clean, 'to whom can we go but unto thee!" Mary B.
M. Duncan.
Verse 5. My wounds stink and are corrupt, etc.
These expressions seem to be in a great measure figurative, and
significant rather of the diseased state of his mind than of his
body. William Walford.
Verse 5. My wounds stink and are corrupt. I
know, O Lord, I have done most foolishly, to let my sores run so
long without seeking for help; for now, My wounds stink and
are corrupt, in as ill a case as Lazarus' body was when it
had been four days buried; enough to make any man despair that
did not know thee as I do. For, do not I know, that nullum
tempus occurrit tibi; do not I know thou hast as well wisdom
to remedy my foolishness as power to cure my wounds? Could the
grave hold Lazarus when thou didst but open thy mouth to call
him forth? No more can the corruption of my sores be any
hindrance to their healing when thy pleasure is to have them to
be cured. Although, therefore, I have done my own discretion
wrong to defer my care, yet I will not do thy power wrong to
despair of thy cure; for, how should I despair, who know thee to
be as powerful as thou art merciful; if I may not rather say, to
be as merciful as thou art powerful! Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 5. My wounds stink and are corrupt.
Either they must be understood literally of the sores that were
in his body (as the words in the following verse may also seem
to import) which he calls wounds, to intimate that he
looked upon them as the wheals or swelling tumours (for so the
original word may signify) which the rod of God had made in his
flesh, or the wounds of those arrows of which he had spoken Ps
38:2, "Thine arrows stick fast in me; "or else
figuratively, of any other miseries that God had brought upon
him, comparing them to stinking and festering sores; either to
imply the long continuance of them, or the sharp pains and
sorrows which he felt in himself by reason thereof. Yet some, I
know, would have it meant of the shame which his sins had
brought upon him. Arthur Jackson.
Verses 5-6. The spiritual feeling of sin is
indispensable to the feeling of salvation. A sense of the malady
must ever precede, and prepare the soul for, a believing
reception and due apprehension of the remedy. Wherever God
intends to reveal his Son with power, wherever he intends to
make the gospel to be "a joyful sound, "he makes the
conscience feel and groan under the burden of sin. And sure am I
that when a man is labouring under the burden of sin, he will be
full of complaint. The Bible records hundreds of the complaints
of God's people under the burden of sin. My wounds stink and
are corrupt, cries one, because of my foolishness. I am
troubled; I am bowed down greatly; I go mourning all the day
long. "My soul, "cries another, "is full of
troubles: and my life draweth nigh until the grave, "Ps
88:3. "He hath led me, "groans out a third, "and
brought me into darkness, but not into light." La 3:2. A
living man must needs cry under such circumstances. He cannot
carry the burden without complaining of its weight. He cannot
feel the arrow sticking in his conscience without groaning under
the pain. He cannot have the worm gnawing his vitals, without
complaining of its venomous tooth. He cannot feel that God is
incensed against him without bitterly complaining that the Lord
is his enemy. Spiritual complaint then is a mark of spiritual
life, and is one which God recognises as such. "I have
surely hear Ephraim bemoaning himself." Jer 31:18. It shows
that he has something to mourn over; something to make him groan
being burdened; that sin has been opened up to him in its
hateful malignancy; that it is a trouble and distress to his
soul; that he cannot roll it like a sweet morsel under his
tongue; but that it is found out by the penetrating eye, and
punished by the chastening hand of God. J. C. Philpot.
1842.
Verse 6. I am troubled. I writhe with pain.
This is the proper sense of the original, which means to
"turn out of its proper situation, or course; "thence
to be "distorted, writhed, "as a person in pain. Our
Bible translation, which says in the text, I am troubled,
adds in the margin, "wried, "an obsolete word,
correctly expressing the Hebrew. Richard Mant.
Verse 6. I go mourning all the day long. And
now was I both a burden and a terror to myself, nor did I ever
so know, as now, what it was to be weary of my life, and yet
afraid to die. Oh, how gladly now would I have been anybody but
myself! Anything but a man! and in any condition but mine own!
for there was nothing did pass more frequently over my mind than
that it was impossible for me to be forgiven my transgression,
and to be saved from wrath to come. John Bunyan, in
"Grace Abounding."
Verse 6. Let a man see and feel himself under the
bonds of guilt, in danger of hell, under the power of his lusts,
enmity against God, and God a stranger to him; let but the sense
of this condition lie upon his heart, and let him go on in his
jollity if he can. What a woeful creature doth a man see himself
now to be! He envies the happiness of the beasts that are
filled, and play in their pastures. We have heard of him who
when he saw a toad, stood weeping, because God had made him a man,
so excellent a creature, and not a toad, so abominable: the
goodness of God, then, it seems, as he apprehended it, made him
weep; but this man meets a toad, and he weeps also, but why?
because he is a man who thinks his estate infinitely
worse than the condition of a toad, and if it were possible to
attain it, would change states with the toad, that hath no guilt
of sin, fears no wrath of God, is not under power of lusts or
creatures; God is not enemy to it, which is his miserable state.
Giles Firmin, 1617-1697.
Verse 7. For my loins are filled with a loathsome
disease. The word here used, according to Gesenius (Lex.),
properly denotes the internal muscles of the loins near the
kidneys, to which the fat adheres. The word rendered loathsome—the
word disease being supplied by our translators—is
derived from (hlq), kalah, a word which means to roast,
to parch, as fruit, grain, etc.; and then, in the form used
here, it means scorched, burned; hence, a burning or
inflammation; and the whole phrase would be synonymous with an
inflammation of the kidneys. The word here used does
not imply that there was any eruption, or ulcer, though it would
seem from verse five that this was the fact, and that the
inflammation had produced this effect. Albert Barnes.
Verse 7. A loathsome disease. In many things
our estimates are extravagant; but we never over estimate the
evil of sin. It is as corrupting as it is damning. It covers the
soul with plague spots, with the leprosy. Isa 1:5-6. William
S. Plumer.
Verse 8. I am feeble, literally, I am
benumbed. I have become deadly cold, cold as a corpse;
possibly with reference to the burning inflammation in the
previous verse, as marking the alternations in the fever fit. J.
J. Stewart Perowne.
Verse 8. I have roared by reason of the
disquietness of my heart. Where sin is, there will never be
but unquietness of heart; and an unquiet heart will always
produce these miserable effects—feebleness of body,
dejectedness of mind, and roaring of voice. But how can roaring
stand with feebleness, which seems to require a strength of
spirits? Is it not, therefore, a roaring, perhaps not so much in
loudness as in an inarticulate expressing? that having done
actions more like a beast than a man, I am forced to use a voice
not so much of a man as of a beast? Or is it perhaps a roaring
in spirit, which the heart may send forth though the body be
feeble; or rather then most, when it is most feeble; not unlike
the blaze of a candle then greatest when going out? Howsoever it
be, this is certain: the heart is that unhappy plot of ground,
which, receiving into it the accursed seed of sin, brings forth
in the body and soul of man these miserable fruits: and how,
then, can I be free from these weeds of the fruits, since I have
received into me so great a measure of the seed? Oh, vile sin,
that I could as well avoid thee as I can see thee, or could as
easily resist thee as I deadly hate thee, I should not then
complain of either feebleness of body, or dejectedness of mind,
or roaring of voice; but I should perfectly enjoy that happy
quietness in all my parts, which thou, O God, didst graciously
bestow as a blessed dowry on our first parents at their
creation. Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 8. I have roared, etc. It is difficult
for a true penitent, in the bitterness of his soul, to go over
the life which he has dragged on in sinfulness, without groaning
and sighing from the bottom of his heart. But happy are these
groans, happy these sighs, happy these sobs, since they flow
from the influence of grace, and from the breath of the Holy
Spirit, who himself in an ineffable manner groans in us and with
us, and who forms these groans in our hearts by penitence and
love! but as the violence of both, that is, of penitence and of
love, cannot but burst the narrow limits of a penitent heart, it
must make a vent for itself by the eyes and mouth. The eyes shed
tears, and the mouth sends forth sighs and groans, which it can
no longer restrain; because they are driven on by the fire of
divine love, and so these lamentations frame themselves into
words and intelligible sentences. Jean Baptiste Elias
Avrillon, 1652-1729.
Verse 8. The disquietness of my heart. David
felt pains gather about his heart, and then he cried out. The
heart is the mark that God principally aims at when a Christian
hath turned aside from his upright course; other outward parts
he may hit and deeply wound, but this is but to make holes in
the heart, where the seat of unsoundness that principally
offends him is. The fire which conscience kindles, it may flash
forth into the eyes, and tongue, and hands, and make a man look
fearfully, speak desperately, and do bloodily, against the body;
but the heat of the fire is principally within, in the furnace,
in the spirit; it is but some sparkles and flashes only that you
see come forth at the lower holes of the furnace, which you
behold in the eyes, words, and deeds of such men. Nicholas
Lockyer.
Verse 9. There are usually, if not always, pains with
desires, especially in desires after the creature, because that
oftentimes there is a frustration of our desires, or an
elongation of the things, the things are far off, hard to come
by; our desires oftentimes are mute, they speak not; or the
things that we desire, know not our minds: but our desires after
God always speak, they are open unto God, he heareth their
voice. Lord, all my desire is before thee, saith David, and
my groaning is not hid from thee. Therefore it must needs be
sweet, when the soul lies thus open unto God. Other desires do
not assure and secure a man in the things he desires; a man may
wish this and wish that, and go without both; but the soul that
thus longs after God is instated in his wish, hath a present
enjoyment, and certainly shall have a full enjoyment of him.
"He will fulfil the desire of those that fear him: he also
will hear their cry." Ps 145:19. Joseph Symonds.
Verse 9. My groaning is not hid from thee.
Secret tears for secret sins are an excellent sign of a holy
heart, and a healing balsam for broken spirits. God well
understands the language of half words interrupted with sighs,
and interprets them as the steams and breathings of a broken
heart. As all our foolishness is before him to cover it, so is
all our heaviness to ease it; and therefore shall our souls
praise and please him more than a bullock with young horns and
hoofs upon his altar. Holy mourning keeps out carnal sorrow and
produces spirit joy. It stirs up the heart of a saint to beg
preventing grace which no false heart can perform without secret
reserves. This inward sorrow prevents open shame. God will never
give up such souls to be trampled on by spiritual
enemies, who are already humbled by themselves. In saints'
humiliation there's a door opened for secret hope, because of
the precious promises that are plighted to it, and especially of
preventing future sin by strengthening grace. For as the love of
God is the fountain of all true repentance, so it is the
attractive of more incomes of divine love to the soul. Samuel
Lee.
Verse 10. My heart panteth. The verb which
David here uses signifies to travel or wander hither
and thither, but here it is taken for the agitation or
disquietude which distress of heart engenders when we know not
what to do. According as men are disquieted in mind, so do they
turn themselves on all sides; and so their heart may be said to
turn round, or to run to and fro. John Calvin.
Verse 11. My lovers and my friends stand aloof from
my sore; and my kinsmen stand afar off. So miserable am I,
that I am left alone as one utterly forsaken; they are all
pieces that recoil and fly back at the first voice of the
powder. Yet it is not so much me they stand aloof from as my
sore; for if it were not for my sore, I should have enough of
their company easily enough; but they cannot abide sores, their
eyes are too tender to endure to see them, and yet hard enough
not to relieve them. Or is it they stand aloof, that is, so near
as to show they are willing enough to see them; but yet so far
off as to show they have no meaning to come and help them! ...My
lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore, as fearing
more my sore than me; but my kinsmen stand afar off, as
fearing me no less than my sore; and where my lovers and friends
by standing aloof do but violate the law of a contracted
friendship, my kinsmen by standing afar off violate even the law
of natural affection; and is not this a grievous thing, that the
law of reason, the law of friendship, the law of nature, shall
all be broken rather than I shall be relieved or find
assistance? Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 11. My lovers and my friends stand afar off.
Deserted by false friends, but conqueror through thee, to thee I
speed, who though seeming to act the part of an enemy, yet never
changest thy love; but lovest for ever him whom thou once hast
loved. When you seem afar off, you are near. I conceive this
sorrow on account of the treachery of false friends, and the
cowardliness of my kinsfolk, who are to me as piercing thorns
rather than sweet smelling roses. The proof of affection is seen
by deeds. I hear the name of kinsman and friend; I see no
deed. To thee, therefore, I flee, whose word is deed; for I need
thy help. From the Latin of A. Rivetus.
Verse 13. But I, as a deaf man, heard not; and I
was as a dumb man that openeth not his mouth. For why should
I hear when I meant not to speak? and why should I speak when I
knew beforehand I should not be heard? I knew by contesting I
should but provoke them, and make them more guilty that were
guilty too much before. I therefore thought it better myself to
be silent than to set them a roaring and make them grow
outrageous. No doubt a great wisdom in David, to know that to be
deaf and dumb was in this case his best course, but yet a far
greater virtue that knowing it, he was able to do it. Oh, how
happy should we be, if we could always do that which we know is
best to be done, and if our wills were as ready to act, as our
reason is able to enact; we should then decline many rocks we
now run upon, we should then avoid many errors we now run into.
To be deaf and dumb are indeed great inabilities and defects,
when they be natural; but when they be voluntary, and I may say
artificial, they are them great abilities, or rather
perfections. Sir Richard Baker.
Verse 13. But I, as a deaf man, heard not. The
inspired writer here compares himself to a dumb and deaf man for
two reasons. In the first place, he intimates that he was so
overwhelmed with the false and wicked judgments of his enemies,
that he was not even permitted to open his mouth in his own
defence. In the second place, he alleges before God his own
patience, as a plea to induce God the more readily to have pity
upon him; for such meekness and gentleness, not only with good
reason, secures favour to the afflicted and the innocent, but it
is also a sign of true piety. John Calvin.
Verse 14. Thus I was as a man that heareth not, and
in whose mouth are no reproofs. You, who truly know
yourselves; by whom silent suffering, secret grief, and hidden
joy are understood; by the knowledge of your own unspoken
sorrow, unexpressed, because inexpressible feelings, by the
consciousness of the unrevealed depths of your own nature, the
earnest, but ever unsatisfied yearnings of your spirit, learn to
reverence and love those by whom you are surrounded, whose inner
life can never be completely read, but whom you are sure must
need sacred sympathy and tender consideration. If a secret grief
is constantly gnawing my heart, making my voice falter in the
song of praise, may not my brother's downcast eye and heavy
heart be occasioned by a similar cause; shall I condemn him for
his want of gladness? No: but remember, "the heart knoweth
his own bitterness, and a stranger doth not intermeddle with his
joy." The silent breathings of the spirit are not for our
ears; the hot tears which in secret fall, are not for our eyes;
in mercy has the veil been drawn round each heart; but by the
sacred memory of our own sadness, let our voice be gentle, our
look tender, our tread quiet, as we pass amongst the mourners. Jessie
Coombs, in "Thoughts for the Inner Life, "1867.
Verse 15. A man that is to go down into a deep pit, he
does not throw himself headlong into it, or leap down at all
adventures, but fastens a rope at top upon a cross beam or some
sure place, and so lets himself down by degrees: so let thyself
down into the consideration of thy sin, hanging upon Christ; and
when thou art gone so low that thou canst endure no longer, but
art ready to be overcome with the horror and darkness of thy
miserable estate, dwell not too long at the gates of hell, lest
the devil pull thee in, but wind thyself up again by renewed
acts of faith, and "fly for refuge unto the hope that is
set before thee." Heb 6:18. Thomas Cole (1627-1697),
in "Morning Exercises."
Verse 17. For I am ready to halt: to show my
infirmity in my trials and afflictions; as Jacob halted after
his wrestling with God. Ge 32:31. In the Greek, I am ready
for scourges, that is, to suffer correction and punishment
for my sins: so the Chaldee saith, for calamity. Henry
Ainsworth.
Verse 18. Pliny writeth of some families that had
private marks on their bodies peculiar to those of that line,
and every man hath, as it were, a private sin, which is most
justly called his; but if we will confess our sins aright, we
must not leave out that sin; nay, our chiefest spite must be
against it, according to David's resolve: I will declare mine
iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin. ...David doth not only
say, I will declare, but, I will be sorry for my sin.
The people of God 1Sa 7:6 in the day of their confession not
only say, "We have sinned, "but draw water, and pour
it out before the Lord in token of contrition. We should, in
confessing sin, have our hearts so affected, that our eyes, with
Job, may "pour tears before God" Job 16:20; that, with
David, "rivers of tears may run down our eyes" Ps
119:136; yea, we should wish with Jeremiah, that "our head
were waters, and our eyes a fountain of tears." Jer 9:1.
But, however, nonne stillabit oculus noster? if we cannot
pour out, shall we not drop a tear? or at least, if we cannot
shed a tear, let us breathe forth a sigh for our sins. It is
only the heart broken with godly sorrow that sends forth a true
confession. Nathanael Hardy.
Verse 20. They are mine enemies because I follow
the thing that good is. It is a bold attempt to ding Satan
out of his nest. If we conform us to the men of this world we
find peace with them; they will not discord with us so long as
we go their way; but to shame them by a godly life is an affront
they cannot digest; and to rebuke their sin, findeth at their
hand all that Satan disappointed or corruption provoked can
devise. A sleeping dog is quiet, but being stirred, turneth all
in barking and biting. Not to do as they do is matter enough of
anger, but a reproof is the highest degree of disgrace in their
account. All that hatred which they ought to bear to Satan and
his instruments, is turned upon God in his rebuking and
reclaiming servants. That anger that in remorse should burn
against their own sin is set against their reprovers. William
Struther.
Verse 22. O Lord my salvation. Faith the
suppliant is now made faith triumphant. Franz Delitzsch.
HINTS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER
TITLE. The art of memory. Holy memorabilia. The
usefulness of sacred remembrance.
Verse 1. The rebuke of God's wrath.
1. Richly deserved.
2. Reasonably dreaded.
3. Earnestly deprecated.
—B. Daries.
Verse 1. The evil consequences of sin in this world. J.
J. Blunt.
Verse 1. The bitterest of bitters, thy wrath;
why deprecated; and how escaped.
Verse 2. God sharply chasteneth many of his children,
and yet for all that he loves them never a whit the less, nor
withholdeth in good time his mercy from them. Thomas Wilcocks.
Verse 3. (last clause). Sin causes unrest.
He who cures it alone gives rest. Dwell on both facts.
Verse 4. (first clause). Sin in its relations
to us. To the eye pleasing. To the heart
disappointing. In the bones vexing. Over the head
overwhelming.
Verse 4. The confession of an awakened sinner.
Verse 4. (last clause). Sin.
1. Heavy—a burden.
2. Very heavy—A heavy burden.
3. Superlatively heavy—too heavy for me.
4. Not immoveable, for though too heavy for me, yet
Jesus bore it.
Verse 5. Foolishness. The folly of sin.
Everything that a man has to do with sin shows his folly.
1. Dallying with sin.
2. Committing it.
3. Continuing in it.
4. Hiding it.
5. Palliating it.
—B. Davies.
Verse 6. Conviction of sin. Its grief, its depth, its
continuance.
Verse 6. I go mourning.
1. Unlawful reasons for mourning.
2. Legitimate themes for sorrow.
3. Valuable alleviations of grief.
Verse 9. The many desires of God's children: the fact
that God understands them even when unexpressed; and the
certainty that he will grant them.
Verse 9. Omniscience, a source of consolation to the
desponding.
Verse 13. The wisdom, dignity, power, and difficulty
of silence.
Verse 15. Prayer, the offspring of hope. Hope
strengthened by confidence in God's answering prayer.
Verse 17. Mr. Ready to halt. His pedigree, and
infirmity; his crutches, and his cure; his history, and safe
departure.
Verse 18. The excellence of penitent confession.
Verse 18. The twin children of grace—confession and
contrition: their mutual revelation and reaction.
Verse 18. (last clause). There is good reason
for such sorrow, God is well pleased with it. It benefits the
mourner.
Verse 19. The terrible energy and industry of the
powers of evil.
Verse 22. Faith tried, faith trembling, faith crying,
faith grasping, faith conquering.
WORKS UPON THE THIRTY-EIGHTH PSALM
"A Sacred Septenarie, "etc., by
ARCHIBALD SYMSON, 1638, contains an Exposition of this Psalm.
See Vol. I, p. 74.
"Meditations and Disquisitions upon the
Seven Psalmes of David, commonly called the Penitential
Psalmes." By Sir RICHARD BAKER, Knight: London: 1639,
(4to.) contains "Meditations upon the XXXVIII. Psalme."