TITLE. To the Chief Musician. Even
short Psalms, if they record but one instance of the goodness of
the Lord, and rebuke but briefly the pride of man, are worthy of
our best minstrelsy. When we see that each Psalm is dedicated to
"the chief musician, "it should make us value our
psalmody, and forbid us to praise the Lord carelessly. Maschil.
An Instructive. Even the malice of a Doeg may furnish
instruction to a David. A Psalm of David. He was the
prime object of Doeg's doggish hatred, and therefore the most
fitting person to draw from the incident the lesson concealed
within it. When Doeg the Edomite came and told Saul, and
saith unto him, David is come to the house of Ahimelech. By
this deceitful tale bearing, he procured the death of all the
priests at Nob: though it had been a crime to have succoured
David as a rebel, they were not in their intent and knowledge
guilty of the fault. David felt much the villany of this arch
enemy, and here he denounces him in vigorous terms; it may be
also that he has Saul in his eye.
DIVISION. We shall follow the sacred
pauses marked by the Selahs of the poet.
EXPOSITION
Verse 1. Why boasteth thyself in mischief, O mighty
man? Doeg had small matter for boasting in having procured
the slaughter of a band of defenceless priests. A mighty man
indeed to kill men who never touched a sword! He ought to have
been ashamed of his cowardice. He had no room for exultation!
Honourable titles are but irony where the wearer is mean and
cruel. If David alluded to Saul, he meant by these words
pityingly to say, "How can one by nature fitted for nobler
deeds, descend to so low a level as to find a theme for boasting
in a slaughter so heartless and mischievous?" The
goodness of God endureth continually. A beautiful contrast.
The tyrant's fury cannot dry up the perennial stream of divine
mercy. If priests be slain their Master lives. If Doeg for
awhile triumphs the Lord will outlive him, and right the wrongs
which he has done. This ought to modify the proud exultations of
the wicked, for after all, while the Lord liveth, iniquity has
little cause to exalt itself.
Verse 2. Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs. Thou
speakest with an ulterior design. The information given was for
Saul's assistance apparently, but in very deed in his heart the
Edomite hated the priests of the God of Jacob. It is a mark of
deep depravity, when the evil spoken is craftily intended to
promote a yet greater evil. Like a sharp razor, working
deceitfully. David represents the false tongue as being
effectual for mischief, like a razor which, unawares to the
person operated on, is making him bald; so softly and deftly do
Oriental barbers perform their work. Or he may mean that as with
a razor a man's throat may be cut very speedily, under the
pretence of shaving him, even thus keenly, basely, but
effectually Doeg destroyed the band of the priests. Whetted by
malice, and guided by craft, he did his cruel work with accursed
thoroughness.
Verse 3. Thou lovest evil more than good. He
loved not good at all. If both had been equally profitable and
pleasant, he would have preferred evil. And lying rather than
to speak righteousness. He was more at home at lying than at
truth. He spake not the truth except by accident, but he
delighted heartily in falsehood. SELAH. Let us pause and
look at the proud blustering liar. Doeg is gone, but other dogs
bark at the Lord's people. Saul's cattle master is buried, but
the devil still has his drovers, who fain would hurry the saints
like sheep to the slaughter.
Verse 4. Thou lovest. Thou hast a taste, a
gusto for evil language. All devouring words. There are
words that, like boa constrictors, swallow men whole, or like
lions, rend men to pieces; these words evil minds are fond of.
Their oratory is evermore furious and bloody. That which will
most readily provoke the lowest passions they are sure to
employ, and they think such pandering to the madness of the
wicked to be eloquence of a high order. O thou deceitful
tongue. Men can manage to say a great many furious things,
and yet cover all over with the pretext of justice. They claim
that they are jealous for the right, but the truth is they are
determined to put down truth and holiness, and craftily go about
it under this transparent pretence.
Verse 5. God shall likewise destroy thee for ever.
Fain would the persecutor destroy the church, and therefore God
shall destroy him, pull down his house, pluck up his roots, and
make an end of him. He shall take thee away. God shall
extinguish his coal and sweep him away like the ashes of the
hearth; he would have quenched the truth, and God shall quench
him. And pluck thee out of thy dwelling place, like a
plant torn from the place where it grew, or a captive dragged
from his home. Ahimelech and his brother priests were cut off
from their abode, and so should those be who compassed and
contrived their murder. And root thee out of the land of the
living. The persecutor shall be eradicated, stubbed up by
the root, cut up root and branch. He sought the death of others
and death shall fall upon him. He troubled the land of the
living, and he shall be banished to that land where the wicked
cease from troubling. Those who will not "let live"
have no right to "live." God will turn the tables on
malicious men, and mete to them a portion with their own
measure. "SELAH." Pause again, and behold the divine
justice proving itself more than a match for human sin.
Verse 6. The righteous—the object of the
tyrant's hatred—shall outlive his enmity, and also shall
see, before his own face, the end of the ungodly oppressor.
God permits Mordecai to see Haman hanging on the gallows. David
had brought to him the tokens of Saul's death on Gilboa. And
fear. Holy awe shall sober the mind of the good man; he
shall reverently adore the God of providence. And shall laugh
at him. If not with righteous joy, yet with solemn contempt.
Schemes so far reaching all baffled, plans so deep, so politic,
all thwarted. Mephistopheles outwitted, the old serpent taken in
his own subtlety. This is a good theme for that deep seated
laughter which is more akin to solemnity than merriment.
Verse 7. Lo. Look ye here, and read the epitaph
of a mighty man, who lorded it proudly during his little hour,
and set his heel upon the necks of the Lord's chosen. This is
the man that made not God his strength. Behold the man! The
great vainglorious man. He found a fortress, but not in God; he
gloried in his might, but not in the Almighty. Where is he now?
How has it fared with him in the hour of his need? Behold his
ruin, and be instructed. But trusted in the abundance of his
riches, and strengthened himself in his wickedness. The
substance he had gathered, and the mischiefs he had wrought,
were his boast and glory. Wealth and wickedness are dreadful
companions; when combined they make a monster. When the devil is
master of money bags, he is a devil indeed. Beelzebub and Mammon
together heat the furnace seven times hotter for the child of
God, but in the end that shall work out their own destruction.
Wherever we see today a man great in sin and substance, we shall
do well to anticipate his end, and view this verse as the divine
in memoriam.
Verse 8. But I, hunted and persecuted though I
am, am like a green olive tree. I am not plucked up or
destroyed, but am like a flourishing olive, which out of the
rock draws oil, and amid the drought still lives and grows. In
the house of God. He was one of the divine family, and could
not be expelled from it; his place was near his God, and there
was he safe and happy, despite all the machinations of his foes.
He was bearing fruit, and would continue to do so when all his
proud enemies were withered like branches lopped from the tree. I
trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever. Eternal mercy
is my present confidence. David knew God's mercy to be eternal
and perpetual, and in that he trusted. What a rock to build on!
What a fortress to fly to!
Verse 9. I will praise thee for ever. Like thy
mercy shall my thankfulness be. While others boast in their
riches I will boast in my God; and when their glorying is
silenced for ever in the tomb, my song shall continue to
proclaim the lovingkindness of Jehovah. Because thou hast
done it. Thou hast vindicated the righteous, and punished
the wicked. God's memorable acts of providence, both to saints
and sinners, deserve, and must have our gratitude. David views
his prayer as already answered, the promise of God as already
fulfilled, and therefore at once lifts up the sacred Psalm. And
I will wait on thy name. God shall still be the psalmist's
hope; he will not in future look elsewhere. He whose name has
been so gloriously made known in truth and righteousness, is
justly chosen as our expectation for years to come. For it is
good before thy saints. Before or among the saints David
intended to wait, feeling it to be good both for him and them to
look to the Lord alone, and wait for the manifestation of his
character in due season. Men must not too much fluster us; our
strength is to sit still. Let the mighty ones boast, we will
wait on the Lord; and if their haste brings them present honour,
our patience will have its turn by and by, and bring us the
honour which excelleth.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
TITLE. That Maschil means a sacred composition,
is evident from Ps 47:7, where the passage which we render,
"Sing ye praises with understanding, "is literally,
"Sing ye a Maschil, "or song of instruction.
This word occurs as a title in thirteen places; and six times is
prefixed to compositions of David's. In several instances it
occurs in consecutive Psalms; i.e., in the 42nd (of which
the 43rd is the sequel), the 44th and 45th, the 52nd, 53rd,
54th, and 55th, the 88th and 89th. A circumstance which favours
the notion that the term was one peculiarly used by some
particular editor or collector of a certain portion of the
Psalter. John Jebb.
Verse 1. (first clause). Why doth he glory
in malice that is mighty? that is, he that in malice is
mighty, why doth he glory? There is need that a man be mighty,
but in goodness, not in malice. Is it any great thing to glory
in malice? To build a house belong to few men, any ignorant man
you please can pull down. To sow wheat, to dress the crop, to
wait until it ripen, and in that fruit on which one has laboured
to rejoice, doth belong to few men: with one spark any man you
please can burn all the crop. . . . What art thou about to do,
O, mighty man, what are thou about to do, boasting thyself much?
Thou art about to kill a man: this thing also a scorpion, this
also a fever, this also a poisonous fungus can do. To this is
thy mightiness reduced, that it be made equal to a poisonous
fungus! Augustine.
Verse 1. By mischief is understood not simply
what evil he had done, but the prosperity which he now enjoyed,
obtained through mischief; as is clear both from the word boasting
and from the seventh verse...Formerly he was the chief of Saul's
shepherds 1Sa 21:8, but by that wicked destruction of the
priests of God by Saul, and the execution of the cruel sentence,
he obtained the chief place near to the king 1Sa 22:9. Hermann
Venema.
Verse 1. O mighty man. These words may be added
by way of irony, as if he had said, A great deal of valour and
prowess you have shown in slaying a company of unarmed men, the
priests of the Lord, yea, women and children, no way able to
resist you or else to imply the ground of his vain boasting, to
wit, either his present greatness, as being a man in great
place, and of great power with Saul; or the great preferments he
expected from Saul. Arthur Jackson.
Verse 1. The goodness of God endureth continually.
He contrasts the goodness of God with the wealth and
might of Doeg, and the foundation of his own confidence as
widely different from that of Doeg, his own placed upon the
goodness of God, enduring for ever and showing itself effectual.
It is as if he had said, The goodness of God to which I
trust, is most powerful and the same throughout all time, and in
it I shall at all times most surely rejoice that goodness
of God, since now it sustains me, so it will exalt me in its own
good time; it therefore is, and will be above me.
. . . Not without emphasis does he say the goodness la of the
strong God, a contrast to Doeg the hero, and the
ruinous foundation of his fortune. Hermann Venema.
Verse 2. Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs, like a
sharp razor, working deceitfully. Thus our version. But I do
not very well understand the propriety of the tongue's
devising mischief, and devising it like a sharp razor.
But we may easily avoid this harsh comparison by rendering the
words: You contrive mischiefs with thy tongue, as with a
sharp razor, O thou dealer in deceit: i.e., you contrive
with thy smooth and flattering tongue to wound the reputation
and character of others, as though thou wast cutting their
throats with a smooth razor. Samuel Chandler.
Verse 2. Like a sharp razor, that instead of
shaving the hair lances the flesh; or missing the beard cutteth
the throat. John Trapp.
Verse 2. The smooth adroit manner of executing a
wicked device neither hides not abates its wickedness. Murder
with a sharp razor is as wicked as murder with a meat axe
or bludgeon. A lie very ingeniously framed and rehearsed in an
oily manner, is as great a sin, and in the end will be seen to
be as great a folly as the most bungling attempt at deception. William
S. Plumer.
Verse 3. Thou lovest evil more than good.—Thou
hast loved evil, he says, more than good, not by
simply preferring it, but by substituting it; so that in the
stead of good he hath done evil, and that from the inmost love
of his soul, bent upon evil; wherefore he does not say that he admitted,
but loved evil, not moral only, but physical,
for the destruction of his neighbours; so to have loved
it, that he willed nothing but evil, being averse to all
good. Hermann Venema.
Verse 4. Thou lovest all devouring words, O thou
deceitful tongue. He was all tongue; a man of words;
and these the most deceitful and injurious. Adam Clarke.
Verse 5. God shall destroy thee forever, etc.
There are four words the psalmist makes us of to denote the
utter vengeance that awaited this deceitful and bloody wretch,
all of them having a very strong meaning. The first, ksty from
stn, signifies to pull down, and break utterly into
pieces; as when an altar is demolished. (Jud 6:30 8:9.) The
second, kth from the root hrh, which signifies to twist
anything, or pluck it up by twisting it round, as trees
are sometimes twisted up. The third, khmy from hmg, which
properly signifies utterly to sweep away anything like dust
or chaff; and the expression lhm khm means not sweep thee
away from thy tent, but sweep thee away, that thou mayest
be no longer a tent; thyself, thy family, thy fortune, shall
be wholly and entirely swept away, and dissipated forever; to
which the fourth word, ksrs, answers, eradicabit te, he
shall root thee out from the land of the living. It is
impossible words can express a more entire and absolute
destruction. Samuel Chandler.
Verse 5. God shall likewise destroy thee forever.
Here are quot verba tot tonotrua, so many words, so many
thunderclaps. As thou hast destroyed the Lord's priests, and
their whole city, razing and harassing it; so God will demolish
and destroy thee utterly, as an house pulled down to the ground,
so that one stone is not left upon another (Le 14:45); so shall
God pull down Doeg from that high preferment, which he by
sycophancy hath got at court. John Trapp.
Verse 5. Wonderful is the force of the verbs in the
original, which convey to us the four ideas of laying
prostrate, dissolving as by fire, sweeping away as with a besom,
and totally extirpating root and branch, as a tree is
eradicated from the spot on which it grew. If a farther comment
be wanted, it may be found in the history of David's enemies,
and the crucifiers of the son of David; but the passage will be
fully and finally explained by the destruction of the world of
the ungodly at the last day. George Horne.
Verse 5. The poet accumulates dire and heavy words,
and mingles various metaphors that he might paint the picture of
this man's destruction in more lively colours. Three metaphors
appear to be joined together, the first taken from a building,
the second from a tent, the third from a tree, if
attention is given to the force and common acceptation of the
words. Hermann Venema.
Verse 5. He shall take thee away; or, seize
thee, as coals are taken with the tongs. J. J. Stewart
Perowne.
Verse 6. The righteous also shall see, etc.
That is, to use the apt words of Gejerus, "This shall
not be a secret judgment, or known only to a few, but common
fame shall spread abroad throughout the kingdom, or city, the
notable punishments of the ungodly. The righteous also shall not
pass by such an event with indifference, but with earnest eyes
shall contemplate it, "etc. I add, and hence shall they
take joy, and turn it to their own use, to the greater fearing
of God... The righteous, upon whose destruction the
ungodly man was intent, shall survive and spend their lives safe
in the favour of God; they shall see with attentive mind,
they shall consider; nor, as worldlings are accustomed, shall
they pass it by without reflection or improvement, they shall
see and fear, namely, God the just judge; and instructed
in his judgment by this instance, they shall be the more careful
to abstain from all designs and crimes of this kind. Hermann
Venema.
Verse 6. And shall laugh at him; or, over
him—over the wicked man thus cast down—they shall
laugh. Such exultation, to our modern sensibilities, seems
shocking, because we can hardly conceive of it, apart from the
gratification of personal vindictiveness. But there is such a
thing as a righteous hatred, as a righteous scorn. There is such
a thing as a shout of righteous joy at the downfall of the
tyrant and the oppressor, at the triumph of righteousness and
truth over wrong and falsehood. J. J. Stewart Perowne.
Verse 7. Lo, this is the man that made not God his
strength. David having showed (Ps 52:5-6) the wicked man, by
the righteous judgment of God rooted out of the land of the
living, shows us in the next verse, the righteous man at once
fearing and laughing at this sight, as also pointing at him
saying, Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength.
The words are a divine but cutting sarcasm. The original is geber,
which signifieth a strong, valiant man: as we say in English,
Lo, this is the brave and gallant man you wot of! But who was
this for a man? He was one, saith he, that trusted in the
abundance of his riches. Oh! It is hard to abound in riches
and not to trust in them. Hence that caution (Ps 62:10): If
riches increase, set not your heart upon them. Now, what is
the setting the heart upon riches but our rejoicing and trusting
in them? And because the heart of man is so easily persuaded
into this sinful trust upon riches, therefore the apostle is
urgent with Timothy to persuade all rich men—not only mere
worldly rich men, but godly rich men—against it; yea, he urges
Timothy to persuade rich men against two sins, which are worse
than all the poverty in the world, yet the usual attendants of
riches—pride and confidence: Charge them that are rich in
this world, that they be not highminded. 1Ti 6:17. Joseph
Caryl.
Verses 7-8. Perhaps some of you have been long
professors, and yet come to little growth in love to God,
humility, heavenly mindedness, mortification; and it is worth
the digging to see what lies at the root of your profession,
whether there be not a legal principle that hath too much
influenced you. Have you not thought to carry all with God from
your duties and services, and too much laid up your hopes in
your own actings? Alas! this is as so much dead earth, which
must be thrown out, and gospel principles laid in the room
thereof. Try but this course, and try whether the spring of thy
grace will not come on apace. David gives an account how he came
to stand and flourish when some that were rich and mighty, on a
sudden withered and came to nothing. Lo, saith he, this
is the man that made not God his strength; but trusted in the
abundance of his riches. But I am like a green olive tree in the
house of God: I trust in the mercy of God for ever and ever.
While others trust in the riches of their own righteousness and
services, and make not Christ their strength, do thou renounce
all, and trust in the mercy of God in Christ, and thou shalt be
like a green olive when they fade and wither. William Gurnall.
Verse 8. (first clause):
"But I am olive charged with fruit
In fertile soil that grows."
This appears to express of the Hebrew words, which our
translators render, like a green olive tree, but which in
reality have no reference to the colour, but to the flourishing,
vigorous, and thriving state of the plant; just as Homer gives
it the epithet of "luxuriant, "and "flourishing;
"and Ovid that of "ever flourishing." The fact
is, the colour of the leaves of this tree is not a bright lively
green; but a dark, disagreeable, or yellowish one. Scheuchzer
describes the leaves, as "superne coloris atrovirentis,
vel in viridi flavescentis." An English traveller,
writing from Italy, thus expresses his disappointment about the
olive tree:—"The fields, and indeed the whole face of
Tuscany, are in a manner covered with olive trees; but the olive
tree does not answer the character I have conceived of it. The
royal psalmist and some of the sacred writers, speak with
rapture of the `green olive tree, 'so that I expected a
beautiful green; and I confess to you, I was wretchedly
disappointed to find its hue resembling that of our hedges when
they are covered with dust." I have heard other travellers
express the same feeling of disappointment. "The true way
of solving the difficulty, "as Harmer properly remarks,
"is to consider the word translated `green, 'not as
descriptive of colour, but of some other property; youthfulness,
vigour, prosperity, or the like." Richard Mant.
Verse 8. Green olive tree in the house of God.
Several expositors fancifully imagine that olive trees grow in
certain of the courts of the Tabernacle; but the notion must not
be endured, it would have been too near an approach to the
groves of the heathen to have been tolerated, at least in
David's time. The text should surely be read with some
discretion; the poet does not refer to olive trees in God's
house, but compares himself in the house of God to an
olive tree. This reminds us of the passage, "Thy children
like olive plants around thy table, "where some whose
imaginations have been more lively than their judgments, have
seen a table surrounded, not with children, but with olive
plants. Whoever, in the realms of common sense, ever heard of
olive plants round a table? If, as Thrupp supposes, Nob was
situated upon the Mount of Olives, we can, without any
conjecture, see a reason for the present reference to a
flourishing olive tree. C. H. S.
Verse 9. He compares himself
1. With an olive tree, a tree a ways green, lasting
long and fruitful, whose fruit is most useful and grateful: so
he paints his future state as joyful, glorious, lasting, and
useful and pleasing to men: plainly a reference is made to the royal
and prophetic office, in both of which he represents himself as
an olive tree, by supplying others with oil through his
rule and instruction:
2. With the olive growing luxuriantly, and abounding
in spreading bough, and so, spacious and large...
3. But why does he add in the house of God? That he
might indicate, unless I am deceived:
(a) That he should possess a dwelling in that place where the
house of God was, whence he was now exiled through the
calumnies of Doeg and the attacks of Saul stirred up thereby:
(b) That he should perform distinguished service to the house
of God, by adorning it, and by restoring religion, now
neglected, and practising it with zeal:
(c) That he should derive from God and his favour, whose that
house was, all his prosperity:
(d) That he, like a son of God, should rejoice in familiarity
with him, and should become heir to his possessions and
promises. Hermann Venema.
HINTS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse 1. The confidence of faith.
1. The circumstances were distressing.
(a) David was misjudged.
(b) David exiled.
(c) A bad man in power.
(d) God's priests slain.
2. The consolation was abiding.
(a) There is a God.
(b) He is good.
(c) His goodness continues.
(d) Good will therefore overcome.
3. The rejoinder was triumphant. Why boasteth thou?
(a) The mischief did not touch the main point.
(b) It would be overruled.
(c) It would recoil.
(d) It would expose the perpetrators to scorn.
Verse 3. In what cases men clearly love evil more than
good.
Verses 7-8. The worldling like an uprooted tree, the
believer a vigorous well planted olive.
Verse 8. The believer's character, position,
confidence, and continuance.
Verse 9. The double duty, and the double reason: the
single heart and its single object.
Verse 9. What God has done, what we will do, and why.
WORK UPON THE FIFTY-SECOND PSALM
CHANDLER'S "Life of David, "contains
an Exposition of this Psalm. Vol. 1., pp. 140-143.