TITLE. A Psalm of Asaph. This is
the second Psalm ascribed to Asaph, and the first of eleven
consecutive Psalms bearing the name of this eminent singer. Some
writers are not sure that Asaph wrote them, but incline to the
belief that David was the author, and Asaph the person to whom
they were dedicated, that he might sing them when in his turn he
became the chief musician. But though our own heart turns in the
same direction, facts must be heard; and we find in 2Ch 29:30,
that Hezekiah commanded the Levites to sing "the words of
David and of Asaph the seer; "and, moreover, in Ne 12:46,
David and Asaph are mentioned together, as distinct from
"the chief of the singers, "and as it would seem, as
joint authors of psalmody. We may, therefore, admit Asaph to be
the author of some, if not all, of the twelve Psalms ascribed to
him. Often a great star which seems to be but one to the eyes of
ordinary observers, turns out upon closer inspection to be of a
binary character; so here the Psalms of David are those of Asaph
too. The great sun of David has a satellite in the moon of Asaph.
By reading our notes on Psalm Fifty, in Volume 2, the reader
will glean a little more concerning this man of God.
SUBJECT. Curiously enough this Seventy-third Psalm
corresponds in subject with the Thirty-seventh: it will help the
memory of the young to notice the reversed figures. The theme is
that ancient stumbling block of good men, which Job's friends
could not get over; viz.—the present prosperity of wicked men
and the sorrows of the godly. Heathen philosophers have puzzled
themselves about this, while to believers it has too often been
a temptation.
DIVISION. In Ps 73:1 the psalmist
declares his confidence in God, and, as it were, plants his foot
on a rock while he recounts his inward conflict. From Ps 73:2-14
he states his temptation; then, from Ps 73:15-17 he is
embarrassed as how to act, but ultimately finds deliverance from
his dilemma. He describes with awe the fate of the ungodly in Ps
73:18-20, condemns his own folly and adores the grace of God, Ps
73:21-24, and concludes by renewing his allegiance to his God,
whom he takes afresh to be his portion and delight.
EXPOSITION
Verse 1. Truly, or, more correctly, only,
God is good to Israel. He is only good, nothing else but
good to his own covenanted ones. He cannot act unjustly, or
unkindly to them; his goodness to them is beyond dispute, and
without mixture. Even to such as are of a clean heart. These are
the true Israel, not the ceremonially clean but the really so;
those who are clean in the inward parts, pure in the vital
mainspring of action. To such he is, and must be, goodness
itself. The writer does not doubt this, but lays it down as his
firm conviction. It is well to make sure of what we do know, for
this will be good anchor hold for us when we are molested by
those mysterious storms which arise from things which we do not
understand. Whatever may or may not be the truth about
mysterious and inscrutable things, there are certainties
somewhere; experience has placed some tangible facts within our
grasp; let us, then, cling to these, and they will prevent our
being carried away by those hurricanes of infidelity which still
come from the wilderness, and, like whirlwinds, smite the four
corners of our house and threaten to overthrow it. O my God,
however perplexed I may be, let me never think ill of thee. If I
cannot understand thee, let me never cease to believe in thee.
It must be so, it cannot be otherwise, thou art good to those
whom thou hast made good; and where thou hast renewed the heart
thou wilt not leave it to its enemies.
Verse 2. Here begins the narrative of a great soul
battle, a spiritual Marathon, a hard and well fought field, in
which the half defeated became in the end wholly victorious. But
as for me. He contrasts himself with his God who is ever good;
he owns his personal want of good, and then also compares
himself with the clean in heart, and goes on to confess his
defilement. The Lord is good to his saints, but as for me,
am I one of them? Can I expect to share his grace? Yes, I do
share it; but I have acted an unworthy part, very unlike one who
is truly pure in heart. My feet were almost gone. Errors of
heart and head soon affect the conduct. There is an intimate
connection between the heart and the feet. Asaph could barely
stand, his uprightness was going, his knees were bowing like a
falling wall. When men doubt the righteousness of God, their own
integrity begins to waver. My steps had well nigh slipped. Asaph
could make no progress in the good road, his feet ran away from
under him like those of a man on a sheet of ice. He was weakened
for all practical action, and in great danger of actual sin, and
so of a disgraceful fall. How ought we to watch the inner man,
since it has so forcible an effect upon the outward character.
The confession in this case is, as it should be, very plain and
explicit.
Verse 3. For I was envious at the foolish.
"The foolish" is the generic title of all the wicked:
they are beyond all others fools, and he must be a fool who
envies fools. Some read it, "the proud:" and, indeed,
these, by their ostentation, invite envy, and many a mind which
is out of gear spiritually, becomes infected with that wasting
disease. It is a pitiful thing that an heir of heaven should
have to confess "I was envious, "but worse still that
he should have to put it, "I was envious at the
foolish." Yet this acknowledgment is, we fear, due from
most of us. When I saw the prosperity of the wicked. His eye was
fixed too much on one thing; he saw their present, and forgot
their future, saw their outward display, and overlooked their
soul's discomfort. Who envies the bullock his fat when he
recollects the shambles? Yet some poor afflicted saint has been
sorely tempted to grudge the ungodly sinner his temporary
plenty. All things considered, Dives had more cause to envy
Lazarus than Lazarus to be envious of Dives.
Verse 4. For there are no bands in their death.
This is mentioned as the chief wonder, for we usually expect
that in the solemn article of death, a difference will appear,
and the wicked will become evidently in trouble. The notion is
still prevalent that a quiet death means a happy hereafter. The
psalmist had observed that the very reverse is true. Careless
persons become case hardened, and continue presumptuously
secure, even to the last. Some are startled at the approach of
judgment, but many more have received a strong delusion to
believe a lie. What with the surgeon's drugs and their own
infidelity, or false peace, they glide into eternity without a
struggle. We have seen godly men bound with doubts, and fettered
with anxieties, which have arisen from their holy jealousy; but
the godless know nothing of such bands: they care neither for
God nor devil. Their strength is firm. What care they for death?
Frequently they are brazen and insolent, and can vent defiant
blasphemies even on their last couch. This may occasion sorrow
and surprise among saints, but certainly should not suggest
envy, for, in this case, the most terrible inward conflict is
infinitely to be preferred to the profoundest calm which
insolent presumption can create. Let the righteous die as they
may, let my last end be like theirs.
Verse 5. They are not in trouble as other men.
The prosperous wicked escape the killing toils which afflict the
mass of mankind; their bread comes to them without care, their
wine without stint. They have no need to enquire, "Whence
shall we get bread for our children, or raiment for our little
ones?" Ordinary domestic and personal troubles do not
appear to molest them. Neither are they plagued like other men.
Fierce trials do not arise to assail them: they smart not under
the divine rod. While many saints are both poor and afflicted,
the prosperous sinner is neither. He is worse than other men,
and yet he is better off; he ploughs least, and yet has the most
fodder. He deserves the hottest hell, and yet has the warmest
nest. All this is clear to the eyes of faith, which unriddles
the riddle; but to the bleared eye of sense it seems an enigma
indeed. They are to have nothing hereafter, let them have what
they can here; they, after all, only possess what is of
secondary value, and their possessing it is meant to teach us to
set little store by transient things. If earthly good were of
much value, the Lord would not give so large a measure of it to
those who have least of his love.
Verse 6. Therefore pride compasseth them about as a
chain. They are as great in their own esteem as if they were
aldermen of the New Jerusalem; they want no other ornament than
their own pomposity. No jeweller could sufficiently adorn them;
they wear their own pride as a better ornament than a gold
chain. Violence covereth them as a garment. In their boastful
arrogance they array themselves; they wear the livery of the
devil, and are fond of it. As soon as you see them, you perceive
that room must be made for them, for, regardless of the feelings
and rights of others, they intend to have their way, and achieve
their own ends. They brag and bully, bluster and browbeat, as if
they had taken out license to ride roughshod over all mankind.
Verse 7. Their eyes stand out with fatness. In
cases of obesity the eyes usually appear to be enclosed in fat,
but sometimes they protrude; in either case the countenance is
changed, loses its human form, and is assimilated to that of
fatted swine. The face is here the index of the man: the man has
more than suffices him; he is glutted and surfeited with wealth,
and yet is one of the wicked whom God abhorreth. They have more
than heart could wish. Their wishes are gratified, and more;
their very greediness is exceeded; they call for water, and the
world gives them milk; they ask for hundreds, and thousands are
lavished at their feet. The heart is beyond measure gluttonous,
and yet in the case of certain ungodly millionaires, who have
rivalled Sardanapalus both in lust and luxury, it has seemed as
if their wishes were exceeded, and their meat surpassed their
appetite.
Verse 8. They are corrupt. They rot above
ground; their heart and life are depraved. And speak wickedly
concerning oppression. The reek of the sepulchre rises through
their mouths; the nature of the soul is revealed in the speech.
They choose oppression as their subject, and they not only
defend it, but advocate it, glory in it, and would fain make it
the general rule among all nations. "Who are the poor? What
are they made for? What, indeed, but to toil and slave that men
of education and good family may enjoy themselves? Out on the
knaves for prating about their rights! A set of wily demagogues
are stirring them up, because they get a living by agitation.
Work them like horses, and feed them like dogs; and if they dare
complain, send them to the prison or let them die in the
workhouse." There is still too much of this wicked talk
abroad, and, although the working classes have their faults, and
many of them very grave and serious ones too, yet there is a
race of men who habitually speak of them as if they were an
inferior order of animals. God forgive the wretches who thus
talk. They speak loftily. Their high heads, like tall chimneys,
vomit black smoke. Big talk streams from them, their language is
colossal, their magniloquence ridiculous. They are Sir Oracle in
every case, they speak as from the judges' bench, and expect all
the world to stand in awe of them.
Verse 9. They set their mouth against the heavens.
Against God himself they aim their blasphemies. One would think,
to hear them, that they were demigods themselves, and held their
heads above the clouds, for they speak down upon other men as
from a sublime elevation peculiar to themselves. Yet they might
let God alone, for their pride will make them enemies enough
without their defying him. And their tongue walketh through the
earth. Leisurely and habitually they traverse the whole world to
find victims for their slander and abuse. Their tongue prowls in
every corner far and near, and spares none. They affect to be
universal censors, and are in truth perpetual vagrants. Like the
serpent, they go nowhere without leaving their slime behind
them; if there were another Eden to be found, its innocence and
beauty would not preserve it from their filthy trail. They
themselves are, beyond measure, worthy of all honour, and all
the rest of mankind, except a few of their parasites, are
knaves, fools, hypocrites, or worse. When these men's tongues
are out for a walk, they are unhappy who meet them, for they
push all travellers into the kennel: it is impossible altogether
to avoid them, for in both hemispheres they take their
perambulations, both on land and sea they make their voyages.
The city is not free from them, and the village swarms with
them. They waylay men in the king's highway, but they are able
to hunt across country, too. Their whip has a long lash, and
reaches both high and low.
Verse 10. Therefore his people return hither.
God's people are driven to fly to his throne for shelter; the
doggish tongues fetch home the sheep to the Shepherd. The saints
come again, and again, to their Lord, laden with complaints on
account of the persecutions which they endure from these proud
and graceless men. And waters of a full cup are wrung out to
them. Though beloved of God, they have to drain the bitter cup;
their sorrows are as full as the wicked man's prosperity. It
grieves them greatly to see the enemies of God so high, and
themselves so low, yet the Lord does not alter his
dispensations, but continues still to chasten his children, and
indulge his foes. The medicine cup is not for rebels, but for
those whom Jehovah Rophi loves.
Verse 11. And they say, How doth God know? Thus
dare the ungodly speak. They flatter themselves that their
oppressions and persecutions are unobserved of heaven. If there
be a God, is he not too much occupied with other matters to know
what is going on upon this world? So they console themselves if
judgments be threatened. Boasting of their own knowledge, they
yet dare to ask, Is there knowledge in the Most High? Well were
they called foolish. A God, and not know? This is a solecism in
language, a madness of thought. Such, however, is the acted
insanity of the graceless theists of this age; theists in name,
because avowed infidelity is disreputable, but atheists in
practice beyond all question. I could not bring my mind to
accept the rendering of many expositors by which this verse is
referred to tried and perplexed saints. I am unable to conceive
that such language could flow from their lips, even under the
most depressing perplexities.
Verse 12. Behold, these are the ungodly, who
prosper in the world. Look! See! Consider! Here is the
standing enigma! The crux of Providence! The stumblingblock of
faith! Here are the unjust rewarded and indulged, and that not
for a day or an hour, but in perpetuity. From their youth up
these men, who deserve perdition, revel in prosperity. They
deserve to be hung in chains, and chains are hung about their
necks; they are worthy to be chased from the world, and yet the
world becomes all their own. Poor purblind sense cries, Behold
this! Wonder, and be amazed, and make this square with
providential justice, if you can. They increase in riches; or,
strength. Both wealth and health are their dowry. No bad debts
and bankruptcies weigh them down, but robbery and usury pile up
their substance. Money runs to money, gold pieces fly in flocks;
the rich grow richer, the proud grow prouder. Lord, how is this?
Thy poor servants, who become yet poorer, and groan under their
burdens, are made to wonder at thy mysterious ways.
Verse 13. Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain.
Poor Asaph! he questions the value of holiness when its wages
are paid in the coin of affliction. With no effect has he been
sincere; no advantage has come to him through his purity, for
the filthy hearted are exalted and fed on the fat of the land.
Thus foolishly will the wisest of men argue, when faith is
napping. Asaph was a seer, but he could not see when reason left
him in the dark; even seers must have the sunlight of revealed
truth to see by, or they grope like the blind. In the presence
of temporal circumstances, the pure in heart may seem to have
cleansed themselves altogether in vain, but we must not judge
after the sight of the eyes. And washed my hands in innocency.
Asaph had been as careful of his hands as of his heart; he had
guarded his outer as well as his inner life, and it was a bitter
thought that all of this was useless, and left him in even a
worse condition than foul handed, black hearted worldlings.
Surely the horrible character of the conclusion must have helped
to render it untenable; it could not be so while God was God. It
smelt too strong of a lie to be tolerated long in the good man's
soul; hence, in a verse or two, we see his mind turning in
another direction.
Verse 14. For all the day long have I been plagued.
He was smitten from the moment he woke to the time he went to
bed. His griefs were not only continued, but renewed with every
opening day. And chastened every morning. This was a
vivid contrast to the lot of the ungodly. There were crowns for
the reprobates and crosses for the elect. Strange that the
saints should sigh and the sinners sing. Rest was given to the
disturbers, and yet peace was denied to the peace makers. The
downcast seer was in a muse and a maze. The affairs of mankind
appeared to him to be in a fearful tangle; how could it be
permitted by a just ruler that things should be so turned upside
down, and the whole course of justice dislocated.
Verse 15. If I say, I will speak thus. It is
not always wise to speak one's thoughts; if they remain within,
they will only injure ourselves; but once uttered, their
mischief may be great. From such a man as the psalmist, the
utterance which his discontent suggested would have been a heavy
blow and deep discouragement to the whole brotherhood. He dared
not, therefore, come to such a resolution, but paused, and would
not decide to declare his feelings. It was well, for in his case
second thoughts were by far the best. I should offend against
the generation of thy children. I should scandalise them, grieve
them, and perhaps cause them to offend also. We ought to look at
the consequences of our speech to all others, and especially to
the church of God. Woe unto the man by whom offence cometh!
Rash, undigested, ill considered speech, is responsible for much
of the heart burning and trouble in the churches. Would to God
that, like Asaph, men would bridle their tongues. Where we have
any suspicion of being wrong, it is better to be silent; it can
do no harm to be quiet, and it may do serious damage to spread
abroad our hastily formed opinions. To grieve the children of
God by appearing to act perfidiously and betray the truth, is a
sin so heinous, that if the consciences of heresy mongers were
not seared as with a hot iron, they would not be so glib as they
are to publish abroad their novelties. Expressions which convey
the impression that the Lord acts unjustly or unkindly,
especially if they fall from the lips of men of known character
and experience, are as dangerous as firebrands among stubble;
they are used for blasphemous purposes by the ill disposed; and
the timid and trembling are sure to be cast down thereby, and to
find reason for yet deeper distress of soul.
Verse 16. When I thought to know this, it was too
painful for me. The thought of scandalising the family of
God he could not bear, and yet his inward thoughts seethed and
fermented, and caused an intolerable anguish within. To speak
might have relieved one sorrow, but, as it would have created
another, he forbore so dangerous a remedy; yet this did not
remove the first pangs, which grew even worse and worse, and
threatened utterly to overwhelm him. A smothered grief is hard
to endure. The triumph of conscience which compels us to keep
the wolf hidden beneath our own garments, does not forbid its
gnawing at our vitals. Suppressed fire in the bones rages more
fiercely than if it could gain a vent at the mouth. Those who
know Asaph's dilemma will pity him as none others can.
Verse 17. Until I went into the sanctuary of God.
His mind entered the eternity where God dwells as in a holy
place, he left the things of sense for the things invisible, his
heart gazed within the veil, he stood where the thrice holy God
stands. Thus he shifted his point of view, and apparent disorder
resolved itself into harmony. The motions of the planets appear
most discordant from this world which is itself a planet; they
appear as "progressive, retrograde, and standing still;
"but could we fix our observatory in the sun, which is the
centre of the system, we should perceive all the planets moving
in perfect circle around the head of the great solar family.
Then understood I their end. He had seen too little to be able
to judge; a wider view changed his judgment; he saw with his
mind's enlightened eye the future of the wicked, and his soul
was in debate no longer as to the happiness of their condition.
No envy gnaws now at his heart, but a holy horror both of their
impending doom, and of their present guilt, fills his soul. He
recoils from being dealt with in the same manner as the proud
sinners, whom just now he regarded with admiration.
Verse 18. The Psalmist's sorrow had culminated, not in
the fact that the ungodly prospered, but that God had arranged
it so: had it happened by mere chance, he would have wondered,
but could not have complained; but how the arranger of all
things could so dispense his temporal favours, was the vexatious
question. Here, to meet the case, he sees that the divine hand
purposely placed these men in prosperous and eminent
circumstances, not with the intent to bless them but the very
reverse. Surely thou didst set them in slippery places. Their
position was dangerous, and, therefore, God did not set his
friends there but his foes alone. He chose, in infinite love, a
rougher but safer standing for his own beloved. Thou castedst
them down into destruction. The same hand which led them up to
their Tarpeian rock, hurled them down from it. They were but
elevated by judicial arrangement for the fuller execution of
their doom. Eternal punishment will be all the more terrible in
contrast with the former prosperity of those who are ripening
for it. Taken as a whole, the case of the ungodly is horrible
throughout; and their worldly joy instead of diminishing the
horror, actually renders the effect the more awful, even as the
vivid lightning amid the storm does not brighten but intensify
the thick darkness which lowers around. The ascent to the fatal
gallows of Haman was an essential ingredient in the terror of
the sentence—"hang him thereon." If the wicked had
not been raised so high they could not have fallen so low.
Verse 19. How are they brought into desolation, as
in a moment! This is an exclamation of godly wonder at the
suddenness and completeness of the sinners' overthrow. Headlong
is their fall; without warning, without escape, without hope of
future restoration! Despite their golden chains, and goodly
apparel, death stays not for manners but hurries them away; and
stern justice unbribed by their wealth hurls them into
destruction. They are utterly consumed with terrors. They have
neither root nor branch left. They cease to exist among the sons
of men, and, in the other world, there is nothing left of their
former glory. Like blasted trees, consumed by the lightning,
they are monuments of vengeance; like the ruins of Babylon they
reveal, in the greatness of their desolation, the judgments of
the Lord against all those who unduly exalt themselves. The
momentary glory of the graceless is in a moment effaced, their
loftiness is in an instant consumed.
Verse 20. As a dream when one awaketh; so, O Lord,
when thou awakest, thou shalt despise their image. They owe
their existence and prosperity to the forbearance of God, which
the psalmist compares to a sleep; but as a dream vanishes so
soon as a man awakes, so the instant the Lord begins to exercise
his justice and call men before him, the pomp and prosperity of
proud transgressors shall melt away. When God awakes to
judgment, they who despise him shall be despised; they are
already "such stuff as dreams are made of, "but then
the baseless fabric shall not leave a wreck behind. Let them
flaunt the little hour, poor unsubstantial sons of dreams; they
will soon be gone; when the day breaketh, and the Lord awake as
a mighty man out of his sleep, they will vanish away. Who cares
for the wealth of dreamland? Who indeed but fools? Lord, leave
us not to the madness which covets unsubstantial wealth, and
ever teach us thine own true wisdom.
Verse 21. The holy poet here reviews his inward
struggle and awards himself censure for his folly. His pain had
been intense; he says, Thus my heart was grieved. It was a deep
seated sorrow, and one which penetrated his inmost being.
Alexander reads it, "My heart is soured." His spirit
had become embittered; he had judged in a harsh, crabbed, surly
manner. He had become atrabilious, full of black bile,
melancholy, and choleric; he had poisoned his own life at the
fountain head, and made all its streams to be bitter as gall.
And I was pricked in my reins. He was as full of pain as a man
afflicted with renal disease; he had pierced himself through
with many sorrows; his hard thoughts were like so many calculi
in his kidneys; he was utterly wretched and woebegone, and all
through his own reflections. O miserable philosophy, which
stretches the mind on the rack, and breaks it on the wheel! O
blessed faith, which drives away the inquisitors, and sets the
captives free!
Verse 22. So foolish was I. He, though a saint
of God, had acted as if he had been one of the fools whom God
abhorreth. Had he not even envied them?—and what is that but
to aspire to be like them? The wisest of men have enough folly
in them to ruin them unless grace prevents. And ignorant. He had
acted as if he knew nothing, had babbled like an idiot, had
uttered the very drivel of a witless loon. He did not know how
sufficiently to express his sense of his own fatuity. I was as a
beast before thee. Even in God's presence he had been brutish,
and worse than a beast. As the grass eating ox has but this
present life, and can only estimate things thereby, and by the
sensual pleasure which they afford, even so had the psalmist
judged happiness by this mortal life, by outward appearances,
and by fleshly enjoyments. Thus he had, for the time, renounced
the dignity of an immortal spirit, and, like a mere animal,
judged after the sight of the eyes. We should be very loath to
call an inspired man a beast, and yet, penitence made him call
himself so; nay, he uses the plural, by way of emphasis, and as
if he were worse than any one beast. It was but an evidence of
his true wisdom that he was so deeply conscious of his own
folly. We see how bitterly good men bewail mental wanderings;
they make no excuses for themselves, but set their sins in the
pillory, and cast the vilest reproaches upon them. O for grace
to detest the very appearance of evil!
Verse 23. Nevertheless I am continually with thee.
He does not give up his faith, though he confesses his folly.
Sin may distress us, and yet we may be in communion with God. It
is sin beloved and delighted in which separates us from the
Lord, but when we bewail it heartily, the Lord will not withdraw
from us. What a contrast is here in this and the former verse!
He is as a beast, and yet continually with God. Our double
nature, as it always causes conflict, so is it a continuous
paradox: the flesh allies us with the brutes, and the spirit
affiliates us to God. Thou hast holden me by my right hand. With
love dost thou embrace me, with honour ennoble me, with power
uphold me. He had almost fallen, and yet was always upheld. He
was a riddle to himself, as he had been a wonder unto many. This
verse contains the two precious mercies of communion and
upholding, and as they were both given to one who confessed
himself a fool, we also may hope to enjoy them.
Verse 24. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel.
I have done with choosing my own way, and trying to pick a path
amid the jungle of reason. He yielded not only the point in
debate, but all intentions of debating, and he puts his hand
into that of the great Father, asking to be led, and agreeing to
follow. Our former mistakes are a blessing, when they drive us
to this. The end of our own wisdom is the beginning of our being
wise. With Him is counsel, and when we come to him, we are sure
to be led aright. And afterward. "Afterward!" Blessed
word. We can cheerfully put up with the present, when we foresee
the future. What is around us just now is of small consequence,
compared with afterward. Receive me to glory. Take me up into
thy splendour of joy. Thy guidance shall conduct me to this
matchless terminus. Glory shall I have, and thou thyself wilt
admit me into it. As Enoch was not, for God took him, so all the
saints are taken up—received up into glory.
Verse 25. Whom have I in heaven but thee? Thus,
then, he turns away from the glitter which fascinated him to the
true gold which was his real treasure. He felt that his God was
better to him than all the wealth, health, honour, and peace,
which he had so much envied in the worldling; yea, He was not
only better than all on earth, but more excellent than all in
heaven. He bade all things else go, that he might be filled with
his God. And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.
No longer should his wishes ramble, no other object should tempt
them to stray; henceforth, the Ever living One should be his all
in all.
Verse 26. My flesh and my heart faileth. They
had failed him already, and he had almost fallen; they would
fail him in the hour of death, and, if he relied upon them, they
would fail him at once. But God is the strength of my heart, and
my portion for ever. His God would not fail him, either as
protection or a joy. His heart would be kept up by divine love,
and filled eternally with divine glory. After having been driven
far out to sea, Asaph casts anchor in the old port. We shall do
well to follow his example. There is nothing desirable save God;
let us, then, desire only him. All other things must pass away;
let our hearts abide in him, who alone abideth for ever.
Verse 27. For, lo, they that are far from thee
shall perish. We must be near God to live; to be far off by
wicked works is death. Thou hast destroyed all them that go a
whoring from thee. If we pretend to be the Lord's servants, we
must remember that he is a jealous God, and requires spiritual
chastity from all his people. Offences against conjugal vows are
very offensive, and all sins against God have the same element
in them, and they are visited with the direst punishments. Mere
heathens, who are far from God, perish in due season; but those
who, being his professed people, act unfaithfully to their
profession, shall come under active condemnation, and be crushed
beneath his wrath. We read examples of this in Israel's history;
may we never create fresh instances in our own persons.
Verse 28. But it is good for me to draw near to
God. Had he done so at first he would not have been immersed
in such affliction; when he did so he escaped from his dilemma,
and if he continued to do so he would not fall into the same
evil again. The greater our nearness to God, the less we are
affected by the attractions and distractions of earth. Access
into the most holy place is a great privilege, and a cure for a
multitude of ills. It is good for all saints, it is good for me
in particular; it is always good, and always will be good for me
to approach the greatest good, the source of all good, even God
himself. I have put my trust in the Lord God. He dwells upon the
glorious name of the Lord Jehovah, and avows it as the basis of
his faith. Faith is wisdom; it is the key of enigmas, the clue
of mazes, and the pole star of pathless seas. Trust and you will
know. That I may declare all thy works. He who believes shall
understand, and so be able to teach. Asaph hesitated to utter
his evil surmisings, but he has no diffidence in publishing
abroad a good matter. God's ways are the more admired the more
they are known. He who is ready to believe the goodness of God
shall always see fresh goodness to believe in, and he who is
willing to declare the works of God shall never be silent for
lack of wonders to declare.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Whole Psalm. The Seventy-third Psalm is a very
striking record of the mental struggle which an eminently pious
Jew underwent, when he contemplated the respective conditions of
the righteous and the wicked. Fresh from the conflict, he
somewhat abruptly opens the Psalm with the confident enunciation
of the truth of which victory over doubt had now made him more
and more intelligently sure than ever, that God is good to
Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. And then he
relates the most fatal shock which his faith has received, when
he contrasted the prosperity of the wicked, who, though they
proudly contemned God and man, prospered in the world and
increased in riches, with his own lot, who, though he had
cleansed his heart and washed his hands in innocency, had been plagued
all the day long and chastened every morning. The place
where his doubts were removed and his tottering faith
reestablished, was the sanctuary of God. God himself was
the teacher. What, then, did he teach? By what divinely imparted
considerations was the psalmist reassured? Whatever is the
proper rendering of Ps 73:4; whether, There are no sorrows
(tending) to their death, or, There are no sorrows until
their death, —their whole life to the very last is one
unchequered course of happiness—that verse conveys to us the
psalmist's mistaken estimate of the prosperity of the
wicked, before he went unto the sanctuary of God. The true
estimate, at which he afterwards arrived, is found in Ps
73:18-20. Now, admitting (what, by the way, is somewhat
difficult of belief, inasmuch as the sudden and fearful temporal
destruction of all or even the most prosperous,
cannot be made out) that the end of these men means only and
always their end in this world, we come to the conclusion
that, in the case of the wicked, this Psalm does not plainly and
undeniably teach that punishment awaits them after death; but
only that, in estimating their condition, it is necessary, in
order to vindicate the justice of God, to take in their whole
career, and set over against their great prosperity the sudden
and fearful reverses and destruction which they frequently
encounter. But, in turning to the other side of the comparison,
the case of the righteous, we are not met by the thought,
that as the prosperity of the wicked is but the preparation for
their ruin, the raising higher the tower that the fall may be
the greater, so the adversity of the godly is but an
introduction to worldly wealth and honour. That though is not
foreign to the Old Testament writers. "Evildoers shall be
cut off; "writes one of them, "but those who wait upon
the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. For yet a little while,
and the wicked shall not be: yea, thou shalt diligently consider
his place, and it shall not be. But the meek shall inherit the
earth; and shall delight themselves in the abundance of
peace." Ps 37:9-11. But it is not so much as hinted at
here. The daily chastening may continue, flesh and heart may
fail, but God is good to Israel notwithstanding: he is their
portion, their guide, their help while they live, and he will
take them to his glorious presence when they die. Nevertheless
I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right
hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward
receive me to glory. The New Testament has nothing higher or
more spiritual than this. The reference of the last clause to
happiness after death is, I believe, generally acknowledged by
Jewish commentators. They left it to the candour of Christian
expositors to doubt or deny it. Thomas Thompson Perowne, in
"The Essential Coherence of the Old and New
Testaments." 1858.
Whole Psalm. In Psalm Seventy-three the soul looks out,
and reasons on what it sees there; namely, successful wickedness
and suffering righteousness. What is the conclusion? "I
have cleansed my heart in vain." So much for looking about.
In Psalm Seventy-seven the soul looks in, and reasons on
what it finds there. What is the conclusion? "Hath God
forgotten to be gracious?" So much for looking in. Where,
then, should we look? Look up, straight up, and believe
what you see there. What will be the conclusion? You will
understand the "end" of man, and trace the "way"
of God. From "Things New and Old, a Monthly
Magazine." 1858.
Whole Psalm. In this Psalm, the psalmist (Asaph)
relates the great difficulty which existed in his own mind, from
the consideration of the wicked. He observes (Ps 73:2-3), As
for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh
slipped. For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the
prosperity of the wicked. In the fourth and following verses
he informs us what, in the wicked, was his temptation. In the
first place, he observed, that they were prosperous, and
all things went well with them. He then observed their behaviour
in their prosperity, and the use which they made of it; and that
God, notwithstanding such abuse, continued their
prosperity. Then he tells us by what means he was helped out of
this difficulty, viz., by going into the sanctuary (Ps
73:16-17), and proceeds to inform us what considerations they
were which helped him, viz.,—
1. The consideration of the miserable end of wicked
men. However they prosper for the present, yet they come to a
woeful end at last (Ps 73:18-20).
2. The consideration of the blessed end of the saints.
Although the saints, while they live, may be afflicted, yet they
come to a happy end at last (Ps 73:21-24).
3. The consideration that the godly have a much better
portion than the wicked, even though they have no other
portion but God; as in Ps 73:25-26.
Though the wicked are in prosperity, and are not in trouble
as other men; yet the godly, though in affliction, are in a
state infinitely better, because they have God for their
portion. They need desire nothing else: he that hath God hath
all. Thus the psalmist professes the sense and apprehension
which he had of things: Whom have I in heaven but thee? and
there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. In the
twenty-fourth verse the psalmist takes notice how the saints are
happy in God, both when they are in this world and also when
they are taken to another. They are blessed in God in this
world, in that he guides them by his counsel; and when he
takes them out of it they are still happy, in that he
receives them to glory. This probably led him to declare
that he desired no other portion, either in this world or
in that to come, either in heaven or upon earth. Jonathan
Edwards.
Verse 1. Truly: it's but a particle; but the
smallest filings of gold are gathered up. Little pearls are of
great price. And this small particle is not of small use, being
rightly applied and improved. First, take it (as our translators
gave it us) as a note of asseveration. Truly. It's a word
of faith, opposite to the psalmist's sense and Satan's
injections. Whatsoever sense sees or feels, whatsoever Satan
insinuates and says; yet precious faith with confidence asserts,
Truly, verily God is good. He is not only good in word,
but in deed also. Not only seemingly good, but certainly good.
Secondly, consider it as an adversative particle, Yet, so
our old translation. Ainsworth renders it, yet surely;
taking in the former and this together. And then the sense runs
thus: How ill soever things go in the world, how ill soever it
fares with God's church and people amongst men, yet God is
good to Israel. Thirdly, some conceive that the word carries
admiration. Oh, how good is God to Israel. Where
expressions and apprehensions fail, there the psalmist takes up
God's providence with admiration. Oh, how wonderfully, how
transcendently good is God to Israel! This yet (as I
conceive) hath a threefold reference to the body of the Psalm.
For as interpreters observe, though these words are set in the
beginning, yet they suggest the conclusion of the psalmist's
conflict. And the psalmist seems to begin somewhat abruptly. Yet
God is good. But having filled his thoughts with his former
follies and fears, and now seeing himself in a safe condition
both for the present and the future, he is full of confidence
and comfort; and that which was the strongest and chiefest in
his heart now breaks our first: Yet God is good.
1. This yet relates unto his sufferings, Ps 73:14: All
the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning.
Notwithstanding the variety and frequency of the saint's
sufferings, yet God is good. Though sorrow salutes them
every morning at their first awaking, and trouble attends them
to bed at night, yet God is good. Though temptations many
and terrible make batteries and breeches upon their spirits, yet
God is good to Israel.
2. This yet reflects upon his sinning, the fretting
and wrangling of his distempered heart (Ps 73:2-3,21). Though
sinful motions do mutiny in the soul against God's wise
administration, though there be foolish, proud quarrelling with
divine providence, and inexcusable distrust of his faithful
promises; though fretfulness at others prosperity and discontent
at their own adversity, yet God is good. Israel's sinful
distempers cause not the Almighty to change the course of his
accustomed goodness. While corruptions are kept from breaking
out into scandal, while the soul contends against them, and is
humbled for them (as the psalmist was), this conclusion must be
maintained: yet God is good.
3. This yet looks back upon his misgivings. There had
been distrustful despondency upon the good man's heart. For from
both the premises (viz., his sufferings and sinning) he had
inferred this conclusion, Ps 73:13, Verily I have cleansed my
heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. As if he
had said, "I have kept fasts, observed Sabbaths, heard
sermons, made prayers, received sacraments, given alms, avoided
sins, resisted temptations, withstood lusts, appeared for Christ
and his cause and servants in vain": yea, his heart had
added an asseveration (verily) to this faithless opinion,
but now he is of another mind: Yet God is good. The
administrations of God are not according to the sad surmises of
his people's misgiving hearts. For, though they through
diffidence are apt to give up their holy labours as lost, and
all their conscientious care and carriage as utterly cast away; yet
God is good to Israel. Simeon Ash, in a Sermon entitled
"God's Incomparable Goodness unto Israel." 1647.
Verse 1. David opens the Psalm abruptly, and from this
we learn what is worthy of particular notice, that, before he
broke forth into this language, his mind had been agitated with
many doubts and conflicting suggestions. As a brave and valiant
champion, he had been exercised in very painful struggles and
temptations; but, after long and arduous exertion, he at length
succeeded in shaking off all perverse imaginations, and came to
the conclusion that yet God is gracious to his servants,
and the faithful guardian of their welfare. Thus these words
contain a tacit contrast between the unhallowed imaginations
suggested to him by Satan, and the testimony in favour of true
religion with which he now strengthens himself, denouncing, as
it were, the judgment of the flesh, in giving place to misgiving
thoughts with respect to the providence of God. We see, then,
how emphatic is this exclamation of the psalmist. He does not
ascend into the chair to dispute after the manner of the
philosophers, and to deliver his discourse in a style of studied
oratory; but as if he had escaped from hell, he proclaims with a
loud voice, and with impassioned feeling, that he had obtained
the victory. John Calvin.
Verse 1. (first clause).
Yet sure the gods are good: I would think so,
If they would give me leave!
But virtue in distress, and vice in triumph,
Make atheists of mankind. Dryden.
Verse 1. God is good. There is a beauty in the
name appropriated by the Saxon nations to the Deity, unequalled
except by his most reverential Hebrew appellation. They called
him "GOD, "which is literally "THE GOOD."
The same word thus signifying the Deity, and his most endearing
quality. Turner.
Verse 1. God is good. Let the devil and his
instruments say what they will to the contrary, I will never
believe them; I have said it before, and I see no reason to
reverse my sentence: Truly God is good. Though sometimes
he may hide his face for awhile, yet he doth that in
faithfulness and love; there is kindness in his very scourges,
and love bound up in his rods; he is good to Israel: do but mark
it first or last: "The true Israelite, in whom there is no
guile, shall be refreshed by his Saviour." The Israelite
that wrestles with tears with God, and values his love above the
whole world, that will not be put off without his Father's
blessing, shall have it with a witness: "He shall reap in
joy though he may at present sow in tears. Even to such as are
of a clean heart." The false hearted hypocrite, indeed,
that gives God only his tongue and lip, cap and knee, but
reserves his heart and love for sin and the world, that hath
much of compliment, but nothing of affection and reality, why
let such a one never expect, while in such a state, to taste
those reviving comforts that I have been treating of; while he
drives such a trade, he must not expect God's company. James
Janeway. 1636-1674.
Verse 1. Even to such as are of a clean heart.
Purity of heart is the characteristic note of God's people.
Heart purity denominates us the Israel of God; it makes us of
Israel indeed; "but all are not Israel which are of
Israel." Ro 9:6. Purity of heart is the jewel which is hung
only upon the elect. As chastity distinguishes a virtuous woman
from an harlot, so the true saint is distinguished from the
hypocrite by his heart purity. This is like the nobleman's star
or garter, which is a peculiar ensign of honour, differing him
from the vulgar; when the bright star of purity shineth in a
Christian's heart it doth distinguish him from the formal
professor. . . . God is good to the pure in heart. We all
desire that God should be good to us; it is the sick man's
prayer: "The Lord be good to me." But how is God good
to them? Two ways.
1. To them that are pure all things are sanctified, Tit 1:15:
"To the pure all things are pure; " estate is
sanctified, relations are sanctified; as the temple did sanctify
the gold and the altar did sanctify the offering. To the unclean
nothing is clean; their table is a snare, their temple devotion
a sin. There is a curse entailed upon a wicked man (De 28:16),
but holiness removeth the curse, and cuts off the entail:
"to the pure all things are pure."
2. The clean hearted have all things work for their good. Ro
8:28. Mercies and afflictions shall turn to their good; the most
poisonous drugs shall be medicinal; the most cross providence
shall carry on the design of their salvation. Who, then, would
not be clean on heart? Thomas Watson.
Verse 2. But as for me. Literally, it is, And
I, which ought to be read with emphasis; for David means
that those temptations which cast an affront upon the honour of
God, and overwhelm faith, not only assail the common class of
men, or those who are endued only with some small measure of the
fear of God, but that he himself, who ought to have profited
above all others in the school of God, had experienced his own
share of them. By thus setting himself forth as an example, he
designed the more effectually to arouse and incite us to take
great heed to ourselves. John Calvin.
Verse 2. Let such also as fear God and begin to look
aside on the things of this world, know it will be hard even for
them to hold out in faith and in the fear of God in time of
trial. Remember the example of David, he was a man that had
spent much time in travelling towards heaven; yet, looking but a
little aside upon the glittering show of this world, had very
near lost his way, his feet were almost gone, his steps had well
nigh slipped. Edward Elton. 1620.
Verse 2. He tells us that his feet were almost
gone. The word signifies to bow, or bend under
one. My steps had well nigh slipped, or poured out, kept
not within their true bounds; but like water poured
out and not confined, runs aside. Though these expressions
be metaphorical, and seemingly dark and cloudy, yet they clearly
represent unto us this truth, that his understanding was misguided,
his judgment was corrupt, his affections
disordered, turbulent, and guilty of too great a passion;
and this, the consequence (Ps 73:22 in which he acknowledges
himself ignorant, foolish, and brutish) do
sufficiently evidence. Our understanding and judgment
may well bear the comparison for feet, for as the one, in
our motion, supports the body, so the other, in human
actions and all employments, underprops the soul. The affections,
also, are as paths and steps; as these of the feet,
so these are the prints and expressions of the judgment
and mind. Edward Parry, in "David Restored."
1660.
Verse 2. Almost gone. There is to be noted that
the prophet said he was almost gone, and not altogether.
Here is the presence, providence, strength, safeguard, and
keeping of man by Almighty God, marvellously set forth. That
although we are tempted and brought even to the very point to
perpetrate and do all mischief, yet he stays us and keeps us,
that the temptation shall not overcome us. John Hooper.
1495-1555.
Verse 2-14. But the prosperity of wicked and
unjust men, both in public and in private life, who, though not
leading a happy life in reality, are yet thought to do so in
common opinion, being praised improperly in the works of poets,
and all kinds of books, may lead you—and I am not surprised at
your mistake—to a belief that the gods care nothing for the
affairs of men. These matters disturb you. Being led astray by
foolish thoughts, and yet not able to think ill of the gods, you
have arrived at your present state of mind, so as to think that
the gods to indeed exist, but that they despise and neglect
human affairs. Plato.
Verse 8. They are corrupt. Prosperity, in an
irreligious heart, breeds corruption, which from thence
is emitted by the breath in conversation, to infect and taint
the minds of others. George Horne.
Verse 8. They speak wickedly concerning oppression.
Indeed, we see that wicked men, after having for some time got
everything to prosper according to their desires, cast off all
shame, and are at no pains to conceal themselves, when about to
commit iniquity, but loudly proclaim their own turpitude.
"What!" they will say, "is it not in my power to
deprive you of all that you possess, and even to cut your
throat?" Robbers, it is true, can do the same thing; but
then they hide themselves for fear. These giants, or rather
inhuman monsters, of whom David speaks, on the contrary not only
imagine that they are exempted from subjection to any law, but,
unmindful of their own weakness, foam furiously, as if there
were no distinction between good and evil, between right and
wrong. John Calvin.
Verse 15. I should offend, etc. That is, I do
God's church a great deal of injury, which hath always been
under afflictions, if I think or say, that all her piety hath
been without hope, or her hope without effect. Others understand
it to mean, I deceive the generation, viz., I propound a false
doctrine unto them, which is apt to seduce them. Others,
"behold the generation, "etc.; that is to say,
notwithstanding all afflictions, it is certain that thou art a
Father to the Church only; which is sufficient to make me judge
well of these afflictions; I have done ill, and confess I have
erred in this my rash judgment. John Diodati.
Verse 17. By the sanctuaries of God some, even
among the Hebrews, understand the celestial mansions in which
the spirits of the just and angels dwell; as if David had said,
This was a painful thing in my sight, until I came to
acknowledge in good earnest that men are not created to flourish
for a short time in this world, and to luxuriate in pleasures
while in it, but that their condition here is that of pilgrims,
whose aspirations, during their earthly pilgrimage, should be
towards heaven. I readily admit that no man can form a right
judgment of the providence of God but he who elevates his mind
above the earth; but it is more simple and natural to understand
the word sanctuary as denoting celestial doctrine. As the
book of the law was laid up in the sanctuary, from which the
oracles of heaven were to be obtained, that is to say, the
declaration of the will of God; and as this was the true way of
acquiring profitable instruction, David very properly puts entering
into the sanctuaries for coming to the school of God,
as if his meaning were this: Until God become my schoolmaster,
and until I learn by his word what otherwise my mind, when I
come to consider the government of the world, cannot comprehend,
I stop short all at once, and understand nothing about the
subject. When, therefore, we are here told that men are unfit
for contemplating the arrangements of divine providence, until
they obtain wisdom elsewhere than from themselves, how can we
attain to wisdom but by submissively receiving what God teaches
us, both by his word and by his Holy Spirit? David by the word sanctuary
alludes to the external manner of teaching, which God had
appointed among his ancient people; but along with the word he
comprehends the secret illumination of the Holy Spirit. John
Calvin.
Verse 17. The joy of a wicked man is imperfect in
itself, because it is not so as it seems to be, or it is not
sincerely so. It is not pure gold, but alloyed and adulterated
with sorrow. It may look well to one that is blear eyed, but it
will not pass for good to one that looks well to it. Let any one
consider and weigh it well in the balance of the sanctuary,
whither David went to fetch the scales for the same purpose, and
he will find it too light by many grains. It is not so inside as
it is without; no more than a mud wall that is plastered with
white, or a stinking grave covered with a glorious monument. It
is upouloz, looking fair and smooth, like true joy; as a wounded
member that is healed too soon (and you know how God by the
prophet complains of the hurt of his people that was slightly
healed, Jer 6:14), and it looks as well as any other part of the
body; but, underneath, there is still a sore, which festers so
much more, and is the worse, for that the outside is so well.
Where pretences, and cloaks, and disguises are the fairest;
there the knavery, and the poison, and the evil concealed are
usually foulest. Zachary Bogan (1625-1659), in
"Meditations of the Mirth of a Christian Life."
Verse 17. Then understood I. There is a famous
story of providence in Bradwardine to this purpose. A certain
hermit that was much tempted, and was utterly unsatisfied
concerning the providence of God, resolved to journey from place
to place till he met with some who could satisfy him. An angel
in the shape of a man joined himself with him as he was
journeying, telling him that he was sent from God to satisfy him
in his doubts of providence. The first night they lodged at the
house of a very holy man, and they spent their time in
discourses of heaven, and praises of God, and were entertained
with a great deal of freedom and joy. In the morning, when they
departed, the angel took with him a great cup of gold. The next
night they came to the house of another holy man, who made them
very welcome, and exceedingly rejoiced in their society and
discourse; the angel, notwithstanding, at his departure killed
an infant in the cradle, which was his only son, he having been
for many years before childless, and, therefore, was a very fond
father of this child. The third night they came to another
house, where they had like free entertainment as before. The
master of the family had a steward whom he highly prized, and
told them how happy he accounted himself in having such a
faithful servant. Next morning he sent his steward with them
part of their way, to direct them therein. As they were going
over the bridge the angel flung the steward into the river and
drowned him. The last night they came to a very wicked man's
house, where they had very untoward entertainment, yet the
angel, next morning, gave him the cup of gold. All this being
done, the angel asked the hermit whether he understood those
things? He answered, his doubts of providence were increased,
not resolved, for he could not understand why he should deal so
hardly with those holy men, who received them with so much love
and joy, and yet give such a gift to that wicked man who used
them so unworthily. The angel said, I will now expound these
things unto you. The first house where we came the master of it
was a holy man; yet, drinking in that cup every morning, it
being too large, it did somewhat unfit him for holy duties,
though not so much that others or himself did perceive it; so I
took it away, since it is better for him to lose the cup of gold
than his temperance. The master of the family where we lay the
second night was a man given much to prayer and meditation, and
spent much time in holy duties, and was very liberal to the poor
all the time he was childless; but as soon as he had a son he
grew so fond of it, and spent so much time in playing with it,
that he exceedingly neglected his former holy exercise, and gave
but little to the poor, thinking he could never lay up enough
for his child; therefore I have taken the infant to heaven, and
left him to serve God better upon earth. The steward whom I did
drown had plotted to kill his master the night following; and as
to that wicked man to whom I gave the cup of gold, he was to
have nothing in the other world, I therefore gave him something
in this, which, notwithstanding, will prove a snare to him, for
he will be more intemperate; and "let him that is filthy be
filthy still." The truth of this story I affirm not, but
the moral is very good, for it shows that God is an indulgent
Father to the saints when he most afflicts them; and that when
he sets the wicked on high he sets them also in slippery places,
and their prosperity is their ruin. Pr 1:32. Thomas White, in
"A Treatise of the Power of Godliness." 1658.
Verse 17. Their end. Providence is often
mysterious and a source of perplexity to us. Walking in Hyde
Park one day, I saw a piece of paper on the grass. I picked it
up; it was a part of a letter; the beginning was wanting, the
end was not there; I could make nothing of it. Such is
providence. You cannot see beginning or end, only a part. When
you can see the whole, then the mystery will be unveiled. Thomas
Jones. 1871.
Verse 18. Slippery places. The word in the
original signifies slick, or smooth, as ice or
polished marble, and is from thence by a metaphor used for
flattery. Hence, Abenezra renders it, In locis adulationis
posuisti eos: thou hast set them in places of flattery. Edward
Parry.
Verse 18. They are but exalted, as the shellfish by
the eagle, according to the naturalist, to be thrown down on
some rock and devoured. Their most glorious prosperity is but
like a rainbow, which showeth itself for a little time in all
its gaudy colours, and then vanisheth. The Turks, considering
the unhappy end of their viziers, use this proverb, "He
that is in the greatest office is but a statue of glass."
Wicked men walk on glass or ice, thou hast set them in
slippery places; on a sudden their feet slip—they fall,
and break their necks. George Swinnock.
Verses 18, 20. Their banqueting house is very slippery,
and the feast itself a mere dream. Thomas Adams.
Verse 19. They are utterly consumed with terrors.
Their destruction is not only sudden, but entire; it is like the
breaking in pieces of a potter's vessel, a sherd of which cannot
be gathered up and used; or like the casting of a millstone into
the sea, which will never rise more; and this is done with
terrors, either by terrible judgments inflicted on them from
without, or with terrors inwardly seizing upon their minds and
consciences, as at the time of temporal calamities, or at death,
and certainly at the judgment, when the awful sentence will be
pronounced upon them. See Job 27:20. John Gill.
Verse 19. If thou shouldest live the longest measure
of time that any man hath done, and spend all that time in
nothing but pleasures (which no man ever did but met with some
crosses, afflictions, or sicknesses), but at the evening of this
life, must take up thy lodging in the "everlasting
burnings" and "devouring fire" (Isa 30:14); were
those pleasures answerable to these everlasting burnings? An
English merchant that lived at Dantzic, now with God, told us
this story, and it was true. A friend of his (a merchant also),
upon what grounds I know not, went to a convent, and dined with
some friars. His entertainment was very noble. After he had
dined and seen all, the merchant fell to commending their
pleasant lives: "Yea, "said one of the friars to him,
"we live gallantly indeed, had we anybody to go to hell for
us when we die." Giles Firmin (1617-1617), in "The
Real Christian, or, A Treatise of Effectual Calling."
Verse 20. As a dream when one awaketh. The
conception is rather subtle, but seems to have been shrewdly
penetrated by Shakespeare, who makes the Plantagenet prince
(affecting, perhaps, the airs of a ruler in God's stead) say to
his discarded favourite—
"I have long dreamt of such a kind of man,
So surfeit swelled, so old and so profane,
But being awake I do not despise my dream."
—Henry IV.
For as it is the inertness of the sleeper's will and
intellect that gives reality to the shapes and figments, the
very sentiments and purposes that throng his mind; so it seems,
as it were, to be the negligence and oversight of the Moral
Ruler that makes to prosper the wicked or inane life and
influence. So Paul says, in reference to the polytheism of the
ancient world: "and the times of this ignorance God winked
at." Ac 17:30. C. B. Cayley, in "The Psalms in
Metre." 1860.
Verse 21. Thus my heart was grieved, etc. Two
similitudes are used, by which his grief and indignation or zeal
are described. First, he says his heart boiled over like yeast.
The passion which was stirred up in his thoughts he compares to
the yeast which inflates the whole mass, and causes it to swell
or boil over... The other simile is taken from the internal
pains which calculi produce; I was pricked in my
reins. They who have felt them are aware of the torture, and
there is no need for a long description. It signifies that his
great pain was mingled with indignation, and that this came
fresh upon him as often as he looked upon the prosperity of the
ungodly. Mollerus.
Verse 21. Reins. Before all the other
intestines there are the kidneys (twylb, nefroi), placed on both
sides of the lumbar vertebrae on the hinder wall of the abdomen,
of which the Scripture makes such frequent mention, and in the
most psychically significant manner. It brings the most tender
and the most inward experience of a manifold kind into
association with them. When man is suffering most deeply within,
he is pricked in his kidneys ("reins"). When
fretting affliction overcomes him, his kidneys are cloven
asunder (Job 16:13; compare La 3:13); when he rejoices
profoundly, they exult (Pr 23:16); when he feels himself very
penetratingly warned, they chasten him (Ps 16:7); when he very
earnestly longs, they are consumed away with his body (Job
19:27). As the omniscient and all penetrating knower of the most
secret hidden things of man, God is frequently called (from Ps
7:10 to the Apocalypse) the Trier of the hearts and reins; and
of the ungodly it is said, that God is far from their reins (Jer
12:2), that is, that he, being withdrawn back into himself,
allows not himself to be perceived by them. Franz Delitzsch.
Verse 22. So foolish was I, and ignorant, etc.
Is not a cavilling spirit at the Lord's dispensations bad, both
in its roots and fruits? What are the roots of it but (1)
ignorance; (2) pride, this lifteth up (Heb 2:4); (3) impatience,
or want of waiting on God to see the issues of matters; so in
Jon 4:8-11; (4) forgetfulness who the Lord is, and who man is
that grumbles at his Maker, La 3:39, Ro 9:20. And as for the
fruits, they are none of the best, but bad enough. Men are ready
to flag in duty, yea, to throw it off, Ro 9:13, and Mal 3:14;
yea, in the way to blaspheme God; see Job 2:9 Mal 3:13 Re 16:9. Thomas
Crane, in "A Prospect of Divine Providence." 1672.
Verse 22. I was as a beast before thee. I
permitted my mind to be wholly occupied with sensible things,
like the beasts that perish, and did not look into a future
state, nor did I consider nor submit to the wise designs of an
unerring providence. Adam Clarke.
Verse 22. I was as a beast before thee. The
original has in it no word of comparison; it ought to be rather
translated, I was a very beast before thee, and we are
told that the Hebrew word being in the plural number, gives it a
peculiar emphasis, indicating some monstrous or astonishing
beast. It is the word used by Job which is interpreted
"behemoth, "—"I was a very monster before thee,
"not only a beast, but one of the most brutish of all
beasts, one of the most stubborn and intractable of all beasts.
I think no man can go much lower than this in humble confession.
This is a description of human nature, and of the old man in the
renewed saint which is not to be excelled. C.H.S.
Verse 22. Among the many arguments to prove the penman
of the Scripture inspired by the Spirit of God, this is not the
last and least—that the penmen of holy writ do record their
own faults and the faults of their dearest and nearest
relatives. For instance hereof, how coarsely doth David speak of
himself: So foolish was I, and ignorant: I was as a beast
before thee. And do you think that the face of St. Paul did
look the more foul by being drawn with his own pencil, when he
says, "I was a murderer, a persecutor, the greatest of
sinners, "etc? This is not usual in the writings of human
authors, who praise themselves to the utmost of what they could,
and rather than lose a drop of applause they will lick it up
with their own tongues. Tully writes very copiously in setting
forth the good service which he did the Roman state, but not a
word of his covetousness, of his affecting popular applause, of
his pride and vain glory, of his mean extraction and the like.
Whereas, clean contrary, Moses sets down the sin and punishment
of his own sister, the idolatry and superstition of Aaron his
brother, and his own fault in his preposterous striking the
rock, for which he was excluded the land of Canaan. Thomas
Fuller.
Verse 23. I am continually with thee, as a
child the tender care of a parent; and as a parent, during my
danger of falling in a slippery path, "thou hast holden
me, thy child, by my right hand." George Horne.
Verse 23. I am continually with thee. He does
not say that the Lord is continually with "his people,
"and holds, and guides, and receives them; he says,
"He is continually with me; He holds me; He
will guide me; He will receive me." The man
saw, and felt, and rejoiced in his own personal interest in
God's care and love. And he did this (mark), in the very midst
of affliction, with "flesh and heart failing; "and in
spite too of many wrong, and opposite, and sinful feelings, that
had just passed away; under a conviction of his own sinfulness,
and folly, and, as he calls it, even "brutishness."
Oh! it is a blessed thing, brethren, to have a faith like this. Charles
Bradley. 1838.
Verse 23. I am still with thee. The word
translated still properly means always, and
denotes that there had been no change or interruption in the
previous relation of the parties. There is a perfectly analogous
usage of the French toujours. Joseph Addison Alexander.
Verse 24. Thou shalt guide me. How are we to
work our way in strange lands, if left entirely to our own
resources? Hence it is, that so much is said in the Bible about
guides, and that the Lord is called the guide of his people.
They are in a foreign land, a land of pits and snares; and,
without a good guide, they will be sure to fall into the one, or
be caught in the other. "This God is our God, for ever and
ever, "saith the psalmist; and not only so, but he condescends
to "be our guide, and will be, even unto death" (Ps
48:14). Can we have a better guide? When a guide has been
well recommended to us by those who have tried him, it is our
wisdom to place ourselves unreservedly in his hands; and if he
say our way lies to the right, it would show our folly to say we
were determined to go to the left. John Gadsby.
Verse 24. Guide... receive. After conversion,
God still works with us: he doth not only give grace, but actual
help in the work of obedience: "He worketh all our works in
us, "Isa 26:12. His actual help is necessary to direct,
quicken, strengthen, protect and defend us. In our way to
heaven, we need not only a rule and path, but a guide. The rule
is the law of God; but the guide is the Spirit of
God. Thomas Manton.
Verse 24. Afterward. After all our toil in
labour and duty, after all our crosses and afflictions, after
all our doubts and fears that we should never receive it; after
all the hiding of his face, and clouds and darkness that have
passed over us; and after all our battles and fightings for it,
oh, then how seasonably will the reception of this reward come
in: Thou wilt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward
receive me to glory. O blessed afterwards; when all
your work is done, when all your doubts and fears are over, and
when all your battles are fought; then, O then, ye shall receive
the reward. John Spalding.
Verse 24. Receive me to glory. Mendelssohn in
his Beor, has perceived the probable allusion in this
clause to the translation of Enoch. Of Enoch it is said, Ge
5:24, Myhla wta xql, "God took him." Here (Ps
73:24), the psalmist writes, ygzqt Kwbk. "Thou shalt take
me to glory, or gloriously." In another (Ps 49:16) we read,
ygzqy yk. "For he (God) shall take me." I can
hardly think that the two latter expressions were written and
read in their context by Jews without reference to the former. Thomas
Thompson Perowne.
Verse 26. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is
the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. In which
words we may take notice of five things.
1. The order inverted. When he mentions his malady he begins
with the failing of the flesh, and then of the heart; but when
he reports the relief he begins with that of the heart. From
hence observe that when God works a cure in man (out of
love) he begins with the heart—he cures that first. And there
may be these reasons for it.
1. Because the sin of the heart is often the procuring cause
of the malady of body and soul.
2. The body ever fares the better for the soul, but not the
soul for the body.
3. The cure of the soul is the principal cure.
2. The suitableness of the remedy to the malady. Strength of
heart for failing of heart, and a blessed portion for the
failing of the flesh. Observe, that there is a proportionate
remedy and relief in God for all maladies and afflictions
whatsoever, both within and without. If your hearts fail you,
God is strength; if your flesh fails you, or comforts fail you,
God is a portion.
3. The prophet's interest; he calls God his portion. Observe,
that true Israelites have an undoubted interest in God:—He
is theirs.
4. The prophet's experience in the worst time. He finds this
to be true, that when communicated strength fails, there is a
never failing strength in God. Observe, that Christians'
experiences of God's all sufficiency are then fullest and
highest when created comforts fail them.
5. There is the prophet's improvement of his experience for
support and comfort against future trials and temptations.
Observe, that a saint's consideration of his experience of
God's all sufficiency in times of exigency, is enough to bear up
and to fortify his spirit against all trials and temptations for
the time to come.
Thus you may improve the text by way of observation; but
there are two principal doctrines to be insisted on. First, that
God is the rock of a saint's heart, his strength, and his
portion for ever. Secondly, that divine influence and relief
passeth from God to his people when they stand in most need
thereof.
First. God is the rock of a saint's heart, strength, and
portion for ever. Here are two members or branches in this
doctrine.
1. That God is the rock of a saint's heart, strength.
2. That God is the portion of a saint. Branch 1. God is the
rock of a saint's heart, strength. He is not only strength, and
the strength of their hearts, but the rock of their strength; so
Isa 17:10. Ps 62:7, rwu, the same word that is used in the text,
from hence comes our English word "sure."
Explication. God is the rock of our strength, both in respect of
our naturals and also of our spirituals: he is the strength of
nature and of grace (Ps 27:1); the strength of my life natural
and spiritual. God is the strength of thy natural faculties—of
reason and understanding, of wisdom and prudence, of will and
affections. He is the strength of all thy graces, faith,
patience, meekness, temperance, hope, and charity; both as to
their being and exercise. He is the strength of all thy comfort
and courage, peace and happiness, salvation and glory. Ps 140:7.
"O God, the rock of my salvation." In three respects.
First. He is the author and giver of all strength. Ps 18:32:
"It is God that girdeth me with strength." Ps 24:11:
"He will give strength to his people." Ps 138:3 68:35.
Secondly. He is the increaser and perfecter of a saint's
strength; it is God that makes a saint strong and mighty both to
do and suffer, to bear and forbear, to believe and to hope to
the end; so Heb 11:34: "Out of weakness they were made
strong; "so 1Jo 2:14. And therefore is that prayer of
Peter, 1Pe 5:10. Thirdly. He is the preserver of your strength;
your life is laid up in God. Col 3:3. Your strength is kept by
the strength of God; so Ps 91:1. God doth overshadow the
strength of saints, that no breach can be made upon it. Ps 63:7.
"In the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice." Samuel
Blackerby. 1673.
Verse 26. Oh, strange logic! Grace hath learned to
deduce strong conclusions out of weak premises, and happy out of
sad. If the major be, My flesh and my heart faileth;
and the minor, "There is no blossom in the fig tree,
nor fruit in the vine, "etc.; yet his conclusion is
firm and undeniable: The Lord is the strength of my heart,
and my portion for ever; or, Yet will I rejoice in the
God of my salvation. And if there be more in the conclusion
than in the premises, it is the better; God comes even in
the conclusion. John Sheffield, in "The Rising
Sun." 1654.
Verse 26. My flesh and my heart faileth. They
who take the expression in a bad sense, take it to be a
confession of his former sin, and to have relation to the combat
mentioned in the beginning of the Psalm, between the flesh and
the spirit; as if he had said, I was so surfeited with self
conceitedness that I presumed to arraign divine actions at the
bar of human reason, and to judge the stick under water crooked
by the eye of my sense, when, indeed, it was straight: but now I
see that flesh is no fit judge in matters of faith; that neither
my flesh nor heart can determine rightly of God's dispensations,
nor hold out uprightly under Satan's temptations; for if God had
not supported me my flesh had utterly supplanted me: My flesh
and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart.
Flesh is sometimes taken for corrupt nature. Ga 5:13. First,
because it is propagated by the flesh (Joh 3:6); secondly,
because it is executed by the flesh (Ro 7:25); thirdly, because
corruption is nourished, strengthened, and increased by the
flesh. 1Jo 2:16. They who take the words in a good sense, do not
make them look back so far as the beginning of the Psalm, but
only to the neighbour verse. George Swinnock.
Verse 26. God is the strength of my heart, and my
portion for ever. The Hebrew carrieth it, but God is the rock
of my heart, i.e., a sure, strong, and immovable foundation
to build upon. Though the winds may blow, and the waves beat,
when the storm of death cometh, yet I need not fear that the
house of my heart will fall, for it is built on a sure
foundation: God is the rock of my heart. The strongest child
that God hath is not able to stand alone; like the hop or ivy,
he must have somewhat to support him, or he is presently on the
ground. Of all seasons, the Christian hath most need of succour
at his dying hour; then he must take his leave of all his
comforts on earth, and then he shall be sure of the sharpest
conflicts from hell, and therefore, it is impossible he should
hold out without extraordinary help from heaven. But the
psalmist had armour of proof ready, wherewith to encounter his
last enemy. As weak and fearful a child as he was, he durst
venture a walk in the dark entry of death, having his Father by
the hand: "Though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy
rod and thy staff they comfort me, "Psalm 23. Though at
the troubles of my life, and my trial at death, my heart is
ready to fail me, yet I have a strong cordial which will cheer
me in my saddest condition: God is the strength of my heart.
And my portion. It is a metaphor taken from the ancient
custom among the Jews, of dividing inheritances, whereby every
one had his allotted portion; as if he had said, God is not only
my rock to defend me from those tempests which assault me, and,
thereby, my freedom from evil; but he is also my portion, to
supply my necessities, and to give me the fruition of all good.
Others, indeed, have their parts on this side the land of
promise, but the author of all portions is the matter of my
portion. My portion doth not lie in the rubbish and lumber, as
theirs doth whose portion is in this life, be they never so
large; but my portion containeth him whom the heavens, and
heaven of heavens, can never contain. God is the strength of my
heart, and my portion for ever; not for a year, or an
age, or a million of ages, but for eternity. Though others'
portions, like roses, the fuller they blow, the sooner they
shed; they are worsted often by their pride, and wasted through
their prodigality, so that at last they come to want—and
surely death always rends their persons and portions asunder;
yet my portion will be ever full, without diminution. Without
alteration, this God will be my God for ever and ever, my guide
and aid unto death; nay, death, which dissolves so many bonds,
and unties such close knots, shall never part me and my portion,
but give me a perfect and everlasting possession of it. George
Swinnock.
Verse 28. It is good for me to draw near to God.
When he saith, it is good, his meaning is it is best.
This positive is superlative. It is more than good for us to
draw nigh to God at all times, it is best for us to do so, and
it is at our utmost peril not to do so; For, lo, saith
the psalmist (Ps 73:27), they that are far from thee shall
perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from
thee. It is dangerous to be far from God, but it is more
dangerous to go far from him. Every man is far off by nature,
and wicked men go further off: the former shall perish,
the latter shall be destroyed. He that fares best in his
withdrawing from God, fares bad enough; therefore, it is best
for us to draw nigh unto God. He is the best friend at all
times, and the only friend at sometimes. And may we not say that
God suffers and orders evil times, and the withdrawing of the
creature, for that very end, that we might draw nearer unto him?
Doth he not give up the world to a spirit of reviling and
mocking that he may stir up in his people a spirit of prayer? Joseph
Caryl.
Verse 28. It is good; that is, it puts in us a
blessed quality and disposition. It makes a man to be like God
himself; and, secondly, it is good, that is, it is
comfortable; for it is the happiness of the creature to be near
the Creator; it is beneficial and helpful. To draw near.
How can a man but be near to God, seeing he filleth heaven and
earth: "Whither shall I go from thy presence?" Ps
139:7. He is present always in power and providence in all
places, but graciously present with some by his Spirit,
supporting, comforting, strengthening the heart of a good man.
As the soul is said to be tota in toto, in several parts
by several faculties, so God, is present to all, but in a
diverse manner. Now we are said to be near to God in diverse
degrees: first, when our understanding is enlightened;
intellectus est veritatis sponsa; and so the young man
speaking discreetly in things concerning God, is said not to be
far from the kingdom of God, Mr 12:34. Secondly, in minding:
when God is present to our minds, so that the soul is said to be
present to that which it minds; contrarily it is said of the
wicked, that "God is not in all their thoughts, "Ps
10:4. Thirdly, when the will upon the discovery of the
understanding comes to choose the better part, and is drawn from
that choice to cleave to him, as it was said of Jonathan's
heart, "it was knit to David, " 1Sa 18:1. Fourthly,
when our whole affections are carried to God, loving him
as the chief good. Love is the firstborn affection. That breeds
desire of communion with God. Thence comes joy in him, so that
the soul pants after God, "as the hart after the water
springs, "Ps 41:1. Fifthly, and especially, when
the soul is touched with the Spirit of God working faith,
stirring up dependence, confidence, and trust on God. Hence
ariseth sweet communion. The soul is never at rest till it rests
on him. Then it is afraid to break with him or to displease him;
but it groweth zealous and resolute, and hot in love, stiff in
good cases; resolute against his enemies. And yet this is not
all, for God will have also the outward man, so as the whole man
must present itself before God in word, in sacraments; speak of
him and to him with reverence, and yet with strength of
affection mounting up in prayer, as in a fiery chariot; hear him
speak to us; consulting with his oracles; fetching comforts
against distresses, directions against maladies. Sixthly,
and especially, we draw near to him when we praise him;
for this is the work of the souls departed, and of the angels in
heaven, that are continually near unto him. The prophet here
saith, It is good for me. How came he to know this? Why,
he had found it by experience, and by it he was thoroughly
convinced. Richard Sibbes.
Verse 28. To draw near to God. It is not one
isolated act. It is nor merely turning to God, and saying,
"I have come to him." The expression is draw.
It is not a single act; it is the drawing, the coming, the
habitual walk, going on, and on, and on, so long as we are on
earth. It is, therefore, an habitual religion which must be
pressed and enforced upon us. Montagu Villiers. 1855.
Verse 28. To draw near to God. To draw near to
God,
1. A man should make his peace with God, in and through the
Mediator Jesus Christ; for, until once that be done, a man must
be said to be far from God, and there is a partition wall
standing betwixt God and him. It is the same with that advice
given by Eliphaz to Job: "Acquaint now thyself with him,
and be at peace: thereby good shall come unto thee, "
Job 22:21. Be friends with God, and all shall be well with you.
2. It is to seek more after communion and fellowship with
God, and to pursue after intimacy and familiarity with him; and
to have more of his blessed company with us in our ordinary walk
and conversation; according to that word, "Blessed is the
people that know the joyful sound: they shall walk, O Lord, in
the light of thy countenance, "Ps 89:15.
3. As it stands here in the text, it is the expression of one
who hath made up his peace already, and is on good terms with
God; and doth differ a little from what the words absolutely
imply; and so we may take it thus,
(a) It implies the confirming or making sure our interest in
God, and so it supposes the man's peace to be made with God;
for, whoever be the author of this Psalm, it supposes he has
made his peace; and, therefore, in the following words it is
subjoined, I have put my trust in the Lord, etc.; that
is, I have trusted my soul unto God, and made my peace with him
through a mediator. It is good, whatever comes, it is
always good to be near to God, that way, and to be
made sure in him.
(b) It implies to be more conformed unto the image of God,
and, therefore, this nearness to him is opposed to that of being
far from God. It is good, says he to draw near to God in our
duty; when so many are far from him.
(c) It implies, to lay by all things in the world, and to
seek fellowship and communion with God, and to be more set apart
for his blessed company, and to walk with him in a dependence
upon him as the great burden bearer, as he who is to be all in
all unto us.
In a word, to draw near unto God, is to make our peace with
him, and to secure and confirm that peace with him, and to study
a conformity unto him, and to be near unto him in our walk and
conversation; in our fellowship, and whole carriage, and
deportment, to be always near unto him. William Guthrie.
Verse 28. The Epicurean, says Augustine, is wont to
say, It is good for me to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh:
the Stoic is wont to say, For me it is good to enjoy the
pleasures of the mind: The Apostle used to say (not in words
but in sense), It is good for me to cleave to God. Lorinus.
Verse 28. The Lord God. The names The Lord
Jehovah are a combination expressive of God's sovereignty,
self existence, and covenant relation to his people. Joseph
Addison Alexander.
HINTS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER
Whole Psalm. It containeth the godly man's trial,
in the former part of it, and his triumph, in the latter
part of it. We have,
1. The grievous conflict between the flesh and the spirit, to
the 15th verse.
2. The glorious conquest of the spirit over the flesh, to the
end. G. Swinnock.
Whole Psalm.
1. The cause of his distemper.
2. The cure of it.
3. The psalmist's carriage after it.
—G. Swinnock.
Verse 1. The true Israel, the great blessing, and the
sureness of it: or, the proposition of the text expounded,
enforced, and applied.
Verse 1. (first clause). Israel's receipts from
God are,
1. For quantity, the greatest;
2. For variety, the choicest;
3. For quality, the sweetest;
4. For security, the surest;
5. For duration, the most lasting.
—Simeon Ash.
Verse 2.
1. How far a believer may fall.
2. How far he shall not fall.
3. What fears are and what are not allowable.
Verse 2. A retrospect of our slips; prospect of future
danger; present preparation for it.
Verse 4. Quiet death; the cases of the godly and
ungodly distinguished by the causes of the quiet, and the
unreliability of mere feelings shown.
Verse 5. The bastard's portion contrasted with that of
the true son.
Verse 7. The dangers of opulence and luxury.
Verse 8. Connection between a corrupt heart and a
proud tongue.
Verse 10.
1. The believer's cup is bitter.
2. It is full.
3. Its contents are varied waters.
4. It is but a cup, measured and limited.
5. It is the cup of his people, and, consequently,
works good in the highest degree.
Verse 11. The atheists open question; the oppressor's
practical question; the careless man's secret question; and the
fearful saint's fainting question. The reasons why it is ever
asked, and the conclusive reasons which put the matter beyond
question.
Verse 12. This verse suggests solemn enquiries for
persons who are growing rich.
Verse 14. The frequent and even constant chastisement
of the righteous; the necessity and design thereof; and the
consolations connected therewith.
Verse 15. How we may bring injury on the saints; why
we should avoid so doing, and how.
Verse 17.
1. Entrance into the place of fellowship with God, it
privileges, and the way thereto.
2. Lessons learned in that hallowed place; the text mentions
one.
3. Practical influence of the fellowship, and the
instruction.
Verses 17-18. The sinner's end; See "Spurgeon's
Sermons," No. 486.
Verse 18. Thou didst set them in slippery places.
1. It implies that they were always exposed to sudden,
unexpected destruction. As he that walks in slippery places
is every moment liable to fall, he cannot foresee one moment
whether he shall stand or fall the next; and when he does fall,
he falls at once without warning.
2. They are liable to fall of themselves, without
being thrown down by the hand of another; as he that stands or
walks on slippery ground needs nothing but his own weight to
throw him down.
3. There is nothing that keeps wicked men at any one moment
out of hell but the mere pleasure of God. Jonathan Edwards.
Verses 18-20. The end of the wicked is,
1. Near: Thou hast set, etc. It may happen at any
time.
2. Judicial: Thou bringest, etc.
3. Sudden: How are they, etc.
4. Tormenting: They are utterly consumed, etc.
5. Eternal: Left to themselves; gone from the mind of God;
and disregarded as a dream when one awaketh. No after act
respecting them, either for deliverance or annihilation.
Verse 19. The first sight and sense of hell by a proud
and wealthy sinner, who has just died in peace.
Verse 20. The contemptible object:—a self righteous,
or boastful, or persecuting, or cavilling, or wealthy sinner
when his soul is called before God.
Verse 22. Our folly, ignorance, and brutishness. When
displayed. What effect the fact should have upon us; and how
greatly it illustrates divine grace.
Verse 22-25.
1. The psalmist's confession concerning the flesh.
2. The faithful expressions of the spirit.
3. The conclusion of the whole matter. See "Spurgeon's
Sermons, "No. 467.
Verse 25. God the best portion of the Christian. Jonathan
Edwards' Works, Vol. 2, pp. 104-7.
Verse 25. Heaven and earth ransacked to find a joy
equal to the Lord himself. Let the preacher take up various joys
and show the inferiority.
Verse 26.
1. The psalmist's complaint: My flesh and my heart faileth.
2. His comfort: But God, etc. Or, we may take notice,
(a) Of the frailty of his flesh; (b) Of the flourishing of his
faith.
Doctrine 1. That man's flesh will fail him. The highest, the
holiest man's heart will not always hold out. The prophet was
great and gracious, yet his flesh failed him.
Doctrine 2. That it is the comfort of a Christian, in his
saddest condition, that God is his portion. G. Swinnock.
Verse 26. "The Fading of the Flesh, " Swinnock's
Treatise. (Nichol's Puritan Series.)
Verse 26. Where we fail and where we cannot fail.
Verse 27.
1. The sad conditions.
2. The terrible punishments.
3. The implied consolations.
Verse 28. To draw near to God is our wisdom, our
honour, our safety, our peace, our riches. Thomas Watson's
Sermon, "The Happiness of Drawing near to God."
1669. See also, "The Saint's Happiness, "R.
Sibbes's Sermons.
Verse 28. David's conclusion; or, the saint's
resolution. R. Sibbes.
Verse 28.
1. The language of prayer: It is good, etc.
2. Of faith: I have put, etc.
3. Of praise: That I may declare. G. R.
Verse 28. See "Spurgeon's Sermons," Nos.
287-8, "Let us pray." No. 879, "An assuredly good
thing."
WORKS UPON THE SEVENTY-THIRD PSALM
Certain Comfortable Expositions of the
Constant Martyr of Christ JOHN HOOPER, Bishop of Gloucester and
Worcester, 1555, written in the time of his Tribulation and
Imprisonment, upon the Twenty-third, Sixty-second,
Seventy-third, and Seventy-seventh Psalm of the prophet David.
(In Parker Society's publications, and also in the "British
Reformers" series of the Religious Tract Society.)
David Restored; or, And Antidote against the
Prosperity of the Wicked and the Afflictions of the Just,
shewing the different ends of both. In a most seasonable
discourse upon the Seventy-third Psalm. By the Right Reverend
Father in God EDWARD PARRY. Late Lord Bishop of Killaloe. 1660.