TITLE. Maschil of Asaph. This is
rightly entitled an instructive Psalm. It is not a mere
recapitulation of important events in Israelitish history, but
is intended to be viewed as a parable setting forth the conduct
and experience of believers in all ages. It is a singular proof
of the obtuseness of mind of many professors that they will
object to sermons and expositions upon the historical parts of
Scripture, as if they contained no instruction in spiritual
matters: were such persons truly enlightened by the Spirit of
God, they would perceive that all Scripture is profitable, and
would blush at their own folly in undervaluing any portion of
the inspired volume.
DIVISION. The unity is well maintained
throughout, but for the sake of the reader's convenience, we may
note that Ps 78:1-8 may be viewed as a preface, setting forth
the psalmist's object in the epic which he is composing. From Ps
78:9-41 the theme is Israel in the wilderness; then intervenes
an account of the Lord's preceding goodness towards his people
in bringing them out of Egypt by plagues and wonders, Ps
78:42-52. The history of the tribes is resumed at Ps 78:53, and
continued to Ps 78:66, where we reach the time of the removal of
the ark to Zion and the transference of the leadership of Israel
from Ephraim to Judah, which is rehearsed in song from Ps
78:67-72.
EXPOSITION
Verse 1. Give ear, O my people, to my law. The
inspired bard calls on his countrymen to give heed to his
patriotic teaching. We naturally expect God's chosen nation to
be first in hearkening to his voice. When God gives his truth a
tongue, and sends forth his messengers trained to declare his
word with power, it is the least we can do to give them our ears
and the earnest obedience of our hearts. Shall God speak, and
his children refuse to hear? His teaching has the force of law,
let us yield both ear and heart to it. Incline your ears to the
words of my mouth. Give earnest attention, bow your stiff necks,
lean forward to catch every syllable. We are at this day, as
readers of the sacred records, bound to study them deeply,
exploring their meaning, and labouring to practice their
teaching. As the officer of an army commences his drill by
calling for "Attention, "even so every trained soldier
of Christ is called upon to give ear to his words. Men lend
their ears to music, how much more then should they listen to
the harmonies of the gospel; they sit enthralled in the presence
of an orator, how much rather should they yield to the eloquence
of heaven.
Verse 2. I will open my mouth in a parable.
Analogies are not only to be imagined, but are intended by God
to be traced between the story of Israel and the lives of
believers. Israel was ordained to be a type; the tribes and
their marchings are living allegories traced by the hand of an
all wise providence. Unspiritual persons may sneer about fancies
and mysticisms, but Paul spake well when he said "which
things are an allegory, "and Asaph in the present case
spake to the point when he called his narrative "a
parable." That such was his meaning is clear from the
quotation, "All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude
in parables; and without a parable spake he not unto them: that
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I
will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have
been kept secret from the foundation of the world." Mt
13:34-35. I will utter dark sayings of old;—enigmas of
antiquity, riddles of yore. The mind of the poet prophet was so
full of ancient lore that he poured it forth in a copious stream
of song, while beneath the gushing flood lay pearls and gems of
spiritual truth, capable of enriching those who could dive into
the depths and bring them up. The letter of this song is
precious, but the inner sense is beyond all price. Whereas the
first verse called for attention, the second justifies the
demand by hinting that the outer sense conceals an inner and
hidden meaning, which only the thoughtful will be able to
perceive.
Verse 3. Which we have heard and known, and our
fathers have told us. Tradition was of the utmost service to
the people of God in the olden time, before the more sure word
of prophecy had become complete and generally accessible. The
receipt of truth from the lips of others laid the instructed
believer under solemn obligation to pass on the truth to the
next generation. Truth, endeared to us by its fond associations
with godly parents and venerable friends, deserves of us our
best exertions to preserve and propagate it. Our fathers told
us, we hear them, and we know personally what they taught; it
remains for us in our turn to hand it on. Blessed be God we have
now the less mutable testimony of written revelation, but this
by no means lessens our obligation to instruct our children in
divine truth by word of mouth: rather, with such a gracious
help, we ought to teach them far more fully the things of God.
Dr. Doddridge owed much to the Dutch tiles and his mother's
explanations of the Bible narratives. The more of parental
teaching the better; ministers and Sabbath school teachers were
never meant to be substitutes for mother's tears and father's
prayers.
Verse 4. We will not hide them from their children.
Our negligent silence shall not deprive our own and our father's
offspring of the precious truth of God, it would be shameful
indeed if we did so. Shewing to the generation to come the
praises of the Lord. We will look forward to future generations,
and endeavour to provide for their godly education. It is the
duty of the church of God to maintain, in fullest vigour, every
agency intended for the religious education of the young; to
them we must look for the church of the future, and as we sow
towards them so shall we reap. Children are to be taught to
magnify the Lord; they ought to be well informed as to his
wonderful doings in ages past, and should be made to know his
strength and his wonderful works that he hath done. The best
education is education in the best things. The first lesson for
a child should be concerning his mother's God. Teach him what
you will, if he learn not the fear of the Lord, he will perish
for lack of knowledge. Grammar is poor food for the soul if it
be not flavoured with grace. Every satchel should have a Bible
in it. The world may teach secular knowledge alone, it is all
she has a heart to know, but the church must not deal so with
her offspring; she should look well to every Timothy, and see to
it that from a child he knows the Holy Scriptures. Around the
fireside fathers should repeat not only the Bible records, but
the deeds of the martyrs and reformers, and moreover the
dealings of the Lord with themselves both in providence and
grace. We dare not follow the vain and vicious traditions of the
apostate church of Rome, neither would we compare the fallible
record of the best human memories with the infallible written
word, yet would we fain see oral tradition practised by every
Christian in his family, and children taught cheerfully by word
of mouth by their own mothers and fathers, as well as by the
printed pages of what they too often regard as dull, dry task
books. What happy hours and pleasant evenings have children had
at their parents knees as they have listened to some "sweet
story of old." Reader, if you have children, mind you do
not fail in this duty.
Verse 5. For he established a testimony in Jacob.
The favoured nation existed for the very purpose of maintaining
God's truth in the midst of surrounding idolatry. Theirs were
the oracles, they were the conservators and guardians of the
truth. And appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our
fathers, that they should make them known to their children.
The testimony for the true God was to be transmitted from
generation to generation by the careful instruction of
succeeding families. We have the command for this oral
transmission very frequently given in the Pentateuch, and it may
suffice to quote one instance from De 6:7: "And thou shalt
teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them
when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the
way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up."
Reader, if you are a parent, have you conscientiously discharged
this duty?
Verse 6. That the generation to come might know
them, even the children which should be born. As far on as
our brief life allows us to arrange, we must industriously
provide for the godly nurture of youth. The narratives,
commands, and doctrines of the word of God are not worn out;
they are calculated to exert an influence as long as our race
shall exist. Who should arise and declare them to their
children. The one object aimed at is transmission; the testimony
is only given that it may be passed on to succeeding
generations.
Verse 7. That they might set their hope in God.
Faith cometh by hearing. Those who know the name of the Lord
will set their hope in him, and that they may be led to do so is
the main end of all spiritual teaching. And not forget the works
of God. Grace cures bad memories; those who soon forget the
merciful works of the Lord have need of teaching; they require
to learn the divine art of holy memory. But keep his
commandments. Those who forget God's works are sure to fail in
their own. He who does not keep God's love in memory is not
likely to remember his law. The design of teaching is practical;
holiness towards God is the end we aim at, and not the filling
of the head with speculative notions.
Verse 8. And might not be as their fathers, a
stubborn and rebellious generation. There was room for
improvement. Fathers stubborn in their own way, and rebellious
against God's way, are sorry examples for their children; and it
is earnestly desired that better instruction may bring forth a
better race. It is common in some regions for men to count their
family custom as the very best rule; but disobedience is not to
be excused because it is hereditary. The leprosy was none the
less loathsome because it had been long in the family. If our
fathers were rebellious we must be better than they were, or
else we shall perish as they did. A generation that set not
their heart aright. They had no decision for righteousness and
truth. In them there was no preparedness, or willingness of
heart, to entertain the Saviour; neither judgments, nor mercies
could bind their affections to their God; they were fickle as
the winds, and changeful as the waves. And whose spirit was not
steadfast with God. The tribes in the wilderness were constant
only in their inconstancy; there was no depending upon them. It
was, indeed, needful that their descendants should be warned, so
that they might not blindly imitate them. How blessed it would
be if each age improved upon its predecessor; but, alas! it is
to be feared that decline is more general than progress, and too
often the heirs of true saints are far more rebellious than even
their fathers were in their unregeneracy. May the reading of
this patriotic and divine song move many to labour after the
elevation of themselves and their posterity.
Verse 9. The children of Ephraim, being armed, and
carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle. Well
equipped and furnished with the best weapons of the times, the
leading tribe failed in faith and courage and retreated before
the foe. There were several particular instances of this, but
probably the psalmist refers to the general failure of Ephraim
to lead the tribes to the conquest of Canaan. How often have we
also, although supplied with every gracious weapon, failed to
wage successful war against our sins, we have marched onward
gallantly enough till the testing hour has come, and then
"in the day of battle "we have proved false to good
resolutions and holy obligations. How altogether vain is
unregenerate man! Array him in the best that nature and grace
can supply, he still remains a helpless coward in the holy war,
so long as he lacks a loyal faith in his God.
Verse 10. They kept not the covenant of God.
Vows and promises were broken, idols were set up, and the living
God was forsaken. They were brought out of Egypt in order to be
a people separated unto the Lord, but they fell into the sins of
other nations, and did not maintain a pure testimony for the one
only true God. And refused to walk in his law. They gave way to
fornication, and idolatry, and other violations of the decalogue,
and were often in a state of rebellion against the benign
theocracy under which they lived. They had pledged themselves at
Sinai to keep the law, and then they wilfully disobeyed it, and
so became covenant breakers.
Verse 11. And forgat his works, and his wonders
that he had shewed them. Had they remembered them they would
have been filled with gratitude and inspired with holy awe: but
the memory of God's mercies to them was as soon effaced as if
written upon water. Scarcely could one generation retain the
sense of the divine presence in miraculous power, the succeeding
race needed a renewal of the extraordinary manifestations, and
even then was not satisfied without many displays thereof. Ere
we condemn them, let us repent of our own wicked forgetfulness,
and confess the many occasions upon which we also have been
unmindful of past favours.
Verse 12. Egypt, here called the field of Zoan,
was the scene of marvellous things which were done in open day in
the sight of Israel. These were extraordinary, upon a vast
scale, astounding, indisputable, and such as ought to have
rendered it impossible for an Israelite to be disloyal to
Jehovah, Israel's God.
Verse 13. He divided the sea, and caused them to
pass through. A double wonder, for when the waters were
divided the bottom of the sea would naturally be in a very unfit
state for the passage of so vast a host as that of Israel; it
would in fact have been impassable, had not the Lord made the
road for his people. Who else has ever led a nation through a
sea? Yet the Lord has done this full often for his saints in
providential deliverances, making a highway for them where
nothing short of an almighty arm could have done so. And he made
the waters to stand as an heap. He forbade a drop to fall upon
his chosen, they felt no spray from the crystal walls on either
hand. Fire will descend and water stand upright at the bidding
of the Lord of all. The nature of creatures is not their own
intrinsically, but is retained or altered at the will of him who
first created them. The Lord can cause those evils which
threaten to overwhelm us to suspend their ordinary actions, and
become innocuous to us.
Verse 14. In the daytime also he led them with a
cloud. HE did it all. He alone. He brought them into
the wilderness, and he led them through it; it is not the Lord's
manner to begin a work, and then cease from it while it is
incomplete. The cloud both led and shadowed the tribes. It was
by day a vast sun screen, rendering the fierce heat of the sun
and the glare of the desert sand bearable. And all the night
with a light of fire. So constant was the care of the Great
Shepherd that all night and every night the token of his
presence was with his people. That cloud which was a shade by
day was as a sun by night. Even thus the grace which cools and
calms our joys, soothes and solaces our sorrows. What a mercy to
have a light of fire with us amid the lonely horrors of the
wilderness of affliction. Our God has been all this to us, and
shall we prove unfaithful to him? We have felt him to be both
shade and light, according as our changing circumstances have
required.
"He hath been our joy in woe,
Cheered our heart when it was low,
And, with warnings softly sad,
Calmed our heart when it was glad."
May this frequently renewed experience knit our hearts to him
in firmest bonds.
Verse 15. He clave the rocks in the wilderness.
Moses was the instrument, but the Lord did it all. Twice he made
the flint a gushing rill. What can he not do? And gave them
drink as out of the great depths,—as though it gushed from
earth's innermost reservoirs. The streams were so fresh, so
copious, so constant, that they seemed to well up from the
earth's primeval fountains, and to leap at once from "the
deep which coucheth beneath." Here was a divine supply for
Israel's urgent need, and such an one as ought to have held them
for ever in unwavering fidelity to their wonder working God.
Verse 16. The supply of water was as plenteous in
quantity as it was miraculous in origin. Torrents, not driblets
came from the rocks. Streams followed the camp; the supply was
not for an hour or a day. This was a marvel of goodness. If we
contemplate the abounding of divine grace we shall be lost in
admiration. Mighty rivers of love have flowed for us in the
wilderness. Alas, great God! our return has not been
commensurate therewith, but far otherwise.
Verse 17. And they sinned yet more against him.
Outdoing their former sins, going into greater deeps of evil:
the more they had the more loudly they clamoured for more, and
murmured because they had not every luxury that pampered
appetites could desire. It was bad enough to mistrust their God
for necessaries, but to revolt against him in a greedy rage for
superfluities was far worse. Ever is it the nature of the
disease of sin to proceed from bad to worse; men never weary of
sinning, but rather increase their speed in the race of
iniquity. In the case before us the goodness of God was abused
into a reason for greater sin. Had not the Lord been so good
they would not have been so bad. If he had wrought fewer
miracles before, they would not have been so inexcusable in
their unbelief, so wanton in their idolatry. By provoking the
most High in the wilderness. Although they were in a position of
obvious dependence upon God for everything, being in a desert
where the soil could yield them no support, yet they were
graceless enough to provoke their benefactor. At one time they
provoked his jealousy by their hankering after false gods, anon
they excited his wrath by their challenges of his power, their
slanders against his love, their rebellions against his will. He
was all bounty of love, and they all superfluity of naughtiness.
They were favoured above all nations, and yet none were more ill
favoured. For them the heavens dropped manna, and they returned
murmurs; the rocks gave them rivers, and they replied with
floods of wickedness. Herein, as in a mirror, we see ourselves.
Israel in the wilderness acted out, as in a drama, all the story
of man's conduct towards his God.
Verse 18. And they tempted God in their heart.
He was not tempted, for he cannot be tempted by any, but they
acted in a manner calculated to tempt him, and it always just to
charge that upon men which is the obvious tendency of their
conduct. Christ cannot die again, and yet many crucify him
afresh, because such would be the legitimate result of their
behaviour if its effects were not prevented by other forces. The
sinners in the wilderness would have had the Lord change his
wise proceedings to humour their whims, hence they are said to
tempt him. By asking meat for their lust. Would they have God
become purveyor for their greediness? Was there nothing for it
but that he must give them whatever their diseased appetites
might crave? The sin began in their hearts, but it soon reached
their tongues. What they at first silently wished for, they soon
loudly demanded with menaces, insinuations, and upbraidings.
Verse 19. From this verse we learn that unbelief of
God is a slander against him. Yea, they spake against God. But
how? The answer is, They said, Can God furnish a table in the
wilderness? To question the ability of one who is manifestly
Almighty, is to speak against him. These people were base enough
to say that although their God had given them bread and water,
yet he could not properly order or furnish a table. He could
give them coarse food, but could not prepare a feast properly
arranged, so they were ungrateful enough to declare. As if the
manna was a mere makeshift, and the flowing rock stream a
temporary expedient, they ask to have a regularly furnished
table, such as they had been accustomed to in Egypt. Alas, how
have we also quarrelled with our mercies, and querulously pined
for some imaginary good, counting our actual enjoyments to be
nothing because they did not happen to be exactly conformed to
our foolish fancies. They who will not be content will speak
against providence even when it daily loadeth them with
benefits.
Verse 20. Behold, he smote the rock, that the
waters gushed out, and the streams overflowed. They admit
what he had done, and yet, with superabundant folly and
insolence, demand further proofs of his omnipotence. Can he give
bread also? can he provide flesh for his people? As if the manna
were nothing, as if animal food alone was true nourishment for
men. If they had argued, "can he not give
flesh?" the argument would have been reasonable, but they
ran into insanity; when, having seen many marvels of
omnipotence, they dared to insinuate that other things were
beyond the divine power. Yet, in this also, we have imitated
their senseless conduct. Each new difficulty has excited fresh
incredulity. We are still fools and slow of heart to believe our
God, and this is a fault to be bemoaned with deepest penitence.
For this cause the Lord is often wroth with us and chastens us
sorely; for unbelief has in it a degree of provocation of the
highest kind.
Verse 21. Therefore the Lord heard this, and was
wroth. He was not indifferent to what they said. He dwelt
among them in the holy place, and, therefore, they insulted him
to his face. He did not hear a report of it, but the language
itself came into his ears. So a fire was kindled against Jacob.
The fire of his anger which was also attended with literal
burnings. And anger also came up against Israel. Whether he
viewed them in the lower or higher light, as Jacob or as Israel,
he was angry with them: even as mere men they ought to have
believed him; and as chosen tribes, their wicked unbelief was
without excuse. The Lord doeth well to be angry at so
ungrateful, gratuitous and dastardly an insult as the
questioning of his power.
Verse 22. Because they believed not in God, and
trusted not in his salvation. This is the master sin, the
crying sin. Like Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, it sins and makes
Israel to sin; it is in itself evil and the parent of evils. It
was this sin which shut Israel out of Canaan, and it shuts
myriads out of heaven. God is ready to save, combining power
with willingness, but rebellious man will not trust his Saviour,
and therefore is condemned already. In the text it appears as if
all Israel's other sins were as nothing compared with this; this
is the peculiar spot which the Lord points at, the special
provocation which angered him. From this let every unbeliever
learn to tremble more at his unbelief than at anything else. If
he be no fornicator, or thief, or liar, let him reflect that it
is quite enough to condemn him that he trusts not in God's
salvation.
Verse 23. Though he had commanded the clouds from
above. Such a marvel ought to have rendered unbelief
impossible: when clouds become granaries, seeing should be
believing, and doubts should dissolve. And opened the doors of
heaven. The great storehouse doors were set wide open, and the
corn of heaven poured out in heaps. Those who would not believe
in such a case were hardened indeed; and yet our own position is
very similar, for the Lord has wrought for us great
deliverances, quite as memorable and undeniable, and yet
suspicions and forebodings haunt us. He might have shut the
gates of hell upon us, instead of which he has opened the doors
of heaven; shall we not both believe in him and magnify him for
this?
Verse 24. And had rained down manna upon them to
eat. There was so much of it, the skies poured with food,
the clouds burst with provender. It was fit food, proper not for
looking at but for eating; they could eat it as they gathered
it. Mysterious though it was, so that they called it manna, or
"what is it?" yet it was eminently adapted for human
nourishment; and it was both abundant and adapted, so also was
it available! They had not far to fetch it, it was nigh them,
and they had only to gather it up. O Lord Jesus, thou blessed
manna of heaven, how all this agrees with Thee! We will even now
feed on Thee as our spiritual meat, and will pray Thee to chase
away all wicked unbelief from us. Our fathers ate manna and
doubted; we feed upon Thee and are filled with assurance. And
had given them of the corn of heaven. It was all a gift without
money and without price. Food which dropped from above, and was
of the best quality, so as to be called heavenly corn, was
freely granted them. The manna was round, like a coriander seed,
and hence was rightly called corn; it did not rise from the
earth, but descended from the clouds, and hence the words of the
verse are literally accurate. The point to be noted is that this
wonder of wonders left the beholders, and the feasters, as prone
as ever to mistrust their Lord.
Verse 25. Man did eat angel's food. The
delicacies of kings were outdone, for the dainties of angels
were supplied. Bread of the mighty ones fell on feeble man.
Those who are lower than the angels fared as well. It was not
for the priests, or the princes, that the manna fell; but for
all the nation, for every man, woman, and child in the camp: and
there was sufficient for them all, for he sent them meat to the
full. God's banquets are never stinted; he gives the best diet,
and plenty of it. Gospel provisions deserve every praise that we
can heap upon them; they are free, full, and preeminent; they
are of God's preparing, sending, and bestowing. He is well fed
whom God feeds; heaven's meat is nourishing and plentiful. If we
have ever fed upon Jesus we have tasted better than angel's
food; for
"Never did angels taste above
Redeeming grace and dying love."
It will be our wisdom to eat to the full of it, for God has
so sent it that we are not straitened in him, but in our own
bowels. Happy pilgrims who in the desert have their meat sent
from the Lord's own palace above; let them eat abundantly of the
celestial banquet, and magnify the all sufficient grace which
supplies all their needs, according to His riches in glory, by
Christ Jesus.
Verse 26. He caused an east wind to blow in the
heaven. He is Lord Paramount, above the prince of the power
of the air: storms arise and tempests blow at his command. Winds
sleep till God arouses them, and then, like Samuel, each one
answers, "Here am I, for thou didst call me." And by
his power he brought in the south wind. Either these winds
followed each other, and so blew the birds in the desired
direction, or else they combined to form a south east wind; in
either case they fulfilled the design of the Lord, and
illustrated his supreme and universal power. If one wind will
not serve, another shall; and if need be, they shall both blow
at once. We speak of fickle winds, but their obedience to
their Lord is such that they deserve a better word. If we
ourselves were half as obedient as the winds, we should be far
superior to what we are now.
Verse 27. He rained flesh also upon them as dust.
First he rained bread and then flesh, when he might have rained
fire and brimstone. The words indicate the speed, and the
abundance of the descending quails. And feathered fowls like as
the sand of the sea; there was no counting them. By a remarkable
providence, if not by miracle, enormous numbers of migratory
birds were caused to alight around the tents of the tribes. It
was, however, a doubtful blessing, as easily acquired and super
abounding riches generally are. The Lord save us from meat which
is seasoned with divine wrath.
Verse 28. And he let it fall in the midst of their
camp. They had no journey to make; they had clamoured for
flesh, and it almost flew into their mouths, round about their
habitations. This made them glad for the moment, but they knew
not that mercies can be sent in anger, else they had trembled at
sight of the good things which they had lusted after.
Verse 29. So they did eat, and were well filled.
They greedily devoured the birds, even to repletion. The Lord
shewed them that he could "provide flesh for his people,
"even enough and to spare. He also shewed them that when
lust wins its desire it is disappointed, and by the way of
satiety arrive at distaste. First the food satiates, then it
nauseates. For he gave them their own desire. They were filled
with their own ways. The flesh meat was unhealthy for them, but
as they cried for it they had it, and a curse with it. O my God,
deny me my most urgent prayers sooner than answer them in
displeasure. Better hunger and thirst after righteousness than
to be well filled with sin's dainties.
Verses 30-31. They were not estranged from their lust.
Lust grows upon that which it feeds on. If sick of too much
flesh, yet men grow not weary of lust, they change the object,
and go on lusting still. When one sin is proved to be a
bitterness, men do not desist, but pursue another iniquity. If,
like Jehu, they turn from Baal, they fall to worshipping the
calves of Bethel. But while their meat was yet in their mouths,
before they could digest their coveted meat, it turned to their
destruction. The wrath of God came upon them before they could
swallow their first meal of flesh. Short was the pleasure,
sudden was the doom. The festival ended in a funeral. And slew
the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.
Perhaps these were the ringleaders in the lusting; they are
first in the punishment. God's justice has no respect of
persons, the strong and the valiant fall as well as the weak and
the mean. What they ate on earth they digested in hell, as many
have done since. How soon they died, though they felt not the
edge of the sword! How terrible was the havoc, though not amid
the din of battle! My soul, see here the danger of gratified
passions; they are the janitors of hell. When the Lord's people
hunger God loves them; Lazarus is his beloved, though he pines
upon crumbs; but when he fattens the wicked he abhors them;
Dives is hated of heaven when he fares sumptuously every day. We
must never dare to judge men's happiness by their tables, the
heart is the place to look at. The poorest starveling believer
is more to be envied than the most full fleshed of the
favourites of the world. Better be God's dog than the devil's
darling.
Verse 32. For all this they sinned still.
Judgments moved them no more than mercies. They defied the wrath
of God. Though death was in the cup of their iniquity, yet they
would not put it away, but continued to quaff it as if it were a
healthful potion. How truly might these words be applied to
ungodly men who have been often afflicted, laid upon a sick bed,
broken in spirit, and impoverished in estate, and yet have
persevered in their evil ways, unmoved by terrors, unswayed by
threatenings. And believed not for his wondrous works. Their
unbelief was chronic and incurable. Miracles both of mercy and
judgment were unavailing. They might be made to wonder, but they
could not be taught to believe. Continuance in sin and in
unbelief go together. Had they believed they would not have
sinned, had they not have been blinded by sin they would have
believed. There is a reflex action between faith and character.
How can the lover of sin believe? How, on the other hand, can
the unbeliever cease from sin? God's ways with us in providence
are in themselves both convincing and converting, but unrenewed
nature refuses to be either convicted or converted by them.
Verse 33. Therefore their days did he consume in
vanity. Apart from faith life is vanity. To wander up and
down in the wilderness was a vain thing indeed, when unbelief
had shut them out of the promised land. It was meet that those
who would not live to answer the divine purpose by believing and
obeying their God should be made to live to no purpose, and to
die before their time, unsatisfied, unblessed. Those who wasted
their days in sin had little cause to wonder when the Lord cut
short their lives, and sware that they should never enter the
rest which they had despised. And their years in trouble. Weary
marches were their trouble, and to come to no resting place was
their vanity. Innumerable graves were left all along the track
of Israel, and if any ask, "Who slew all these?" the
answer must be, "They could not enter in because of
unbelief." Doubtless much of the vexation and failure of
many lives results from their being sapped by unbelief, and
honeycombed by evil passions. None live so fruitlessly and so
wretchedly as those who allow sense and sight to override faith,
and their reason and appetite to domineer over their fear of
God. Our days go fast enough according to the ordinary lapse of
time, but the Lord can make them rust away at a bitterer rate,
till we feel as if sorrow actually ate out the heart of our
life, and like a canker devoured our existence. Such was the
punishment of rebellious Israel, the Lord grant it may not be
ours.
Verse 34. When he slew them, then they sought him.
Like whipped curs, they licked their Master's feet. They obeyed
only so long as they felt the whip about their loins. Hard are
the hearts which only death can move. While thousands died
around them, the people of Israel became suddenly religious, and
repaired to the tabernacle door, like sheep who run in a mass
while the black dog drives them, but scatter and wander when the
shepherd whistles him off. And they returned and enquired early
after God. They could not be too zealous, they were in hot haste
to prove their loyalty to their divine King. "The devil was
sick and the devil a monk would be." Who would not be pious
while the plague is abroad? Doors, which were never so
sanctified before, put on the white cross then. Even reprobates
send for the minister when they lie a dying. Thus sinners pay
involuntary homage to the power of right and the supremacy of
God, but their hypocritical homage is of small value in the
sight of the Great Judge.
Verse 35. And they remember that God was their
rock. Sharp strokes awoke their sleepy memories. Reflection
followed infliction. They were led to see that all their
dependence must be placed upon their God; for he alone had been
their shelter, their foundation, their fountain of supply, and
their unchangeable friend. What could have made them forget
this? Was it that their stomachs were so full of flesh that thy
had no space for ruminating upon spiritual things? And the high
God their redeemer. They had forgotten this also. The high hand
and outstretched arm which redeemed them out of bondage had both
faded from their mental vision. Alas, poor man, how readily dost
thou forget thy God! Shame on thee, ungrateful worm, to have no
sense of favours a few days after they have been received. Will
nothing make thee keep in memory the mercy of thy God except the
utter withdrawal of it?
Verse 36. Nevertheless they did flatter him with their
mouth. Bad were they at their best. False on their knees, liars
in their prayers. Mouth worship must be very detestable to God
when dissociated from the heart: other kings love flattery, but
the King of kings abhors it. Since the sharpest afflictions only
extort from carnal men a feigned submission to God, there is
proof positive that the heart is desperately set on mischief,
and that sin is ingrained in our very nature. If you beat a
tiger with many stripes you cannot turn him into a sheep. The
devil cannot be whipped out of human nature, though another
devil, namely, hypocrisy may be whipped into it. Piety produced
by the damps of sorrow and the heats of terror is of mushroom
growth; it is rapid in its springing up—"they enquired
early after God"—but it is a mere unsubstantial fungus of
unabiding excitement. And they lied unto him with their tongues.
Their godly speech was cant, their praise mere wind, their
prayer a fraud. Their skin deep repentance was a film too thin
to conceal the deadly wound of sin. This teaches us to place
small reliance upon professions of repentance made by dying men,
or upon such even when the basis is evidently slavish fear, and
nothing more. Any thief will whine out repentance if he thinks
the judge will thereby be moved to let him go scot free.
Verse 37. For their heart was not right with him.
There was no depth in their repentance, it was not heart work.
They were fickle as a weathercock, every wind turned them, their
mind was not settled upon God. Neither were they stedfast in his
covenant. Their promises were no sooner made than broken, as if
only made in mockery. Good resolutions called at their hearts as
men do at inns; they tarried awhile, and then took their leave.
They were hot today for holiness, but cold towards it tomorrow.
Variable as the hues of the dolphin, they changed from reverence
to rebellion, from thankfulness to murmuring. One day they gave
their gold to build a tabernacle for Jehovah, and the next they
plucked off their earrings to make a golden calf. Surely the
heart is a chameleon. Proteus had not so many changes. As in the
ague we both burn and freeze, so do inconstant natures in their
religion.
Verse 38. But he, being full of compassion, forgave
their iniquity, and destroyed them not. Though they were
full of flattery, he was full of mercy, and for this cause he
had pity on them. Not because of their pitiful and hypocritical
pretensions to penitence, but because of his own real compassion
for them he overlooked their provocations. Yea, many a time
turned he his anger away. When he had grown angry with them he
withdrew his displeasure. Even unto seventy times seven did he
forgive their offences. He was slow, very slow, to anger. The
sword was uplifted and flashed in midair, but it was sheathed
again, and the nation yet lived. Though not mentioned in the
text, we know from the history that a mediator interposed, the
man Moses stood in the gap; even so at this hour the Lord Jesus
pleads for sinners, and averts the divine wrath. Many a barren
tree is left standing because the dresser of the vineyard cries,
"let it alone this year also." And did not stir up all
his wrath. Had he done so they must have perished in a moment.
When his wrath is kindled but a little men are burned up as
chaff; but were he to let loose his indignation, the solid earth
itself would melt, and hell would engulf every rebel. Who
knoweth the power of thine anger, O Lord? We see the fulness of
God's compassion, but we never see all his wrath.
Verse 39. For he remembered that they were but
flesh. They were forgetful of God, but he was mindful of
them. He knew that they were made of earthy, frail, corruptible
material, and therefore he dealt leniently with them. Though in
this he saw no excuse for their sin, yet he constrained it into
a reason for mercy; the Lord is ever ready to discover some plea
or other upon which he may have compassion. A wind that passeth
away, and cometh not again. Man is but a breath, gone never to
return. Spirit and wind are in this alike, so far as our
humanity is concerned; they pass and cannot be recalled. What a
nothing is our life. How gracious on the Lord's part to make
man's insignificance an argument for staying his wrath.
Verse 40. How oft did they provoke him in the
wilderness. Times enough did they rebel: they were as
constant in provocation as he was in his patience. In our own
case, who can count his errors? In what book could all our
perverse rebellions be recorded? The wilderness was a place of
manifest dependence, where the tribes were helpless without
divine supplies, yet they wounded the hand which fed them while
it was in the act of feeding them. Is there no likeness between
us and them? Does it bring no tears into our eyes, while as in a
glass, we see our own selves? And grieve him in the desert.
Their provocations had an effect; God was not insensible to
them, he is said to have been grieved. His holiness could not
find pleasure in their sin, his justice in their unjust
treatment, or his truth in their falsehood. What must it be to
grieve the Lord of love! Yet we also have vexed the Holy Spirit,
and he would long ago have withdrawn himself from us, were it
not that he is God and not man. We are in the desert where we
need our God, let us not make it a wilderness of sin by grieving
him.
Verses 41. Yea, they turned back. Their hearts sighed
for Egypt and its fleshpots. They turned to their old ways again
and again, after they had been scourged out of them. Full of
twists and turns, they never kept the straight path. And tempted
God. As far as in them lay they tempted him. His ways were good,
and they in desiring to have them altered tempted God. Before
they would believe in him they demanded signs, defying the Lord
to do this and that, and acting as if he could be cajoled into
being the minion of their lusts. What blasphemy was this! Yet
let us not tempt Christ lest we also be destroyed by the
destroyer. And limited the Holy One of Israel. Doubted his power
and so limited him, dictated to his wisdom and so did the same.
To chalk out a path for God is arrogant impiety. The Holy One
must do right, the covenant God of Israel must be true, it is
profanity itself to say unto him thou shalt do this or that, or
otherwise I will not worship thee. Not thus is the Eternal God
to be led by a string by his impotent creature. He is the Lord
and he will do as seemeth him good.
Verse 42. They remembered not his hand. Yet it
must have been difficult to forget it. Such displays of divine
power as those which smote Egypt with astonishment, it must have
needed some more than usual effort to blot it from the tablets
of memory. It is probably meant that they practically, rather
than actually, forgot. He who forgets the natural returns of
gratitude, may justly be charged with not remembering the
obligation. Nor the days when he delivered them from the enemy.
The day itself was erased from their calendar, so far as any due
result from it or return for it. Strange is the faculty of
memory in its oblivion as well as its records. Sin perverts
man's powers, makes them forceful only in wrong directions, and
practically dead for righteous ends.
Verse 43. How he had wrought his signs in Egypt.
The plagues were ensigns of Jehovah's presence and proofs of his
hatred of idols; these instructive acts of power were wrought in
the open view of all, as signals are set up to be observed by
those far and near. And his wonders in the field of Zoan. In the
whole land were miracles wrought, not in cities alone, but in
the broad territory, in the most select and ancient regions of
the proud nation. This the Israelites ought not to have
forgotten, for they were the favoured people for whom these
memorable deeds were wrought.
Verse 44. And had turned their rivers into blood.
The waters had been made the means of the destruction of
Israel's newborn infants, and now they do as it were betray the
crime—they blush for it, they avenge it on the murderers. The
Nile was the vitality of Egypt, its true life blood, but at
God's command it became a flowing curse; every drop of it was a
horror, poison to drink, and terror to gaze on. How soon might
the Almighty One do this with the Thames or the Seine. Sometimes
he has allowed men, who were his rod, to make rivers crimson
with gore, and this is a severe judgment; but the event now
before us was more mysterious, more general, more complete, and
must, therefore, have been a plague of the first magnitude. And
their floods, that they could not drink. Lesser streams partook
in the curse, reservoirs and canals felt the evil; God does
nothing by halves. All Egypt boasted of the sweet waters of
their river, but they were made to loathe it more than they had
ever loved it. Our mercies may soon become our miseries if the
Lord shall deal with us in wrath.
Verse 45. He sent diverse sorts of flies among
them, which devoured them. Small creatures become great
tormentors. When they swarm they can sting a man till they
threaten to eat him up. In this case, various orders of insects
fought under the same banner; lice and beetles, gnats and
hornets, wasps and gadflies dashed forward in fierce battalions,
and worried the sinners of Egypt without mercy. The tiniest
plagues are the greatest. What sword or spear could fight with
these innumerable bands? Vain were the monarch's armour and
robes of majesty, the little cannibals were no more lenient
towards royal flesh than any other; it had the same blood in it,
and the same sin upon it. How great is that God who thus by the
minute can crush the magnificent. And frogs, which destroyed
them. These creatures swarmed everywhere when they were alive,
until the people felt ready to die at the sight; and when the
reptiles died, the heaps of their bodies made the land to stink
so foully, that a pestilence was imminent. Thus not only did
earth and air send forth armies of horrible life, but the water
also added its legions of loathsomeness. It seemed as if the
Nile was first made nauseous and then caused to leave its bed
altogether, crawling and leaping in the form of frogs. Those who
contend with the Almighty, little know what arrows are in his
quiver; surprising sin shall be visited with surprising
punishment.
Verse 46. He gave also their increase unto the
caterpillar, and their labour unto the locust. Different
sorts of devourers ate up every green herb and tree. What one
would not eat another did. What they expected from the natural
fertility of the soil, and what they looked for from their own
toil, they saw devoured before their eyes by an insatiable
multitude against whose depredation no defense could be found.
Observe in the text that the Lord did it all—"he sent,
" "he gave, ""he destroyed, ""he
gave up, "etc.; whatever the second agent may be, the
direct hand of the Lord is in every national visitation.
Verse 47. He destroyed their vines with hail.
No more shall thy butler press the clusters into thy cup, O
Pharaoh! The young fruit bearing shoots were broken off, the
vintage failed. And their sycomore trees with frost. Frost was
not usual, but Jehovah regards no laws of nature when men regard
not his moral laws. The sycomore fig was perhaps more the fruit
of the many than was the vine, therefore this judgment was meant
to smite the poor, while the former fell most heavily upon the
rich. Mark how the heavens obey their Lord and yield their
stores of hail, and note how the fickle weather is equally
subservient to the divine will.
Verse 48. He gave up their cattle also to the hail.
What hail it must have been to have force enough to batter down
bullocks and other great beasts. God usually protects animals
from such destruction, but here he withdraws his safeguards and
gave them up: may the Lord never give us up. Some read,
"shut up, "and the idea of being abandoned to
destructive influences is then before us in another shape. And
their flocks to hot thunderbolts. Fire was mingled with the
hail, the fire ran along upon the ground, it smote the smaller
cattle. What a storm must that have been: its effects were
terrible enough upon plants, but to see the poor dumb creatures
stricken must have been heartbreaking. Adamantine was that heart
which quailed not under such plagues as these, harder than
adamant those hearts which in after years forgot all that the
Lord had done, and broke off from their allegiance to him.
Verse 49. He cast upon them the fierceness of his
anger, wrath, and indignation, and trouble. His last arrow
was the sharpest. He reserved the strong wine of his indignation
to the last. Note how the psalmist piles up the words, and well
he might; for blow followed blow, each one more staggering than
its predecessor, and then the crushing stroke was reserved for
the end. By sending evil angels among them. Messengers of evil
entered their houses at midnight, and smote the dearest objects
of their love. The angels were evil to them, though good enough
in themselves; those who to the heirs of salvation are ministers
of grace, are to the heirs of wrath executioners of judgment.
When God sends angels, they are sure to come, and if he bids
them slay they will not spare. See how sin sets all the powers
of heaven in array against man; he has no friend left in the
universe when God is his enemy.
Verse 50. He made a way to his anger, coming to
the point with them by slow degrees; assailing their outworks
first by destroying their property, and then coming in upon
their persons as through an open breach in the walls. He broke
down all the comforts of their life, and then advanced against
their life itself. Nothing could stand in his way; he cleared a
space in which to do execution upon his adversaries. He spared
not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence.
In their soul was the origin of the sin, and he followed it to
its source and smote it there. A fierce disease filled the land
with countless funerals; Jehovah dealt out myriads of blows, and
multitudes of spirits failed before him.
Verse 51. And smote all the firstborn in Egypt.
No exceptions were made, the monarch bewailed his heir as did
the menial at the mill. They smote the Lord's firstborn, even
Israel, and he smites theirs. The chief of their strength in the
tabernacles of Ham. Swinging his scythe over the field, death
topped off the highest flowers. The tents of Ham knew each one
its own peculiar sorrow, and were made to sympathise with the
sorrows which had been ruthlessly inflicted upon the habitations
of Israel. Thus curses come home to roost. Oppressors are repaid
in their own coin, without the discount of a penny.
Verse 52. But made his own people to go forth like
sheep. The contrast is striking, and ought never to have
been forgotten by the people. The wolves were slain in heaps,
the sheep were carefully gathered, and triumphantly delivered.
The tables were turned, and the poor serfs became the honoured
people, while their oppressors were humbled before them. Israel
went out in a compact body like a flock; they were defenceless
in themselves as sheep, but they were safe under their Great
Shepherd; they left Egypt as easily as a flock leaves one
pasture for another. And guided them in the wilderness like a
flock. Knowing nothing of the way by their own understanding or
experience, they were, nevertheless, rightly directed, for the
All wise God knew every spot of the wilderness. To the sea,
through the sea, and from the sea, the Lord led his chosen;
while their former taskmasters were too cowed in spirit, and
broken in power, to dare to molest them.
Verse 53. And he led them on safely, so that they
feared not. After the first little alarm, natural enough
when they found themselves pursued by their old taskmasters,
they plucked up courage and ventured forth boldly into the sea,
and afterwards into the desert where no man dwelt. But the sea
overwhelmed their enemies. They were gone, gone for ever, never
to disturb the fugitives again. That tremendous blow effectually
defended the tribes for forty years from any further attempt to
drive them back. Egypt found the stone too heavy and was glad to
let it alone. Let the Lord be praised who thus effectually freed
his elect nation. What a grand narrative have we been
considering. Well might the mightiest master of sacred song
select "Israel in Egypt" as a choice theme for his
genius; and well may every believing mind linger over every item
of the amazing transaction. The marvel is that the favoured
nation should live as if unmindful of it all, and yet such is
human nature. Alas, poor man! Rather, alas, base heart! We now,
after a pause, follow again the chain of events, the narration
of which had been interrupted by a retrospect, and we find
Israel entering into the promised land, there to repeat her
follies and enlarge her crimes.
Verse 54. And he brought them to the border of his
sanctuary. He conducted them to the frontier of the Holy
Land, where he intended the tabernacle to become the permanent
symbol of his abode among his people. He did not leave them
halfway upon their journey to their heritage; his power and
wisdom preserved the nation till the palm trees of Jericho were
within sight on the other side of the river. Even to this
mountain, which his right hand had purchased. Nor did he leave
them then, but still conducted them till they were in the region
round about Zion, which was to be the central seat of his
worship. This the Lord had purchased in type of old by the
sacrifice of Isaac, fit symbol of the greater sacrifice which
was in due season to be presented there: that mountain was also
redeemed by power, when the Lord's right hand enabled his
valiant men to smite the Jebusites, and take the sacred hill
from the insulting Canaanite. Thus shall the elect of God enjoy
the sure protection of the Lord of hosts, even to the border
land of death, and through the river, up to the hill of the Lord
in glory. The purchased people shall safely reach the purchased
inheritance.
Verse 55. He cast out the heathen also before them,
or "he drove out the nations." Not only were armies
routed, but whole peoples displaced. The iniquity of the
Canaanites was full; their vices made them rot above ground;
therefore, the land ate up its inhabitants, the hornets vexed
them, the pestilence destroyed them, and the sword of the tribes
completed the execution to which the justice of long provoked
heaven had at length appointed them. The Lord was the true
conqueror of Canaan; he cast out the nations as men cast out
filth from their habitations, he uprooted them as noxious weeds
are extirpated by the husbandman. And divided them an
inheritance by line. He divided the land of the nations among
the tribes by lot and measure, assigning Hivite, Perizzite, and
Jebusite territory to Simeon, Judah, or Ephraim, as the case
might be. Among those condemned nations were not only giants in
stature, but also giants in crime: those monsters of iniquity
had too long defiled the earth; it was time that they should no
more indulge the unnatural crimes for which they were infamous;
they were, therefore, doomed to forfeit life and lands by the
hands of the tribes of Israel. The distribution of the forfeited
country was made by divine appointment; it was no scramble, but
a judicial appointment of lands which had fallen to the crown by
the attainder of the former holders. And made the tribes of
Israel to dwell in their tents. The favoured people entered upon
a furnished house: they found the larder supplied, for they fed
upon the old corn of the land, and the dwellings were already
builded in which they could dwell. Thus does another race often
enter into the lot of a former people, and it is sad indeed when
the change which judgment decrees does not turn out to be much
for the better, because the incomers inherit the evils as well
as the goods of the ejected. Such a case of judicial visitation
ought to have had a salutary influence upon the tribes; but,
alas, they were incorrigible, and would not learn even from
examples so near at home and so terribly suggestive.
Verse 56. Yet they tempted and provoked the most
high God. Change of condition had not altered their manners.
They left their nomadic habits, but not their tendencies to
wander from their God. Though every divine promise had been
fulfilled to the letter, and the land flowing with milk and
honey was actually their own, yet they tried the Lord again with
unbelief, and provoked him with other sins. He is not only high
and glorious, but most High, yea, the most High, the only
being who deserves to be so highly had in honour; yet, instead
of honouring him, Israel grieved him with rebellion. And kept
not his testimonies. They were true to nothing but hereditary
treachery; steadfast in nothing but in falsehood. They knew his
truth and forgot it, his will and disobeyed it, his grace and
perverted it to an occasion for greater transgression. Reader,
dost thou need a looking glass? See here is one which suits the
present expositor well; does it not also reflect thine image?
Verse 57. But turned back. Turned over the old
leaf, repeated the same offences, started aside like an ill made
bow, were false and faithless to their best promises. And dealt
unfaithfully like their fathers, proving themselves legitimate
by manifesting the treachery of their sires. They were a new
generation, but not a new nation—another race yet not another.
Evil propensities are transmitted; the birth follows the
progenitor; the wild ass breeds wild asses; the children of the
raven fly to the carrion. Human nature does not improve, the new
editions contain all the errata of the first, and sometimes
fresh errors are imported. They were turned aside like a
deceitful bow, which not only fails to send the arrow towards
the mark in a direct line, but springs back to the archer's
hurt, and perhaps sends the shaft among his friends to their
serious jeopardy. Israel boasted of the bow as the national
weapon, they sang the song of the bow, and hence a deceitful bow
is made to be the type and symbol of their own unsteadfastness;
God can make men's glory the very ensign of their shame, he
draws a bar sinister across the escutcheon of traitors.
Verse 58. For they provoked him to anger with their
high places. This was their first error—will worship, or
the worship of God, otherwise than according to his command.
Many think lightly of this, but it was no mean sin; and its
tendencies to further offence are very powerful. The Lord would
have his holy place remain as the only spot for sacrifice; and
Israel, in wilful rebellion, (no doubt glossed over by the plea
of great devotion,)determined to have many altars upon many
hills. If they might have but one God, they insisted upon it
that they would not be restricted to one sacred place of
sacrifice. How much of the worship of the present day is neither
more nor less than sheer will worship! Nobody dare plead a
divine appointment for a tithe of the offices, festivals,
ceremonies, and observances of certain churches. Doubtless God,
so far from being honoured by worship which he has not
commanded, is greatly angered at it. And moved him to jealousy
with their graven images. This was but one more step; they
manufactured symbols of the invisible God, for they lusted after
something tangible and visible to which they could shew
reverence. This also is the crying sin of modern times. Do we
not hear and see superstition abounding? Images, pictures,
crucifixes, and a host of visible things are had in religious
honour, and worst of all men now a days worship what they eat,
and call that a God which passes into their belly, and thence
into baser places still. Surely the Lord is very patient, or he
would visit the earth for this worst and basest of idolatry. He
is a jealous God, and abhors to see himself dishonoured by any
form of representation which can come from man's hands.
Verse 59. When God heard this, he was wroth.
The mere report of it filled him with indignation; he could not
bear it, he was incensed to the uttermost, and most justly so.
And greatly abhorred Israel. He cast his idolatrous people from
his favour, and left them to themselves, and their own devices.
How could he have fellowship with idols? What concord hath
Christ with Belial? Sin is in itself so offensive that it makes
the sinner offensive too. Idols of any sort are highly abhorrent
to God, and we must see to it that we keep ourselves from them
through divine grace, for rest assured idolatry is not
consistent with true grace in the heart. If Dagon sit aloft in
any soul, the ark of God is not there. Where the Lord dwells no
image of jealousy will be tolerated. A visible church will soon
become a visible curse if idols be set up in it, and then the
pruning knife will remove it as a dead branch from the vine.
Note that God did not utterly cast away his people Israel even
when he greatly abhorred them, for he returned in mercy to them,
so the subsequent verses tell us: so now the seed of Abraham,
though for awhile under a heavy cloud, will be gathered yet
again, for the covenant of salt shall not be broken. As for the
spiritual seed, the Lord hath not despised nor abhorred them;
they are his peculiar treasure and lie for ever near his heart.
Verse 60. So that he forsook the tabernacle of
Shiloh, the tent which he placed among men. His glory would
no more reveal itself there, he left Shiloh to become a complete
ruin. At the door of that tent shameless sin had been
perpetrated, and all around it idols had been adored, and
therefore the glory departed and Ichabod was sounded as a word
of dread concerning Shiloh and the tribe of Ephraim. Thus may
the candlestick be removed though the candle is not quenched.
Erring churches become apostate, but a true church still
remains; if Shiloh be profaned Zion is consecrated. Yet is it
ever a solemn caution to all the assemblies of the saints,
admonishing them to walk humbly with their God, when we read
such words as those of the prophet Jeremiah in is seventh
chapter, "Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple
of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, are
these. Go ye now unto my place which was in Shiloh, where I set
my name at the first, and see what I did to it for the
wickedness of my people Israel." Let us take heed, lest as
the ark never returned to Shiloh after its capture by the
Philistines, so the gospel may be taken from us in judgment,
never to be restored to the same church again.
Verse 61. And delivered his strength into
captivity. The ark was captured by the Philistines in
battle, only because the Lord for the punishment of Israel chose
to deliver it into their hands, otherwise they could have had no
power at all against it. The token of the divine presence is
here poetically called "his strength; ", and, indeed,
the presence of the Lord is his strength among his people. It
was a black day when the mercyseat was removed, when the
cherubim took flight, and Israel's palladium was carried away.
And his glory into the enemy's hand. The ark was the place for
the revealed glory of God, and his enemies exulted greatly when
they bore it away into their own cities. Nothing could more
clearly have shown the divine displeasure. It seemed to say that
Jehovah would sooner dwell among his avowed adversaries than
among so false a people as Israel; he would sooner bear the
insults of Philistia than the treacheries of Ephraim. This was a
fearful downfall for the favoured nation, and it was followed by
dire judgments of most appalling nature. When God is gone all is
gone. No calamity can equal the withdrawal of the divine
presence from a people. O Israel, how art thou brought low! Who
shall help thee now that thy God has left thee!
Verse 62. He gave his people over also unto the
sword. They fell in battle because they were no longer aided
by the divine strength. Sharp was the sword, but sharper still
the cause of its being unsheathed. And was wroth with his
inheritance. They were his still, and twice in this verse
they are called so; yet his regard for them did not prevent his
chastening them, even with a rod of steel. Where the love is
most fervent, the jealousy is most cruel. Sin cannot be
tolerated in those who are a people near unto God.
Verse 63. The fire consumed their young men. As
fire slew Nadab and Abihu literally, so the fire of divine wrath
fell on the sons of Eli, who defiled the sanctuary of the Lord,
and the like fire, in the form of war, consumed the flower of
the people. And their maidens were not given to marriage. No
nuptial hymn were sung, the bride lacked her bridegroom, the
edge of the sword had cut the bands of their espousals, and left
unmarried those who else had been extolled in hymns and
congratulations. Thus Israel was brought very low, she could not
find husbands for her maids, and therefore her state was not
replenished; no young children clustered around parental knees.
The nation had failed in its solemn task of instructing the
young in the fear of Jehovah, and it was a fitting judgment that
the very production of a posterity should be endangered.
Verse 64. Their priests fell by the sword.
Hophni and Phineas were slain; they were among the chief in sin,
and, therefore, they perished with the rest. Priesthood is no
shelter for transgressors; the jewelled breastplate cannot turn
aside the arrows of judgment. And their widows made no
lamentation. Their private griefs were swallowed up in the
greater national agony, because the ark of God was taken. As the
maidens had no heart for the marriage song, so the widows had no
spirit, even to utter the funeral wail. The dead were buried too
often and too hurriedly to allow of the usual rites of
lamentation. This was the lowest depth; from this point things
will take a gracious turn.
Verse 65. The Lord awaked as one out of sleep.
Justly inactive, he had suffered the enemy to triumph, his ark
to be captured, and his people to be slain; but now he arouses
himself, his heart is full of pity for his chosen, and anger
against the insulting foe. Woe to thee, O Philistia, now thou
shalt feel the weight of his right hand! Waking and putting
forth strength like a man who has taken a refreshing draught,
the Lord is said to be, like a mighty man that shouteth by
reason of wine. Strong and full of energy the Lord dashed upon
his foes, and made them stagger beneath his blows. His ark from
city to city went as an avenger rather than as a trophy, and in
every place the false gods fell helplessly before it.
Verse 66. He smote his enemies in the hinder parts.
The emerods rendered them ridiculous, and their numerous defeats
made them yet more so. They fled but were overtaken and wounded
in the back to their eternal disgrace. He put them to a
perpetual reproach. Orientals are not very refined, and we can
well believe that the haemorrhoids were the subject of many a
taunt against the Philistines, as also were their frequent
defeats by Israel until at last they were crushed under, never
to exist again as a distinct nation.
Verse 67. Moreover he refused the tabernacle of
Joseph. God had honoured Ephraim, for to that tribe belonged
Joshua the great conqueror, and Gideon the great judge, and
within its borders was Shiloh the place of the ark and the
sanctuary; but now the Lord would change all this and set up
other rulers. He would no longer leave matters to the leadership
of Ephraim, since that tribe had been tried and found wanting.
And chose not the tribe of Ephraim. Sin had been found in them,
folly and instability, and therefore they were set aside as
unfit to lead.
Verse 68. But chose the tribe of Judah. To give
the nation another trial this tribe was elected to supremacy.
This was according to Jacob's dying prophecy. Our Lord sprang
out of Judah, and he it is whom his brethren shall praise. The
Mount Zion which he loved. The tabernacle and ark were removed
to Zion during the reign of David; no honour was left to the
wayward Ephraimites. Hard by this mountain the Father of the
Faithful had offered up his only son, and there in future days
the great gatherings of his chosen seed would be, and therefore
Zion is said to be lovely unto God.
Verse 69. And he built his sanctuary like high
palaces. The tabernacle was placed on high, literally and
spiritually it was a mountain of beauty. True religion was
exalted in the land. For sanctity it was a temple, for majesty
it was a palace. Like the earth which he hath established for
ever. Stability was well as stateliness were seen in the temple,
and so also in the church of God. The prophets saw both in
vision.
Verse 70. He chose David also his servant. It
was an election of a sovereignly gracious kind, and it operated
practically by making the chosen man a willing servant of the
Lord. He was not chosen because he was a servant, but in order
that he might be so. David always esteemed it to be a high
honour that he was both elect of God, and a servant of God. And
took him from the sheepfolds. A shepherd of sheep he had been,
and this was a fit school for a shepherd of men. Lowliness of
occupation will debar no man from such honours as the Lord's
election confers, the Lord seeth not as man seeth. He delights
to bless those who are of low estate.
Verse 71. From following the ewes great with young
he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his
inheritance. Exercising the care and art of those who watch
for the young lambs, David followed the ewes in their
wanderings; the tenderness and patience thus acquired would tend
to the development of characteristics most becoming in a king.
To the man thus prepared, the office and dignity which God had
appointed for him, came in due season, and he was enabled
worthily to wear them. It is wonderful how often divine wisdom
so arranges the early and obscure portion of a choice life, so
as to make it a preparatory school for a more active and noble
future.
Verse 72. So he fed them according to the integrity
of his heart. David was upright before God, and never
swerved in heart from the obedient worship of Jehovah. Whatever
faults he had, he was unfeignedly sincere in his allegiance to
Israel's superior king; he shepherded for God with honest heart.
And guided them by the skilfulness of his hands. He was a
sagacious ruler, and the psalmist magnifies the Lord for having
appointed him. Under David, the Jewish kingdom rose to an
honourable position among the nations, and exercised an
influence over its neighbours. In closing the Psalm which has
described the varying conditions of the chosen nation, we are
glad to end so peacefully; with all noise of tumult or of sinful
rites hushed into silence. After a long voyage over a stormy
sea, the ark of the Jewish state rested on its Ararat, beneath a
wise and gentle reign, to be wafted no more hither and thither
by floods and gales. The psalmist had all along intended to make
this his last stanza, and we too may be content to finish all
our songs of love with the reign of the Lord's anointed. Only we
may eagerly enquire, when will it come? When shall we end these
desert roamings, these rebellions, and chastenings, and enter
into the rest of a settled kingdom, with the Lord Jesus reigning
as "the Prince of the house of David?" Thus have we
ended this lengthy parable, may we in our life parable have less
of sin, and as much of grace as are displayed in Israel's
history, and may we close it under the safe guidance of
"that great Shepherd of the sheep." AMEN.
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Whole Psalm. This Psalm appears to have been
occasioned by the removal of the sanctuary from Shiloh in the
tribe of Ephraim to Judah, and the coincident transfer of
preeminence in Israel from the former to the latter tribe, as
clearly evinced by David's settlement as the head of the church
and nation. Though this was the execution of God's purpose, the
writer here shows that it also proceeded from the divine
judgment on Ephraim, under whose leadership the people had
manifested the same sinful and rebellious character which had
distinguished their ancestors in Egypt. B. M. Smith, in
"The Critical and Explanatory Pocket Bible." 1867.
Verse 1. Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline
your ears. Inclining the ears does not denote any ordinary
sort of hearing, but such as a disciple renders to the words of
his master, with submission and reverence of mind, silent and
earnest, that whatever is enunciated for the purpose of
instruction may be heard and properly understood, and nothing be
allowed to escape. He is a hearer of a different stamp, who
hears carelessly, not for the purpose of learning or imitation,
but to criticise, to make merry, to indulge animosity, or to
kill time. Musculus.
Verse 1. Incline your ears. Lay them close to
my lips, that no parcel of this sacred language fall to the
ground by your default. John Trapp.
Verse 1. To the words of my mouth. Was it not
sufficient for the parallelism to say, To my words?
Obviously. Why then is there any notice taken of the mouth?
Because those who can prescribe laws to their subjects are also
those who scorn to address them with their mouth. Such is the
custom of kings, princes, pontiffs, both Roman and others. For
the higher every one rises in dignity, the less he considers it
becoming to him to speak to the people, to teach and instruct
them by word of mouth. They think they owe nothing to the
people, but are altogether taken up with this, that they may be
looked up to as princes, and so retain a certain secular majesty
of command. But, with one's own mouth to teach the ignorant, is
a singular proof of love and paternal affection, such as becomes
the preceptor, pastor and teacher. This Christ most constantly
employed, because he was touched with paternal affection towards
the lost sheep, and came as a shepherd to seek them. The manner
of earthly princes he therefore rejected, and clothed himself
with that paternal custom which becomes the shepherd and
teacher, going about and opening his mouth in order to give
instruction. See Matthew 5. Rightly, therefore, was the prophet
not content with saying, Give ear, O my people, to my law:
he adds, Incline your ears to the words of my mouth. Thus
he indicates that he was about to address and instruct them with
paternal affection. Musculus.
Verse 2. Parable. Dark sayings. lvm, an
authoritative weighty speech or saying. The Hebrew term very
nearly answers to the Greek, kuriai doxai, i.e., authoritative
sentences or maxims, or weighty sayings, expressing
or implying a comparison, as such sayings frequently do.
hdyx an enigma, a parable, which penetrates the mind, and
when understood makes a deep impression of what is intended or
represented by it. Here twdyx seems to refer to the historical
facts mentioned in the subsequent part of the Psalm, considered
as enigmas of spiritual concern. John Parkhurst.
Verse 2. Parable. Parables are the speeches of
wise men, yea, they are the extracts and spirits of wisdom. The
Hebrew word signifies to rule, or have authority, because such
speeches come upon us with authority, and subdue our reason by
the weight of theirs. Joseph Caryl.
Verse 2. I will utter. The metaphor in this
word is taken from a fountain which pours forth water
abundantly. For ebg properly means to gush forth, or bubble up.
The heart of teachers in the Church ought to be full, and ready
to pour forth those streams by which the Church is watered.
Their spring ought not to become exhausted, and fail in the
summer. Mollerus.
Verse 3. Which we have heard and known. We have
heard the law and known the facts. Adam
Clarke.
Verse 3. Fathers. Those are worthy of the name
of fathers in the church, in relation to posterity, who
transmit to posterity the truth of God contained in Scripture,
such as here is set down in this Psalm: and this is the only
infallible sort of tradition, which delivereth to posterity what
God delivered to the prophets or their predecessors by
Scripture, such as is the doctrine delivered in this Psalm. David
Dickson.
Verse 4. We will not hide from their children,
etc. Thou must not only praise God thyself, but endeavour to
transmit the memorial of his goodness to posterity. Children are
their parent's heirs; it were unnatural for a father, before he
dies, to bury up his treasure in the earth where his children
should not find or enjoy it; now the mercies of God are not the
least part of a good man's treasure, nor the least of his
children's inheritance, being both helps to their faith, matter
for their praise, and spurs to their obedience. "Our
fathers have told us what works thou didst in their days, how
thou didst drive out the heathen" etc., Ps 44:1-2; from
this they ground their confidence, Ps 44:4, "Thou art my
King, O God; command deliverances for Jacob, " and excite
their thankfulness, Ps 44:8, "In God we boast all the day
long, and praise thy name for ever." Indeed, as children
are their parents heirs, so they become in justice liable to pay
their parents' debts: now the great debt which the saint at
death stands charged with, is that which he owes to God for his
mercies, and, therefore, it is but reason he should tie his
posterity to the payment thereof. Thus mayest thou be praising
God in heaven and earth at the same time. William Gurnall.
Verses 4-6. The cloth that is dyed in the wool will
keep colour best. Disciples in youth will prove angels in age.
Use and experience strengthen and confirm in any art or science.
The longer thy child hath been brought up in Christ's school,
the more able he will be to find out Satan's wiles and
fallacies, and to avoid them. The longer he hath been at the
trade the more skill and delight will he have in worshipping and
enjoying the blessed God. The tree when it is old stands
strongly against the wind, just as it was set when it was young.
The children of Merindal so answered one another in the matters
of religion, before the persecuting Bishop of Cavailon, that a
bystander said unto the bishop, I must needs confess I have
often been at the disputations of the doctors in the Sorbonne,
but I never learned so much as by these children. Seven children
at one time suffered martyrdom with Symphrosia, a godly matron,
their mother. Such a blessing doth often accompany religious
breeding; therefore Julian the apostate, to hinder the growth
and increase of Christianity, would not suffer children to be
taught either human or divine learning.
Philip was glad that Alexander was born whilst Aristotle
lived, that he might be instructed by Aristotle in philosophy.
It is no mean mercy that thy children are born in the days of
the gospel, and in a valley of vision, a land of light, where
they may be instructed in Christianity. Oh, do not fail,
therefore, to acquaint thy children with the nature of God, the
natures and offices of Christ, their own natural sinfulness and
misery, the way and means of their recovery, the end and errand
for which they were sent into the world, the necessity of
regeneration and a holy life, if ever they would escape eternal
death! Alas! how is it possible they should ever arrive at
heaven if they know not the way thither? The inhabitants of
Mitylene, sometime the lords of the seas, if any of their
neighbours revolted, did inflict this punishment,—they forbade
them to instruct their children, esteeming this a sufficient
revenge.—(Aelian.) Reader, if thou art careless of this
duty, I would ask thee what wrong thy children have done thee
that thou shouldest revenge thyself by denying them that which
is their due. I mean pious instruction. The Jewish rabbis speak
of a very strict custom and method for the instruction of their
children, according to their age and capacity. At five years old
they were filii legis, sons of the law, to read it. At
thirteen they were filli praecepti, sons of the precept,
to understand the law. At fifteen they were Talmudistae,
and went to deeper points of the law, even to Talmudic doubts.
As thy children grow up, so do thou go on to instruct them in
God's will. They are "born like the wild ass's colt,
"Job 11:12—that is, unruly, foolish, and ignorant. We
often call a fool an ass, but here it is a "wild ass's
colt, "which is most rude, unruly, and foolish. How, then,
shall thy ignorant children come to know God or themselves
without instruction?
Thy duty is to acquaint thy children with the works of God.
Teach them his doings as well as his sayings. "Take heed to
thyself, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen:
but teach them thy sons, and thy sons' sons, "De 4:9. God's
wonders should be had in everlasting remembrance. "He hath
made his wonderful works to be remembered, "Ps 109:4. Now,
one special way to do this is by writing them in our children's
memories, hereby they are transmitted to posterity. This was the
godly practice of the patriarchs, to instruct their children
concerning the creation of the world, transgression of man,
destruction of the old world, God's providence, the Messiah to
be revealed, and the like. The parents' mouths were large books,
in which their children did read the noble acts of the Lord. The
precept is here urged (Ps 78:2-7) upon a double ground, partly
for God's praise, in the perpetuity of his worthy deeds: his
words are of great weight, and therefore, as curious pictures or
precious jewels, must in memory of him be bequeathed from father
to son whilst the world continueth. If they are written on paper
or parchment they may perish (and is it not a thousand pities
that such excellent records should be lost?); but if they be
written by fathers successfully on their children's hearts, no
time shall blot or wear them out, Ex 12:26-27. Therefore, as the
rabbis observe, the night before the passover the Jews (to keep
God's mercies in memory to his honour) were wont to confer with
their children on this wise. The child said, Why is it called
the passover? The father said, Because the angel passed over us
when it slew the Egyptians, and destroyed us not. The child
said, Why do we eat unleavened bread? The father answered,
Because we were forced to hasten out of Egypt. The child said,
Why do we eat bitter herbs? The father answered, To mind us of
our afflictions in Egypt.
But the duty is also urged, partly for their own profit,
Ps 78:7, That they might set their hope in God, etc.
Acquaintance with God's favour will encourage their faith;
knowledge of his power will help them to believe his promise.
Reader, obedience to this precept may tend much to thy own and
thy children's profit. By teaching thy children God's actions,
thou wilt fix them the faster, and they will make the greater
impression, upon thy own spirit. A frequent mention of things is
the best art of memory: what the mouth preacheth often the mind
will ponder much. Besides, it may work for thy children's weal;
the more they be acquainted with the goodness, wisdom, power,
and faithfulness of God which appear in his works, the more they
will fear, love, and trust him. George Swinnock.
Verses 5-6. Five generations appear to be mentioned:
1. Fathers;
2. Their children;
3. The generation to come;
4. And their children;
5. And their children.
—Adam Clarke.
Verse 6. Children should earnestly hearken to the
instruction of their parents that they themselves may afterwards
be able to tell the same to their sons, and so a golden chain be
formed, wherewith being bound together, the whole family may
seek the skies. Whilst the father draws the son, the son the
grandson, the grandson his children to Christ, as the magnet of
them all, that they all may be made one. Thomas Le Blanc.
Verse 7. Set their hope in God. Their hope was
to be set not in the law which punishes, but in grace freely
given which redeems; therefore is it added and not forget the
works of God. Johannes De Turrecremata. 1476.
Verse 8. And might not be as their fathers. The
warning is taken from an example at home. He does not say, That
they might not be as the nations, which know not God: but, That
they might not be as their fathers. Domestic examples of
vice are much more pernicious than foreign ones. Hence one says:
Sic natura jubet, velocius et citius nos corrumpunt vitiorum
exempla domestica. Let us learn from this place, that it is
not safe in all things to cleave to the footsteps of our
fathers. He speaks of those fathers who perished in the
wilderness: of whom, see Numbers 14; Deuteronomy 1, and Ps 68:6.
Musculus.
Verse 8. As their fathers, a stubborn and
rebellious generation. Forasmuch as this bad emulation of
their ancestors is with difficulty plucked from the minds of
men, because of our innate reverence for our fathers, the
prophet heaps up words in the description of the crimes of their
fathers. He says they were hrm rwd, that is, a generation
detracting from the authority of God, and continually breaking
the bonds of the law, and in their petulance shaking off the
yoke, as a violent and refractory horse, or an untamed bullock,
enduring not the rein, or refusing to yield its neck to the
yoke, but constantly drawing back and rejecting the bridle. Mollerus.
Verses 8-9. Look carefully to the ground of thy active
obedience, that it be sound and sincere. The same right
principles whereby the sincere soul acts for Christ, will carry
him to suffer for Christ, when a call from God comes with such
an errand. "The children of Ephraim, being armed, and
carrying bows, turned back in the day of battle." Why? what
is the matter? so well armed, and yet so cowardly? This seems
strange: read the preceding verse and you will cease wondering;
they are called there, A generation that set not their heart
aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God. Let the
armour be what it will, yea, if soldiers were in a castle, whose
foundations were rock, and walls brass; yet if their hearts be
not right to their prince, an easy storm will drive them from
the walls, and a little scare open their gate, which hath not
this bolt of sincerity on it to hold it fast. In our late wars
we have seen that the honest hearts within thin and weak works
have held the town, when no walls could defend treachery from
betraying trust. William Gurnall.
Verse 9. The children of Ephraim, being armed,
etc. "When ye had girded on every man is weapons of war, ye
were ready to go up into the hill. And the Lord said unto me,
Say unto them, Go not up, neither fight; for I am not among you;
lest ye be smitten before your enemies. So I spake unto you; and
ye would not hear, but rebelled against the commandment of the
Lord, and went presumptuously up into the hill. And the
Amorites, which dwelt in that mountain, came out against you,
and chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto
Hormah." De 1:41-44.
Verse 9. Many person suppose the passage to refer to
the event recorded in 1Ch 7:21-22, where are mentioned the sons
of Ephraim, "whom the men of Gath that were born in the
land slew, because they came down to take away their cattle. And
Ephraim their father mourned many days, and his brethren came to
comfort him." The manner of the relation shows that the
slaughter must have been great; and this flight and defeat, and
their not acknowledging their dependence upon God, it is
supposed the psalmist has in view in this place. But the
objection to this interpretation is, that the event referred to
in the book of Chronicles, evidently occurred at a time anterior
to that of the Israelitish exodus from Egypt; whilst Ps 78:11
speaks of these same Ephraimites being forgetful of God's doings
and wonderful works which he did at the time of their exit from
Egypt. It is, therefore, more probable that Myrka ygk may
designate the Israelitish people generally, which Mendelssohn
thinks to be the case. He observes that "the meaning of the
noun Ephraim was that of a general term for Israel before the
reigning of the house of David, because that Joshua the son of
Nun, the first judge, was of this tribe; also because the
territory assigned to this tribe was in the region of Shiloh:
and it is possible that because of the reputation of this tribe
in those days, all those who were in high esteem were also
called Ephraimites." He might have added another and
stronger reason than any of the preceding for this application
of the term to Israel, and it is, that Jeroboam, who may be
regarded as the founder of the Israelitish monarchy, is said, in
1Ki 11:26, to have been a descendant of Ephraim. The war alluded
to may have been one of those which were waged between the ten
tribes and the people of Judah. George Phillips.
Verse 10. Walk in his law. Note, we must walk
in the law of God, this is that narrow and sacred way which
Christ traces before us. At Athens there was iera odov, the
sacred way, by which, as Harpocratio relates, the priests of the
mysteries travelled to Elusin. At Rome also there was a way
which was called Via Sacra. To us also there is a way to
the skies, consecrated by the footsteps of the saints. It
behooves us therefore not to loiter, but to be ever on the
march. Thomas Le Blanc.
Verse 12. Zoan. The name of a city in Egypt (Nu
13:22), though it be not set down in the story in Exodus, is
twice specified by the writer of this psalm, here, and Ps 78:43,
as the scene wherein the wondrous works were wrought on Pharaoh
by Moses; either because really the first and principal of the
miracles were shewed Pharaoh there, this city being the seat of
the king, and a most ancient city, as appears by the expression
used of Hebron, in Nu 13:22, where to set out the antiquity of
that city, where Abraham, the tenth from Noah dwelt, it is said,
that "it was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt;
"or perhaps only in poetical style, as "the
field" or country of Zoan, is all one with the "land
of Egypt" foregoing. Thus, in other prophetic writings,
when judgments are threatened, instead of "Egypt"
sometimes we find "Zoan" alone, Isa 19:11, where the
"princes of Zoan" are all one with the counsellors of
Pharaoh; sometimes "the princes of Zoan, "with the
addition of some other city, as Isa 19:13, "the princes of
Zoan, the princes of Noph, "i.e., again, the
counsellors of that kingdom, which as it follows, "have
seduced Egypt, "—brought the whole nation to ruin. So Isa
30:4, where they sent to Egypt for relief, it is said, their
"princes were at Zoan, their ambassadors at Hanes." Henry
Hammond.
Verse 12. In the field of Zoan. We see in this
passage that it was not without reason that God most powerfully
displayed his wondrous works, his virtue and his glory in the
more famous cities: not that he despised the humbler and
obscure, but that he might more conveniently in this way scatter
abroad the knowledge and renown of his name. For this cause he
desired Moses to perform his miracles in the royal city, and in
its field; for the same reason he afterwards fixed his
dwelling place in the most famous city of Canaan, in which he
decreed also that Christ his Son should be crucified and the
foundation of his heavenly kingdom laid. Musculus.
Verse 13. He made the waters to stand as an heap.
The original word imports, those great heaps which are made use
of as dykes or banks to restrain the waters. But the Jews have
not only understood these expressions literally, but have
likewise taken upon them to add particular circumstances, as if
the history had been so concise, that it wanted to be supplied
therewith. They say, that the sea had formed, as it were, twelve
roads or causeways, according to the number of the tribes of the
Israelites. James Saurin.
Verse 13. He made the waters to stand as an heap.
God did not wish altogether to take the sea from the gaze of the
Hebrews, but to interrupt and divide it, that like a wall it
might stand firm on either side of the way. This was done,
first, that the miracle might be evident, for in that sea there
is no tidal rise or fall of the waters. Secondly, that the
people might have greater joy at the sight of so great a
miracle. Thirdly, that in their whole passage they might depend
more upon the providence of God, who, in a single moment, could
allow the sea to return to its bed and drown all of them. It is
God's will than we should flee to him the more ardently as the
aspect of present danger. Fourthly and lastly, that the people
might pass over the more rapidly, since they knew not how long
God wished the miracle to last. Thomas Le Blanc.
Verse 14. That there was a mystery in this pillar
of cloud and fire is clear from Isa 4:5-6, for there never
was a literal cloud and fire upon Mount Zion. This fiery
pillar did cease when they were entered into Canaan; Isaiah
therefore intends a spiritual thing under those
expressions. So it is represented by the Apostle as representing
a gospel mystery: 1Co 10:2. It signified and shadowed forth, 1.
Something of Christ himself; 2. The benefits of
Christ; 3. The ordinances of Christ.
1. Christ himself. Some have noted a shadow both of
his Deity and humanity. There was a fiery
brightness in the clouds, which yet was but a dark shadow of
the glory of his Deity, which was often in vision so
represented; but his divine nature was veiled and over clouded
by his human, as in this shadow there was a pillar of cloud
as well as fire. In Re 10:1 Christ is represented as clothed
with a cloud, and his feet as pillars of fire; expressions
notably answering this ancient type and shadow.
2. It holds forth something of the benefits of Christ.
What benefits had they from this pillar of fire and cloud? They
had three: (1) Light and direction. (2) Defence and protection.
(3) Ornament and glory. All which we have in a higher manner in
Christ by the gospel.
3. It figured also the ordinances, and his presence in
and with them; for the ordinances are the outward and visible
tokens of God's presence with his people, as this fiery pillar
was of old. And, therefore, when the Tabernacle was made and set
up, it rested upon the Tabernacle, Ex 40:38. There be
some duties are secret, which the world sees not, nor may see;
as alms deeds and personal and secret prayer. But the ordinances
of institution are things that ought to be practised with all
the publickness that may be: they are outward and visible tokens
of God's presence, particularly that great ordinance of baptism,
as in 1Co 10:2. The cloud, it seems, had a refreshing moisture
in it, to shade, refresh, and cool them from the burning heat;
and they were bedewed (Rather "baptised" in it,
as Paul puts it in 1Co 10:2) with it, as we are with the water
of baptism; whereby this legal cloud became a type of gospel
baptism. And so you see how it represented something of Christ
himself, and something of his benefits, and something
of all his ordinances under the New Testament. —Samuel
Mather.
Verse 14. All the night. We need not dwell long
upon the thought of what this all was to the Israelites.
In night marchings, and night restings, it was very
precious; whether they were in motion or at rest, it was alike
needed, alike good. This light of fire, unless continuous, would
have been of comparatively little worth. Were it suddenly
extinguished as they marched, all Israel would have been plunged
into confusion and dismay; the quenching of the light would have
changed into a disordered rabble, the marshalled host. Philip
Bennett Power, in "Breviates: or Short Texts and Their
Teachings."
Verse 15. The rocks. They were typical of
Christ, 1Co 10:4; who is frequently compared to one for height,
strength, and duration, shade, shelter, and protection; and is
called the "Rock of Israel, " the "Rock of
offence to both houses of Israel, "the "Rock of
salvation, "the "Rock of refuge, "the "Rock
of strength, "the "Rock that is higher than, "the
saints, and on which the church is built, and who is "the
shadow of a great rock in a weary land." John Gill.
Verse 15. Gave them drink as out of the great
depths. As if he had formed a lake or an ocean, furnishing
an inexhaustible supply. Albert Barnes.
Verse 16. He brought streams also out of the rock,
etc. "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."
The second murmuring for water at Kadesh seems to have been a
more aggravated act of rebellion than the former, and yet the
water is given in greater abundance. Oh, the freeness of the
sovereign grace of God! W. Wilson.
Verse 17. And they sinned yet more against him.
He does not say that they sinned only, but that they sinned
against God. And they sinned yet more against him, namely, God.
Against what God? Against him who had delivered them by great
and unheard of wonders out of Egypt, who had led them as free
men across the Red Sea with a dry foot, who had continued to
lead and to protect them will pillars of cloud and fire by day
and night, and had given them to drink abundantly of water drawn
from the arid rock. Against this God they had added sin to sin.
Simply to sin is human, and happens to the saints even after
they have received grace: but to sin against God argues a
singular degree of impiety. To sin against God is to injure and
dishonour him in things immediately pertaining to himself. So
they sinned against God, because after so many distinguished
proofs and testimonies of his care made manifest to them, they
continued to think and speak evil against him. All sins indeed,
of whatever class they may be, are done against God, because
they are opposed to his will; but those which are committed
peculiarly against God, are certainly greater than others. Such
are those wrought against his name, goodness, providence, power,
truth, and worship, and against those things which specially
concern him, whatever they may be. So we read of the sins of the
sons of Eli, 1Sa 2:24-25: "It is no good report that I
hear: ye make the Lord's people to transgress. If one man sin
against another, the judge shall judge him; but if a man sin
against the Lord, who shall intreat for him?" Musculus.
Verse 17. They sinned yet more. Their sin was
not murmuring only, sinful as that is, but uncontrolled
desire. And for what was that desire? It was for meat. They
had grown so weary of the bread of heaven which God so
mercifully provided; and they wanted something in
addition—something, too, which was not absolutely necessary to
their existence. When they murmured for water at Massah, they
murmured for something needful. Their sin then was
in murmuring, instead of praying. But here they
lusted for something unnecessary, and this was an
aggravation of their sin. And thus the psalmist, evidently
comparing this sin with the murmuring at Massah, says,
"They sinned yet more against him." George
Wagner, in "The Wanderings of the Children of Israel."
Verse 18. They tempted God. We know that,
although "God cannot be tempted with evil, "he may
justly be said to be tempted, whensoever men, by being
dissatisfied with his dealings, virtually ask that he will alter
those dealings, and proceed in a way more congenial with their
feelings. If you reflect a little, you can hardly fail to
perceive, that in a very strict sense, this and the like may be
said to be a tempting of God. Suppose a man to be discontented
with the appointments of Providence; suppose him to murmur and
repine at what the Almighty allots him to do or to bear: is he
not to be charged with provoking God to change his purpose? and
what is this if it be not "tempting" God—a striving
to induce him to swerve from his plans, though every one of
those plans has been settled by infinite wisdom? Or, again, if
any one of us, notwithstanding multiplied proofs of the Divine
lovingkindness, doubt or question whether God do indeed love
him; of what is he guilty, if not of tempting the Lord, seeing
that he solicits God to give additional evidence, as though
there were deficiency, and challenges him to fresh
demonstrations of what he has already abundantly displayed? This
would be called tempting amongst men. If a child were to
show by his actions that he doubted or disbelieved the affection
of his parents, he would be considered as thereby striving to
extort from them fresh proofs of that affection, though they had
already done as much as either in justice or in wisdom they
ought to have done; this would be a clear tempting of them, and
that too in the ordinary sense of the term. In short, unbelief
of every kind and degree may be said to be a tempting of God;
for not to believe on the evidence which he has seen fit to
give, is to tempt him to give more than he has already
given—offering our possible assent, if proof were increased,
as an inducement to him to go beyond what his wisdom has
prescribed... You cannot distrust God, and not accuse him of a
want either of power or of goodness; you cannot repine—no, not
even in thought—without virtually telling him that his plans
are not the best, nor his dispensations the wisest, which might
have been appointed in respect of yourselves. So that your fear,
or your despondency, or your anxiety in circumstances of
perplexity, or of peril, is nothing less than a call upon God to
depart from his fixed course,—a suspicion, or rather an
assertion, that he might proceed in a manner more worthy of
himself, and therefore a challenge to him to alter his dealings,
if he would prove that he possesses the attributes which he
claims. You may not intend thus to accuse, or provoke God,
whenever you murmur; but your murmuring does all this, and
cannot fail to do it. You cannot be dissatisfied, without
virtually saying that God might order things better; you cannot
say that he might order things better, without virtually
demanding that he change his course of acting, and give other
proofs of his infinite perfections. And thus you tempt
him, tempt him even as did the Israelites in the wilderness. Henry
Melvill.
Verse 18. Asking meat for their lusts. God had
given them meat for their hunger in the manna, wholesome,
pleasant food, and in abundance; he had given them meat for
their faith, out of the heads of Leviathan which he brake in
pieces, Ps 74:14. But all this would not serve, they must have
meat for their lust; dainties and varieties to gratify a
luxurious appetite. Nothing is more provoking to God, than our
quarrelling with our allotment, and indulging the desires of the
flesh. Matthew Henry.
Verse 19. It is particularly to be observed, that the
sin of which the children of Israel were on this occasion
guilty, was not in wishing for bread and water, but in thinking
for one moment, that after the Lord had brought them out of
Egypt, he would suffer them, for the lack of any needful thing,
to come short of Canaan. It was no sin to be hungry and thirsty;
it was a necessity of their nature. There is nothing living that
does not desire and require food: when we do not we are dead,
and that they did so was no sin. Their sin was to doubt
either that God could or would support them in the wilderness,
or allow those who followed his leading to lack any good thing.
This was their sin. It is just the same with the Christian now.
These Israelites did not more literally require a supply of
daily food for their bodies, than does the Christian for his
soul. Not to do so is a sign of death, and the living soul would
soon die without it. And so far from its being a sin, our Lord
has pronounced that man blessed who hungers and thirsts after
righteousness, adding the most precious promise, that all such
shall be satisfied. But it is a sin, and a very great sin,
should this food not be perceptibly, and to the evidence of our
senses, immediately supplied, to murmur and be fearful. It was
for the trial of their faith that these things happened
to the Israelites, as do the trials of all Christians in all
ages: and it is "after we have suffered a while" that
we may expect to be established, strengthened, settled. Brownlow
North, in "Ourselves. A Picture sketched from the History
of the Children of Israel." (1865.)
Verses 19-20. After all their experience, they doubted
the divine omnipotence, as if it were to be regarded as nothing,
when it refused to gratify their lusts. Unbelief is so deeply
rooted in the human heart, that when God performs miracles on earth,
unbelief doubts whether he can perform them in heaven,
and when he does them in heaven, whether he can do them
on earth? Augustus F. Tholuck.
Verse 20. Can he give bread also? They should
have said, "Will he serve our lusts?" but that they
were ashamed to say. John Trapp.
Verse 20. Who will say that a man is thankful to his
friend for a past kindness, if he nourishes an ill opinion of
him for the future? This was all that ungrateful Israel returned
to God, for his miraculous broaching of the rock to quench their
thirst: Behold, he smote the rock,—Can he give bread also?
This, indeed, was their trade all the time they were in the
wilderness. Wherefore, God gives them their character, not by
what they seemed to be while his mercies were before them; then
they could say, "God was their rock, and the High God their
Redeemer; "but by their temper and carriage in straits;
when the cloth was drawn, and the feast taken out of their
sight, what opinion then had they of God? Could they satisfy his
name so far as to trust him for their dinner tomorrow who had
feasted them yesterday? Truly no, as soon as they feel their
hunger return, like froward children, they are crying, as if God
meant to starve them. Wherefore God rejects their praises, and
owns not their hypocritical acknowledgments, but sets their
ingratitude upon record; they forgot his works, and waited not
for his counsel. O how sad is this, that after God had
entertained a soul at his table with choice mercies and
deliverances, these should be so ill husbanded, that not a bit
of them should be left to give faith a meal, to keep the heart
from fainting, when God comes not so fast to deliver as desired.
He is the most thankful man that treasures up the mercies of God
in his memory, and can feed his faith with what God hath done
for him, so as to walk in the strength thereof in present
straits. William Gurnall.
Verse 23. Opened the doors of heaven. There is
an allusion here to the flood, as in Ps 78:15. A. R. Fausset.
Verse 23. Opened the doors of heaven. God, who
has the key of the clouds, opened the doors of heaven,
that is more than opening the windows, which yet is
spoken of as a great blessing, Mal 3:19. Matthew Henry.
Verse 23. Opened the doors of heaven. This is a
metaphor taken from a granary, from which corn is brought; and
by opening the doors is signified, that the manna fell
very plentifully. Compare Ge 7:11. Thomas Fenton.
Verse 24-25. Manna. The prophet celebrates this
miracle, first, because of the unusual place whence the
manna was sent. For he did not produce fruits from the earth
wherewith to feed them, but rained down this food from the
clouds, and from the depths of the skies. Secondly,
because of the facility of the distribution. By the command of
God alone, without any labour of men, yea, while they slept,
this food was prepared. Therefore is it said, He gave,
etc. Thirdly, he celebrates its great abundance which
sufficed to supply so great a multitude. Fourthly, the
excellence of the food. He calls it the food of the excellent or
the strong, such as was not pleasant merely to the common
multitude, but to the princes also, and to the heroes, for it
was the food of the mighty ones. Mollerus.
Verse 25. Man. Rather, as Ex 16:6, every
man. Not one of them was left without it. A. R. Fausset.
Verse 25. Man did eat angel's food. It is
called angel's food, not because the angels do daily feed
upon it, but because it was both made and ministered by the
ministry of angels, and that phrase sets forth the excellency of
it. Christopher Ness (1621-1705), in "The Sacred History
and Mystery of the Old Testament."
Verse 25. Angels food. Mann is called the
bread of angels because it was brought down by their
ministry; and it was so pleasant in taste, that if the angels
had eaten bread, it might have served them. John Weemse.
Verse 25. Angel's food. So their manna was
called, either,
1. Because it was provided and sent by the ministry of
angels; or,
2. Because it seemed to come down from heaven, the dwelling
place of the angels; or,
3. To set forth the excellency of this bread, that it was
meat, as one would say, fit for angels, if angels needed meat.
And so, indeed, the exceeding glory of Stephen's countenance
is set forth by this, that they "saw his face as it had
been the face of an angel, "Ac 6:15; and Paul calls an
excellent tongue, "the tongue of angels, "1Co 13:1. Arthur
Jackson.
Verse 25. The more excellent the benefit is which God
giveth, the greater is the ingratitude of him who doth not
esteem of it and make use of it as becometh; as we see in
Israel's sin, who did not esteem of manna as they should have
done. Had the Lord fed them with dust of earth, or roots of
grass, or any other mean thing, they should have had no reason
to complain: but when he giveth them a new food, created every
morning for their sakes, sent down from heaven as fresh
furniture every day, of such excellent colour, taste, smell and
wholesomeness; what a provocation of God was it, not to be
content now; in special, when he gave them abundantly of it? He
sent them meat to the full. David Dickson.
Verse 26. He caused an east wind to blow in the
heaven: and by his power he brought in the south wind. Here,
on examining the geographical position of the Israelites, we see
exactly how the south east wind would bring the quails.
The Israelites had just passed by the Red Sea, and had began to
experience a foretaste of the privations which they were to
expect in the desert, through which they had to pass. Passing
northwards in their usual migrations, the birds would come to
the coast of the Red Sea, and there would wait until a
favourable wind enabled them to cross the water. The south east
wind afforded them just the very assistance which they needed,
and they would naturally take advantage of it. J. G. Wood, in
"Bible Animals." 1869.
Verse 27. As dust. The amazing clouds of fine
dust or sand, which a violent wind raises in the deserts of the
East, constitute the point of comparison. William Keatinge
Clay.
Verse 27. Feathered fowls. Hebrew, "fowl
of wing; "i.e., flying fowls, in distinction from domestic
poultry. Williams, in Notes to Calvin in loc.
Verse 27, 31. If the cemetery on Sarbut el Khadem be,
what all the antecedent evidences combine to indicate, the
workmanship of the Israelites, (a chief burial ground of their
fatal encampment at Kibroth Hattaayah), it may most reasonably
be expected that its monuments shall contain symbolic
representations of the miracle of the "feathered fowls,
"and of the awful plague which followed it. Now Niebuhr
happily enables us to meet this just expectation, by his copies
of the hieroglyphics on three of those tombstones, published in
the 45th and 46th plates of his first volume, and prefaced plate
44, by a plan of the cemetery itself, which is of more
value than any or all subsequent descriptions. It was discovered
by the present writer (as stated in a former work), ("The
Voice of Israel") on the evidence of no less than four
Sinaitic inscriptions, that the birds of the miracle, named by
Moses, generically, wlv, salu, and by the psalmist, still
more generally, Pgk Pwe, winged fowls, or more correctly,
"long winged fowls, "were not (as rendered by all our
versions, ancient and modern) quails, but a crane like
red bird resembling a goose, named in the Arabic nuham.
The discovery received subsequently a singular and signal
corroboration from the further discovery, by Dean Stanley, and
previously by Schubert, of immense flocks of these very nuhams
on the reputed scene of the miracle at Kibroth Hattaavah. With
these antecedents in his mind, the reader will now turn to the
three monuments copied by Niebuhr in the cemetery of Sarbut el
Khadem. He will at once see that a crane like bird resembling a
goose, with slender body and long legs, is the leading
hieroglyphic symbol in all three tablets. No fewer than
twenty-five of these symbolic birds occur in the first, ten in
the second, and fifteen in the third tablet. The goose appears
occasionally, but the principal specimens have the air of the
goose, but the form of the crane. In a word, they are the very
species of birds seen by Dean Stanley, both at this point of
Sinai, and at the first cataract of the Nile; and which
constantly occur also in Egyptian monuments: as though the very
food of Egypt, after which the Israelites lusted, was sent to be
at once their prey and their plague. "And the children of
Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of
the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh
pots." Ex 16:3. The reader has here before him the
irrefragable fact that the very birds which by every kind of
evidence stand identified with the salus, or long legged
and long winged fowls of the miracle, are the very birds
depicted on the tombstones of Sarbut el Khadem, both standing,
flying, and apparently even trussed and cooked... The inevitable
inference is... that these tombstones record the miracle of the
"feathered fowls, "and stand over the graves of the
gluttons who consumed them. Charles Forster, in "Israel
in the Wilderness." 1865. Mr. Forster thus deciphers by
his alphabet some of the mixed legends and devices:—
"From the sea the cranes congregate to one spot;
The archers shoot at the cranes passing over the plain.
Evil stomached they rush after the prey—
The sepulchre their doom—their marrow corrupted by God,
The sleepy owl, emblem of death, God sends destruction among
them."
"The mother of sepulchres—the black and white geese,
A sudden death, greedily lusting after flesh, die the gluttons.
The mountain top ascend the Hebrews,
They eat, devour, consume, till nothing is left, exceeding all
bounds,
Their bodies corrupted, by gluttony they die."
Verse 29. Note: The prophet in this Psalm institutes,
as it were, a conflict between God and man. God contends with
blessings, man with sins. God exerts his power for the benefit
of undeserving man, Ps 78:12, Marvellous things did he in the
sight of their fathers: man repays the divine power with
infidelity, Ps 78:17, And they sinned yet more against him.
And farther on, in Ps 78:19, Can God furnish a table in the
wilderness? Secondly, God showers down his bounty to
overwhelm ungrateful sinners with his gifts, Ps 78:23, He
commanded the clouds from above, &c., and rained down manna
upon them. These less than men (homunciones) oppose
their gluttony to the liberality of God, and abuse the gifts
conferred, Ps 78:29, They did eat, and were well filled.
Thirdly, divine justice renews the conflict to scourge at
once stupidity out of them, Ps 78:30-31, While their meat was
yet in their mouths, the wrath of God came upon them. Still
obdurate they kick against the goad, Ps 78:33, For all this
they sinned still. Fourthly, mercy flies down from heaven,
to invite them to peace, Ps 78:38, But he being full of
compassion. Men are but emboldened by his compassion, and
the more easily relapse into sin, Ps 78:40, How oft did they
provoke him in the wilderness? Fifthly, and lastly,
when all seems lost, love draws nigh, and performs unheard of
wonders, to touch their hardness, and to deliver them from the
dangers by which they were pressed, Ps 78:43, How he set his
signs in Egypt. To these shafts of his love sinners oppose a
forgetfulness of all his benefits, Ps 78:42, They remembered
not his hand nor the day when he delivered them from the enemy.
And all this took place before they entered the land of promise.
The conflict that happened between the Hebrews and God in the
land of promise is related in the next section of the Psalm. Thomas
Le Blanc.
Verse 29-31. Dangerous prayers. When lust dictates,
wrath may answer. Let grace dictate, and mercy will answer. C.
D.
Verse 30. They were not estranged from their lust.
This implies, that they were still burning with their lust. If
it is objected that this does not agree with the preceding
sentence, where it is said, that "they did eat, and were
thoroughly filled, "I would answer, that if, as is well
known, the minds of men are not kept within the bounds of reason
and temperance, they become insatiable; and, therefore, a great
abundance will not extinguish the fire of a depraved appetite. John
Calvin.
Verse 30. They were not estranged from their lust.
Satiated they were, but not satisfied. It is as easy to quench
the fire of Etna, as the thoughts set on fire by lust. John
Trapp.
Verse 30. They were not estranged from their lust.
Consider that there is more real satisfaction in mortifying
lusts than in making provision for them or in fulfilling them:
there's more true pleasure in crossing and pinching our flesh
than in gratifying it; were there any true pleasure in sin, hell
would not be hell, for the more sin, the more joy. You cannot
satisfy one lust if you would do your utmost, and make yourself
never so absolute a slave to it; you think if you had your
heart's desire you would be at rest: you much mistake; they had
it. Alexander Carmichael.
Verse 31. The wrath of God came upon them, and slew
the fattest of them. Two things are here worthy of notice.
1. One, Why he gave them abundance and sufficiency of quails,
and afterward punished the murmuring and unbelieving. If he had
punished them before, he would have appeared to have had greater
ability to destroy them, than to give them flesh. Therefore,
that he might first declare his power, and so make the unbelief
of the people the more plain, and show how deserving they were
of punishment, he first showed he could give, because they
believed he could not, and then punished them for their
unbelief... 2. The other, that he destroyed the fat and the
chosen men among the people, although they all are said to have
murmured. Without a doubt, they were first in the crime, and
therefore they are specially mentioned in the punishment. Musculus.
Verse 31. Slew the fattest of them. They were
fed as sheep for the slaughter. The butcher takes the fattest
first. We may suppose there were some pious and contented
Israelites that did eat moderately of the quails, and were never
the worse; for it was not the meat that poisoned them, but their
own lust, Let epicures and sensualists here read their doom;
they who make "a god of their belly, their end is
destruction, "Php 3:19. Matthew Henry.
Verses 31-34. The Christian has more true pleasure
from the creature than the wicked, as it comes more refined to
him than to the other. The unholy wretch sucks dregs and all,
dregs of sin and dregs of wrath, whereas the Christian's cup is
not thus spiced. First, dregs of sin; the more he hath of
the creature's delights given him, the more he sins with them.
Oh, it is sad to think what work they make in his naughty heart!
they are but fuel for his lust to kindle upon; away they run
with their enjoyments, as the prodigal with his bags, or like
hogs in shaking time; no sight is to be had of them, or thought
of their return as long as they can get anything abroad, among
the delights of the world. None so prodigiously wicked as those
who are fed high with carnal pleasures. They are to the ungodly
as the dung and ordure is to the swine which grows fat by lying
in it; so their hearts grow gross and fat; their consciences
more stupid and senseless in sin by them; whereas the comforts
and delights that God gives unto a holy soul by the creature,
turn to spiritual nourishment to his graces, and draw these
forth into exercise, as they do others' lusts. Secondly,
dregs of wrath. The Israelites had little pleasure from their
dainties, when the wrath of God fell upon them, before they
could get them down their throats. The sinner's feast is no
sooner served in but divine justice is preparing to send up a
reckoning after it, and the fearful expectation of this cannot
but spoil the taste of the other. William Gurnall.
Verse 33. Their days did he consume in vanity.
He says with great significance, In vanity their days were
consumed, because they were plainly deprived of their hope, and
endured all their sufferings in vain. They did not attain what
they had hoped for, but only their children entered the land. Mollerus.
Verse 33. Days are put in the first place, and
then years; by which it is intimated, that the duration
of their life was cut short by the curse of God, and that it was
quite apparent that they failed in the midst of their course. John
Calvin.
Verses 34-36. There are some if they come under
afflictions, or if they fall in sickness, or a fever, and God
shake death over their head; or if they be at some solemn
ordinances, they will be at resolving and purposing, and readily
bringing vows upon themselves, of personal covenanting with God;
but as they are easily gotten, so they easily vanish: When he
slew them, they sought him: and they returned and inquired early
after God. Several times our afflictions are like a gutter;
when there is a great shower we will be running over with
purposes after God. Nevertheless they did flatter him with
their mouth, and they lied unto him with their tongues. For
their heart was not right with him, neither were they steadfast
in his covenant: and yet when he slew them, they sought
after him, and they early enquired after him: so that in
deliberate actions and covenanting with God, as they are hastily
begotten, they no less suddenly vanish; the action ought then to
be deliberate when we indenture with the Cautioner, and oblige
ourselves to more watchfulness, and more tenderness, or else it
will soon vanish. Alexander Wedderburn, in "David's
Testament, opened up in Forty Sermons." 1701.
Verses 34-37. In these words you see plainly that
these people are very early and earnest in seeking God to take
off his hand, to remove judgments that were upon them, but not
that God would cure them of those sins that provoked him to draw
his sword, and to make it drunk with their blood; for,
notwithstanding the sad slaughters that divine justice had made
among them, they did but flatter and lie, and play the
hypocrites with God; they would fain be rid of their sufferings,
but did not care to be rid of their sins. Ah! but a gracious
soul cries out, Lord, do but take away my sins, and it will
satisfy me and cheer me, though thou shouldest never take off
thy heavy hand. A true Nathanael sighs it out under his greatest
affliction, as that good man did, A me, me salva, Domine,
(Augustine) deliver me, O Lord, from that evil man myself. No
burden to the burden of sin. Lord! says the believing soul;
deliver me from my inward burden, and lay upon me what outward
burden you please. Thomas Brooks.
Verses 34-37. There are a sort of men that lie in the
enmity of their natures, and in an unreconciled state, living in
the visible church, who are not only much restrained, and bite
their enmity in, but who, by means of an inferior work of the
word and Spirit of God upon their hearts, are brought to seek
unto God for friendship, yea, and do much for him in outward
actions, and side and take part with his friends; and yet their
hearts being unchanged, the cursed enmity of their nature
remaining alive and not taken away, they lie still in the gall
of bitterness. For instance, look to these in Ps 78:34-37. It is
said that they `sought the Lord early as their Redeemer, 'whilst
he was slaying of them; yet they did but flatter him with
their mouths, etc. A flatterer, you know, differs from a
friend, in that he pretends much kindness, yet wants inward good
will, doing it for his own ends. And so do many seek God, that
yet he accounts as enemies; for they seek him whilst they are
themselves in his lurch. Now, it is hard to discover these,
because they pretend much friendship, and externally (it may be)
do as many outward kindnesses as the true friends; as flatterers
will abound in outward kindnesses as much as true friends, nay,
often exceed them, because they may not be discovered. Now, if
none of the former signs reach to them, nor touch them, then
there is no better way left than to search unto the grounds of
all they do, and to examine whether it proceeds from true,
inward, pure, and constant good will, yea or no, or self
respects? As now, when we see an ape do many things that a man
doth, how do we therefore distinguish those actions in the one
and in the other? Why, by the inward principles from whence they
spring, by saying that they proceed from reason in the one, but
not so in the other. If, therefore, it can be evinced, that all
that any man seems to do for God, comes not from good will to
him, it is enough to convince them to be persons unreconciled;
for whereas all outward kindnesses and expressions of friendship
proceed not from friend like dispositions and pure good will,
but altogether from self respects, it is but feigned flattery,
even among men; and when discovered once, it breeds double
hatred. And there is much more reason it should do so with God,
because he being a God that knows the heart, to flatter him is
the greatest mockery; for that is it which chiefly provoketh men
to hate such as dissemble friendship, because there is mockery
joined with it. Now, that God accounts every one that doth not
turn to him out of pure goodwill a flatterer is plain by these
words in Ps 78:36-37: Notwithstanding, they did but flatter
him, and dealt falsely in his covenant. If men's hearts be
not inwardly for God, and with him, as a friend would be to a
friend, in their actions he esteems them against him. "Thy
heart, "says Peter to Simon Magus, "is not right
before the Lord, "Ac 8:22, and therefore he tells him he
was "still in the gall of bitterness." Thomas
Goodwin.
Verse 36. Flattery of God.
1. A common sin.
2. A hateful sin.
3. A dangerous sin. B. D.
Verses 36-38. There is no disputing the fact which
gives accuracy to the text, that God was moved by a repentance
which had not in it even the elements of godly sorrow for sin;
which could not even, by a casual observer, much less by him who
searches the heart, have been mistaken for that penitence which
supposes an inward and radical change, and, nevertheless, even
such a repentance as this sufficed to procure a recompense at
the hands of God. Though the sackcloth was on the body and not
on the soul; though it was the punishment of the sin and not the
sin itself which led to this outward humiliation, God did not
turn away from the forced supplication, but vouchsafed the
deliverance which was sought at his hands. Yes, God, who never
expresses greater abhorrence of any character than that of the
hypocrite; God, who rejects nothing more indignantly than
outward homage when it is not the index of inward
prostration—God may be said to have removed the humiliation of
the people as though he could not read their hearts, or as
though, having read them, and noted their unsubdued rebellion,
he still thought the apparent contrition deserving of some
recompense...
If God would not leave the show and semblance of contrition
without a recompense, will he be unmindful of real penitence? If
many a time turned he his anger away from those who did
but flatter him with their mouths, and lied unto him with their
tongues, has he nothing in store for those who are humble in
spirit, and who come to him with the sacrifice of a broken
heart? Oh! the turning away of temporal wrath because idols were
outwardly abandoned, this is a mighty pledge that eternal wrath
will be averted if we are inwardly stricken, and flee for refuge
to the Saviour. God must have eternal good in store for his
friends, if even his enemies are recompensed with temporal good.
Yes, as I mark the Philistines and the Ammonites oppressing the
idolatrous Israelites, and then see the oppressors driven back
in return even for heartless service, Oh! I learn that true
penitence for sin and true faith in the sacrifice of Jesus
Christ will cause all enemies to be scattered; I return from the
contemplation of the backsliding people, emancipated
notwithstanding the known hollowness of their vows, I return
assured that a kingdom which neither Philistine nor Ammonite can
invade, shall be the portion of all who seek deliverance through
Christ. Henry Melvill.
Verse 37. Their heart was not right with him.
God pleases them when he replenishes themselves with food, not
their heart with his graces; therefore they repay him with the
mouth, and not with the heart. They are altogether mouth and
tongue: but God is all heart and breast. They give words; God
gives milk and perfect love. Love does not reach the inner
nature of many men, it sticks in the entrance. Thomas Le
Blanc.
Verse 37. Their heart was not right with him,
neither were they steadfast, etc. This is the ever repeated
complain, see Ps 78:8,22. There is no permanence, no stability
in the reformation which has been produced. Compare Ho 6:4. J.
J. Stewart Perowne.
Verse 38. According to B. Kiddushin 30a, this
verse is the middle one of the 5896 Nyqymk, sticoi, of the
Psalter. According to B. Maccoth 22b, Ps 78:38, and
previously De 28:58-59 29:9, were recited when the forty strokes
of the lash save one, which, according to 2Co 11:24, Paul
received five times, were being counted out to the culprit. Franz
Delitzsch.
Verse 38. He, being full of compassion, etc.
When his hand was up, and he giving the blow, he called it back
again, as one that could not find it in his heart to do it; and
when he did it, he did not stir up all his wrath; he let
fall some drops of it, but would not shed the whole shower of
it; and he giveth the reason of both, for they are but flesh;
and, indeed, his primary scope is to show mercy; and that he
afflicts is but upon occasions; and therefore he is provoked,
and provoked much before he doth it. As it is natural for the
bee to give honey, but it stings; but it stings but by occasion
when it is provoked; and this we see to be true in God by
experience, who suffers men, and suffers them long; they
continue in their sins, and yet he continues in his mercies, and
withholds his judgments. John Preston (1587-1628), in
"The Golden Sceptre held forth to the Humble."
Verse 38. Forgave is a very inadequate
translation of the Hebrew word, which necessarily suggests the
idea of expiation as the ground of pardon. Joseph Addison
Alexander.
Verse 38. Many a time turned he his anger away.
God is provoked every day, yet is he slow to anger. Yea,
sometimes when he has determined to bring evil upon a people,
and has put himself into a posture of judgment, drawn out the
sword, and smitten them; though they cease not to provoke him,
he ceaseth to punish them; as a tender father in correcting a
rebellious and graceless child, holds his hand sometimes, before
the child begs for mercy, and of mere grace forbears: so God did
with Israel. Notwithstanding their dissembling with their
flattering tongues, and covenant breaking hearts, He forgave
their iniquity, and destroyed them not: yea, many a time turned
he his anger away, and did not stir up his wrath. The words
are, He multiplied to turn away his anger: as they
multiplied to provoke it, he multiplied to turn it away; and so
at length outnumbered their sins with his mercies, that they
were not destroyed. John Strickland, in "A Sermon
preached before the House of Commons, " entitled
"Mercy rejoicing against Judgment." 1645.
Verse 38. He did not stir up all his wrath. His
patience is manifest in moderating his judgments when he sends
them. Doth he empty his quiver of his arrows, or exhaust his
magazine of thunder? No; he could roll one thunderbolt
successively upon all mankind; it is as easy with him to create
a perpetual motion of lightning and thunder, as of the sun and
stars, and make the world as terrible by the one as it is
delightful by the other. He opens not all his store; he sends
out a light party to skirmish with men, and puts not in array
his whole army. He stirs not up all his wrath; he doth
but pinch, where he might have torn asunder; when he takes away
much, he leaves enough to support us. If he had stirred up all
his anger, he had taken away all, and our lives to boot. He
rakes up but a few sparks, takes but one firebrand to fling upon
men, when he might discharge the whole furnace upon them; he
sends but a few drops out of the cloud, which he might make to
break in the gross, and fall down upon our heads to overwhelm
us; he abates much of what he might do. Stephen Charnock.
Verse 39. A wind that passeth away.
"The secret wheels of hurrying time do give
So short a warning, and so fast they drive,
That I am dead before I seem to live.
And what's a life? a weary pilgrimage,
Whose glory in one day doth fill thy stage
With childhood, manhood, and decrepid age.
And what's a life? the flourishing army
Of the proud summer meadow, which today
Wears her green plush, and is tomorrow hay.
And what's a life? a blast sustained with clothing,
Maintained with food, retained with vile self loathing,
Then weary of itself, again to nothing." Francis
Quarles.
Verse 40. How oft did they provoke, etc. They
provoked God at least ten times (Nu 14:22) during the first two
years of their journey through the wilderness: (1) at the Red
Sea (Ex 14:11-12): (2) at the waters of Marah (Ex 15:24): (3) in
the wilderness of Sin (Ex 16:2): (4) when they kept the manna
until the following day (Ex 16:10): (5) when the manna was
collected on the Sabbath (Ex 16:27): (6) in Rephidim, where
there was no water (Nu 20:2,13): (7) at Horeb when a molten calf
was made (Ex 22:1 &c.): (8) at Taberah (Nu 11:1-3): (9) when
they lusted for flesh (Nu 11:4): (10) when they murmured at the
news brought by the men, who had been sent to search the land (Nu
14:1, &c.) Daniel Cresswell.
Verse 40. How oft. God kept an account how oft
they provoked him, though they did not, Nu 14:22: "They
have tempted me these ten times." Matthew Henry.
Verse 41. They turned back. As for that
expression, wbwvyw, which we translate, and they turned back;
that is, say some, to go back again into Egypt, or as
others, returned back to their old wont of rebellion; I
say, it hath no such meaning here; it is a Hebraism, and should
be rendered, they returned and tempted, that is, saepius
tentaverunt, they oftentimes tempted him, or they tempted
him again. Thomas Froysel, in "Sermons concerning Grace
and Temptation." 1678.
Verse 41. Tempted God. This only expresses the
fact that men act towards him as if he could be tempted, or in a
way fitted to put him to the proof, to provoke his righteous
displeasure, and make him proceed against them, as it were just
for him actually to do because of their offences. It is not in
the least degree opposed to the statement of James—"God
cannot be tempted with evil, "which is the the effect that
he cannot be influenced by evil, so as to be drawn into it,
turned toward it—so as to feel its power or experience its
contamination. He is infinitely far removed from it, raised
above it, under all its forms. He is so because of the absolute
perfection of his being and blessedness. John Adam, in
"Exposition of the Epistle of James." 1867.
Verse 41. Limited the Holy One of Israel. They
limited either
1. God's power, as above, Ps 78:19-20. Or,
2. God's will, directing and prescribing to him what to do,
and when, and in what manner; and murmuring at him if he did not
always grant their particular and various desires. Matthew
Poole.
Verse 41. They limited the Holy One of Israel.
Here, then, is an awful charge, and mysterious it seems to us
as awful. How dreadful that man, the worm, should arrogate to
himself that, to say to him that made him, "Thus
far shalt thou go and no farther." Amazing, I say, the
charge! to contract the dimensions and operations of the Deity.
Amazing insolence, to draw a boundary line, beyond which the
Creator himself must not pass, to define and prescribe to the
Lawgiver of nature himself the pathway of his providence! The
turpitude is immense. But we know, my friends, that the crime is
not uncommon; and one of the natural results of sin seem to be
this,—that the sinful spirit, whether of man or of the lost
archangel, unable to shake the firm foundations of the Eternal
Throne, amuses its malignity, and seeks a temporary
cessation from its withering cares, in putting up barriers on
the outskirts and frontiers of the Almighty empire, vainly
hoping to annoy the Possessor of the throne they cannot disturb.
Affecting words! Do they affect you as they affect me? They
turned back and tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
Somehow, it seems no combination of words could have been so
affecting. They limited God. They limited the Almighty.
They limited the Infinite. No! These words have an awful
and affecting surge of meaning in them; for wile they describe Him,
awful and self contained Being whose essence is eternity and
power; whose self existence is declared by the amazing marvels
of nature; whose life was essential being. They limited Him—The
One in whose being all being was swallowed up and
absorbed—The One before whose glance mountains and
hills fled away and were not found—The One from
everlasting, God; high over all, blessed for ever more. The
One to whom all the nations were as the drop of a bucket,
and who took up the isles as a very little thing,—Him, they
limited. They had known his character as The Holy One;
it was all they knew of his character; but it was surrounded
with an awfulness more dread than even the solitary power and
self repose of Deity. In awful words and meanings they had heard
his character proclaimed—The Holy One. Him they limited.
Him, whose throne was curtained with the dreadful wings of
sinless archangels, crying through the darkness of that
ineffable brightness, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty! and
whose holiness was asserted even by the disorders of the rolling
world. They limited him. More personal, and therefore
more wonderful, became the enormity. The generation of their
race had testified for Him, the Holy One of Israel; they had
beheld the marvels of his holiness and power in Egypt, in the
Red Sea; they had heard of the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob; they had heard of him who had spoken to their Captain in
the bush burning with fire; they beheld his pillar of fire and
cloud; they knew themselves divinely selected and chosen; and
him who chose they limited! That which should have
ensured their faith became only the fountain of their
criminality. E. Paxton Hood.
Verse 41. They limited the Holy One of Israel.
God cannot bear it with patience, that we should limit him,
either to the time, or manner, or means of help. He complains of
the Jews for this presumption, they limited the Holy One of
Israel. It is insufferable to circumscribe an infinite
wisdom and power. He will work, but when he pleases, and how he
pleases, and by what instruments he pleases, and if he please,
without instruments, and if he please by weak and improbable, by
despised and exploded instruments. Joseph Caryl, in a
"Sermon before the House of Commons, "entitled,
"The Works of Ephesus."
Verse 41. (last clause). This was Israel's sin,
and has it not often been ours? Our God is the "Holy One,
"and will do what is most for His glory; he is the Holy One
of Israel, and will therefore consult his people's
welfare. We must not limit his wisdom, for it is
infinite; we must not limit his power, for it is
omnipotent; we must not limit him to time, for he will
display his sovereignty: he will not be tied to walk by our
rules, or be bound to keep our time; but he will perform his
word, honour our faith, and reward them that diligently seek
him. James Smith.
Verse 41. Limited. In the only other place
where the Hebrew word occurs (Ezr 9:4), it means to set a
mark upon a person, which some apply here, in the figurative
sense of stigmatising or insulting. Joseph Addison Alexander.
Verse 41. Limited the Holy One of Israel, or signed
him; signed him with a sign, so the Targum; they tempted him by
asking a sign of him, as Jarchi interprets it; insisting that a
miracle be wrought, by which it might be known whether the Lord
was among them or not, Ex 17:7; with which compare Mt
15:1: or they set bounds, so Kimchi, to his power and
goodness, saying, this he could do, and the other he could not;
see Ps 78:19-20; and so men limit the Lord when they fix
on a blessing they would have, even that, and not another; and
the measure of it, to what degree it should be bestowed on them,
as well as the set time when they would have it; whereas the
blessing itself, and the degree of it, and the time of giving
it, should be all left with the Lord who knows which and what of
it is most convenient for us, and when is the best time to
bestow it on us. John Gill.
Verse 41. Limited the Holy One of Israel—mistrust
of God's power to effectuate all his graces, to do what is
needed in any case for his people, and carry out his purposes
for them. The moment I suppose anything cannot be for blessing,
I limit God. This is a great sin—doubly, when we think of all
he has done for us. The Holy Ghost ever reasons from God's
revealed, infinite love to all its consequences. He reconciled;
surely he will save to the end. He did not spare his Son; how
shall he not give all things? J. N. Darby.
Verse 42. They remembered not his hand, etc.
God hates forgetfulness of his blessings. First, because he has
commanded that we should not forget them, De 4:9 8:14.
Secondly, because forgetfulness is a sign of contempt. Thirdly,
it is the peculiarity of singular carelessness. Fourthly, it
springs from unbelief. Fifthly, it is the greatest mark of
ingratitude. Thomas Le Blanc.
Verse 42. They remembered not his hand, etc.
The rallying point of faith in time of trial is the primary
manifestation of grace. To an Israelite a remembrance of the
deliverance from Egypt is the test of active faith. In like
manner, to the tried believer now it is the CROSS that furnishes
the outlet of deliverance from the misty darkness with which
Satan sometimes is permitted to envelope our conscience, when
the Lord had not been kept watchfully before our face. Because
Israel forgot that first deliverance, they went on frowardly in
the way of evil. Because a Christian sometimes stops short of
the Cross in his spiritual conflicts, he fails to defeat the
enemy and remains unfruitful and unhappy, until by some special
intervention of the great Restorer, he is again brought, in
spirit, to that place where God first met him, and welcomed him
in Jesus in the fulness of forgiveness and of peace. No
intermediate experience, how truthful soever in its character,
will meet his case. It is at the cross alone that we regain a
thorough right mindedness about ourselves as well as about God.
If we would glorify him, we must "hold fast the beginning
of our confidence stedfast unto the end, "Heb 3:14. Arthur
Pridham.
Verse 42. They remembered not his hand, etc.
Eaten bread is soon forgotten. Nihil citius senescit quam
gratia. Nothing so soon grows stale as a favour. John
Trapp.
Verse 43. Zoan, or San, seems to have
been one of the principal capitals, or royal abodes, of the
Pharaohs (Isa 19:11,13 Isa 30:4): and accordingly the
field of Zoan, or the fine alluvial plain around the city,
is described as the scene of the marvellous works which God
wrought in the time of Moses. John Kitto.
Verses 43-51. Moses wrought wonders destructive,
Christ wonders preservative: he turned water into blood, Christ
water into wine; he brought flies and frogs and locusts and
caterpillars, destroying the fruits of the earth, and annoying
it; Christ increased a little of these fruits, five loaves and a
few fishes, by blessing them, so that he herewith fed five
thousand men: Moses smote both men and cattle with hail, and
thunder and lightning, that they died, Christ made some alive
that were dead, and saved from death the diseased and sick;
Moses was an instrument to bring all manner of wrath and evil
angels amongst them, Christ cast out devils and did all manner
of good, giving sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, speech
to the dumb, limbs to the lame, and cleansing to the leper, and
when the sea was tempestuous appeasing it; Moses slew their
firstborn, thus causing an horrible cry in all the land of
Egypt; Christ saveth all the firstborn, or by saving makes them
so; for thus they are called, Heb 12:23. John Mayer.
Verse 46. Caterpillar. (>lyox), chasil,
is rendered broucos by the LXX, in 2Ch 6:28, and by
Aquila here, and also by the Vulgate in Chronicles and in Isa
33:4, and is rendered by Jerome here, bruchas,
"the chaffer, "which everyone knows to be a great
devourer of the leaves of trees. The Syriac in Joe 1:4 2:25,
renders it (arwuru) tzartzooro, which Michaelis, from the
Arabic (ruru) tzartzar, a cricket, interprets the mole
cricket, which in its grub state, is also very destructive
to corn, grass, and other vegetables, by cankering the roots on
which it feeds. Editorial note to Calvin in loc.
Verse 46. Caterpillar, In former times, any
destructive, crawling creature occurring in cultivated places
was thus called; now, by general consent, we restrict the term
to the second stage of insects of the Lepidopterous order,
namely, butterflies and moths. These caterpillars, by the
voracity with which they attack the leaves, the fruit, and
sometimes the solid wood of plants and trees, are made
conspicuous even to those who are little acquainted with natural
history. "Biblical Treasury."
Verse 46. Locust. Their quantity is incredible
to all who have not themselves witnessed their astonishing
numbers; the whole earth is covered with them for the space of
several leagues. The noise they make in browsing on the trees
and herbage may be heard at a great distance, and resembles that
of an army plundering in secret. The Tartars themselves are a
less destructive enemy than these little animals. One would
imagine that fire had followed their progress. Wherever their
myriads spread, the verdure of the country disappears; trees and
plants stripped of their leaves and reduced to their naked
boughs and stems, cause the dreary image of winter to succeed in
an instant to the rich scenery of spring. When these clouds of
locusts take their flight, to surmount any obstacles, or to
traverse more rapidly a desert soil, the heavens may literally
be said to be obscured with them. F. C., Comte de Volney.
Verse 47. He destroyed their vines with hail, and
their sycomore trees with frost. The grape vine for the
rich, and the sycomore fig for the poor, were cut off by the
just judgment of God upon the nation. W. Wilson.
Verse 47. The sycomore (not sycamore,
for this is altogether different, though, in consequence of a
typographical error, often confounded with it in our Bibles) was
the name of a tree, common in Egypt, Am 7:14 Lu 19:4.
This tree resembled the mulberry in its leaves, and the fig in
its fruit; and on its produce the inferior ranks of people, for
the most part, lived. The psalmist refers to but one sort, still
he clearly means every kind, of valuable tree. William
Keatinge Clay.
Verse 49. By sending evil angels. Evils come
uncalled, but not unsent. Are they nor here called angels?
they are sent; the word angel means a messenger. Not
things only without life, but not living creatures neither,
brute, nor men, nor Satan's self can hurt unless God bid. The
three days' darkness in Egypt, how came it? "He sent
darkness, "saith David. Ps 105:28. So the hail,
thunder, and lightning, the Lord sent them, saith Moses. The
frogs, flies, lice, grasshoppers, and caterpillars, that
infected Egypt, and the lions that slew the idolaters in Samaria
(2Ki 17:1-41), the text saith of them all, Dominus
immisit, the Lord sent them. And for men—"Am I
come" (saith Rabshakeh) "without the Lord?" He
bade me go. Yea, the devil, the arch evil angel, who seeks to
devour, yet must be sent ere he can do ought. The lying
spirit in the mouths of the false prophets longed to seduce
Ahab; God must first bid; Egredere, go forth, and do so.
The use of this is easy without my help: not to fear, doing
well; not man, fiend, any creature, can hurt you, God not
sending them. But sinning, to fear everything. The weakest
creature can quell the mightiest man, if God bid, go. A mouse (saith
the poet) will bite a wicked man. Be it proud Herod, great
Antiochus; if God but ask the creatures, Quem mittam,
which of you shall I send? the worm will answer, Ecce me,
send me; I will devour him. And such poor, silly, despicable
creatures are some of these evil angels in my text. He
sent: what sent he? evil angels, the next thing in
this Scripture.
Evil angels? Par dispar, a pair of words which seem
not well matched. The latter may say to the former, Quid mihi
et tibi, what have I to do with thee? Angels were the best
and holiest of God's creatures. They all were good, very good,
Moses saith; but angels kat exochn, excellently good. Then is evil
here an evil epithet for angels. And is never read but here, and
here (some think) not well translated. But the phrase of evil
angels hath other meaning here: evil angels, i.e.,
the angels, i.e., the messengers of evil. It is in the
Hebrew, not (Mykalm), but (ykalm); insomuch that some expositors
think the psalmist means the words of Moses and Aaron; that they
were sent from God to be the messengers of evil, i.e.,
all of the plagues that God would bring on Egypt. That sense I
censure not, but follow not. The Greek Fathers have
another—that by the evil angels, are meant the evil
spirits. Christ calls them angels too, thee devil's angels.
Augustine likes not that sense. The most current exposition is
as a Jewish writer speaks: the "evil angels" are the
ten several plagues. Richard Clerke. (—1634.)
Verse 49. By sending evil angels among them.
That the devil and his angels are so very evil, that for them
everlasting fire is prepared, no believer is ignorant: but that
there should be sent by means of them an infliction from the
Lord God upon certain whom he judgeth to be deserving of this
punishment, seemeth to be a hard thing to those who are little
prone to consider how the perfect justice of God doth use well
even evil things. For these indeed, as far as regardeth their
substance, what other person but himself hath made? But evil he
hath not made them; yet he doth use them, inasmuch as he is
good, conveniently and justly; just as on the other hand
unrighteous men do use his good creatures in evil manner: God
therefore doth use evil angels not only to punish evil men, as
in the case of all those concerning whom the Psalm doth speak,
as in the case of king Ahab, whom a spirit of lying by the will
of God did beguile, in order that he might fall in war; but also
to prove and make manifest good men, as he did in the case of
Job. Augustine.
Verse 50. He made a way to his anger.
Literally—"weighed a way:" implying that God, in
punishing the Egyptians so severely, did nothing but what was
just and equitable, when weighed in the balance of right.
Pr 4:26. A. R. Fausset.
Verse 50. He made a way to his anger. As if the
psalmist had said, If there were not a way for his anger,
that is, for the execution of his anger, he forced his
way; though he did not find a way, yet he made one, and
fought himself through all difficulties which seemed to oppose
the destruction of his enemies. We put in the margin, he
weighed a path, he made the path as exact as if he had put
it into a balance; the way was fitted to the largeness of his
own anger, and it was fitted to the dimensions of their
wickedness. Thus he made a way to his anger, both by
suiting the way to his anger and by removing all impediments out
of the way of his anger. If God will work to save, who shall let
it? and if God will work to destroy, who will or what shall let
it? Joseph Caryl.
Verse 51. The chief of their strength in the
tabernacles of Ham. The sun of the last day of the sojourn
of Israel in Egypt had set. It was the fourth day after the
interview with Moses. Pharaoh, his princes, and the priests of
his idols would doubtless take courage from this unwonted delay.
Jehovah and his ministers are beaten at length, for now the gods
of Egypt prevail against them. The triumph would be celebrated
in pomps and sacrifices, in feasts and dances. Nothing is more
likely than that the banquet halls of Pharaoh at Rameses were
blazing with lamps, and that he and his princes were pouring
forth libations of wine to their gods, and concerting schemes
amid their revelry, for the perpetuation of the thraldom of
Israel... Pharaoh Sethos started from his couch that night
yelling in fierce and bitter agony, and gnawing at the sharp
arrow that was rankling in his vitals, like a wounded lion. His
son, his firstborn, his only son, just arrived at man's estate,
just crowned king of Egypt, and associated with his father in
the care of sovereignty, writhed before him in mortal throes,
and died. His transports of grief were reechoed, and with no
feigned voice, by the princes, the councillors, and the priest
that partook of his revelry. Each one rends his garments and
clasps to his bosom the quivering corpse of his firstborn son.
On that fearful night "there was a great cry throughout the
land of Egypt, "but if we have rightly read its history,
the loudest, wildest wail of remorseful anguish would arise from
Pharaoh's banquet hall! William Osburn, in "Israel in
Egypt." 1856.
Verse 52. But made his own people to go forth like
sheep. It is not said that they went forth like sheep; but
that he made them go forth like sheep. It is not a description
of the character of the people, but a commendation of the
providence and goodness of God, by which, after the manner of a
good shepherd, he led forth from Egypt his own people with all
security, like sheep snatched from the midst of wolves. Musculus.
Verse 53. They feared not. First, they had no
cause for fear, in their departure from Egypt. Though
they saw the Egyptians slain, yet against them not even a dog
moved its tongue. 2. They were all in sound health. 3. They were
enriched with the spoils of the Egyptians. 4. They went forth a
great multitude. 5. They supplied themselves with arms.
Secondly, they feared not to enter the Red Sea, for the
fear started by the approach of Pharaoh was swiftly suppressed.
Thirdly, they feared not to wander in the desert for
forty years, God going before his pillar. Fourthly, they
feared not, though enemies attacked them. Thomas Le Blanc.
Verse 54. He brought them to the border of his
sanctuary, or holiness; that is, to the holy land; so
called in diverse respects, but especially because of his
sanctuary, the place of his residence; to which he makes all the
land to be but as bounds and limits, because of the eminency of
that place, the holiness whereof did, as it were, spread to all
other parts of the land, as if the whole had been a sanctuary,
and consecrated ground. It is therefore to the honour of the
whole land, as well as of the sanctuary, that he calleth it, the
holy border, a border of his sanctuary. Westminster
Assembly's Annotations.
Verse 57. They were turned aside like a deceitful
bow. The eastern bow, which when at rest is in the form of a
(1), must be recurved, or turned the contrary way,
in order to be what is called bent and strung. If
a person who is unskilful or weak attempt to recurve and
string one of these bows, if he take not great heed it will
spring back and regain its quiescent position, and perhaps break
his arm. And sometimes I have known it, when bent, to start
aside, and regain its quiescent position, to my no small
danger, and in one or two cases to my injury. This image is
frequently used in the sacred writings; but no person has
understood it, not being acquainted with the eastern bow,
which must be recurved or bent the contrary way (1), in
order to be proper for use. If not well made, they will fly back
in discharging the arrow. It is said of the bow of
Jonathan, "it turned not back, "2Sa 1:22, (rwxa
gwsn al), lo nasog achor, "did not twist itself
backward." It was a good bow, one on which he could depend.
Hosea, Ho 7:16, compares the unfaithful Israelites to a deceitful
bow; in that, when bent, would suddenly start aside and
recover its former position. We may find the same passage in Jer
9:3. And this is precisely the kind of bow mentioned by Homer,
Odyss. 21, which none of Penelope's suitors could bend, called
toxon palinonon, the crooked bow, in the state of rest;
but toxon palintonon, the recurved bow when prepared for
use. And of his trial of strength and skill in the
bending of the bow of Ulysses, none of the critics and
commentators have been able to make anything, because they knew
not the instrument in question. On the toxon yhsiv of Homer I
have written a dissertation elsewhere. The image is very
correct; these Israelites, when brought out of their natural
bent, soon recoiled, and relapsed into their former state. Adam
Clarke.
Verse 57. Starting aside like a broken bow
(English Prayer Book): but if a bow breaks, it will not start
aside, for the elasticity which should make it start aside would
be destroyed. Stephen Street.
Verse 57. They were turned aside like a deceitful
bow. When the bow is unbent the rift it hath may be
undiscerned, but go to use it by drawing the arrow to the head,
and it flies in pieces; thus doth a false heart when put to the
trial. As the ape in the fable, dressed like a man, when nuts
are thrown before her, cannot then dissemble her nature any
longer, but shows herself as ape indeed; a false heart betrays
itself before it is aware, when a fair occasion is presented for
its lust; whereas sincerity keeps the soul pure in the face of
temptation. William Gurnall.
Verses 57. The fourth thing is the deceitful bow,
(hymr tvq), a slack or warping bow arcus doli vel dolosus seu
fallax (Hebrew) will be sure to deceive the archer that
shoots in it; it will turn back into belly, as the archer's
phrase is; and though he level both his eye and his arrow never
so directly to the mark and think confidently with himself to
hit it; yet, in the event, the arrow, through the warping of the
bow, flies a quite contrary way, yea, and sometimes reflects
upon the archer himself. Non semper feriet, quodcunque
minabitur arcus, the bow smites not all it threatens, and
the ill fashioned or casting bow will turn in the shooter's
hand, and send the arrow sometimes one way and sometimes another
way; yea, and sometimes it rebounds into his own sides; or if it
be a rotten bow (though otherwise fair to look upon), when an
arrow is drawn to the head it breaks in the hand, and deceives
the archer. The same thing happeneth when the string of the bow
is naughty, and breaks when the arrow is drawn. This is no less
than a divine Scripture allegory. Behold, such a fallacious,
warping, and rotten bow is man's deceitful heart; his purposes
and promises are the arrows that he puts upon the string, the
mark he aims at is repentance, to the which (in affliction
especially) he looketh with an accurate and intent eye, as
though he would repent indeed; but, alas! his heart deceives
him, as being unsound in God's statutes, Ps 119:80; and
hence it is that his promises and pretences do fall at his foot,
or vanish in the air as smoke. Thus a deceiving, as well
as a deceived, heart, turns him aside, Isa 64:20,
as it did those false Israelites: oh, then, look to the secret
warping of your own heart, and seeing you are God's bow, you
must be bent by him, and stand bent for him, Zec 9:13;
thereby you shall be like Jonathan's bow that "never
returned empty, "2Sa 1:22. Christopher Ness, in
"A Crystal Mirror." 1679.
Verses 57-59. Not to be settled in the faith, is
provoking to God. To espouse the truth, and then to fall away,
brings an ill report upon the gospel, which will not go
unpunished. They turned back, and dealt unfaithfully. When
God heard this, he was wroth, and greatly abhorred Israel.
The apostate drops as a windfall into the devil's mouth. Thomas
Watson.
Verse 58. High places. Or, altars, chapels, and
such like places, to celebrate divine service in, out of the
only place which was by him consecrated, and was alone
acceptable unto him; or peradventure also dedicated to idols;
and were so called, because that they chose out the choicest
hills and hillocks for those purposes. John Diodati.
Verse 59. When God heard this. The psalmist
represents the noise of the ill deeds of the people ascending to
the ears of the Eternal. Armand de Mestral, in "Commentaire
sur le Livre de Psaumes." 1856.
Verse 60. It is a heathenish delusion and false
confidence to suppose that God is bound to any place or spot, as
the Trojans thought because they had the temple of Pallas in
their city it could not be taken, and in the present day the
manner of the Papists is to bind Christ to Rome and the chair of
Peter, and then defiantly maintain "I shall never be
moved" Ps 10:6. For, they say, the ship of Peter may
sink a little, but not altogether. Then the only point that is
deficient is this, that they are not the ship of Peter, but
rather an East Indiaman with a cargo of Italian apes and such
like foreign merchandise, pearls, purple, silk, brass, iron,
silver, gold, incense, lead, that they may carry on simony and
make merchandise of religion, and deceive the whole world Re
18:11-24. Johann Andreas Cramer. 1723-1788.
Verse 61. And delivered his strength into
captivity, etc. He calls the ark the strength of God,
not because the virtue of God was shut up therein, or was so
bound to it that he could not, unless through it, be powerful
and strong: but because his presence, whose symbol the ark was,
had always revealed its virtue and might to Israel, in the
perpetual defence and various deliverances of that people. After
the same manner he calls it the beauty or glory of God, because
God by his own presence declared his glory among the people, and
desired that it should be conspicuous by this external symbol. Mollerus.
Verse 63. The fire consumed their young men. Fire
here may be regarded as an image of destructive war, as in Nu
21:28. "For there is a fire gone out of Heshbon, a
flame from the city of Sihon: it hath consumed Ar of Moab,
"etc. Albert Barnes.
Verse 63 (first clause). When religion is
overthrown among God's people, let not the commonwealth think to
stand: when God gave his glory unto the enemies' hand, "He
gave his people over also unto the sword, and the fire
consumed their young men." David Dickson.
Verse 63. Not given in marriage. Not praised: viz.
they had not been honoured with nuptial songs according to the
custom of those times; see Jer 7:34 16:9 25:10. The
meaning is, they had not been honourably married, because men
were grown scarce by reason of the wars, Isa 4:1 Jer 21:22.
Or, they had been married without any solemnity like poor
bondwomen; or privately, as in the time of public calamities. John
Diodati.
Verse 64. Their widows made no lamentation.
This implies the extent of the destruction, and is full of
meaning to one who has been in an Oriental city, during a plague
or other devastating calamity. At first the cry of wailing,
which always follows a death in ordinary circumstances, is loud
and frequent: but such cries do not increase, but subside, with
the increase of the calamity and desolation. Death becomes a
familiar object in every house; and every one, absorbed in his
own losses, has little sympathy to spare for others. Hence the
loudest lamentations cease to be noticed, or to draw consoling
friends to the house of mourning; and therefore, as well as from
the stupefaction of feeling which scenes of continual horror
never fail to produce, a new death is received in silence, or
only with sighs and tears. In fact, all the usual observances
are suspended. The dead are carried out and buried without
mourning ceremonies, and without the presence of surviving
friends, by men who make it an employment to take away the dead
on the backs of mules or asses, from the homes they leave
desolate. We have seen this. Kitto's "Pictorial
Bible." 1856.
Verse 64. Their widows made no lamentation. The
meaning is, either 1. That being overwhelmed with sorrow they
could not weep; or, 2. That being in captivity amongst the
Philistines they were not suffered to lament the death of their
husbands; or, 3. That dying with grief they lived not to make
any lamentations for them at their funerals; or, 4. That they
were so taken up and oppressed with their own miseries, and
especially with the miseries of the church and people of God in
general, that they had not leisure to bewail their husbands; of
both which last we have a clear instance in the wife of Phinehas
in particular, 1Sa 4:19-20, who dying, made no mention of
her husband. Arthus Jackson.
Verse 64. The daughter-in-law of Eli, when she was at
once travailing, and in that travail dying, to make up the full
sum of God's judgment upon that wicked house, as one insensible
of the death of her father, of her husband, of herself, in
comparison of this loss, calls her (then unseasonable) son
Ichabod, and with her last breath says, "The glory is
departed from Israel, the ark is taken." Joseph Hall.
HINTS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER
Verses 59-72.
1. A gloomy sunset, Ps 78:59-60.
2. A baleful might, Ps 78:60-64.
3. A blessed sunrise, Ps 78:65-72. C. D.
Verse 65. Then the Lord awaked. Know how to
understand this and similar passages in Scripture, as to the
Lord's sleeping and forgetting his people, Ps 13:1 44:33 77:9.
These are not to be understood as to an universal and absolute
forgetting and sleep of providence; for God hath not his
vacation time: he still holds the reins of government in his
hand, all the world over. Neither do they infer an absolute
cessation of providence in reference to that object matter which
the Lord to our apprehension seems to forget, and lies dormant;
for there is a promoting work of providence, which we see not,
and are not so sensible of for the present, as hath been shewed.
Besides, such forgetting and sleep of providence, as it is such,
bespeaks the beauty of providence in the way of bringing things
to pass. It is so far from inferring an interrgnum, or
letting fall the sceptre of government, as that it is a glorious
demonstration that God orders matters, and that wisely, whilst
he seems to forget, and be as one asleep. As the night, as
night, falls under the providence of God, as well as the day,
for there are the ordinances of heaven for the night season, Jer
31:35: so the dark night, when as to matters the Lord seems
to sleep, is part and parcel of his all wise model of
government. The seventy years captivity was a long night for the
church's distress; and yet thus it must be according to the
ordinance of providence. Jer 29:10. Thomas Crane.
Verse 65. Like a mighty man that shouteth by reason
of wine: whose spirit and courage is revived and inflamed by
a liberal draught of generous wine; which comparison is no more
injurious to the Divine Majesty than that of a thief's coming in
the night, to which Christ's second coming is compared. 1Th
5:2. Matthew Poole.
Verse 66. He smote his enemies in the hinder parts.
This has reference to the Philistines being smitten with
haemorrhoids, or piles, whilst the ark was retained a captive by
them, 1Sa 5:6,12 ...The Greek version, as quoted by
Suidas, is, he smote his enemies on the back parts of the
seat; signifying, he says, a disease modestly expressed. John
Gill.
Verse 67. The moving of the ark is not the removing of
it; Shiloh has lost it, but Israel has not. God will have a
church in the world, and a kingdom among men, though this or
that place may have its candlestick removed; nay, the rejection
of Shiloh is the election of Sion. Matthew Henry.
Verses 67-68. Refused. Chose not. Chose. As God's love
is set out to us, as not independently pitched, but as having
all the persons in his eye and having them all in view; so by
this also, that he hath not pitched it upon everybody. This is
distinct from the former; for an indefinite is not knowing whom
he pitched it upon. Now, as he knew whom he pitched upon, so he
hath pitched but upon some, not on every one...If God would
love, it was fit he should be free. It is a strange thing that
you will not allow God that which kings and princes have the
prerogative of, and you will allow it them. They will have
favourites whom they will love, and will not love others; and
yet men will not allow God that liberty, but he must either love
all mankind, or he must be cruel and unjust. The specialness of
his love, increases it, endears it to us. You shall find almost
all along the Bible, that when God would express his love, he
doth it with a speciality to his own elect, which he illustrates
by the contrary done to others...And you shall find frequently
in the Scripture, when he mentions his choice of some persons,
he holdeth up likewise on purpose his refusing of others...When
he speaks of an election out of the tribes, he contents not
himself to say he chose Judah, but he puts in the rejection, the
preterition at least, of Joseph. He refused the tabernacle of
Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim: But chose the tribe
of Judah, the mount Zion which he loved. ...He speaks of the
times of the judges. The rejection of the ten tribes began to
show itself soon; he says, he refused the tabernacle of Ephraim,
but he chose Judah. After Solomon's time, they fell to
worshipping of calves (let me tell you, it is the declining of
election that undoes a nation, when election grows low, and
ceases in an age), till at last the ten tribes were cast off, as
they are at this day; but the tribe of Judah had election among
them...
Though at the first, and for a long time, both were alike his
people, yet at last election began to pass a discontinuation.
Ephraim, or the ten tribes, had at first the advantage of Judah
in spirituals; for the ark, the token of God's presence, was
committed unto their keeping at Shiloh; the seal of God's
worship and ordinances was entrusted to them, and Judah must
come up thither, if they would seek the Lord. But Ephraim, for
their sinning against that worship, forfeited and lost it, and
should therefore have the keeping of it no longer, no, not for
ever any more; but Judah had it at Bethlehem, till at last it
was fixedly seated in Sion, as "the earth is
established" Ps 78:69; and this for no other reason
than that he had loved them, and out of love had chosen them Ps
78:67-69. For otherwise Judah was, as well as Ephraim, alike
involved in the same guilt of sin which had forfeited it, as Ps
78:56-60 of the Psalm plainly show. "Yet they
tempted and provoked the most high God, and kept not his
testimonies, "etc. He speaks it of the whole in those
verses, and yet takes the occasion against Ephraim to remove it
for ever. Thus, the first are last, and the last first; and
those whom God's presence is with for a while, upon some eminent
sin God begins to withdraw from them, and by degrees as he did
by that people of the ten tribes, till at last he cast them off
from being a people; but dealt not so with Judah, though these
made a forfeiture of their temple, and worship, and nation, in
the captivity of Babylon, yet God restored all again to greater
glory at last. The ground was that in Ps 78:68, Zion which he
loved. Thomas Goodwin.
Verses 67-68. Refused. Chose not. Chose.
Verse 70. He took him from the sheepfolds. The
art of feeding cattle, and the art of ruling men are sisters,
saith Basil. John Trapp.
Verse 71. From following the ewes great with young.
A good and steady lamber is of great value to a grazier, but I
would advise all graziers to attend to this operation
themselves, as few servants will be found to pay that attention
which is necessary, or which a master himself would do, and the
slightest neglect, is, in many cases, followed with the greatest
disadvantage. I have attended to the practice of lambing for
several years, therefore, trust I am not a novice in it, or
incompetent to give a description of it. Many lambs may be lost
without its being possible to charge the lamber with neglect or
ignorance, though greater attention on his part might have saved
many that otherwise perish...The practice of lambing is at times
very intricate, and is apt to exhaust the patience of a lamber.
Sheep are obstinate, and lambing presents a scene of confusion,
disorder, and trouble, which it is the lamber's business to
rectify, and for which he ought always to be prepared: some of
the ewes perhaps leave their lambs, or the lambs get intermixed,
and the ewes which have lost their lambs run about bleating,
while others want assistance. These are only a few of the
various occurrences which call for the immediate attention of
the lamber. Daniel Price, in "A System of Sheep grazing
and Management." 1809.
Verse 71. From following the ewes great with young.
It hath been reported that a learned doctor of Oxford hung up
his leathern breeches in his study for a memorial to visitors of
his mean original; the truth I avouch not, but history tells us
of Agathocles who arose from a potter to be king of Sicily, and
would be served in no other plate at his table but earthenware,
to mind him of his former drudgery. It were well if some would
remember whose shoes they have cleaned, whose coals they have
carried, and whose money they have borrowed, and deal gratefully
with their creditors, as the good Lord Cromwell did by the
Florentine merchant in the time of Henry the Eighth, when Wolsey
(Foxe's Martyrology) like a butcher forgot the king his master.
It was otherwise with holy David, who being in kingly dignity,
graciously calls to mind his following the ewes great with
young, when now feeding the sheep of Israel. His golden sceptre
points at his wooden hook, and he plays the old lessons of his
oaten pipe upon his Algum harp, and spreads his Bethlehem tent
within his marble palace on Mount Zion. Samuel Lee.
Verse 71. To feed Jacob his people. (This is a
curious specimen of medieval spiritualising, and is here
inserted as such. It is amusing to note that a Tractarian
expositor quotes the passage with evidently intense admiration.
C. H. S.) Observe, a good shepherd must be humble and faithful,
he ought to have bread in a wallet, a dog by a string, a staff
with a rod, and a tuneful horn. The bread is the word of God,
the wallet is the memory of the word; the dog is zeal, wherewith
the shepherd glows for the house of God, casts out the wolves
with pious barking, following preaching and unwearied prayer:
the string by which the dog is held is the moderation of zeal,
and discretion, whereby the zeal of the shepherd is tempered by
the spirit of piety and knowledge. The staff is the consolation
of pious exhortation by which the too timid are sustained and
refreshed, lest they fail in the time of tribulation; but the
rod is the authority and power by which the turbulent are
restrained. The tuneful horn, which sounds so sweetly, signifies
the sweetness of eternal blessedness, which the faithful
shepherd gently and often instils into the ears of his flock. Johannes
Paulus Palanterius. 1600.
HINTS TO THE VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse 1. The duty of attending to God's word. Modes of
neglecting the duty; ways of fulfilment; reasons for obedience;
evils of inattention.
Verse 2. (first clause). Preach on the
"Parable of the Prodigal Nation, "as given in the
whole Psalm. C. A. Davies, of Chesterfield.
Verses 2-3.
1. Truths are none the worse for being old: sayings of
old. "Old wood, "says Lord Bacon, "is best to
burn; old books are best to read; and old friends are best to
trust."
2. Truths are none the worse for being concealed under
metaphors: I will open, etc., in a parable; dark
sayings.
3. Truths are none the worse for being often repeated.
(a) They are more tested.
(b) They are better testified. G. R.
Verse 3. The connection between what we have
"heard, "and what we have personally "known"
in religion.
Verse 4. A good resolution, and a blessed result. C.
D.
Verse 4.
1. What is to be made known? The praises of the Lord; his
strength and his wonderful works.
2. To whom are they to be made known? To the
generations to come.
3. By whom? Parents—one generation to another.
4. How made known?
(a) By hiding nothing.
(b) By declaring everything God has done. G. R.
Verse 5. Scriptural tradition, or the heirloom of the
gospel.
Verses 5-8. Family religion.
1. The fathers' knowledge the children's heritage—Ps
78:5-6.
2. The fathers' fall the children's preservation—Ps 78:7-8.
Verses 5-8.
1. Truth once started can never be arrested—Ps 78:5-6.
2. Truth received binds the soul to God—Ps 78:7.
3. Truth rejected lights up beacons for others—Ps 78:8.
Verses 7-8. On the deceitfulness of the heart, in
disregarding providential dispensations in general. John
Jamieson's "Sermons on the Heart, "I. 430.
Verse 8. Stubbornness not steadfastness, or the
difference between a natural vice and a gracious quality.
Verse 8. The false heart (middle clause), with
its left hand, "Stubbornness in the wrong" (first
clause), and its right hand, "Fickleness in the
right" (last clause). C. D.
Verse 9. Who were they? What had they? What did they?
When did they do it?
Verses 9, 67. The backsliding of prominent believers.
1. The Lord's soldiers: who they were; belonging to God's
chosen people; were distinguished by grace. Ge 48:17-20. Strong
by God's blessing. De 33:17. Honourable place among their
brethren. Favoured with the tabernacle at Shiloh—Ps 78:60.
2. Their equipment: armour defensive and offensive; like that
of others who triumphed.
3. Their behaviour in battle: to turn back was traitorous,
cowardly, dangerous, disastrous, dishonourable.
4. Their punishment—Ps 78:57. Deprived of their special
honour. Re 3:11. C. D.
Verses 10-11. The gradations of sin: neglecting,
rejecting, forgetting God. C. D.
Verses 12-16. God revealed in his deeds. The wonder
working God—Ps 78:12-16. The avenging God—Ps 78:12. The
interposing God—Ps 78:13. The guiding God—Ps 78:14. The
Father God—Ps 78:14-16. C. D.
Verses 12-17. Obstinacy of unbelief. It makes head
against God's majesty—Ps 78:17; his gracious providence—Ps
78:14-16; his interposing care—Ps 78:13; his avenging
justice—Ps 78:12; his distinguishing grace—Ps 78:12-16. C.
D.
Verses 12-17. Prodigies cannot convert the soul. Lu
16:31. C. D.
Verses 15-16. Divine supplies seasonable, plentiful,
of the best, marvellous.
Verse 16. Streams from the Rock Christ Jesus.
I. Their source.
2. Their variety.
3. Their abundance.
—B. Davies, of Greenwich.
Verses 12-17. Obstinacy of unbelief. It makes head
against God's majesty—Ps 78:17; his gracious providence—Ps
78:14-16; his interposing care—Ps 78:13; his avenging
justice—Ps 78:12; his distinguishing grace—Ps 78:12-16. C.
D.
Verses 12-17. Prodigies cannot convert the soul. Lu
16:31. C. D.
Verse 17. Sin in its progress feeds upon divine
mercies to aid its advance, as also every other surrounding
circumstance.
Verses 17-21.
1. They tempted God's patience; Ps 78:17.
2. They tempted God's wisdom; Ps 78:18.
3. They tempted God's power; Ps 78:19-20.
4. They tempted God's wrath; Ps 78:21.
—E. G. Gange, of Bristol.
Verses 18-21. The progress of evil.
1. They are drawn away by their lust: Ps 78:18.
2. Lust having conceived bringeth forth sin: Ps 78:19-20.
3. Sin being finished bringeth forth death: Ps 78:21.
"Their carcases fell." C. D.
Verses 21-22. Evil consequences of unbelief.
1. The sin itself: they doubted the ultimate certainty,
completeness, and reality of God's salvation from Egypt.
2. The aggravation of it: the object of it was God; they who
entertained it were God's people: The aids to faith were
overlooked: "though."
3. What it led them to; inward sin—Ps 78:18; outward
sin—Ps 78:19, etc.
4. What it brought upon them; Ps 78:21. Fiery serpents, etc. C.
D.
Verse 25. Different kinds of food. Beast's food, Lu
15:16. Sinners' food, Ho 4:8. Formalists' food, Ho 12:1. Saints'
food, Jer 15:16 Joh 6:53-57. Angels' food. Christ's food, Joh
4:34. C. D.
Verse 29-31. Dangerous prayers. When lust dictates,
wrath may answer. Let grace dictate, and mercy will answer. C.
D.
Verses 34-37. The hypocrite's feet, Ps 78:34. The
hypocrite's memory, Ps 78:35. The hypocrite's tongue, Ps 78:36.
The hypocrite's heart, Ps 78:37. Or, the hypocrite's cloak and
the hypocrite's heart. C. D.
Verse 38. (last clause) and Ps 78:50 (first
clause). God's anger as exercised against his people and
against his foes. C. D.
Verses 39, 35. God's memory of his people and their
memory of God.
Verse 42. The day of days.
1. The enemy encountered on that day.
2. The conflict endured.
3. The deliverance accomplished.
4. The joy experienced. B. D.
Verse 45. The power of little things when commissioned
to plague us.
Verse 47. (last clause). Sometimes it will not
shoot. Sometimes it will. And when it does, it misses the mark.
Verse 52.
1. God has a people in the world.
2. He brings them away from others.
3. He brings them into fellowship with himself.
4. He brings them into fellowship with each other.
5. He guides them to their rest.
Verse 55. Divine supplanting. He supplants the fallen
angels in heaven. One nation of earth by another (see all
history). The thoughts and affections of the heart in
regeneration, etc.—Isa 55:13. C. D.
Verses 56-57. On the deceitfulness of the heart, with
respect to the performance of duty. J. Jamieson. I. 326.
On the deceitfulness of the heart, with respect to the omission
of duty. J. Jamieson. I. 353.
Verses 59-72.
1. A gloomy sunset, Ps 78:59-60.
2. A baleful might, Ps 78:60-64.
3. A blessed sunrise, Ps 78:65-72. C. D.
Verses 9, 67. The backsliding of prominent believers.
1. The Lord's soldiers: who they were; belonging to God's
chosen people; were distinguished by grace. Ge 48:17-20.
Strong by God's blessing. De 33:17. Honourable place
among their brethren. Favoured with the tabernacle at Shiloh—Ps
78:60.
2. Their equipment: armour defensive and offensive; like that
of others who triumphed.
3. Their behaviour in battle: to turn back was traitorous,
cowardly, dangerous, disastrous, dishonourable.
4. Their punishment—Ps 78:57. Deprived of their
special honour. Re 3:11. C. D.
Verses 70-72. Spiritual promotions.
Verses 72. In spite of his transgressions, which he
always bitterly repented of and which were therefore blotted out
of the Book of God, he remains to all princes and rulers of the
earth as the noblest pattern. In perfect inward truth he knew
and felt himself to be "King by the grace of God."
The crown and sceptre he bore merely in trust from the King of
all kings; and to his latest breath he endeavoured with all his
earnestness to be found as a genuine theocratic king, who in
everything must conduct his earthly government according to the
ordinances and directions of God. Therefore the Lord made all
that he took in hand prosper, and nothing was clearer to the
people than that the Lord was truly with the king. Frederick
William Krummacher, in "David, the King of Israel."
1867.
WORKS UPON THE SEVENTY-EIGHTH PSALM
Valuable information upon THE PLAGUES OF
EGYPT will be found in the following works:—
"Observations upon the Plagues inflicted
upon the Egyptians: in which is shewn the peculiarity of those
Judgments, and their correspondence with the Rites and Idolatry
of that People... By JACOB BRYANT. 1794."
"Israel in Egypt; or the Books of
Genesis and Exodus illustrated by existing Monuments. By
WILLIAM OSBURN. 1856."
UPON ISRAEL IN THE WILDERNESS
"The wanderings of the Children of
Israel." By the late Rev. GEORGE WAGNER, 1862.
"The Church in the Wilderness." By
WILLIAM SEATON. In two vols. 1821.