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Psalm One
Hundred and Five
Psalm 105
Chapter Contents
A solemn call to praise and serve the Lord. (1-7) His
gracious dealings with Israel. (8-23) Their deliverance from Egypt, and their
settlement in Canaan. (24-45)
Commentary on Psalm 105:1-7
(Read Psalm 105:1-7)
Our devotion is here stirred up, that we may stir up
ourselves to praise God. Seek his strength; that is, his grace; the strength of
his Spirit to work in us that which is good, which we cannot do but by strength
derived from him, for which he will be sought. Seek to have his favour to eternity,
therefore continue seeking it while living in this world; for he will not only
be found, but he will reward those that diligently seek him.
Commentary on Psalm 105:8-23
(Read Psalm 105:8-23)
Let us remember the Redeemer's marvellous works, his
wonders, and the judgments of his mouth. Though true Christians are few number,
strangers and pilgrims upon earth, yet a far better inheritance than Canaan is
made sure to them by the covenant of God; and if we have the anointing of the
Holy Spirit, none can do us any harm. Afflictions are among our mercies. They
prove our faith and love, they humble our pride, they wean us from the world,
and quicken our prayers. Bread is the staff which supports life; when that
staff is broken, the body fails and sinks to the earth. The word of God is the
staff of spiritual life, the food and support of the soul: the sorest judgment
is a famine of hearing the word of the Lord. Such a famine was sore in all
lands when Christ appeared in the flesh; whose coming, and the blessed effect
of it, are shadowed forth in the history of Joseph. At the appointed time
Christ was exalted as Mediator; all the treasures of grace and salvation are at
his disposal, perishing sinners come to him, and are relieved by him.
Commentary on Psalm 105:24-45
(Read Psalm 105:24-45)
As the believer commonly thrives best in his soul when
under the cross; so the church also flourishes most in true holiness, and
increases in number, while under persecution. Yet instruments shall be raised
up for their deliverance, and plagues may be expected by persecutors. And see
the special care God took of his people in the wilderness. All the benefits
bestowed on Israel as a nation, were shadows of spiritual blessings with which
we are blessed in Christ Jesus. Having redeemed us with his blood, restored our
souls to holiness, and set us at liberty from Satan's bondage, he guides and
guards us all the way. He satisfies our souls with the bread of heaven, and the
water of life from the Rock of salvation, and will bring us safely to heaven.
He redeems his servants from all iniquity, and purifies them unto himself, to
be a peculiar people, zealous of good works.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Psalms》
Psalm 105
Verse 3
[3]
Glory ye in his holy name: let the heart of them rejoice that seek the LORD.
Glory —
Glory in the God whom you serve, as the only true God.
Verse 4
[4] Seek the LORD, and his strength: seek his face evermore.
Seek —
The Lord in his strength, in his sanctuary, or before the ark, which is called
God's strength.
Face —
His gracious presence.
Verse 5
[5]
Remember his marvellous works that he hath done; his wonders, and the judgments
of his mouth;
Judgments —
The punishments which he brought upon Egypt by his mere word.
Verse 6
[6] O ye
seed of Abraham his servant, ye children of Jacob his chosen.
Of Jacob —
The only branch of Abraham's seed to whom the following blessings belong.
Verse 7
[7] He is the LORD our God: his judgments are in all the earth.
Judgments —
God executes his judgments upon all nations and people.
Verse 8
[8] He
hath remembered his covenant for ever, the word which he commanded to a
thousand generations.
Remembered — So
as to perform it.
The word —
The promise.
Commanded —
Established.
Thousand generations — To all generations.
Verse 9
[9]
Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac;
Oath —
Wherewith he ratified the covenant with Isaac, Genesis 26:3.
Verse 10
[10] And
confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting
covenant:
A law —
That it might be as firm and irrevocable as a law.
Verse 11
[11]
Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance:
Lot —
The portion assigned to you by lot.
Verse 13
[13] When
they went from one nation to another, from one kingdom to another people;
They went —
Both in Canaan, where there were seven nations, and in Egypt.
Verse 15
[15]
Saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.
Anointed — My
prophets, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; who are called God's anointed, because
they were consecrated to be his peculiar people, and to be kings and princes in
their families. And they are called prophets, because God familiarly conversed
with them and revealed his will to them, and by them to others.
Verse 16
[16]
Moreover he called for a famine upon the land: he brake the whole staff of
bread.
Staff of bread —
Bread, which is the staff or support of our lives.
Verse 19
[19]
Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him.
His word —
That word or revelation which came first to Pharaoh in a dream, and then to Joseph
concerning the interpretation of it.
Purged —
From those calamities which were cast upon him, and so prepared the way for his
release.
Verse 23
[23]
Israel also came into Egypt; and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.
Ham —
Ham was the father of Mizraim, or the Egyptians, Genesis 10:6.
Verse 25
[25] He
turned their heart to hate his people, to deal subtilly with his servants.
Turned —
That is, suffered them, to be turned.
Verse 28
[28] He
sent darkness, and made it dark; and they rebelled not against his word.
They —
Moses and Aaron, who inflicted that plague after Pharaoh had threatened them.
Verse 30
[30]
Their land brought forth frogs in abundance, in the chambers of their kings.
Land —
Their country.
In chambers —
Which entered into the chambers. Kings - Of Pharaoh and his sons, and his chief
nobles and governors.
Verse 31
[31] He
spake, and there came divers sorts of flies, and lice in all their coasts.
Coasts — In
all their land, even to the utmost borders of it.
Verse 37
[37] He
brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble
person among their tribes.
Feeble —
Diseased or unable for his journey: which in so vast a body, and in a people
who had been so dreadfully oppressed, was wonderful.
Verse 39
[39] He
spread a cloud for a covering; and fire to give light in the night.
Covering — To
protect them from the heat of the sun.
Verse 40
[40] The
people asked, and he brought quails, and satisfied them with the bread of
heaven.
Quails — He
speaks of the first giving of quails, Exodus 16:13, which God gave them as a
refreshment, notwithstanding their sin in desiring them, which he graciously pardoned.
Bread —
With manna which came out of the air, commonly called heaven.
Verse 41
[41] He
opened the rock, and the waters gushed out; they ran in the dry places like a
river.
River —
They flowed in channels which God provided for them, and followed the
Israelites in their march.
Verse 44
[44] And
gave them the lands of the heathen: and they inherited the labour of the
people;
Labour —
The fruits of their labour; their cities, vineyards, olive-yards.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Psalms》
Exposition
Explanatory Notes and
Quaint Sayings
Hints to the Village
Preacher
This historical
psalm was evidently composed by King David, for the first fifteen verses of it
were used as a hymn at the carrying up of the ark from the house of Obededom,
and we read in 1Ch 16:7, "Then on that day David delivered first this
psalm to thank the Lord, into the hand of Asaph and his brethren." Such a
song was suitable for the occasion, for it describes the movements of the
Lord's people and his guardian care over them in every place, and all this on
account of the covenant of which the ark, then removing, was a symbol. Our last
psalm sang the opening chapters of Genesis, and this takes up its closing
chapters and conducts us into Exodus and Numbers.
The
first verses are full of joyful praise, and call upon the people to extol
Jehovah, Ps 105:1-7; then the earliest days of the infant nation, are
described, Ps 105:8-15; the going into Egypt, Ps 105:16-23, the coming forth
from it with the Lord's outstretched arm, Ps 105:24-38, the journeying through
the wilderness and the entrance into Canaan.
We
are now among the long Psalms, as at other times we have been among the short
ones. These varying lengths of the sacred poems should teach us not to lay down
any law either of brevity or prolixity in either prayer or praise. Short
petitions and single verses of hymns are often the best for public occasions,
but there are seasons when a whole night of wrestling or an entire day of psalm
slinging will be none too long. The Spirit is ever free in his operations, and
is not to be confined with, the rules of conventional propriety. The wind
bloweth as it listeth, and at one time rushes in short and rapid sweep, while
at another it continues to refresh the earth hour after hour with its reviving
breath.
EXPOSITION
Verse
1. O give thanks unto the Lord. Jehovah is the author of all our
benefits, therefore let him have all our gratitude. Call upon his name, or call
him by his name; proclaim his titles and fill the world with his renown. Make
known his deeds among the people, or among the nations. Let the heathen hear of
our God, that they may forsake their idols and learn to worship him. The
removal of the ark was a fit occasion for proclaiming aloud the glories of the
Great King, and for publishing to all mankind the greatness of his doings, for
it had a history in connection with the nations which it was well for them to
remember with reverence. The rest of the psalm is a sermon, of which these
first verses constitute the text.
Verse
2. Sing unto him. Bring your best thoughts and express them
in the best language to the sweetest sounds. Take care that your singing is
"unto him, "and not merely for the sake of the music or to delight
the ears of others. Singing is so delightful an exercise that it is a pity so
much or it should be wasted upon trifles or worse than trifles. O ye who can
emulate the nightingale, and almost rival the angels, we do most earnestly pray
that your hearts may be renewed that so your floods of melody may be poured out
at your Maker's and Redeemer's feet. Talk ye of all his wondrous works. Men
love to speak of marvels, and others are generally glad to hear of surprising
things; surely the believer in the living God has before him the most amazing
series of wonders ever heard of or imagined, his themes are inexhaustible and
they are such as should hold men spellbound. We ought to have more of this
"talk": no one would be blamed as a Mr. Talkative if this were his
constant theme. Talk ye, all of you: you all know something by experience of
the marvellous loving kindness of the Lord—"talk ye." In this way, by
all dwelling on this blessed subject, "all" his wondrous works will
be published. One cannot do it, nor ten thousand times ten thousand, but if all
speak to the Lord's honour, they will at least come nearer to accomplishing the
deed. We ought to have a wide range when conversing upon the Lord's doings, and
should not shut our eyes to any part of them. Talk ye of his wondrous works in
creation and in grace, in judgment and in mercy, in providential interpositions
and in spiritual comforting; leave out none, or it will be to your damage.
Obedience to this verse will give every sanctified tongue some work to do: the
trained musicians can sing, and the commoner voices can talk, and in both ways
the Lord will receive a measure of the thanks due to him, and his deeds will be
made known among the people.
Verse
3. Glory ye in his holy name. Make it a matter of joy that
you have such a God. His character and attributes are such as will never make
you blush to call him your God. Idolaters may well be ashamed of the actions
attributed to their fancied deities, their names are foul with lust and red
with blood, but Jehovah is wholly glorious; every deed of his will bear the
strictest scrutiny; his name is holy, his character is holy, his law is holy,
his government is holy, his influence is holy. In all this we may make our
boast, nor can any deny our right to do so. Let the heart of them rejoice that
seek the Lord. If they have not yet found him so fully as they desire, yet even
to be allowed and enabled to seek after such a God is cause for gladness, To
worship the Lord and seek his kingdom and righteousness is the sure way to
happiness, mad indeed there is no other. True seekers throw their hearts into
the engagement, hence their hearts receive joy; according to the text they have
a permit to rejoice and they have the promise that they shall do so. How happy
all these sentences are! Where can men's ears be when they talk of the gloom of
psalm singing? What worldly songs are fuller of real mirth? One hears the sound
of the timbrel and the harp in every verse. Even seekers find bliss in the name
of the Lord Jesus, but as for the finders, we may say with the poet,
"And
those who find thee find a bliss,
Nor tongue nor pen Call show:
The love of Jesus what it is,
None but his loved ones know."
Verse
4. Seek the Loan and his strength. Put yourselves under his
protection. Regard him not as a puny God, but look unto his omnipotence, and
seek to know the power of his grace. We all need strength; let us look to the
strong One for it. We need infinite power to bear us safely to our eternal
resting place, let us look to the Almighty Jehovah for it. Seek his face
evermore. Seek, seek, seek, we have the word three times, and though the words
differ in the Hebrew, the sense is the same. It must be a blessed thing to
seek, or we should not be thus stirred up to do so. To seek his face is to
desire his presence, his smile, his favour consciously enjoyed. First we seek
him, then his strength and then his face; from the personal reverence, we pass
on to the imparted power, and then to the conscious favour. This seeking must
never cease—the more we know the more we must seek to know. Finding him, we
must "our minds inflame to seek him more and more." He seeks
spiritual worshippers, and spiritual worshippers seek him; they are therefore
sure to meet face to face ere long.
Verse
5. Remember his marvellous works that he hath done. Memory is
never better employed than upon such topics. Alas, we are far more ready to
recollect foolish and evil things than to retain in our minds the glorious
deeds of Jehovah. If we would keep these in remembrance our faith would be
stronger, our gratitude warmer, our devotion more fervent, and our love more
intense. Shame upon us that we should let slip what it would seem impossible to
forget. We ought to need no exhortation to remember such wonders, especially as
he has wrought them all on the behalf of his people. His wonders, and the
judgments of his mouth—these also should be had in memory. The judgments of his
mouth are as memorable as the marvels of his band. God had but to speak and the
enemies of his people were sorely afflicted; his threats were not mere words,
but smote his adversaries terribly. As the Word of God is the salvation of his
saints, so is it the destruction of the ungodly: out of his mouth goeth a two
edged sword with which he will slay the wicked.
Verse
6. O ye seed of Abraham his servant, ye children of Jacob his
chosen. Should all the world forget, ye are bound to remember. Your father
Abraham saw his wonders and judgments upon Sodom, and upon the kings who came
from far, and Jacob also saw the Lord's marvellous works in visiting the
nations with famine, yet providing for his chosen a choice inheritance in a
goodly land; therefore let the children praise their father's God. The
Israelites were the Lord's elect nation, and they were bound to imitate their
progenitor, who was the Lord's faithful servant and walked before him in holy
faith: the seed of Abraham should not be unbelieving, nor should the children
of so true a servant become rebels. As we read this pointed appeal to the
chosen seed we should recognise the special claims which the Lord has upon
ourselves, since we too have been favoured above all others. Election is not a
couch for case, but an argument for sevenfold diligence. If God has set his
choice upon us, let us aim to be choice men.
Verse
7. He is the Lord our God. Blessed be his name. Jehovah
condescends to be our God. This sentence contains a greater wealth of meaning
than all the eloquence of orators can compass, and there is more joy in it than
in all the sonnets of them that make merry. His judgments are in all the earth,
or in all the land, for the whole of the country was instructed by his law,
ruled by his statutes, and protected by his authority. What a joy it is that
our God is never absent from us, he is never nonresident, never an absentee
ruler, his judgments are in all the places in which we dwell. If the second
clause of this verse refers to the whole world, it is very beautiful to see the
speciality of Israel's election united with the universality of Jehovah's
reign. Not alone to the one nation did the Lord reveal himself, but his glory
flashed around the globe. It is wonderful that the Jewish people should have
become so exclusive, and have so utterly lost the missionary spirit, for their
sacred literature is full of the broad and generous sympathies which are so consistent
with the worship of "the God of the whole earth." Nor is it less
painful to observe that among a certain class of believers in God's election of
grace there lingers a hard exclusive spirit, fatal to compassion and zeal. It
would be well for these also to remember that their Redeemer is "the
Saviour of all men, specially of them that believe."
Verse
8. He hath remembered his covenant for ever. Here is the
basis of all his dealings with his people: he had entered into covenant with
them in their father Abraham, and to this covenant he remained faithful. The
exhortation to remember (Ps 105:5) receives great force from the fact that God
has remembered. If the Lord has his promise in memory surely we ought not to
forget the wonderful manner in which he keeps it. To us it should be matter for
deepest joy that never in any instance has the Lord been unmindful of his
covenant engagements, nor will he be so world without end. O that we were as
mindful of them as he is. The word which he commanded to a thousand
generations. This is only an amplification of the former statement, and serves
to set before us the immutable fidelity of the Lord during the changing
generations of men. His judgments are threatened upon the third and fourth
generations of them that hate him, but his love runs on for ever, even to
"a thousand generations." His promise is here said to be commanded,
or vested with all the authority of a law. It is a proclamation from a
sovereign, the firman of an Emperor whose laws shall stand fast in every jot
and tittle though heaven and earth shall pass away. Therefore let us give
thanks unto the Lord and talk of all his wondrous works, so wonderful for their
faithfulness and truth.
Verse
9. Which covenant he made with Abraham. When the victims were
divided and the burning lamp passed between the pieces (Gen. 15.) then the Lord
made, or ratified, the covenant with the patriarch. This was a solemn deed,
performed not without blood, and the cutting in pieces of the sacrifice; it
points us to the greater covenant which in Christ Jesus is signed, sealed, and
ratified, that it may stand fast for ever and ever. And his oath unto Isaac.
Isaac did not in vision see the solemn making of the covenant, but the Lord
renewed unto him his oath (Ge 26:2-5). This was enough for him, and must have
established his faith in the Most High. We have the privilege of seeing in our
Lord Jesus both the sacrificial seal, and the eternal oath of God, by which
every promise of the covenant is made yea and amen to all the chosen seed.
Verse
10. And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law. Jacob in his
wondrous dream (Ge 28:10-15) received a pledge that the Lord's mode of
procedure with him would be in accordance with covenant relations: for said
Jehovah, "I will not leave thee till I have done that which I have spoken
to thee of." Thus, if we may so speak with all reverence, the covenant
became a law unto the Lord himself by which he bound himself to act. O
matchless condescension, that the most free and sovereign Lord should put himself
under covenant bonds to Iris chosen, and make a law for himself, though he is
above all law. And to Israel for an everlasting covenant. When he changed
Jacob's name he did not change his covenant, but it is written, "he
blessed him there" (Ge 32:29), and it was with the old blessing, according
to the unchangeable word of abiding grace.
Verse
11. Saying, Unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of
your inheritance. This repetition of the great covenant promise is recorded
in Ge 35:9-12 in connection with the change of Jacob's name, and very soon
after that slaughter of the Shechemites, which had put the patriarch into such
great alarm and caused him to use language almost identical with that of the
next verse. When they were but a few men in number; yea, very few, and
strangers in it. Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, "Ye have troubled
me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites
and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves
together against me, and slay me, and I shall be destroyed, and my house."
Thus the fears of the man of God declared themselves, and they were reasonable
if we look only at the circumstances in which he was placed, but they are soon
seen to be groundless when we remember that the covenant promise, which
guaranteed the possession of the land, necessarily implied the preservation of
the race to whom the promise was made. We often fear where no fear is. The
blessings promised to the seed of Abraham were not dependent upon the number of
his descendants, or their position in this world. The covenant was made with
one man, and consequently the number could never be less, and that one man was
not the owner of a foot of soil in all the land, save only a cave in which to
bury his dead, and therefore his seed could not have less inheritance than he.
The smallness of a church, and the poverty of its members, are no barriers to
the divine blessing, if it be sought earnestly by pleading the promise. Were
not the apostles few, and the disciples feeble, when the good work began?
Neither because we are strangers and foreigners here below, as our fathers
were, are we in any the more danger: we are like sheep in the midst of wolves,
but the wolves cannot hurt us, for our shepherd is near.
Verse
12. When they were but a few men in number. bpom ytm.
Literally, "homines numeri", men of number; so few as easily to be
numbered: in opposition to what their posterity afterwards were, as the sand of
the sea, without number. Samuel Chandler.
Verse
13. When they went from one nation, to another, from one Kingdom
to another people. Migrating as the patriarchs did from the region of one
tribe to the country of another they were singularly preserved. The little
wandering family might have been cut off root and branch had not a special
mandate been issued from the throne for their protection. It was not the
gentleness of their neighbours which screened them; they were hedged about by
the mysterious guardianship of heaven. Whether in Egypt, or in Philistia, or in
Canaan, the heirs of the promises, dwelling in their tents, were always secure.
Verse
14. He suffered no man to do them wrong. Men cannot wrong us
unless he suffers them to do so; the greatest of them must wait his permission
before they can place a finger upon us. The wicked would devour us if they
could, but they cannot even cheat us of a farthing without divine sufferance.
Yea, he reproved kings for their sakes. Pharaoh and Abimelech must both be made
to respect the singular strangers who had come to sojourn in their land; the
greatest kings are very second rate persons with God in comparison with his
chosen servants.
Verse
15. Saying, touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.
Abraham and his seed were in the midst of the world a generation of priests
anointed to present sacrifice unto the most High God; since to them the oracles
were committed, they were also the prophets of mankind; and they were kings
too—a royal priesthood; hence they had received a threefold anointing. Their holy
office surrounded them with a sacredness which rendered it sacrilege to molest
them. The Lord was pleased to impress the wild tribes of Canaan with a
respectful awe of the pious strangers who had come to abide with them, so that
they came not near them to do them ill. The words here mentioned may not have
been actually spoken, but the impression of awe which fell upon the nations is
thus poetically described. God will not have those touched who have been set
apart unto himself He calls them his own, saying, "Mine
anointed" he declares that he has "anointed" them to be
prophets, priests, and kings unto himself, and yet again he claims them as his
prophets—"Do my prophets no harm." All through the many years
in which the three great fathers dwelt in Canaan no man was able to injure
them; they were not able to defend themselves by force of arms; but the eternal
God was their refuge. Even so at this present time the remnant according to the
election of grace cannot be destroyed, nay, nor so much as touched, without the
divine consent. Against the church of Christ the gates of hell cannot prevail.
In all this we see reasons for giving thanks unto the Lord, and proclaiming his
name according to the exhortation of the first verse of the Psalm. Here ends
the portion which was sung at the moving of the ark: its fitness to be used for
such a purpose is very manifest, for the ark was the symbol both of the
covenant and of that mystic dwelling of God with Israel which was at once her
glory and her defence. None could touch the Lord's peculiar ones, for the Lord
was among them, flaming forth in majesty between the cherubims. The presence of
God having remained with his chosen ones while they sojourned in Canaan, it did
not desert them when they were called to go down into Egypt. They did not go
there of their own choice, but under divine direction, and hence the Lord
prepared their way and prospered them until he saw fit to conduct them again to
the land of promise.
Verse
16. Moreover he called for a famine upon the land. He had only
to call for it as a man calls for his servant, and it came at once. How
grateful ought we to be that he does not often call in that terrible servant of
his, so meagre and gaunt, and grim, so pitiless to the women and the children,
so bitter to the strong men, who utterly fail before it. He brake the whole
staff of bread. Man's feeble life cannot stand without its staff—if bread fail
him he fails. As a cripple with a broken staff falls to the ground, so does man
when broad no longer sustains him. To God it is as easy to make a famine as to
break a stall He could make that famine universal, too, so that all countries
should be in like case: then would the race of man fall indeed, and its staff
would be broken for ever. There is this sweet comfort in the matter, that the
Lord has wise ends to serve even by famine: he meant his people to go down into
Egypt, and the scarcity of food was his method of leading them there, for
"they heard that there was corn in Egypt."
Verse
17. He sent a man before them, even Joseph. He was the advance
guard and pioneer for the whole clan. His brethren sold him, but God sent him.
Where the hand of the wicked is visible God's hand may be invisibly at work,
overruling their malice. No one was more of a man, or more fit to lead the van
than Joseph: an interpreter of dreams was wanted, and his brethren had said of
him, "Behold, this dreamer cometh." Who was sold for a servant, or
rather for a slave. Joseph's journey into Egypt was not so costly as Jonah's
voyage when he paid his own fare: his free passage was provided by the
Midianites, who also secured his introduction to a great officer of state by
handing him over as a Slave. His way to a position in which he could feed his
family lay through the pit, the slaver's caravan, the slave market and the
prison, and who shall deny but what it was the right way, the surest way, the
wisest way, and perhaps the shortest way. Yet assuredly it seemed not so. Were
we to send a man on such an errand we should furnish him with money—Joseph goes
as a pauper; we should clothe him with authority—Joseph goes as a slave; we
should leave him at full liberty—Joseph is a bondman: yet money would have been
of little use when corn was so dear, authority would have been irritating
rather than influential with Pharaoh, and freedom might not have thrown Joseph
into connection with Pharaoh's captain and his other servants, and so the
knowledge of his skill in interpretation might not have reached the monarch's
ear. God way is the way. Our Lord's path to his mediatorial throne ran by the
cross of Calvary; our road to glory runs by the rivers of grief.
Verse
18. Whose feet they hurt with fetters. From this we learn a
little more of Joseph's sufferings than we find in the book of Genesis:
inspiration had not ceased, and David was as accurate an historian as Moses,
for the same Spirit guided his pen. He was laid in iron, or "into iron
came his soul." The prayer book version, "the iron entered into his
soul, "is ungrammatical, but probably expresses much the same truth. His
fetters hurt his mind as well as his body, and well did Jacob say, "The
archers shot at him, and sorely grieved him." Under the cruelly false
accusation, which he could not disprove, his mind was, as it were, belted and
bolted around with iron, and had not the Lord been with him he might have sunk
under his sufferings. In all this, and a thousand things besides, he was an
admirable type of him who in the highest sense is "the Shepherd, the stone
of Israel." The iron fetters were preparing him to wear chains of gold,
and making his feet ready to stand on high places. It is even so with all the
Lord's afflicted ones, they too shall one day step from their prisons to their
thrones.
Verse
19. Until the time that his word came. God has his times, and
his children must wait till his "until" is fulfilled. Joseph was
tried as in a furnace, until the Lord's assaying work was fully accomplished.
The word of the chief butler was nothing, he had to wait until God's word came,
and meanwhile the word of the Lord tried him. He believed the promise, but his
faith was sorely exercised. A delayed blessing tests men, and proves their
metal, whether their faith is of that precious kind which can endure the fire.
Of many a choice promise we may say with Daniel "the thing was true, but
the time appointed was long." If the vision tarry it is good to wait for
it with patience. There is a trying word and a delivering word, and we must
bear the one till the other comes to us. How meekly Joseph endured his
afflictions, and with what fortitude he looked forward to the clearing of his
slandered character we may readily imagine: it will be better still if under
similar trials we are able to imitate him, and come forth from the furnace as
thoroughly purified as he was, and as well prepared to bear the yet harder
ordeal of honour and power.
Verse
20. The king sent and loosed him. He was thrust into the
roundhouse by an officer, but he was released by the monarch himself. Even the
ruler of the people, and let him go free. The tide had turned, so that Egypt's
haughty potentate gave him a call from the prison to the palace. He had
interpreted the dreams of captives, himself a captive; he must now interpret
for a ruler and become a ruler himself. When God means to enlarge his prisoners,
kings become his turnkeys.
Verse
21. He made him lord of his house. Reserving no power, but
saying "only in the throne will I be greater than thou." The servitor
of slaves becomes lord over nobles. How soon the Lord lifteth his chosen from
the dunghill to set them among princes. And ruler of all his substance. He
empowered him to manage the storing of the seven plenteous harvests, and to
dispense the provisions in the coming days of scarcity. All the treasures of
Egypt were under his lock and key, yea, the granaries of the world were sealed
or opened at his bidding. Thus was he in the best conceivable position for
preserving alive the house of Israel with whom the covenant was made. As our
Lord was himself secured in Egypt from Herod's enmity, so, ages before, the
redeemed race found an equally available shelter, in the hour of need. God has
always a refuge for his saints, and if the whole earth could not afford them
sanctuary, the Lord himself would be their dwelling place, and take them up to
lie in his own bosom. We are always sure to be fed if all the world should
starve. It is delightful to think of our greater Joseph ruling the nations for
the good of his own household, and it becomes us to abide in quiet confidence
in every political disaster, since Jesus is on the throne of providence, King
of kings and Lord of lords, and will be so till this dispensation ends.
Verse
22. To bind his princes at his pleasure. He who was bound
obtains authority to bind. He is no longer kept in prison, but keeps all the
prisons, and casts into them the greatest nobles when justice demands it. And
teach his senators wisdom. The heads of the various peoples, the elders of the
nations, learned from him the science of government, the art of providing for
the people. Joseph was a great instructor in political economy, and we doubt
not that he mingled with it the purest morals, the most upright jurisprudence,
and something of that divine wisdom without which the most able senators remain
in darkness. The king's authority made him absolute both in the executive and
in the legislative courts, and the Lord instructed him to use his power with
discretion. What responsibilities and honours loaded the man who had been
rejected by his brothers, and sold for twenty pieces of silver! What glories
crown the head of that greater one who was "separated from his
brethren."
Verse
23. Israel also came into Egypt. The aged patriarch came, and
with him that increasing company which bore his name. He was hard to bring
there. Perhaps nothing short of the hope of seeing Joseph could have drawn him
to take so long a journey from the tombs of his forefathers; but the divine
will was accomplished and the church of God was removed into an enemy's
country, where for a while it was nourished. And Jacob sojourned in the land of
Ham. Shem the blessed came to lodge awhile with Ham the accursed: the dove was
in the vulture's nest. God so willed it for a time, and therefore it was safe
and right: still it was only a sojourn, not a settlement. The fairest Goshen in
Egypt was not the covenant blessing, neither did the Lord mean his people to
think it so; even so to us "earth is our lodge" but only our lodge,
for heaven is our home. When we are best housed we ought still to remember that
here we have no continuing city. It were ill news for us if we were doomed to
reside in Egypt for ever, for all its riches are not worthy to be compared with
the reproach of Christ. Thus the song rehearsed the removals of the Lord's
people, and was a most fit accompaniment to the bearing up of the ark, as the
priest carried it into the city of David, where the Lord had appointed it a
resting place.
Verse
24. And he increased his people greatly. In Goshen they seem
to have increased rapidly from the first, and this excited the fears of the
Egypt, inns, so that they tried to retard their increase by oppression, but the
Lord continued to bless them, And made them stronger than their enemies. Both
in physical strength and in numbers they threatened to become the more powerful
race. Nor was this growth of the nation impeded by tyrannical measures, but the
very reverse took place, thus giving an early instance of what has since become
a proverb in the church—"the more they oppressed them the more they
multiplied." It is idle to contend either with God or his people.
Verse
25. He turned their hearts to hate his people. It was his
goodness to Israel which called forth the ill will of the Egyptian court, and
so far the Lord caused it, and moreover he made use of this feeling to lead on
to the discomfort of his people, and so to their readiness to leave the land to
which they had evidently become greatly attached. Thus far but no further did
the Lord turn the hearts of the Egyptians. God cannot in any sense be the
author of sin so far as to be morally responsible for its existence, but it
often happens through the evil which is inherent in human nature that the acts
of the Lord arouse the ill feelings of ungodly men. Is the sun to be blamed
because while it softens wax it hardens clay? Is the orb of day to be accused
of creating the foul exhalations which are drawn by its warmth from the
pestilential marsh? The sun causes the reek of the dunghill only in a certain
sense had it been a bed of flowers his beams would have called forth fragrance.
The evil is in men, and the honour of turning it to good and useful purposes is
with the Lord. Hatred is often allied with cunning, and so in the case of the
Egyptians, they began to deal subtilly with his servants. They treated them in
a fraudulent manner, they reduced them to bondage by their exactions, they
secretly concerted the destruction of their male children, and at length openly
ordained that cruel measure, and all with the view of checking their increase,
lest in time of war they should side with invaders in order to obtain their
liberty. Surely the depths of Satanic policy were here reached, but vain was
the cunning of man against the chosen seed.
Verse
26. He sent Moses his servant; and Aaron whom he had chosen.
When the oppression was at the worst, Moses came. For the second time we have
here the expression, "he sent"; he who sent Joseph sent also Moses
and his eloquent brother. The Lord had the men in readiness and all he had to
do was to commission them and thrust them forward. They were two, for mutual
comfort and strength, even as the apostles and the seventy in our Lord's day
were sent forth two and two. The men differed, and so the one became the
supplement of the other, and together they were able to accomplish far more
than if they had been exactly alike: the main point was that they were both
sent, and hence both clothed with divine might.
Verse
27. They showed his signs among them, and wonders in the land of
Ham. The miracles which were wrought by Moses were the Lord's, not his own:
signs, as being the marks of Jehovah's presence hence they are here called
"his" and power. The plagues were "words of his signs" (see
margin), that is to say, they were speaking marvels, which testified more
plainly than words to the omnipotence of Jehovah, to his determination to be
obeyed, to his anger at the obstinacy of Pharaoh. Never were discourses more
plain, pointed, personal, or powerful, and yet it took ten of them to
accomplish the end designed. In the preaching of the gospel there are words,
and signs, and wonders and these leave men without excuse for their
impenitence; to have the kingdom of God come nigh unto them, and yet to remain
rebellious is the unhappy sin of obstinate spirits. Those are wonders of sin
who see wonders of grace, and yet are unaffected by them: bad as he was,
Pharaoh had not this guilt, for the prodigies which lie beheld were marvels of
judgment and not of mercy.
Verse
28. He sent darkness, and made it dark. It was no natural or
common darkness to be accounted for by the blinding dust of the simoon, it was
beyond all precedent and out of the range of ordinary events. It was a horrible
palpable obscurity which men felt clinging about them as though it were a robe
of death. It was a thick darkness, a total darkness, a darkness which lasted
three days, a darkness in which no one dared to stir. What a condition to be
in! This plague is first mentioned, thought it is not first in order, because
it fitly describes all the period of the plagues: the land was in the darkness
of sorrow, and in the darkness of sin all the time. If we shudder as we think
of that long and terrible gloom, let us reflect upon the gross darkness which
still covers heathen lands as the result of sin, for it is one of the chief
plagues which iniquity creates for itself. May the day soon come when the
people which sit in darkness shall see a great light. And they rebelled not
against his word. Moses and Aaron did as they were bidden, and during the
darkness the Egyptians were so cowed that even when it cleared away they were
anxious for Israel to be gone, and had it not been for the pride of Pharaoh
they would have rejoiced to speed them on their journey there and then. God can
force men to obey, and even make the stoutest hearts eager to pay respect to
his will, for fear his plagues should be multiplied. Possibly, however, the
sentence before us neither refers to Moses nor the Egyptians, but to the
plagues which came at the Lord's bidding. The darkness, the hail, the frogs,
the murrain, were all so many obedient servants of the great Lord of all.
Verse
29. He turned their waters into blood, and slew their fish. So
that the plague was not a mere colouring of the water with red earth, as some
suppose, but the river was offensive and fatal to the fish. The beloved Nile
and other streams were all equally tainted and ensanguined. Their commonest
mercy became their greatest curse. Water is one of the greatest blessings, and
the more plentiful it is the better, but blood is a hideous sight to look upon,
and to see rivers and pools of it is frightful indeed. Fish in Egypt furnished
a large part of the food supply, and it was no small affliction to see them
floating dead and white upon a stream of crimson. The hand of the Lord thus
smote them where all classes of the people would become aware of it and suffer
from it.
Verse
30. Their land brought forth frogs in abundance. If fish could
not live frogs might, yea, they multiplied both on land and in the water till
they swarmed beyond all count. In the chambers of their kings. They penetrated
the choicest rooms of the palace, and were found upon the couches of state. The
Lord called for them and they marched forth. Obnoxious and even loathsome their
multitudes became, but there was no resisting them; they seemed to spring out of
the ground, the very land brought them forth. Their universal presence must
have inspired horror and disgust which would cause sickness and make life a
burden; their swarming even in the king's own chambers was a rebuke to his
face, which his pride must have felt. Kings are no more than other men with
God, nay less than others when they are first in rebellion; if the frogs had
abounded elsewhere, but had been kept out of his select apartments, the monarch
would have cared little, for he was a heartless being, but God took care that
there should be a special horde of the invaders for the palace; they were more
than ordinarily abundant in the chambers of their kings.
Verse
31. He spake. See the power of the divine word. He had only to
say it and it was done: and there came divers sorts of flies. Insects of
various annoying kinds came up in infinite hordes, a mixture of biting,
stinging, buzzing gnats, mosquitos, files, beetles, and other vermin such as
make men's flesh their prey, the place of deposit for their eggs, and the seat
of peculiar torments. And lice in all their coasts. These unutterably loathsome
forms of life were as the dust of the ground, and covered their persons, their
garments, and all they ate. Nothing is too small to master man when God commands
it to assail him. The sons of Ham had despised the Israelites and now they were
made to loathe themselves. The meanest beggars were more approachable than the
proud Egyptians; they were reduced to the meanest condition of filthiness, and
the most painful state of irritation. What armies the Lord can send forth when
once his right arm is bared for war! And what scorn he pours on proud nations
when he fights them, not with angels, but with lice! Pharaoh had little left to
be proud of when his own person was invaded by filthy parasites. It was a slap
in the face which ought to have humbled his heart, but, alas, man, when he is
altogether polluted, still maintains his self conceit, and when he is the most
disgusting object in the universe he still vaunts himself. Surely pride is
moral madness.
Verse
32. He gave them hail for rain. They seldom had rain, but now
the showers assumed the form of heavy, destructive hail storms, and being
accompanied with a hurricane and thunderstorm, they were overwhelming, terrible,
and destructive. And flaming fire in their land. The lightning was peculiarly
vivid, and seemed to run along upon the ground, or fall in fiery flakes. Thus
all the fruit of the trees and the harvests of the fields were either broken to
pieces or burned on the spot, and universal fear bowed the hearts of men to the
dust. No phenomena are more appalling to the most of mankind than those which
attend a thunderstorm; even the most audacious blasphemers quail when the dread
artillery of heaven opens fire upon the earth.
Verse
33. He smote their vines also and their fig trees. So that all
hope of gathering their best fruits was gone, and the trees were injured for
future bearing. All the crops were destroyed, and these are mentioned as being
the more prominent forms of their produce, used by them both at festivals and
in common meals. And brake the trees of their coasts. From end to end of Egypt
the trees were battered and broken by the terrible hailstorm. God is in earnest
when he deals with proud spirits, he will either end them or mend them.
Verse
34. He spoke, and the locusts came, and caterpillars, and that
without number. One word from the Captain and the armies leap forward. The
expression is very striking, and sets forth the immediate result of the divine
word. The caterpillar is called the licker, because it seems to lick up every
green thing as in a moment. Perhaps the caterpillar here meant is still the
locust in another form. That locusts swarm in countless armies is a fact of
ordinary observation, and the case would be worse on this occasion. We have
ourselves ridden for miles through armies of locusts, and we have seen with our
own eyes how completely they devour every green thing. The description is not
strained when we read, "And did eat up all the herbs in their land, and
devoured the fruit of their ground." Nothing escapes these ravenous
creatures, they even climb the trees to reach any remnant of foliage which may
survive. Commissioned as these were by God, we may be sure they would do their work
thoroughly, and leave behind them nothing but a desolate wilderness.
Verse
35. Did eat up all the herbs. The locusts had devoured every
green herb and every blade of grass; and had it not been for the reeds, on
which our cattle entirely subsisted while we skirted the banks of the river,
the journey must have been discontinued, at least in the line that had been
proposed. The larvae, as generally is the case in this class of nature, are
much more voracious than the perfect insect; nothing that is green seems to
come amiss to them. The traces of their route over the country are very obvious
for many weeks after they have passed it, the surface appearing as if swept by
a broom, or as if a harrow had been drawn over it. John Barrow,
1764-1849.
Verse
36. Are smote also all the firstborn in their land, the chief of
all their strength. Now came the master blow. The Lord spoke before, but
now he smites; before he only smote vines, but now he strikes men themselves.
The glory of the household dies in a single night, the prime and pick of the
nation are cut off, the flower of the troops, the heirs of the rich, and the
hopes of the poor all die at midnight. Now the target was struck in the centre,
there was no confronting this plague. Pharaoh feels it as much as the woman
slave at the mill: he had smitten Israel, the Lord's firstborn, and the Lord
repaid him to his face. What a cry went up throughout the land of Egypt when
every house wailed its firstborn at the dead of night! O Jehovah, thou didst
triumph in that hour, and with an outstretched arm didst thou deliver thy
people.
Verse
37. He brought them forth also with silver and gold. This they
asked of the Egyptians, perhaps even demanded, and well they might, for they
had been robbed and spoiled for many a day, and it was not meet that they
should go forth empty handed. Glad were the Egyptians to hand over their jewels
to propitiate a people who had such a terrible friend above; they needed no
undue pressure, they feared them too much to deny them their requests. The
Israelites were compelled to leave their houses and lands behind them, and it
was but justice that they should be able to turn these into portable property.
And there was not one feeble person among their tribes—a great marvel indeed.
The number of their army was very great and yet there was not one in hospital,
not one carried in an ambulance, or limping in the rear. Poverty and oppression
had not enfeebled them. JEHOVAH ROPHI had healed them; they carried none of the
diseases of Egypt with them, and felt none of the exhaustion which sore bondage
produces. When God calls his people to a long journey he fits them for it; in
the pilgrimage of life our strength shall be equal to our day. See the contrast
between Egypt and Israel—in Egypt one dead in every house, and among the
Israelites not one so much as limping.
Verse
38. Egypt was glad when they departed, which would not have
been the case had the gold and silver been borrowed by the Israelites, for men
do not carry their goods into a far country. The awe of God like to see
borrowers lad to nay them to be was on Egypt, and they feared his people and
were glad to pay them to be gone. What a change from the time when the sons of
Jacob were the drudges of the land, the offscouring of all things, the brick
makers whose toil was only requited by the lash or the stick. Now they were
reverenced as prophets and priests; for the fear of them fell upon them, the
people proceeded even to a superstitious terror them. Thus with cheers and good
wishes their former taskmasters sent them on their way: Pharaoh was foiled and
the chosen people were once more on the move, journeying to the place which the
Lord had given to them by a covenant of salt. "O give thanks unto Jehovah;
call upon his name, make known his deeds among the people."
Verse
39. He spread a cloud for a covering. Never people were so
favoured. What would not travellers in the desert now give for such a canopy?
The sun could not scorch them with its burning ray; their whole camp was
screened like a king in his pavilion. Nothing seemed to be too good for God to
give his chosen nation, their comfort was studied in every way. And fire to
give light in the night. While cities were swathed in darkness, their town of
tents enjoyed a light which modern art with all its appliances cannot equal.
God himself was their sun and shield, their glory and their defence. Could they
be unbelieving while so graciously shaded, or rebellious while they walked at
midnight in such a light? Alas, the tale of their sin is as extraordinary as
this story of His love; but this Psalm selects the happier theme and dwells
only upon covenant love and faithfulness. O give thanks unto the Lord for he is
good. We, too, have found the Lord all this to us, for he has been our sun and
shield, and has preserved us alike from the perils of joys and the evils of
grief;
"He
hath been my joy in woe,
Cheered my heart when it was low;
And with warnings softly sad
Calmed my heart when it was glad."
So
has the promise been fulfilled to us, "the sun shall not hurt thee by day,
nor the moon by night."
Verse
40. The people asked. But how badly, how wickedly! And yet his
grace forgave the sin of their murmuring and heard its meaning: or perhaps we
may consider that while the multitude murmured there were a few, who were
really gracious people, who prayed, and therefore the blessing came. He brought
quails, and satisfied them with the bread of heaven. He gave them what they
asked amiss as well as what was good for them, mingling judgment with goodness,
for their discipline. The quails were more a curse than a blessing in the end,
because of their greed and lust, but in themselves they were a peculiar
indulgence, and favour: it was their own fault, that the dainty meat brought
death with it. As for the manna it was unmingled good to them, and really
satisfied them, which the quails never did. It was bread from heaven, and the
bread of heaven, sent by heaven; it was a pity that they were not led to look
up to heaven whence it came, and fear and love the God who out of heaven rained
it upon them. Thus they were housed beneath the Lord's canopy and fed with food
from his own table; never people were so lodged and boarded. O house of Israel,
praise ye the Lord.
Verse
41. He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out. With Moses'
rod and his own word he cleft the rock in the desert, and forth leaped abundant
floods for their drinking where they had feared to die of thirst. From most
unlikely sources the all sufficient God can supply his people's needs; hard
rocks become springing fountains at the Lord's command. They ran in the dry
places like a river: so that those at a distance from the rock could stoop down
and refresh themselves, and the stream flowed on, so that in future journeyings
they were supplied. The desert sand would naturally swallow up the streams, and
yet it did not so, the refreshing river ran "in the dry places." We
know that the rock set forth our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom there flows a
fountain of living waters which shall never be exhausted till the last pilgrim
has crossed the Jordan and entered Canaan.
Verse
42. For he remembered his holy promise, and Abraham his servant.
Here is the secret reason for all this grace. The covenant and he for whose
sake it was made are ever on the heart of the Most High. He remembered his
people because he remembered his covenant. He could not violate that gracious
compact for it was sacred to him,—"his holy promise." A holy God must
keep his promise holy. In our case the Lord's eye is upon his beloved Son, and
his engagements with him. On our behalf, and this is the source and well ahead
of those innumerable favours which enrich us in all our wanderings through this
life's wilderness.
Verse
43. And he brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with
gladness. Up from the wilderness he led them, rejoicing over them himself
and making them rejoice too. They were his people, his chosen, and hence in
them he rejoiced, and upon them he showered his favours, that they might
rejoice in him as their God, and their portion.
Verse
44. And gave them the lands of the heathen. He drove out the
Canaanites and allotted the lands to the tribes. They were called on to fight,
but the Lord wrought so wonderfully that the conquest was not effected by their
bow or spear—the Lord gave them the land. And they inherited the labour
of the people, they dwelt in houses which they had not built, and gathered
fruit front vines and olives which they had not planted. They were not settled
in a desert which needed to be reclaimed, but in a land fertile to a proverb,
and cultivated carefully by its inhabitants. Like Adam, they were placed in a
garden. This entrance into the goodly land was fitly celebrated when the ark
was being moved to Zion.
Verse
45. That they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws.
This was the practical design of it all. The chosen nation was to be the
conservator of truth, the exemplar of morality, the pattern of devotion:
everything was so ordered as to place them in advantageous circumstances for
fulfilling this trust. Theirs was a high calling and a glorious election. It
involved great responsibilities, but it was in itself a distinguished blessing,
and one for which the nation was bound to give thanks. Most justly then did the
music close with the jubilant but solemn shout of HALLELUJAH. Praise ye the
Lord. If this history did trot make Israel praise God, what would?
EXPLANATORY
NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Whole
Psalm. This is the first of a series of "Confitemini
Domino" Psalms, "O give thanks unto the Lord" (Ps 105:1
106:1 107:1 108:1 136:1)—Christopher Wordsworth.
Whole
Psalm. The 105th Psalm is a meditation on the covenant as performed on
the part of God, the 106th on the covenant as kept by Israel. They both dwell
on the predestinating will of God, electing men to holiness and obedience, and
the mode in which human sin opposes itself to that will, and yet cannot make it
void. Plain Commentary.
Verse
1. The first fifteen verses were written at the bringing up of the
Ark, 1 Chron. 6. They tell that it is sovereign grace that ruleth over all—it
is a sovereign God. Out of a fallen world he takes whom he pleases—individuals,
families, nations. He chose Israel long ago, that they might be the objects of
grace, and their land the theatre of its display. He will yet again return to
Israel, when the days of his Kingdom of Glory draw near; and Israel shall have
a full share—the very fullest and richest—in his blessings, temporal and
spiritual. Andrew A. Bonar.
Verse
1. Call upon his name. The original meaning of this phrase is
call (him) by his name, i.e., give him the descriptive title most
expressive of his divine perfections; or more specifically, call him by his
name Jehovah, i.e., ascribe to him the attributes which it denotes, to wit,
eternity and self existence, together with that covenant relation to his
people, which though not denoted by the name was constantly associated with it,
and therefore necessarily suggested by it. The meaning of the next phrase is
obscured, if not entirely concealed in the common version, "among the
people." The plural form and sense of the original expression are
essential to the writer's purpose, which is to glorify the God of Israel among
the nations. Joseph Addison Alexander.
Verse
1. Make known his deeds among the people. The people of God
were not shut up in that narrow corner of the earth for the purpose of
confining within their straitened territories the true knowledge and worship of
God; but God wished that to be the fixed seat of the church, from which the
sound of heavenly doctrine should go forth into all nations. Therefore he chose
Canaan, which is interjected among the most powerful nations of the world, that
from it as from a fountain might more easily issue the doctrine of God to the
rest, of the nations: as Isaiah says, "Out of Zion shall go forth the
law."—Mollerus.
Verse
2. Talk ye of all his wondrous works, yytalpn niphleothaiv,
"of his miracles." Who have so many of these to boast of as
Christians! Christianity is a tissue of miracles; and every part of the work of
grace on the soul is a miracle. Genuine Christian converts may talk of miracles
from morning to night; and they should talk of them, and recommend to others
their miracle working God and Saviour. Adam Clarke.
Verse
2. Sing...talk, etc. Music and conversation are two things by
which the mind of man receiveth much good, or a great deal of harm. They who
make "Jehovah" and his "wondrous works" the subject of
both, enjoy a heaven upon earth. And they who do in reality love the Saviour, will
always find themselves inclined to "sing to him, "and to "talk
of him."—George Horne.
Verse
2. Sing psalms. It is not sufficient to offer the empty
vessel of our joy unto God, or our singing voice in musical tune only; but also
it is required that we fill our joyful voice with holy matter and good purpose,
whereby God only may be reasonably praised: "Sing psalms unto
him."—David Dickson.
Verse
2. Sing psalms. Psalmody is the calm of the soul, the repose
of the spirit, the arbiter of peace. It silences the wave, and conciliates the
whirlwind of our passions, soothing the impetuous, tempering the unchaste. It
is an engenderer of friendship, a healer of dissension, a reconciler of
enemies. For who can longer count him his enemy, with whom to the throne of God
he hath raised the strain? Psalmody repels the demons, and lures the ministry
of angels. It is a weapon of defence in nightly terrors and a respite from
daily toil. To the infant it is a presiding genius; to manhood a crown of
glory; a balm of comfort to the aged; a congenial ornament to women. Basil.
Verse
4. Seek the Lord, and be strengthened; so divers ancient
versions read it. They that would be "strengthened in the inward man,
" must fetch in strength from God by faith and prayer. "Seek his
strength, "and then seek his face; for by his strength we hope to
prevail with him for his favour, as Jacob did, Ho 7:3. "Seek his face
evermore, "i.e., seek to have his favour to eternity, and therefore
continue seeking it to the end of the time of your probation. Seek it while you
live in this world, and you shall have it while you live in the other world,
and even there shall be for ever seeking it, in an infinite progression, and
yet be for ever satisfied in it. Matthew Henry.
Verse
4. His strength. In classical language, his aegis, or
protection, his ark, the symbol of the divine presence. John Mason Good.
Verse
4. Seek his face evermore. It is added "evermore,
"lest they should imagine that they had performed their duty, if they
assembled twice or three times in the year at the tabernacle, and observed the
external rites according to the law. Mollerus.
Verse
4. Seek...seek. None do seek the Lord so earnestly, but they
have need of stirring up to seek him more earnestly; neither have any attained
to such a measure of communion with God, but they have need to seek for a
further measure: therefore it is said, "Seek the Lord, seek his
strength, seek his face evermore."—David Dickson.
Verse
5. Remember. How others may be affected I do not ask. For
myself, I confess, that there is no care or sorrow, by which I am so severely
harassed, as when I feel myself guilty of ingratitude to my most kind Lord. It
not seldom appears to be a fault so inexplicable, that I am alarmed when I read
these words, inasmuch as I consider them addressed to myself, and others like
me. Remember, O ye forgetful, thoughtless, and ungrateful, the works of God,
which he hath done to us, with so many signs and proofs of his goodness. What
more could he have done, which he hath not done?—Folengius.
Verse
6. O ye seed of Abraham his servant. Consider the relation ye
stand in to him. Ye are "the seed of Abraham his servant"; you are
born in his house, and being thereby entitled to the privilege of his servants,
protection and provision, you are also bound to do the duty of servants, to
attend your master, consult his honour, obey his commands, and do what you can
to advance his interests. Matthew Henry.
Verse
8. He hath remembered his covenant. As a long series of years
had elapsed between the promise and the performance, the prophet uses the word
"remember, "intimating that the Divine promise does not become
obsolete by length of time, but that even when the world imagines that they are
extinguished and wholly forgotten, God retains as distinct a remembrance of
them as ever, that he may accomplish them in due season. John Calvin.
Verse
8. The word which he commanded. All that God says must of
necessity be said with authority, so that even his promises partake of the
nature of commands. Joseph Addison Alexander.
Verse
11. The lot of your inheritance: literally lbh, the cord of
your inheritance, an expression taken from the ancient method of measuring
land by the cord or line; whence the measuring cord is metonymically put for
the part measured, and divided by the cord. Thus, "the lines,
Mylbx, the cords, are fallen unto me in pleasant places, "i.e., as
the psalmist explains it: "I have a goodly heritage." Ps 16:6—Samuel
Chandler.
Verse
11. Your inheritance. The change of the number (from
"thee" to "your") points out that God made a covenant with
all the people in general, though lie spake the words only to a few
individuals; even as we have seen a little before, that it was a decree or an
everlasting law. The holy patriarchs were the first and principal persons into whose
hands the promise was committed; but they did not embrace the grace which was
offered to them as belonging only to themselves, but as a blessing which their
posterity in common with them were to become sharers of. John Calvin.
Verse
12. One would think that all the world would have been upon them; but
here was the protection, God has a negative voice, "He suffered no man
to do them wrong." Many had (as we say) an aching tooth at the people
of God, their finger itched to be dealing with them, and the text shows four
advantages the world had against them. First, "They were few."
Secondly, "very few." Thirdly, "strangers."
Fourthly, unsettled. What hindered their enemies? It was the Lord's negative
voice. "He reproved kings for their sakes; saying, Touch not mine
anointed, and do my prophets no harm." We see an instance of this (Ge
35:5). When Jacob and his family journeyed, "the terror of God was upon
the cities that were round about them, and they did not pursue after the sons
of Jacob." They had a mind to pursue after them, to revenge the slaughter
of the Shechemites; but God said, Pursue not, and then they could not
pursue, they must stay at home. And when his people the Jews were safe in
Canaan he encourages them to come up freely to worship at Jerusalem, by this
assurance, "No man shall desire the land, when thou shalt go up to appear
before the Lord thy God, thrice in the year" (Ex 34:24). God can stop not
only hands from spoiling, but hearts from desiring. Joseph Caryl.
Verse
13. From one kingdom to another people. Where we might have
expected from kingdom to kingdom, the car is somewhat disappointed by the
phrase, "from one kingdom to another people, " which may have
been intended to distinguish the Egyptian and other monarchies from the more
democratical or patriarchal institutions of the Arabians and other nations. Joseph
Addison Alexander.
Verse
13. Though frequent flitting is neither desirable nor commendable,
yet sometimes there is a just and necessary occasion for it, and it may be the
lot of some of the best of men. Matthew Henry.
Verse
14. He suffered no man to do them, wrong. As many rose up, one
after another, in troops against them, the Psalmist says indefinitely, that men
were withheld from hurting them; for mda, Adam, is the word here used, which is
the one most generally employed to signify man. John Calvin.
Verse
14. I resolve the words into these three parts.
1.
Here is the nearness and the dearness of the saints unto God. They are dearer
to him than kings and states, simply considered; that is, otherwise than as
they in their persons are also saints; for you see that for their sakes he
reproved kings, and so sheweth that he prefers them to kings.
2.
Here is the great danger to kings and states, to deal with his saints otherwise
than well. Which appeareth many ways; for he doth not only in words give a
charge not to touch them, but he carries it in a high way (for so God will do
when he pleads their cause). Touch them not; as if he had said, Let me see if
you dare so much as touch them; and it is with an intimation of the highest
threatening if they should; upon your peril if you do so; for that is the scope
of such a speech. And accordingly in deeds he made this good; for the text
saith he suffered no man to do them wrong; not that he did altogether prevent
all wrong and injuries, for they received many as they went through those
lands; but at no time did lie let it go unpunished. In that sense he suffered
them not. You know how he plagued Pharaoh, king of Egypt, with great plagues, and
all his household, for Abraham's wife's sake, Gen. 7. And so Abimelech, king of
Gerar, the Lord cometh upon him with a greatness, and his first word is in Ge
2:3, "Behold, thou art but a dead man, "afore he had first told him
why or wherefore, though then he adds the reason; he brings him upon his knees,
verse 4, bids him look to it, that he give satisfaction to Abraham, and restore
his wife to him again, verse 7; and well he escaped so; and tells him also that
he must be beholden to Abraham's prayers for his life. "He is a prophet,
"saith he, "and he shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live."
3.
The third is the care and protection which God had over them, set and
amplified, 1, by the number and condition of the persons whom he defended;
though "few men in number, "that is, soon reckoned, for their
power and strength a few, or very small, eivs mikron, so the Septuagint in the
parallel place, 1Ch 16:19; as also, 2, by what he did for them: He suffered no
man, how great soever, to do them any wrong, how small soever; not without
recompense and satisfaction; not to do it, though they had a mind to it. Though
the people had an ill eye at them, Ge 26:11, God causeth Abimelech to make a
law on purpose; Abimelech charged all his people in Isaac's behalf, and spake
in the very words of the text, "He that toucheth this man or his wife
shall be put to death."—Thomas Goodwin.
Verse
15. Mine anointed. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had no external
anointing. They were, however, called "anointed, "because they
were separated by God from the multitude of wicked men, and endowed with the
Spirit and his gifts, of which the oil was an emblem. Mollerus.
Verse
15. Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm. We
see here a vivid description of the people of God. They are "his anointed
ones, ""having the residue of his Spirit"; they are his
prophets, to whom is intrusted the word of life, that they may be witnesses in
the world. To these he gives as it were a safe passport through the world.
Though they have ever been but men of number, accounted as a vile thing, they
are precious in his sight. They are not distinguished by external dignity,
numbers and power, as Rome sets forth the marks of her communion. They are in
the midst of kingdoms, but not of them. They form usually the humblest portions
of most communities, and yet they receive honour from God. Despised by the
world, but unto God kings and priests, ordained and anointed to reign with
Christ for ever. W. Wilson.
Verse
15. Prophets. The aybk is the prophet, or forth speaker; the
term laying stress on the utterance, and not upon the vision. The Hebrew word
comes from a root which means to bubble up and overflow as from a full
fountain. But the fulness of the true prophets of Jehovah was not that of their
own thoughts and emotions. It was of the Divine Spirit within them. "The
prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as
they were moved by the Holy Ghost, "2Pe 1:21. The first application of the
word is to Abraham (Ge 2:7); although, long before Abraham, "Enoch the
seventh from Adam, prophesied, "Jude 14. Donald Fraser, in "Synoptical
Lectures on the Books of Holy Scripture." 1873.
Verse
16. He called for a famine. As a master calls for a
servant ready to do his bidding. On the contrary, God says (Eze 36:29), "I
will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you."
Compare the centurion's words as to sickness being Christ's servant, ready to
come or go at his call, Mt 8:8,9. A.R. Fausset.
Verse
17. Joseph may be a fit type to us of our spiritual deliverance.
Consider him sold into Egypt, not without the determinate counsel of God, who
preordained this to good; "God did send me before you to preserve life,
"Ge 45:5. Here is the difference, the brethren sold Joseph, we sold
ourselves. Consider us thus sold unto sin and death; God had a purpose to
redeem us; there is election. Joseph was delivered out of prison, and we
ransomed out of the house of bondage; there was redemption. Joseph's cause was
made known, and himself acquitted; we could not be found innocent ourselves,
but were acquitted in Christ; wherein consists our justification. Lastly,
Joseph was clothed in glorious apparel, and adorned with golden chains, and
made to ride in the second chariot of Egypt: so our last step is to be advanced
to high honour, even the glory of the celestial court; "This honour have
all the saints, " Ps 149:9. Thomas Adams.
Verse
17. In many circumstances concerning Joseph—in his being beloved of
his father—in his being hated of his brethren—in his sufferings and deep
abasement—in his being brought out of prison—in his advancement and
exaltation—in his wisdom and prudence—in his providing for his father's
family—in his free forgiveness of the injuries he had sustained from his
brethren—it maybe truly said, we have Christ delineated therein, and set forth
thereby, in type, figure, and representatively. But I have nothing to do with
this here; I only give this hint to the reader. Samuel Eyles Pierce,
1817.
Verse
18. His soul came into iron (margin). The whole person is
denoted by the soul, because the soul of the captive suffers still more than
the body. Imprisonment is one of the most severe trials to the soul. Even to
spiritual heroes, such as a Savonarola and St. Cyran, the waters often go over
the soul. E.W. Hengstenberg.
Verse
18. His soul came into iron. Till we have felt it, we cannot
conceive that sickness of heart, which at times will steal upon the patient
sufferer; that sense of loneliness, that faintness of soul, which comes from hopes
deferred and wishes unshared, from the selfishness of brethren and the
heartlessness of the world. We ask ourselves, If the Lord were with me, should
I suffer thus, not only the scorn of the learned and the contempt of the great,
but even the indifference and neglect of those whom I have served, who yet
forget me? So Joseph might have asked; and so till now may the elect ask, as
they stand alone without man's encouragement or sympathy, not turned aside by
falsehood or scorn, with their face set as a flint, yet deeply feeling what it
costs them. Andrew dukes, in" The Types of Genesis, "1858.
Verse
19. Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried
him. This verse forms the key to the whole meaning of Joseph's mysterious
trial, and at the same time illustrates a deep mystery in the spiritual life of
man. By "the word of the Lord" that "tried him, "the
psalmist evidently refers to the dreams of his future destiny which were sent
to Joseph from God; and in saying that they tried him "until his word
came, "he evidently means that his faith in those promises was tested by
his long imprisonment, until the day of his deliverance dawned. Consider for a
moment his position, and you will see the purpose of that trial. A youth
educated amidst all the quiet simplicity of the early patriarchal life, he was
haunted by dream visions of a mighty destiny. Those visions were mysteriously
foretelling his government in Egypt, and the blessings which his wise and just
rule would confer on the land; but while unable to comprehend them, he yet
believed that they were voices of the future, and promises of God. But the
quietude of that shepherd life was not the preparation for the fulfilment of
his promised destiny. The education that would form the man who could withstand,
firmly, the temptations of Egyptian life with its cities and civilization; the
education that would form the ruler whose clear eye should judge between the
good and the evil, and discern the course of safety in the hour of a nation's
peril—all this was not to be gained under the shadow of his father's tent; it
must come through trial, and through trial arising from the very promise of God
in which he believed. Hence, a great and startling change crossed his life,
that seemed to forbid the fulfilment of that dream promise, and tempted him to
doubt its truth. Sold into Egypt as a slave, cast into prison through his
fidelity to God, the word of the Lord most powerfully tried his soul. In the
gloom of that imprisonment it was most hard to believe in God's faithfulness,
when his affliction had risen from his obedience; and most hard to keep the
promise clearly before him, when his mighty trouble would perpetually tempt him
to regard it as an idle dream. But through the temptation, he gained the strong
trust which the pomp and glory of the Egyptian court would have no power to
destroy; and when the word of deliverance came, the man came forth, strong
through trial, to fulfil his glorious destiny of ruling Egypt in the name of
God, and securing for it the blessings of heaven. Thus his trial by the word of
the Lord—his temptation to doubt its truth—was a divine discipline preparing
him for the fulfilment of the promise. And looking at it in this aspect, this
verse presents to us a deep spiritual truth: The promises of God try man, that
through the trial he may be prepared for their fulfilment. Our subject then is
this: The trial of man by the promises of God. This verse suggests three great
facts which exhibit the three aspects of that trial.
1.
God's promises must try man. Every promise of the Lord is of necessity a trial.
Now, this necessity arises from two sources; from man's secret unbelief, and
from God's purposes of discipline.
(a)
God's word must try man by revealing his secret unbelief. We never know our
want of faith till some glorious promise rouses the soul into the attitude of
belief; then the coldness and unfaithfulness of the heart are lighted up by
that flash of belief, and the promise is a trial. Thus Paul with his profound
insight into the facts of spiritual experience, says, "The word of the
Lord is sharper than a two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder
of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the
thoughts and intents of the heart." In illustration of this we may
observe that many promises of the Lord come to us, as they came to Joseph, like
dream visions of the future. Visions come to the Christian soul, as grand and
wonderful as those which came to the Hebrew youth of old; and they, too, are
prophecies of what we are destined to be. There comes a time when the voice of
God is more clearly heard, and the great inheritance revealed. No dream of the
night—no spirit of the dead—has visited us; but like a spirit some truth of God
has entered the soul's presence chamber and summoned it to noble aspiration and
Christ like endeavour. Then the earnest of the future gleams on life's horizon.
The Sabbath of eternity, with all its balm and music, seems near, and rapt with
its glory, we are roused to all surrendering zeal. But I appeal to your
experience whether it is not true that such revelations of the promise rapidly
become limes of trial. Then the mocking voice of unbelief tells us that
aspiration is vain. The cold cross currents of indifference chill the fiery
impulses of the heart. We are in prison like Joseph, by no material bars
indeed, but by the invisible bonds of unbelief; and we find it most hard to
keep the promise clear and bright, while tempted to believe that our
aspirations were merely idle dreams. And there is that arousing, by the
promise, of the soul's hidden unbelief, which makes every promise an inevitable
trial.
(b)
Again: God causes his promises to try nature that he may accomplish his own
purposes of discipline. It is a law of our nature that no belief in any
unseen thing can ever pass into the active form of strong endeavour to attain
it, until we are tempted to disbelieve it. Thus the great idea of an
undiscovered land across the wastes of the Atlantic smote the soul of Columbus;
but it remained a dreamy faith until by opposition and ridicule he was tempted
to regard it as a dream, and then it became heroic endeavour, and the land was
found. Thus with all men of genius. They stand in the front of their age, with
thoughts which the world cannot understand; but those thoughts are dreams until
suffering and scorn try the men, and then they are awakened into effort to
realise them. Hence God leads us into circumstances in which we are tempted to
doubt his promises, that by temptation he may discipline faith into power.
There is a wilderness of temptation in every life, and like Christ, we are
often led into it, from the solemn hour when we heard the voice, "Thou art
my son; " but like Christ, we come forth strong, through the long, silent
wrestling with temptation, to do our Father's will.
2.
God sends the Hour of Deliverance: "until the time that his word
came." When the discipline was perfected, Joseph came forth ready for
his mission. But our deliverance does not always come in this way. Take from
the Bible histories the four great methods by which God sends deliverance. Sometimes
by death. Thus with Elijah Weariness, loneliness, failure, had wrung from
by death the strong man the cry, "Take away my life for I and not better
than my fathers." The temptation was becoming too strong, and God sent
deliverance in the chariot of fire. Sometimes by transforming the
height of trial into the height of blessing. The three youths in Babylon
had clenched their nerves for the climax of agony, when the fire became a
Paradise. So, now, God makes the climax of trial the herald of spiritual
blessedness. By suffering we are loosened from the bonds of time and sense;
there is one near to us like the Son of God; and deliverance has come. Sometimes
by the glance of love on the falling soul. Thus with Peter. The temptation
was mastering him; one glance of that eye, and he went out weeping and
delivered. Sometimes by continuing the trial, but increasing the power
to endure it. Thus with Paul. After the vision of the third heaven came
"the thorn in the flesh, "The temptation made him cry thrice to, God;
the trial remained, but here was the deliverance" my grace is sufficient
for thee." The suffering lost none of its pressure, but he learned to glory
in infirmity; and then came his delivering hour.
3.
God makes the Trial by Promise fulfil the Promise itself. In Joseph the
temptation to doubt the word of God silently meetened him for its fulfilment.
So with us all. We hope not for an Egyptian kingdom, our dream vision is of a
heavenly inheritance, and the palace of a heavenly King. But every temptation
resisted, every mocking voice of doubt overcome, is an aid upwards and onwards.
Trials, sufferings, struggles, are angels arraying the souls in the white robes
of the heavenly world, and crowning it with the crown that fadeth not away. And
when the end comes, then it will be seen that the long dreary endeavour to hold
fast the dream promise—the firm resolute "no" to the temptation to
disbelieve, are all more than recompensed with "the exceeding and eternal
weight of glory."—Edward Zuscombe, in "Sermons preached at
Kings Lynn." 1867.
Verse
19. The word of the Lord tried him. As we try God's word, so
God's word tries us; and happy if, when we are tried, we come forth as gold; and
the trial of our faith proves more precious than that of gold which perisheth,
though it be tried with fire. William Jay.
Verse
19. Tried him. I doubt not that Joseph's brethren were
humbled, yet Joseph may be more, he must be cast into the ditch, and into the
prison, and the iron must enter not only into his legs, but into his soul. He
must be more affected in spirit, because he was to do greater work for God, and
was to be raised up higher than the rest, and therefore did need the more
ballast. Thomas Shepard, in "The Sound Believer," 1649.
Verse
19. Tried. Kdu, "assayed; "Ps 7:6 17:3 18:30. He
came out of the ordeal, as gold from the fining pot, more pure and lustrous. William
Kay.
Verse
19. Tried him. "Made him lord of his house."
Joseph's feet were hurt in irons, to fit him to tread more delicately in the
King's Palace at Zoan; and when the Lord's time was come, by the same stairs
which winded him into the dungeon he climbs up into the next chariot to
Pharaoh's. Few can bear great and sudden mercies without pride and wantonness,
till they are hampered and humbled to carry it moderately. Samuel Lee,
in "The Triumph of Mercy in the Chariot of Praise," 1677.
Verse
20. The king sent and loosed him. And that by his own master,
Potiphar, who had clapt him up there by his wanton wife's wicked instigation.
He had been bound ignominiously, but now comes he to be loosed honourably. Christopher
Ness.
Verse
21. Ruler of all his substance, or "possession."
Herein also he was a type of Jesus Christ, who, as God, is possessor of heaven
and earth, being the creator of them. John Gill.
Verse
21. He was received into the Royal Society of the right honourable
the king's privy councillors, and was constituted as Chairman of the council
table, which, though Moses doth not express, yet David intimates in Ps
105:21,22. All the privy councillors, as well as the private people were bound
(possibly by oath) to obey him in all things, and, as out of the chair, he
magisterially taught these senators wisdom. Thus the Hebrew reading runs: He
bound the princes to his soul (or according to his will) and made wise his
elders; teaching them not only civil and moral, but also divine wisdom, for
which cause God sent Joseph (saith he) into Egypt, that some sound of the
redemption of fallen mankind might be heard in that kingdom, at that time the
most flourishing in the world: neither is Moses altogether silent herein, for
he calls him a master of wisdom, or father to Pharaoh (Ge 45:8). Much more to
his councillors, and he says that no hand or foot shall move (to wit, in
affairs of state, at home, or, in foreign embassies, abroad) without Joseph's
order; he was the king's plenipotentiary, Ge 41:44. Christopher Ness.
Verse
22. To bind his Princes. The meaning of wydv doal signifies to
exercise control over the greatest men in the kingdom, which power was
conferred on Joseph by Pharaoh: see Ge 41:40,43,44. The capability of binding
is to be regarded as an evidence of authority; a power of compelling obedience;
or, in default thereof, of inflicting punishment. George Phillips. 1846.
Verse
22. At his pleasure. Literally, with his soul which some
explain as a bold metaphor, describing Joseph's mind or soul as the cord or
chain with which he bound the Egyptians, i.e., forced them to perform his will.
But see Ps 17:9 27:12 41:2. Joseph Addison Alexander.
Verse
22. And teach his senators wisdom. That in that wisdom wherein
he had been instructed of God he might also instruct the princes, and teach
prudence to those who were much his seniors. Herein some sparks of divine
wisdom shine, that he should order even the princes and old men to learn wisdom
from one who was a slave and a foreigner, although the Egyptians are always
want to boast that Egypt is the native place of wisdom. Yansenius.
Verse
23. Egypt...the land of Ham. The Egyptians were a branch of
the race of Ham. They came from Asia through the desert of Syria to settle in
the valley of the Nile. This is a fact clearly established by science, and
entirely confirms the statements of the book of Genesis. F. Lenormant and E.
Chevalier, in "A Manual of Ancient History," 1869.
Verse
24. He increased his people greatly. Behold here the concealed
blessing in the secret of the cross. Under it the people of God are in the most
fruitful state. Berleb. Bible.
Verse
24. Church prosperity desirable. Increase of numbers, increase of
rigour. Attainable under great persecution and opposition. Divine in its
origin,—"he increased." Satisfactory as a text it is only true of
"his people."
Verse
25. He turned their heart to hate his people. Not by putting
this wicked hatred into them, which is not consistent either with the holiness
of God's nature, or with the truth of his word, and which was altogether
unnecessary, because they had that and all other wickedness in them by nature;
but partly by withdrawing the common gifts and operations of his Spirit, and
all the restraints and hindrances to it, and wholly leaving them to their own
mistakes, and passions, and corrupt affections, which of their own accord were
ready to take that course; and partly, by directing and governing that hatred,
which was wholly in and from themselves, so as it should fall upon the
Israelites rather than upon other people. Matthew Pool.
Verse
25. When by the malice of enemies God's people are brought to
greatest straits there is deliverance near to be sent from God unto them. "They
dealt subtilly with, his servants. He sent Moses his servant."—David
Dickson.
Verse
26. Moses and Aaron. God usually sendeth his servants by two
and two for mutual helps and comfort. John Trapp.
Verse
28. He sent darkness. The darkness here stands at the
beginning, (not in the historical order that the particular plague of darkness
stood), to mark how God's wrath hung over Egypt as a dark cloud during all the
plagues. A.R. Fausset.
Verse
28. Darkness. There is an awful significance in this plague of
darkness. The sun was a leading object of devotion among the Egyptians under
the name of Osiris. The very name Pharaoh means not only the king but also the
sun, and characterises the king himself as the representative of the sun and
entitled in some sort to divine honours. But now the very light of the sun has
disappeared and primeval chaos seems to have returned. Thus all the forms of
Egyptian will worship were covered with shame and confusion by the plagues. James
G. Murphy, in "A Commentary on Exodus," 1866.
Verse
28. Made it dark. God is often described as manifesting his
displeasure in a cloud. Joel speaks of the day of God's vengeance as "a
day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness"
(Joe 2:2); and Zephaniah employs nearly the same language (Ps 1:15). The pillar
that went before the Israelites, and gave them light, was to the Egyptians
"a cloud and darkness" (Ex 14:20). The darkness which was upon the
face of the earth "in the beginning, "is described by Jehovah in the
book of Job as a cloud: "When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and
thick darkness a swaddling band for it" (Job 38:9). So now the land of Egypt
may have been wrapped about by a thick palpable cloud, cold, damp,
impenetrable: the people would feel it upon their limbs, as swaddling bands;
the sun would be blotted out by it, and all things reduced almost to a state of
death—of which this ninth plague was in a certain sense the shadow cast before.
Such a cloud would be even more terrible in Egypt, sunny Egypt, than in other
countries; for there the sky is almost always clear, and heavy rains unknown.
But in any place, and under any conditions, it must have been full of horror
and misery. Nothing could represent this more forcibly than the short sentence,
"Neither rose any from his place for three days." It was an horror of
great darkness; it rested on them like a pall; they knew not what dangers might
be around them, what judgment was next to happen: they had not been forewarned
of this plague, and they could not tell but it might be only a prelude to some
more awful visitation: their soul melted in them, for fear of those things that
might come upon them: they dared not move from chamber to chamber, nor even
from seat to seat: wherever they chanced to be at the moment when the darkness
fell upon them, there they must remain. Pharaoh might call in vain for his
guards; they could not come to him. Moses and Aaron were no longer within
reach, for none could go to seek them. Masters could not command their slaves,
nor slaves hasten to obey their master's call; the wife could not flee to her
husband nor the child cling to its parents: the same fear was upon all, both
high and low; the same paralysing terror and dismay possessed them every one.
As says the patriarch Job, they "laid hold on horror" (Job 18:20).
And this continued for three days and nights: they had no lamps nor torches;
either they could not kindle them, or they dared not move to procure them: they
were silent in darkness, like men already dead. Hope and expectation of
returning light might at first support them; but hope delayed through
seventy-two weary hours would presently die out, and leave them to despair. The
darkness would become more oppressive and intolerable the longer it continued;
"felt" upon their bodies as a physical infliction, and
"felt" even more in their souls in agonies of fear and apprehension;
such a darkness as that which, in the book of Revelation, the fifth angel pours
out upon the seat of the beast—"Whose kingdom was full of darkness; and
they gnawed their tongues for pain, and blasphemed the God of heaven because of
their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds" (Re 16:10,11).
If there be any truth in the traditions of the Jews on this subject, there were
yet greater alarms under this canopy of darkness, this palpable obscurity, than
any which would arise out of the physical infliction. Darkness is a type of
Satan's kingdom; and Satan had some liberty in Egypt to walk up and down upon
the land, and to go to and fro in it. The Jewish Rabbis tell us that the devil
and his angels were let loose during these three dreadful days; that they had a
wider range and greater liberty than usual for working mischief. They describe
these evil spirits going among the wretched people, glued to their scats as
they were, with terror; frightening them with fearful apparitions; piercing
their ears with hideous shrieks and groans; driving them almost to madness with
the intensity of their fears; making their flesh creep, and the hair of their
head to stand on end. Such a climax seems to be referred to by the Psalmist,
"He cast upon them the fierceness of his anger, wrath, and indignation,
and trouble, by sending evil angels among them" (Ps 78:40). Thomas S.
Millington, in "Signs and Wonders in the Land of Ham,"
1873.
Verse
28. And they rebelled not against his word. The plague of
darkness and the rest of the plagues which God commanded; these as they were
his servants, were not disobedient to him, they came at his word. Ps 105:31,34.
John Gill.
Verse
28. They rebelled not against his word; as Jonah did, who,
when he was sent to denounce God's judgments against Nineveh, went to Tarshish.
Moses and Aaron were not moved, either with a foolish fear of Pharaoh's wrath,
or a foolish pity of Egypt's misery, to relax or retard any of the plagues
which God ordered them to inflict on the Egyptians; but stretched forth their
hand to inflict them as God appointed. They that are instructed to execute
judgment, will find their remissness construed a rebellion against God's word. Matthew
Henry.
Verse
29. He turned their waters into blood, etc. The Nile begins to
rise about the end of June, and attains its highest point at the end of
September. About the commencement of the rise it assumes a greenish hue, is
disagreeable to the taste, unwholesome, and often totally unfit for drinking.
It soon, however, becomes red and turbid, and continues in this state for three
or more weeks. In this condition it is again healthy and fit for use. The
miracle now performed was totally different from this annual change. For,
1.
It occurred after the winter, not the summer, solstice;
2.
The water was turned into blood, and not merely reddened by an admixture of red
clay or animalcule;
3.
The fish died, a result which did not follow from the periodical change of
colour;
4.
The river stank, and became offensive, which it ceased to be when the ordinary
redness made its appearance;
5. The
stroke was arrested at the end of seven days, whereas the natural redness
continued for at least three weeks; and
6.
The change was brought on instantly at the word of command before the eyes of
Pharaoh. The calamity was appalling. The sweet waters of the Nile were the
common beverage of Egypt. It abounded in all kinds of fish, which formed a
principal article of diet for the inhabitants. It was revered as a god by
Egypt. But now it was a putrid flood, from which they turned away with
loathing. James G. Murphy.
Verse
29. He turned their waters into blood. By the miraculous
change of the waters into blood, a practical rebuke was given to their
superstitious. This sacred and beautiful river, the benefactor and preserver of
the country, this birthplace of their chief gods, this abode of their lesser
deities, this source of all their prosperity, this centre of all their
devotion, is turned to blood: the waters stink; the canals and pools, the
vessels of wood and vessels of stone, which were replenished from the river,
all are alike polluted. The Nile, according to Pliny, was the "only source
from whence the Egyptians obtained water for drinking" (Hist. Nat. 76, c.
33). This water was considered particularly sweet and refreshing; so much so
that the people were in the habit of provoking thirst in order that they might
partake more freely of its soft and pleasant draughts. Now it was become
abominable to them, and they loathed to drink of it. Thomas S. Millington.
Verse
29. And slew their fish. Besides the fish cured, or sent to
market for the table, a very great quantity was set apart expressly for feeding
the sacred animals and birds,—as the cats, crocodiles, ibises, and others; and
some of the large reservoirs, attached to the temples, were used as well for keeping
fish as for the necessary ablutions of the devout and for various purposes
connected with religion. The quantity of fish in Egypt was a very great boon to
the poor classes, and when the Nile overflowed the country inhabitants of the
inland villages benefited by this annual gift of the river, as the land did by
the fertilizing mud deposited upon it. The canals, ponds, and pools, on the low
lands, continued to abound in fish, even after the inundation had ceased; and
it was then that their return to the Nile was intercepted by closing the mouths
of the canals. Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson, in "A Popular Account
of the Ancient Egyptians," 1854.
Verse
30. Their land brought forth frogs in abundance. This is the
natural appearance next in the order of occurrence to the Red Nile, and of it
also the God of nature availed himself to vindicate his power before Pharaoh,
and before Egypt. The Nile, its branches, and the great canals of irrigation
are all bank full, and the exuberant moisture has aroused from their summer
torpor, into life and activity, the frogs of the Nile, in numbers inconceivable
to those who have not been in hot countries. Even in ordinary years the
annoyance of these loathsome creatures night and day, gives some idea of what
this plague must have been, and renders abundantly reasonable the creation of a
goddess, Ranipula, {1} at the very commencement of the mythology of ancient
Egypt. In the whole of this fearful succession of judgments there is not one
more personally revolting than the plague of frogs. William Osborne.
{1}
"Driver away of frogs." Her name was Heki; Birch ap. Bunsen. She was
the Buto of the Greek authors.
Verse
30. Their land brought forth frogs in abundance. It is not
difficult for an Englishman, in an Eastern wet monsoon, to form a tolerable
idea of that plague of Egypt, in which the frogs were in the "houses, bed
chambers, beds and kneading troughs, "of the Egyptians. In the rainy
season, myriads of them send forth their constant croak in every direction; and
a man not possessed of over much patience, becomes as petulant as was the
licentious god, and is ready to exclaim,
"Croak,
croak! Indeed I shall choke,
If you pester and bore my ears any more
With your croak, croak, croak!"
A
newcomer, on seeing them leap about the rooms, becomes disgusted, and forthwith
begins an attack upon them; but the next evening will bring a return of his
active visitors. It may appear almost incredible, but in one evening we killed
upwards of forty of these guests in the Jaffna Mission house. They had
principally concealed themselves m a small tunnel connected with the bathing
room, where their noise had become almost insupportable. Joseph Roberts,
in "Oriental Illustrations," 1844.
Verse
30. Chambers of their Icings. God plagued Pharaoh in his bedchamber:
it may be because he would show that his judgments can penetrate the greatest
privacy; for the field, and the hall, and the bed chamber, and the closet are
all one to God. It is like enough that it would not move Pharaoh much that his
borders were filled with frogs; but they must come into his house, and into his
bed chamber. My observation is—the greatest princes in the world if they offend
God are not exempted from judgments. Princes and great persons, are usually
exempted from the reproof of men. As for the laws, ofttimes they are as cob
webs, the great flies break through them. Who dare say to a prince, "Thou
art wicked?" Nay, one saith concerning the Pope, it is not lawful to say,
"What doth he so?" Now when they are not within the compass of human
reproof, God strikes them. Josias Shute, in "Judgment and Mercy:
or, the Plague of Frogs," 1645.
Verse
31. Flies. This term serves to denote a kind of insect that
alights on the skin or leaves of plants, by its bite inflicting pain in t}fe
one case, and causing destruction in the other. The swarms of flies in Egypt
are usually numerous, and excessively annoying. They alight on the moist part
of the eyelids and nostrils, and inflict wounds that produce great pain,
swelling and inflammation. They are also ruinous to the plants in which they
lay their eggs. Philo (vit. Mos. 2 pg 110) describes the dog fly or gad fly as
a grievous pest of Egypt. Gnats and mosquitoes are also abundant and virulent.
A plague of such creatures would cause immense suffering and desolation. James
G. Murphy.
Verse
31. As an illustration of the power of flies we give an extract from
Charles Marshall's "Canadian Dominion." "I have been told by men
of unquestioned veracity, that at midday the clouds of mosquitoes on the plains
would sometimes hide the leaders in a team of four horses from the sight of the
driver. Cattle could only be recognised by their shape; all alike becoming
black with an impenetrable crust of mosquitoes. The line of the route over the
Red River plains would be marked by the carcases of oxen stung to death by this
insignificant foe."
Verse
31. Lice in all their coasts. The priests, being polluted by
this horrible infection, could not stand to minister before their deities. The
people could not, in their uncleanness, be admitted within the precincts of
their temples. If they would offer sacrifice, there were no victims fit for the
purpose. Even the gods, the oxen, and goats, and cats, were defiled with the
vermin. The Egyptians not only writhed under the loathsome scourge, but felt
themselves humbled and disgraced by it. Josephus notices this:—"Pharaoh,
"he says, "was so confounded at this new plague, that, what with the
danger, the scandal, and the nastiness of it, he was half sorry for what he had
done" (b. it. c. 14). The plague assumed the form of a disease, being
"in the people." Ex 8:17. As Josephus says again, "The bodies of
the people bred them, and they were all covered over with them, gnawing and
tearing intolerably, and no remedy, for baths and ointments did no good."
But, however distressing to their bodies, the foul and disgraceful character of
the plague, and the offence brought upon their religion by the defilement of
their deities and the interruption of all their religious ceremonies, was its
most offensive feature. Thomas S. Millington.
Verse
31. Lice. Vermin of the kind is one of the common annoyances
of Egypt. Herodotus tells us (Ps 2:37) that the priests shave their whole body
every other day, that no lice or other impure thing may adhere to them when
they are engaged in the service of the gods. It is manifest that this species
of vermin was particularly disgusting to the Egyptians. James G. Murphy.
Verse
32. He gave them hail for rain. I had ridden out to the
excavations at Gizeh, when seeing a large black cloud approaching, I
sent a servant to the tents to take care of them, but as it began to rain
slightly I soon rode after him myself. Shortly after my arrival a storm of wind
began; I therefore ordered the cords of the tents to be secured, but soon a
violent shower of rain came in addition, which alarmed all our Arabs, and drove
them into the rock tomb, in which is our kitchen... Suddenly the storm became a
regular hurricane, such as, I had never witnessed in Europe, and a hailstorm
came down on us, which almost turned the day into night... It was not long
before first our common tent fell down, and when I had hastened from that into
my own, in order to hold it from the inside, this also broke down above me. Carl
Richard Lepsius, in "Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia, and the
Peninsula of Sinai." 1853.
Verse
32. Hail. Extraordinary reports of the magnitude of
hailstones, which have fallen during storms so memorable as to find a place in
general history, have come down from periods of antiquity more or less remote.
According to the "Chronicles, "a hailstorm occurred in the reign of
Charlemagne, in which hailstones fell which measured fifteen feet in length by
six feet in breadth, and eleven feet in thickness; and under the reign of
Tippoo Saib, hailstones equal in magnitude to elephants are said to have
fallen. Setting aside these and like recitals as partaking rather of the
character of fable than of history, we shall find sufficient to create
astonishment in well authenticated observations on this subject.
In
a hailstorm which took place in Flintshire on the 9th of April, 1672, Halley
saw hailstones which weighed five ounces.
On
the 4th of May, 1697, Robert Taylor saw fall hailstones measuring fourteen
inches in circumference.
In
the storm which ravaged Como on 20th August, 1787, Volta saw hailstones which
weighed nine ounces.
On
22nd May, 1822, Dr. Noggerath saw fall at Bonn hailstones which weighed from
twelve to thirteen ounces.
It
appears, therefore, certain that in different countries hailstorms have
occurred in which stones weighing from half to three quarters of a pound have
fallen. Dionysius Lardner, in "The Museum of Science and
Art," 1854.
Verse
34. Locusts came, and caterpillars, and that without number.
In this country, and in all the dominions of Prete Janni, is a very great and
horrible plague, which is an innumerable company of locusts, which eat and
consume all the corn and trees; and the number of them is so great, as it is
incredible; and with their multitude they cover the earth and fill the air in
such wise, that it is a hard matter to be able to see the sun...We travelled
five days journey through places wholly waste and destroyed, wherein millet had
been sown, which had stalks as great as those we set in our vineyards, and we saw
them all broken and beaten down as if a tempest had been there; and this the
locusts did. The trees were without leaves, and the bark of them was all
devoured; and no grass was there to be seen, for they had eaten up all things;
and if we had not been warned and advised to carry victual with us, we and our
cattle had perished. This country was all covered with locusts without wings;
and they told us these were the seed of them which had eaten up all, and that
as soon as their wings were grown they would seek after the old ones. The
number of them was so great, that I shall not speak of it, because I shall not
be believed: but this! will say, that I saw men, women, and children sit as
forlorn and dead among the locusts. Samuel Purchas, 1577-1628.
Verse
34. Locusts and caterpillars. God did not bring the same
plague twice; but when there was occasion for another, it was still a new one;
for he has many arrows in his quiver. Matthew Henry.
Verse
34. Without number. A swarm of locusts, which was
observed in India in 1825, occupied a space of forty English square miles,
contained at least forty millions of locusts in one line, and cast a long
shadow on the earth. And Major Moore thus describes an immense army of these
animals which ravaged the Mahratta country: "The column they composed
extended five hundred miles; and so compact was it when on the wing, that like
an eclipse, it completely hid the sun, so that no shadow was cast by any
object." Brown, in his travels in Africa, states that an area of nearly
two thousand square miles was literally covered by them; and Kirby and Spence
mention that a column of them was so immense, that they took four hours to fly
over the spot where the observer stood. M. Kalisch.
Verse
34. Came...and that without number.
Onward
they came, a dark continuous cloud
Of congregated myriads number less;
The rushing of whose wings was as the sound
Of some broad river, headlong in its course,
Plunged from a mountain summit; or the roar
Of a wild ocean in the autumnal storm,
Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks,
Onward they came, the winds impelled them on.
—Robert Southey, 1774-1843.
Verse
36. He smote also all the firstborn. Did you hear that cry? It
is the moment of midnight, and some tragedy is enacted in that Egyptian
dwelling, for such an unearthly shriek! and it is repeated and reechoed, as
doors burst open and frantic women rush into the street, and, as the houses of
priests and physicians are beset, they only shake their heads in speechless
agony, and point to the death sealed features of their own firstborn. Lights
are flashing at the palace gates, and flitting through the royal chambers; and
as king's messengers hasten through the town enquiring where the two venerable
Hebrew brothers dwell, the whisper flies, "The royal prince is dead!"
Be off, ye sons of Jacob! speed from your house of bondage, ye oppressed and
injured Israelites! And in their eagerness to "thrust forth" the
terrible because Heaven protected race, they press upon them gold and jewels,
and bribe them to be gone. James Hamilton.
Verse
37. There was not one feeble person among their tribes, when
Israel came out of Egypt; there was while dwelling there: so there shall be no feeble
saint go to heaven, but they shall be perfect when carried hence by the
angels of God, though they complain of feebleness here. "There shall be no
more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days:
for the child shall die an hundred years old; "Isa 65:20. As there is in
all dying or departed persons a great shooting in their stature observed; so is
there in the soul much more. The least infant shoots in the instant of
dissolution to such a perfect knowledge of God, and such a measure of grace is
not attainable here, that he is "as David; "and the tallest Christian
comes to such a height, that he is "as an angel of God, "Zec 7:8. John
Sheffield, in "The Rising Sun," 1654.
Verse
37. There was not one feeble person among their tribes. They
came out all in good health, and brought not with them any of the diseases of
Egypt. Surely never was the like; that among so many thousands there was not
one sick! so false was the representation which the Jews' enemies in after ages
gave of the matter, that they were all sick of a leprosy, or some loathsome
disease, and therefore the Egyptians thrust them out of their land. Matthew
Henry.
Verse
37. Feeble person. A totterer or stumbler. The word denotes a
person unfit for military service. Joseph Addison Alexander.
Verse
39. In the army of Alexander the Great, the march was begun by a
great beacon being set upon a pole as a signal from head quarters, so that
"the fire was seen at night, the smoke in the daytime; "and the plan
is still found in use amongst the caravans of Arabia. It is probable enough, in
that unchanging land, that such may have been the custom at the time of the
Exodus, and that God taught the people by parable in this wise, as well as by
fact, that he was their true leader, and heaven the general pavilion, whence
the order of march was enjoined. Neale and Littledale.
Verse
39.
When
Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out of the land of bondage came,
Her father's God before her moved,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands,
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia's crimson sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answered keen,
And Zion's daughters poured their lays,
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
But present still, though now unseen,
When brightly shines the prosperous day,
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen,
To temper the deceitful ray!
And oh, when stoops on Judah's path,
In shade and storm, the frequent night,
Be Thou—long suffering, slow to wrath—
A burning and a shining light.
—Sir Walter Scott, 1771-1832.
Verse
40. Quails. The quail is met with abundantly in Syria and
Judaea, and there seems to be little doubt of its identity with the quails so
frequently mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. "We have, "says
Tristram, "a clear proof of the identity of the common quail with the
Hebrew selac, in its Arabic name, salwa, from a root signifying
`to be fat'—very descriptive of the round, plump form and fat flesh of the
quail... It migrates in vast flocks, and regularly crosses the Arabian desert,
flying for the most part at night, and when the birds settle they are so
utterly exhausted that they may be captured in any numbers by the hand.
Notwithstanding their migratory habits, they instinctively select the shortest
sea passages, and avail themselves of any island as a halting place. Thus in
Spring and Autumn they are slaughtered in numbers on Malta and many of the
Greek islands, very few being seen till the period of migration comes round.
They also fly with the wind, never facing it like many other birds."
"The Israelites `spread them out' when they had taken them before they
were sufficiently refreshed to escape; exactly as Herodotus tells us that the
Egyptians were in the habit of doing with quails—drying them in the sun."
Brehm mentions having been a witness to the arrival of a huge flock of quails
upon the coast of North Africa, and tells us that the weary birds fell at once
to the ground completely exhausted by their toilsome journey, and remained
therefore some minutes as though stupefied. Cassell's "Book of Birds."
Verse
40.
Brought
from his store, at sute of Israel,
Quails, in whole beavies each remove pursue;
Himself from skies their hunger to repel
Candies the grass with sweet congealed dew.
He wounds the rock, the rock doth wounded, swell;
Swelling affords new streams to channels new,
All for God's mindful will can not be dryven,
From sacred word once to his Abraham given.
—Sir Philip Sidney, 1554-1586.
Verse
44. They inherited the labour of the people. In like manner
the heavenly Canaan is enjoyed by the saints without any labour of theirs; this
inheritance is not of the law, nor of the works of it; it is the gift of God.
Ro 4:14 6:23. John Gill.
HINTS TO THE
VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse
1.
1.
Praise God for former mercies.
2. Pray for further mercies.
3. Publish his famous mercies.
Verse
1. A series of holy exercises.
"Give
thanks"—
"call upon his name"—
"make known"—
"sing"—
"talk"—
"glory"—
"rejoice"—
"seek"—
"remember".
Verse
2.
1.
The pleasure of talking to God. "Sing, "etc.; making melody in the heart.
2. The duty of talking of God. "Talk ye, "etc. G.R.
Verse
2. The Christian's table talk.
Verse
3.
1.
Those who find: or—"glory ye, "etc.
2. Those who seek: or—"rejoice."
Verse
3 (second clause). Let the seeker rejoice that there is such a God
to seek, that he invites us to seek, that he moves us to seek, enables us to
seek, and promises to be found of us. The tendency of the seeker is to despond,
but there are many grounds of comfort.
Verse
4. How can we seek the Lord's strength?
1.
By desiring to be subject to it.
2. By being supported by it.
3. By being equipped with it for service.
4. By seeing its results upon others.
Verse
4. Threefold seeking.
1.
The Lord for mercy.
2. His strength for service.
3. His face for happiness. A.G. Brown.
Verse
4 (last clause). Seeking the Lord the perpetual occupation of a
believer.
Verse
5. Themes for memory.
1.
What God has done.
2. What he has said.
Verse
5. Our memory and God's memory. "Remember." "He hath
remembered."
Verse
7. God's relation to his elect and to all mankind.
Verse
9. The making, swearing, and confirming of the covenant. See our
comment on these verses with the passages referred to.
Verse
12. Comfort to the few. The typical and spiritual Israel few at
first. A few in the ark peopled the world. Small companies have done wonders.
Christ's presence is promised to two or three. God saith not by many or by few,
etc.
Verse
13.
1.
God's people may be often removed.
2. They can never be injured.
3. God's property in them will not be renounced.
Verse
14. Dr. T. Goodwin has an excellent sermon on these verses, entitled
"The Interest of England, "in which he condenses the history of the
world, to show, that those nations which have persecuted and afflicted the
people of God have invariably been broken in pieces. (Goodwin's Works,
volume 12 pg 34-60, Nichol's edition).
Verse
15. In what respect Abraham was a prophet, and how far believers are
the same.
Verse
16.
1.
All things come at the call of God. He called for plenty, and it came, for famine,
and it came; for captivity, and it came; for deliverance, and it came.
2.
The most unlikely means of accomplishing an end with man is often the direct
way with God. He fulfilled the promise of Canaan to Abraham by banishing him
from it; of plenty, by sending a famine; of freedom, by bringing into
captivity. G.R.
Verse
19. The duration of our troubles, the testing power of the promise,
the comfortable issue which is secured to us.
Verse
24 (second clause). In what respects grace can make believers stronger
than their enemies.
Verse
25.
1.
The natural hatred of the world to the church.
2. God's permitting it to be shown. When? Why?
3. The subtle manner in which this enmity seeks its object.
Verse
32. He gave them hail for rain. Judgment substituted for
mercy.
Verse
37 (first clause). Wealth found upon us after affliction.
Verse
37 (second clause). A consummation to be desired. This was the
direct result of the divine presence. The circumstances out of which it grew
were hard labour, and persecution. It enabled them to leave Egypt, to journey
far, to carry burdens, to fight enemies, etc.
Verse
39.
1.
A dark cloud of providence is the guide of the people of God by day.
2.
A bright cloud of promises is their guide by night. G.R.
Verse
39. The Lord's goodness exemplified in our varying conditions.
1.
For prosperity—a cloud.
2.
For adversity—a light. A good text would be found in "light in the
night."
Verse
40.
1.
God often gives in love what is not asked. So the bread from heaven which was
beyond all they could ask or think.
2.
He sometimes gives in anger what is asked. They asked for flesh to
eat—"and he brought quails."—G.R.
Verse
41. We have,
1.
A type of the person of Christ, in the rock.
(a)
Unsightly as Horeb—"When we shall see him, there is no beauty, "etc.
(Isa 43:2).
(b)
Firm and immovable "Who is a rock, save our God?" (2Sa 22:32).
2.
A type of the sufferings of Christ, in the smitten rock.
(a)
Smitten by the rod of the Law.
(b)
Smitten to the heart.
3.
A type of the benefits of Christ, in the water flowing from the rock—pure,
refreshing, perpetual, abundant. James Bennett, 1828.
Verse
41.
1.
The miraculous energy of God's grace in the conversion of a sinner: "He
opened the rock, and the waters gushed out."
2.
The effect in relation to others, which demonstrates at once the excellence and
the reality of the miracle in ourselves: "They ran in the dry places like
a river."—Thomas Dale, 1836.
Verse
41.
1.
The grand source—the rock opened.
2. The liberal stream—"gushed out".
3. The continued flow—"in dry places".
Verse
42.
1.
The grand source—the rock opened.
2. The liberal stream—"gushed out".
3. The continued law—"in dry places".
Verse
45. Obedience to God the design of his mercies to us.
── C.H. Spurgeon《The Treasury of David》