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Psalm One
Hundred Twenty-nine
Psalm 129
Chapter Contents
Thankfulness for former deliverances. (1-4) A believing
prospect of the destruction of the enemies of Zion. (5-8)
Commentary on Psalm 129:1-4
(Read Psalm 129:1-4)
The enemies of God's people have very barbarously
endeavoured to wear out the saints of the Most High. But the church has been
always graciously delivered. Christ has built his church upon a rock. And the
Lord has many ways of disabling wicked men from doing the mischief they design
against his church. The Lord is righteous in not suffering Israel to be ruined;
he has promised to preserve a people to himself.
Commentary on Psalm 129:5-8
(Read Psalm 129:5-8)
While God's people shall flourish as the loaded palm-tree,
or the green and fruitful olive, their enemies shall wither as the grass upon
the house-tops, which in eastern countries are flat, and what grows there never
ripens; so it is with the designs of God's enemies. No wise man will pray the
Lord to bless these mowers or reapers. And when we remember how Jesus arose and
reigns; how his people have been supported, like the burning but unconsumed
bush, we shall not fear.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Psalms》
Psalm 129
Verse 1
[1] Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may
Israel now say:
From my youth — From the time that I was a
people.
Verse 4
[4] The LORD is righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of
the wicked.
Righteous — Faithful or merciful.
The cords — Wherewith the plow was drawn. By
these cords he understands all their plots and endeavours.
Verse 6
[6] Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which
withereth afore it groweth up:
House-tops — Which there were flat.
Which — Having no deep root, never comes to maturity. And so
all their designs shall be abortive.
Verse 8
[8] Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the
LORD be upon you: we bless you in the name of the LORD.
The blessing — Which was an usual salutation
given by passengers to reapers: so the meaning is, it never continues 'till the
harvest comes.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Psalms》
Exposition
Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings
Hints to the Village Preacher
TITLE. A Song of
Degrees. I fail to see how this is a step beyond the previous Psalm; and
yet it is clearly the song of an older and more tried individual, who looks
back upon a life of affliction in which he suffered all along, even from his
youth. Inasmuch as patience is a higher, or at least more difficult, grace than
domestic love, the ascent or progress may perhaps be seen in that direction.
Probably if we knew more of the stations on the road to the Temple we should
see a reason for the order of these Psalms; but as that information cannot be
obtained, we must take the songs as we find them, and remember that, as we do
not now go on pilgrimages to Zion, it is our curiosity and not oar necessity
which is a loser by our not knowing the cause of the arrangement of the songs
in this Pilgrim Psalter.
AUTHOR,
ETC. It does not seem to us at all needful to ascribe this Psalm to a
period subsequent to the captivity...indeed, it is more suitable to a time when
as yet the enemy bad not so far prevailed as to have carried the people indo a
distant land. It is a mingled hymn of sorrow and of strong resolve. Though
sorely smitten, the afflicted one is heart whole, and scorns to yield in the
least degree to the enemy. The poet sings the trials of Israel, Ps 129:1-3; the
interposition of the Lord, Ps 129:4; and the unblessed condition of Israel's
foes, Ps 129:5-8. It is a rustic song, full of allusions to husbandry. It
reminds us of the books of Ruth and Amos.
EXPOSITION
Verse
1. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel
now say. In her present hour of trial she may remember her former
afflictions and speak of them for her comfort, drawing from them the assurance
that he who has been with her for so long will not desert her in the end. The
song begins abruptly. The poet has been musing, and the fire burns, therefore
speaks he with his tongue; he cannot help it, he feels that he must speak, and
therefore "may now say" what he has to say. The trials of the church
have been repeated again and again, times beyond all count: the same afflictions
are fulfilled in us as in our fathers. Jacob of old found his days full of
trouble; each Israelite is often harassed; and Israel as a whole has proceeded
from tribulation to tribulation. "Many a time", Israel says, because
she could not say how many times. She speaks of her assailants as
"they", because it would be impossible to write or even to know all
their names. They had straitened, harassed, and fought against her from the
earliest days of her history—from her youth; and they had continued their assaults
right on without ceasing. Persecution is the heirloom of the church, and the
ensign of the elect. Israel among the nations was peculiar, and this
peculiarity brought against her many restless foes, who could never be easy
unless they were warring against the people of God. When in Canaan, at the
first, the chosen household was often severely tried; in Egypt it was heavily
oppressed; in the wilderness it was fiercely assailed; and in the promised land
it was often surrounded by deadly enemies. It was something for the afflicted
nation that it survived to say, "Many a time have they afflicted
me." The affliction began early—"from my youth"; and it
continued late. The earliest years of Israel and of the Church of God are spent
in trial. Babes in grace are cradled in opposition. No sooner is the man child
born than the dragon is after it. "It is", however, "good for a
man that he bear the yoke in his youth", and he shall see it to be so when
in after days he tells the tale.
Verse
2. Many a time have they afflicted, me from my youth. Israel
repeats her statement of her repeated afflictions. The fact was uppermost in
her thoughts, and she could not help soliloquizing upon it again and again.
These repetitions are after the manner of poetry: thus she makes a sonnet out
of her sorrows, music out of her miseries. "Yet they have not prevailed
against me." We seem to hear the beat of timbrels and the clash of
cymbals here: the foe is derided; his malice has failed. That "yet"
breaks in like the blast of trumpets, or the roll of kettledrums. "Cast
down, but not destroyed", is the shout of a victor. Israel has wrestled,
and has overcome in the struggle. Who wonders? If Israel overcame the angel of
the covenant, what man or devil shall vanquish him? The fight was oft renewed
and long protracted: the champion severely felt the conflict, and was at times
fearful of the issue; but at length he takes breath, and cries, "Yet they
have not prevailed against me." "Many a time; " yes, "many
a time", the enemy has had his opportunity and his vantage, but not so
much as once has he gained the victory.
Verse
3. The plowers plowed up on my back. The scourgers tore the
flesh as ploughmen furrow a field. The people were maltreated like a criminal
given over to the lictors with their cruel whips; the back of the nation was
scored and furrowed by oppression. It is a grand piece of imagery condensed
into few words. A writer says the metaphor is muddled, but he is mistaken:
there are several figures, like wheel within wheel, but there is no confusion.
The afflicted nation was, as it were, lashed by her adversaries so cruelly that
each blow left a long red mark, or perhaps a bleeding wound, upon her back and
shoulders, comparable to a furrow which tears up the ground from one end of the
field to the other. Many a heart has been in like case; smitten and sore
wounded by them that use the scourge of the tongue; so smitten that their whole
character has been cut up and scored by calumny. The true church has in every
age had fellowship with her Lord under his cruel flagellations: his sufferings
were s prophecy of what she would be called hereafter to endure, and the
foreshadowing has been fulfilled. Zion has in this sense been ploughed as a
field. They made long their furrows:—as if delighting in their cruel labour.
They missed not an inch, but went from end to end of the field, meaning to make
thorough work of their congenial engagement. Those who laid on the scourge did
it with a thoroughness which showed how hearty was their hate. Assuredly the
enemies of Christ's church never spare pains to inflict the utmost injury: they
never do the work of the devil deceitfully, or hold back their hand from blood.
They smite so as to plough into the man; they plough the quivering flesh as if
it were clods of clay; they plough deep and long with countless furrows; until
they leave no portion of the church unfurrowed or unassailed. Ah me! Well did
Latimer say that there was no busier ploughman in all the world than the devil:
whoever makes short furrows, he does not. Whoever balks and shirks, he is
thorough in all that he does. Whoever stops work at sundown, he never does. He
and his children plough like practised ploughmen; but they prefer to carry on
their pernicious work upon the saints behind their backs, for they are as
cowardly as they are cruel.
Verse
4. The LORD is righteous. Whatever men may be, Jehovah
remains just, and will therefore keep covenant with his people and deal out
justice to their oppressors. Here is the hinge of the condition: this makes the
turning point of Israel's distress. The Lord bears with the long furrows of the
wicked, but he will surely make them cease from their ploughing before he has
done with them. He hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked. The rope
which binds the oxen to the plough is cut; the cord which bound the victim is
broken; the bond which held the enemies in cruel unity has snapped. As in Ps
124:7 we read, "the snare is broken; we are escaped", so here the
breaking of the enemies' instrument of oppression is Israel's release. Sooner
or later a righteous God will interpose, and when he does so, his action will
be most effectual; he does not unfasten, but cuts asunder, the harness which
the ungodly use in their labour of hate. Never has God used a nation to chastise
his Israel without destroying that nation when the chastisement has come to a
close: he hates those who hurt his people even though lie permits their hate to
triumph for a while for his own purpose. If any man would have his harness cut,
let him begin to plough one of the Lord's fields with the plough of
persecution. The shortest way to ruin is to meddle with a saint: the divine
warning is, "He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye."
Verse
5. Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion.
And so say we right heartily: and in this case vox populi is vex Dei,
for so it shall be. If this be an imprecation, let it stand; for our heart says
"Amen" to it. It is but justice that those who hate, harass, and hurt
the good should be brought to naught. Those who confound right and wrong ought
to be confounded, and those who turn back from God ought to be turned back.
Loyal subjects wish ill to those who plot against their king.
"Confound
their politics,
Frustrate their knavish tricks,"
is
but a proper wish, and contains within it no trace of personal ill will. We
desire their welfare as men, their downfall as traitors. Let their conspiracies
be confounded, their policies be turned back. How can we wish prosperity to
those who would destroy that which is dearest to our hearts? This present age
is so flippant that if a man loves the Saviour he is styled a fanatic, and if
he hates the powers of evil he is named a bigot. As for ourselves, despite all
objectors, we join heartily in this commination; and would revive in our heart
the old practice of Ebal and Gerizim, where those were blessed who bless God,
and those were cursed who make themselves a curse to the righteous. We have
heard men desire a thousand times that the gallows might be the reward of the
assassins who murdered two inoffensive men in Dublin, and we could never
censure the wish; for justice ought to he rendered to the evil as well as to
the good. Besides, the church of God is so useful, so beautiful, so innocent of
harm, so fraught with good, that those who do her wrong are wronging all
mankind and deserve to be treated as the enemies of the human race. Study a
chapter from the "Book of Martyrs", and see if you do not feel
inclined to read an imprecatory Psalm over Bishop Bonner and Bloody Mary. It
may be that some wretched nineteenth century sentimentalist will blame you: if
so, read another over him.
Verse
6. Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth
afore it groweth up. Grass on the housetop is soon up and soon down. It
sprouts in the heat, finds enough nutriment to send up a green blade, and then
it dies away before it reaches maturity, because it has neither earth nor
moisture sufficient for its proper development. Before it grows up it dies; it
needs not to be plucked up, for it hastens to decay of itself. Such is and such
ought to be the lot of the enemies of God's people. Transient is their
prosperity; speedy is their destruction. The height of their position, as it
hastens their progress, so it hurries their doom. Had they been lower in
station they had perhaps been longer in being. "Soon ripe, soon
rotten", is an old proverb. Soon plotting and soon rotting, is a version
of the old adage which will suit in this place. We have seen grass on the
rustic thatch of our own country cottages which will serve for an illustration
almost as well as that which comes up so readily on the flat roofs and domes of
eastern habitations. The idea is—they make speed to success, and equal speed to
failure. Persecutors are all sound and fury, flash and flame; but they speedily
vanish—more speedily than is common to men. Grass in the field withers, but not
so speedily as grass on the housetops. Without a mower the tufts of verdure
perish from the roofs, and so do opposers pass away by other deaths than fall
to the common lot of men; they are gone, and none is the worse. If they are
missed at all, their absence is never regretted. Grass on the housetop is a
nonentity in the world: the house is not impoverished when the last blade is dried
up: and, even so, the opposers of Christ pass away, and none lament them. One
of the fathers said of the apostate emperor Julian, "That little cloud
will soon be gone"; and so it was. Every sceptical system of philosophy
has much the same history; and the like may be said of each heresy. Poor,
rootless things, they are and are not: they come and go, even though no one
rises against them. Evil carries the seeds of dissolution within itself. So let
it be.
Verse
7. Wherewith the mower filleth not his hand; nor he that bindeth
sheaves his bosom. When with his sickle the husbandman would cut down the
tufts, he found nothing to lay hold upon: the grass promised fairly enough, but
there was no fulfilment, there was nothing to cut or to carry, nothing for the
hand to grasp, nothing for the lap to gather. Easterners carry their corn in
their bosoms, but in this case there was nothing to bear home. Thus do the
wicked come to nothing. By God's just appointment they prove a disappointment.
Their fire ends in smoke; their verdure turns to vanity; their flourishing is
but a form of withering. No one profits by them, least of all are they
profitable to themselves. Their aim is bad, their work is worse, their end is
worst of all.
Verse
8. Neither do they which go by say, The blessing of the LORD be
upon you: we bless you in the name of the LORD. In harvest times men bless
each other in the name of the Lord; but there is nothing in the course and
conduct of the ungodly man to suggest the giving or receiving of a benediction.
Upon a survey of the sinner's life from beginning to end, we feel more inclined
to weep than to rejoice, and we feel bound rather to wish him failure than
success. We dare not use pious expressions as mere compliments, and hence we
dare not wish God speed to evil men lest we be partakers of their evil deeds.
When persecutors are worrying the saints, we cannot say, "The blessing of
the Lord be upon you." When they slander the godly and oppose the doctrine
of the cross, we dare not bless them in the name of the Lord. It would be
infamous to compromise the name of the righteous Jehovah by pronouncing his
blessing upon unrighteous deeds. See how godly men are roughly ploughed by
their adversaries, and yet a harvest comes of it which endures and produces
blessing; while the ungodly, though they flourish for a while and enjoy a
complete immunity, dwelling, as they think, quite above the reach of harm, are
found in a short time to have gone their way and to have left no trace behind.
Lord, number me with thy saints. Let me share their grief if I may also partake
of their glory. Thus would I make this Psalm my own, and magnify thy name,
because thine afflicted ones are not destroyed, and thy persecuted ones are not
forsaken.
EXPLANATORY
NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Whole
Psalm. In the "degrees" of Christian virtue the Psalm
corresponds to the tenth step, which is patience in adversity.—H. T.
Armfield.
Whole
Psalm. The following incident in connection with the glorious return of
the Vaudois under Henri Arnaud is related in Muston's "Israel of the
Alps":—"After these successes the gallant patriots took an oath of
fidelity to each other, and celebrated divine service in one of their own
churches, for the first time since their banishment. The enthusiasm of the
moment was irrepressible; they chanted the seventy-fourth Psalm to the clash of
arms; and Henri Arnaud, mounting the pulpit with a sword in one hand and a
Bible in the other, preached from the Hundred and twenty-ninth Psalm, and once
more declared, in the face of heaven, that he would never resume his pastoral
office in patience and peace, until he should witness the restoration of his
brethren to their ancient and rightful settlements."
Verse
1. Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth. 1. How old
these afflictions are: "From my youth." Aye, from my infancy,
birth and conception. 2. There is the frequency and iteration of
these afflictions. They were oft and many: "many a time."
3. There is the grievousness of these afflictions, expressed by a comparison.
"The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows." So
these were old afflictions—from her youth. They were many a time: more
times than can be numbered. And then they were grievous, even like iron
ploughs, drawing deep and long furrows on their back.—Alexander Henderson.
Verse
1. Many a time have they afflicted me, etc. God had one Son,
and but one Son, without sin; but never any without sorrow. We may be God's
children, and yet still under persecution; his Israel, and afflicted from our
youth up. We may feel God's hand as a Father upon us when he strikes us as well
as when he strokes us. When he strokes us, it is lest we faint under his hand;
and when he strikes us, it is that we should know his hand.—Abraham Wright
(1611-1690), in "A Practical Commentary upon the Psalms."
Verse
1. They. The persecutors deserve not a name. The rich man is
not named (as Lazarus is) because not worthy: Lu 16:1-31 "They shall be
written in the earth": Jer 17:13.—John Trapp.
Verse
1. They. In speaking of the enemies of Israel simply by the
pronoun "they", without being more specific, the Psalmist
aggravates the greatness of the evil more than if he had expressly named the
Assyrians or the Egyptians. By not specifying any particular class of foes, he
tacitly intimates that the world is filled with innumerable bands of enemies,
whom Satan easily arms for the destruction of good men, his object being that
new wars may arise continually on every side. History certainly bears ample
testimony that the people of God had not to deal with a few enemies, but that
they were assaulted by almost the whole world; and further, that they were
molested not only by external foes, but also by those of an internal kind, by
such as professed to belong to the Church.—John Calvin.
Verse
1. They afflicted me. Why are these afflictions of the
righteous? Whence is it that he who has given up his Son to death for them,
should deny them earthly blessings? Why is faith a mourner so frequently here
below, and with all that heroic firmness in her aspect, and hope of glory in
her eye, why needs she to be painted with so deep a sorrow on her countenance,
and the trace of continual tears on her check? First, we reply, for her own
safety. Place religion out of the reach of sorrow, and soon she would pine
and perish. God is said to choose his people in the furnace, because they most
often choose him there. It is ever from the cross that the most earnest
"My God" proceeds, and never is the cry heard but he speeds forth at
its utterance, who once hung there, to support, to comfort, and to save. As it
is only in affliction God is sought, so by many it is only in affliction
God is known. This, one of the kings of these worshippers of the Temple found.
"When Manasseh was brought to affliction, then he knew that the
Lord he was God": 2Ch 33:12-13.
But,
further, it is only by affliction we ourselves are known. What is the
source of that profound and obstinate indifference to divine truth which
prevails among men of the world, except the proud conviction that they may
dispense with it? It is only when they are crushed as the worm they are made to
feel that the dust is their source; only when earthly props are withdrawn will
they take hold of that arm of omnipotence which Jesus offers, and which he has
offered so long in vain. While men know themselves, they know their sin
also in affliction. What is the natural course and experience of the
unbelieving of mankind? Transgression, remorse, and then forgetfulness; new
transgression, new sorrow, and again forgetfulness. How shall this carelessness
be broken? How convince them that they stand in need of a Saviour as the first
and deepest want of their being, and that they can only secure deliverance from
wrath eternal by a prompt and urgent application to him? By nothing so
effectually as by affliction. God's children, who had forgotten him, arise and
go to their Father when thus smitten by the scourge of sorrow; and no sooner is
the penitent "Father, I have sinned" spoken, than they are
clasped in his arms, and safe and happy in his love.
It
is, further, by affliction that the world is known to God's children.
God's great rival is the world. The lust of the flesh, pleasure; the lust of
the eye, desire; the pride of life, the longing to be deemed superior to those
about us,—comprise everything man naturally covets. Give us ease, honour,
distinction, and all life's good will seem obtained. But what wilt thou do,
when he shall judge thee? This is a question fitted to alarm the happiest
of the children of prosperity. What so frequently and effectually shows the
necessity of piety as the sharp teachings of affliction? They show what
moralists and preachers never could, that riches profit not in the day of
death, that pleasures most fully enjoyed bring no soothing to the terrors which
nearness to eternity presents, and that friends, however affectionate, cannot
plead for and save us at the bar of God. "Miserable comforters are they
all", and it is for the very purpose of inspiring this conviction, along
with a belief that it is Jesus alone who can comfort in the hour of need, that
affliction is sent to God's children.—Robert Nisbet.
Verse
1. From my youth. The first that ever died, died for
religion; so early came martyrdom into the world.—John Trapp.
Verses
1-2.
1.
The visible Church from the beginning of the world is one body, and, as it
were, one man, growing up from infancy to riper age; for so speaketh the church
here: Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth.
2.
The wicked enemies of the church, they also are one body, one adverse army,
from the beginning of the world continuing war against the church: "Many
a time have they afflicted me from my youth."
3.
As the former injuries done to the church are owned by the church, in after
ages, as done against the same body, so also the persecution of former enemies
is imputed and put upon the score of present persecutors: "Many a time
have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say."
4.
New experience of persecution, when they call to mind the exercise of the church
in former ages, serves much for encouragement and consolation in troubles: "Many
a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel mow say."
5.
Albeit this hath been the endeavour of the wicked in all ages to destroy the
church, yet God hath still preserved her iron age to age: Yet they have not
prevailed.—David Dickson.
Verses
1-2. When the prophet says twice, "They have afflicted
me", "they have afflicted me", the repetition is not
superfluous, it being intended to teach us that the people of God had not
merely once or twice to enter the conflict, but that their patience had been
tried by continual exercises.—John Calvin.
Verse
2. Many a time, etc. The Christian Church may adopt the
language of the Hebrew Church: "Many a time have they afflicted me from my
youth: yet they have not prevailed against me." What afflictions were
endured by the Christian Church from her youth up! How feeble was that youth!
How small the number of the apostles to whom our Lord gave his gospel in
charge! How destitute were they of human learning, of worldly influence, of
secular power! To effect their destruction, and to frustrate their object—the
glory of God and the salvation of men—the dungeon and the mine, the rack and
the gibbet, were all successively employed. The ploughmen ploughed their back,
and made long their furrows. Their property was confiscated; their persons were
imprisoned; their civil rights were taken from them; their heads rolled on the
scaffold; their bodies were consumed at the burning pile; they were thrown,
amidst the ringing shouts of the multitude, to the wild beasts of the
amphitheatre. Despite, however, of every opposition, our holy religion took
root and grew upward. Not all the fury of ten persecutions could exterminate it
from the earth. The teeth of wild beasts could not grind it to powder; the fire
could not burn it; the waters could not drown it; the dungeon could not confine
it. Truth is eternal, like the great God from whose bosom it springs, and
therefore it cannot be destroyed. And because Christianity is the truth, and no
lie, her enemies have never prevailed against her.—M. M'Michael.
Verse
2. Yet they have not prevailed against me. The words are the
same as in Ge 32:28. The blessing won by Jacob, when he wrestled with the
angel, remained on his descendants. During the long night of the Captivity the
faithful had wrestled in faithful prayer; now the morning had appeared, and
Israel was raised to a higher stage of privilege.—W. Kay.
Verse
2. Yet they have not prevailed against me. Israel prevailed
with God in wrestling with him, and therefore it is that he prevails with men
also. If so be that we will wrestle with God for a blessing, and prevail with
him, then we need not to fear but we shall wrestle the enemies out of it also.
If we be the people of God, and persist in wrestling against his enemies, we
need not fear but that we shall be victorious.—Alexander Henderson.
Verse
3. The plowers plowed, etc. There does not seem to be any
need to look for an interpretation of this in scourging, or any other bodily
infliction of pain; it seems to be "a figurative mode of expressing severe
oppression." Roberts informs us that when, in the East, a man is in much
trouble through oppressors, he says, "How they plough me and turn me
up."—Ingram Cobbin, 1839.
Verse
3. The plowers plowed, etc. The great Husbandman who owns
this plough (at least by whose permission this plough goes), is God. Not only
is it God who makes your common ploughs to gang, and sends the gospel into a
land, but it is God also who disposes and overrules this same plough of
persecution. For without his license the plough cannot be yoked; and being
yoked, cannot enter to gang till he direct; and he tempers the irons, so that
they cannot go one inch deeper than he thinks meet. When he thinks it time to
quit work, then presently he cuts their cords, so that they cannot go once
about after he thinks it time to quit work. Albeit when they yoke, they resolve
to have all the land upside down, yet he will let them plough no more of it than
he sees meet. Now for the ploughmen of this plough, they are Satan and the evil
angels; they hold the plough, and are goad men to it; and they yoke in the oxen
into the plough, and drive them up with their goads. And they have a sort of
music also, which they whistle into their ears, to make them go the faster; and
that is the allurements and provocations of the world. And for the oxen who
draw into this plough, it may be princes when they turn persecutors of the
kirk; it may be prelates; it may be politicians in the world: these are the
oxen, Satan and the ill spirits inciting them, and stirring them up to go
forward in their intended course. Then consider here that the plough and the
ploughmen and oxen go about as God thinks meet; but what is it that they are
doing in the meantime? Nothing else but preparing the ground for seed, and so
the Lord employs them to prepare his people better to receive the seed of his
word and of his Spirit.—Alexander Henderson.
Verse
3.—God fails not to sow blessings in the furrows, which the plowers
plow upon the back of the church.—Jeremy Taylor, 1613-1667.
Verse
3. The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows.
When the Lord Jesus Christ was in his suffering state, and during his passion,
these words here predicted of him were most expressly realized. Whilst he
remained in the hands of the Roman soldiers they stript him of his raiment;
they bound him with cords to a pillar; they flogged him. This was so performed
by them, that they made ridges in his back and sides: they tore skin and flesh,
and made him bare even to the bone, so that his body was like a ploughed field;
the gashes made in it were like ridges made in a ploughed field; these were on
his back. "The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their
furrows." Whilst every part of our Lord's sorrows and sufferings is
most minutely set forth in the sacred hymns, Psalms, and songs, contained in
what we style the Book of Psalms, yet we shall never comprehend what our most
blessed Lord, in every part of his life, and in his passion and death,
underwent for us: may the Lord the Spirit imprint this fresh expression used on
this subject effectually upon us. Our Lord's words here are very expressive of
the violence of his tormentors and their rage against him, and of the wounds
and torments they had inflicted on him. What must the feelings of our Lord have
been when they made such furrows on his back, that it was all furrowed and
welted with such long wounds, that it was more like a ploughed field than anything
else. Blessings on him for his grace and patience, it is "with his stripes
we are healed."—Samuel Eyles Pierce.
Verse
3. They made long their furrows. The apparent harshness of
this figure will disappear if it be considered to refer to severe public scourgings.
To those who have been so unhappy as to witness such scourgings this allusion
will then appear most expressive. The long wales or wounds which the scourge
leaves at each stroke may most aptly be compared either to furrows or (as the
original admits) to the ridges between the furrows. The furrows
made by the plough in the East are very superficial, and (although straight)
are usually carried to a great length, the fields not being enclosed as in this
country.—John Kitto, in "The Pictorial Bible."
Verse
4. The LORD is righteous: he hath cut asunder the cords of the
wicked; i.e., he has put an end to their domination and tyranny over us. In
the Hebrew word which is rendered "cords" there is a reference
to the harness with which the oxen were fastened to the plough; and so
to the involved machinations and cruelties of the enemy. The
Hebrew word properly denotes thick twisted cords;figuratively,
intertwined wickedness; Mic 7:8. "The cords of the wicked",
therefore, signify their power, dominion, tyranny, wickedness, and
violence. These cords God is said "to have cut", so that he
should have made an end; and, therefore "to have cut" for ever,
so that they should never be reunited.—Hermann Venema.
Verse
4. He hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked. The enemies'
power has been broken; God has cut asunder the cords of the wicked, has
cut their gears, their traces, and so spoiled their ploughing; has cut their
scourges, and so spoiled their lashing; has cut the bands of union, by which
they were combined together; he has cut the bands of captivity, in which they
held God's people. God has many ways of disabling Wicked men to do the mischief
they design against his church, and shaming their counsels.—Matthew Henry.
Verse
4. He hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked. He repeateth
the same praise of God in delivering his church from oppression of the enemy,
under the similitude of cutting the cords of the plough, which tilleth up
another man's field. Whence learn, 1. The enemies of the church do no more regard
her than they do the earth under their feet, and do seek to make their own
advantage of her, as usurpers use to do in possessing and labouring of another
man's field. "The plowers plowed upon my back." 2. The Lord
useth to suffer his enemies to break up the fallow ground of his people's proud
and stiff hearts with the plough of persecution, and to draw deep and long
furrows on them: "They made long their furrows." 3. What the
enemies do against the church the Lord maketh use of for maturing the church, which
is his field, albeit they intend no good to God's church, yet they serve in
God's wisdom to prepare the Lord's people for receiving the seed of God's word;
for the similitude speaketh of their tilling of the church, but nothing of
their sowing, for that is reserved for the Lord himself, who is owner of the
field. 4. When the wicked have performed so much of God's husbandry as he
thinketh good to suffer them, then he stoppeth their design, and looseth their
plough. "He Hath cut asunder the cords of the wicked."—David
Dickson.
Verse
5. If any one be desirous to accept these words, Let them be
confounded and turned backward, as they sound, he will devoutly explain the
imprecation: that is to say, it may be an imprecation of good confusion, which
leads to repentance, and of turning to God from sin: thus Bellarmine. There is
a confounding by bringing grace, glory, and turning from the evil way. Thus
some enemies and persecutors of the Christians have been holily confounded and
turned to the faith of Christ; as St. Paul, who full of wrath and slaughter was
going to Damascus that he might afflict the believers, but was graciously
confounded on the road.—Thomas Le Blanc.
Verse
5. Let them all be confounded. Mr. Emerson told a convention
of rationalists once, in this city, that the morality of the New Testament is
scientific and perfect. But the morality of the New Testament is that of the
Old. "Yes", you say; "but what of the imprecatory Psalms",
A renowned professor, who, as Germany thinks, has done more for New England
theology than any man since Jonathan Edwards, was once walking in this city
with a clergyman of a radical faith, who objected to the doctrine that the
Bible is inspired, and did so on the ground of the imprecatory Psalms. The
replies of the usual kind were made; and it was presumed that David expressed
the Divine purpose in praying that his enemies might be destroyed, and that he
gave utterance only to the natural righteous indignation of conscience against
unspeakable iniquity. But the doubter would not be satisfied. The two came at
last to a newspaper bulletin, on which the words were written,—"Baltimore
to be shelled at twelve o'clock." "I am glad of it", said the
radical preacher; "I am glad of it." "And so am I", said
his companion, "but I hardly dare say so, for fear you should say that I
am uttering an imprecatory Psalm."—Joseph Cook, in Boston Monday
Lectures. "Transcendentalism."
Verse
5. And turned back; from pursuing their designs and
accomplishing them; as the Assyrian monarch was, who had a hook put into his
nose, and a bridle in his lips, and was turned back by the way he came: Isa
37:29.—John Gill.
Verse
5. All those who hate Zion. Note that he does not say, All
who hate me;but "all who hate Zion." Thus the saints
are not led to this from the desire of revenge, but from zeal for the people of
God, so that they pray for the confusion and repression of the ungodly.—Wolfgang
Musculus.
Verse
6. Let them be as the grass upon the housetops. They are
rightly compared to grass on the housetops; for more contemptuously the
Holy Ghost could not speak of them. For this grass is such, that it soon
withereth away before the sickle be put into it. Yea, no man thinketh it worthy
to be cut down, no man regardeth it, every man suffereth it to brag for a
while, and to show itself unto men from the housetops as though it were
something when it is nothing. So the wicked persecutors in the world, which are
taken to be mighty and terrible according to the outward show, are of all men
most contemptible. For Christians do not once think of plucking them up or
cutting them down; they persecute them not, they revenge not their own
injuries, but suffer them to increase, to brag and glory as much as they list.
For they know that they cannot abide the violence of a vehement wind. Yea,
though all things be in quietness, yet as grass upon the housetops, by little
and little, withereth away through the heat of the sun, so tyrannies upon small
occasions do perish and soon vanish away. The faithful, therefore, in suffering
do prevail, and overcome; but the wicked in doing are overthrown, and miserably
perish, as all the histories of all times and ages do plainly witness.—Martin
Luther.
Verse
6. Like grass upon the housetops. The flat roofs of the
Eastern houses "are plastered with a composition of mortar, tar, ashes,
and sand", in the crevices of which grass often springs. The houses of the
poor in the country were formed of a plaster of mud and straw, where the grass
would grow still more freely: as all the images are taken from country life, it
is doubtless to country dwellings that the poet refers.—J. J. Stewart
Perowne.
Verse
6. Like grass upon the housetops. The enemies of Zion may
have an elevated position in the nation, they may seem to promise growth, but
having no root in themselves, like the hearers on the stony ground, give no
promise of fruit. Their profession dies away and leaves no benefit to the
church, as it claims no blessing from others.—William Wilson
(1783-1873), in "The Book of Psalms, with an Exposition."
Verse
6. Grass upon the housetops. In the morning the master of the
house laid in a stock of earth, which was carried up, and spread evenly on the
top of the house, which is flat. The whole roof is thus formed of mere earth,
laid on and rolled hard and flat. On the top of every house is a large stone
roller, for the purpose of hardening and flattening this layer of rude soil, so
that the rain may not penetrate; but upon this surface, as may be supposed,
grass and weeds grow freely, but never come to maturity. It is to such grass
the Psalmist alludes as useless and bad.—William Jowett, in "Christian
Researches in Syria and the Holy Land", 1825.
Verse
7. The mower filleth not his hand, etc. The grain was rather
pulled than cut, and as each handful was taken the reaper gave it a flourishing
swing up into his bosom.—Mrs. Finn, in "Home in the Holy Land",
1866.
Verse
7. He that bindeth sheaves his bosom. A practice prevails in
hot climates of sending out persons into the woods and other wild places to
collect the grass, which would otherwise be wasted; and it is no uncommon
tiling in the evening to see groups of grass cutters in the market, waiting to
dispose of their bundles or sheaves, which are often so large that one is
disposed to wonder how they could have been conveyed from the woods upon one
man's shoulders.—Maria Calcott, in "A Scripture Herbal," 1842.
HINTS TO THE
VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse
1. Affliction as it comes to saints from men of the world.
1.
Reason for it—enmity of the serpent's seed.
2.
Modes of its display—persecution, ridicule, slander, disdain, etc.
3.
Comfort under it. So persecuted they the prophets: so the Master. It is their
nature. They cannot kill the soul. It is but for a time, etc.
Verses
1-2.
1.
How far persecution for righteousness' sake may go.
a)
It may be great: "afflicted", "afflicted."
b) It may be frequent: "Many a time."
c) It may be early: "From my youth."
2.
How far it cannot go.
a)
It may seem to prevail.
b) It may prevail in some degree.
c) It cannot ultimately prevail.
d) It shall cause that to which it is opposed increasingly to prevail.—G. R.
Verses
1-4. Israel persecuted but not forsaken. Persecution.
1.
Whence it came: "they."
2.
How it came: "Many a time", "from my youth", severely:
"afflicted", "ploughed."
3.
Why it came. Human and Satanic hatred, and Divine permission.
4.
What came of it: "not prevailed"—to destroy, to drive to despair, to
lead to sin. God's righteousness manifested in upholding his people, baffling
their foes, etc.
Verses
1-4. The enemies of God's church.
1.
Their violence: "The plowers plowed", etc.
2. Their persistency: "Many a time...from my youth."
3. Their failure: "Yet they have not prevailed."
4. Their great opponent: "The Lord...hath cut asunder."
—J. F.
Verse
3.
1.
Literally fulfilled.
a) In Christ. Mt 27:26 20:19 Mr 15:15 Lu 18:33 Joh 19:1.
b) In his followers. Mt 10:17 Ac 16:23 2Co 6:5 2Co 11:23-24 Heb 11:36. And
frequently in subsequent persecutions.
2.
Figuratively. In secret calumnies both in Christ and his followers.—G. R.
Verse
4. Israel's song of triumph.
1.
The Lord is righteous in permitting these afflictions to come upon his people.
2.
He is righteous in keeping his promise of deliverance to his people.
3.
He is righteous in visiting the enemies of his people with judgment.—W. H.
J. P.
Verse
5.
1.
An inexcusable hatred described: "hate Zion", God's church and cause.
For,
a)
Her people are righteous.
b) Her faith is a gospel.
c) Her mission is peace.
d) Her very existence is the world's preservation.
2.
An inveterate sinfulness indicated: "Them that hate Zion." For,
whatever moral virtues they may boast of, they must be,
a)
Enemies to the human race.
b) In defiant opposition to God.
c) Perversely blind, as Saul, or radically vile.
d) Devil like.
3.
An instinctive feeling of a good man expressed: "Let them all be",
etc. Prompted by,
a)
His love to God.
b) Love to man.
c) Love to righteousness. Hence, its existence is in itself a pledge that the
righteous God will respect and comply with it.—J. F.
Verses
5-8.
1.
The characters described.
a)
They do not love Zion. They say not, "Lord, I have loved the habitation of
thine house", etc.
b) They hate Zion—both its King and its subjects.
2.
Their prosperity: "As the grass", etc.
3.
Their end.
a)
Shame: "Let them be confounded."
b) Loss: "Turned back."
c) Disappointment. No mowing; no reaping.
d) Dishonour. Unblessed by others as well as in themselves.—G. R.
Verses
6-9. The wicked flourishing and perishing.
1.
Eminent in position.
2. Envied in prosperity.
3. Evanescent in duration.
4. Empty as to solidity.
5. Excepted from blessing.
── C.H. Spurgeon《The Treasury of David》