| Back to Home Page | Back to Book Index
|
Psalm One
Hundred Forty-four
Psalm 144
Chapter Contents
David acknowledges the great goodness of God, and prays
for help. (1-8) He prays for the prosperity of his kingdom. (9-15)
Commentary on Psalm 144:1-8
(Read Psalm 144:1-8)
When men become eminent for things as to which they have
had few advantages, they should be more deeply sensible that God has been their
Teacher. Happy those to whom the Lord gives that noblest victory, conquest and
dominion over their own spirits. A prayer for further mercy is fitly begun with
a thanksgiving for former mercy. There was a special power of God, inclining
the people of Israel to be subject to David; it was typical of the bringing
souls into subjection to the Lord Jesus. Man's days have little substance,
considering how many thoughts and cares of a never-dying soul are employed
about a poor dying body. Man's life is as a shadow that passes away. In their
highest earthly exaltation, believers will recollect how mean, sinful, and vile
they are in themselves; thus they will be preserved from self-importance and
presumption. God's time to help his people is, when they are sinking, and all
other helps fail.
Commentary on Psalm 144:9-15
(Read Psalm 144:9-15)
Fresh favours call for fresh returns of thanks; we must
praise God for the mercies we hope for by his promise, as well as those we have
received by his providence. To be saved from the hurtful sword, or from wasting
sickness, without deliverance from the dominion of sin and the wrath to come, is
but a small advantage. The public prosperity David desired for his people, is
stated. It adds much to the comfort and happiness of parents in this world, to
see their children likely to do well. To see them as plants, not as weeds, not
as thorns; to see them as plants growing, not withered and blasted; to see them
likely to bring forth fruit unto God in their day; to see them in their youth
growing strong in the Spirit. Plenty is to be desired, that we may be thankful
to God, generous to our friends, and charitable to the poor; otherwise, what
profit is it to have our garners full? Also, uninterrupted peace. War brings
abundance of mischiefs, whether it be to attack others or to defend ourselves.
And in proportion as we do not adhere to the worship and service of God, we
cease to be a happy people. The subjects of the Saviour, the Son of David,
share the blessings of his authority and victories, and are happy because they
have the Lord for their God.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Psalms》
Psalm 144
Verse 2
[2] My
goodness, and my fortress; my high tower, and my deliverer; my shield, and he
in whom I trust; who subdueth my people under me.
Subdued —
Who hath disposed my peoples hearts to receive and obey me as their king.
Verse 5
[5] Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down: touch the mountains, and they
shall smoke.
Come — To
help me.
Smoke — As
Sinai did at thy glorious appearance, Exodus 19:18. This is a figurative and poetical
description of God's coming to take vengeance upon his enemies.
Verse 7
[7] Send
thine hand from above; rid me, and deliver me out of great waters, from the
hand of strange children;
Strange children —
Either of the Heathen nations: or of the rebellious Israelites.
Verse 8
[8]
Whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of falsehood.
Vanity —
Vain brags and threatenings which shall come to nothing.
Falsehood —
Deceiving themselves, by being unable to do what they designed; and others, by not
giving them that help which they promised.
Verse 12
[12] That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; that our daughters
may be as corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace:
That —
This mercy I beg not only for my own sake, but for the sake of thy people, that
they may enjoy those blessings which thou hast promised them; and particularly,
that our sons, who are the strength and hopes of a nation, may be like plants,
flourishing and growing in height and strength, as plants do in their youth;
for when they grow old, they wither and decay.
Cornerstone —
Strong and beautiful.
Verse 14
[14] That
our oxen may be strong to labour; that there be no breaking in, nor going out;
that there be no complaining in our streets.
Breaking in — Of
enemies invading the land, or assaulting our cities, and making breaches in
their walls.
Going out — Of
our people, either out of the cities to fight with an invading enemy: or out of
the land into captivity.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Psalms》
Exposition
Explanatory Notes and
Quaint Sayings
Hints to the Village
Preacher
Albeit that
this Psalm is in some measure very similar to Ps 18:1-50, yet it is a new song,
and in its latter portion it is strikingly so. Let the reader accept it as a new
psalm, and not as a mere variation of an old one, or as two compositions
roughly joined together. It is true that it would be a complete composition if
the passage from Ps 144:12-15 were dropped; but there are other parts, of
David's poems which might be equally self contained if certain verses were
omitted; and the same might be said of many uninspired sonnets. It does not,
therefore, follow that the latter part was added by another hand, nor even that
the latter part was a fragment by the same author, appended to the first song
merely with the view of preserving it. It seems to us to be highly probable
that the Psalmist, remembering that he had trodden some of the same ground
before, felt his mind moved to fresh thought, and that the Holy Spirit used this
mood for his own high purposes. Assuredly the addendum is worthy of the
greatest Hebrew poet, and it is so admirable in language, and so full of
beautiful imagery, that persons of taste who were by no means overloaded with
reverence have quoted it times without number, thus confessing its singular
poetical excellence. To us the whole psalm appears to be perfect as it stands,
and to exhibit such unity throughout that it would be a literary Vandalism, as
well as a spiritual crime, to rend away one part from the other.
TITLE. Its title is "Of
David", and its language is of David, if ever language can belong to
any man. As surely as we could say of any poem, this is of Tennyson, or of
Longfellow, we may say, This is of David. Nothing but the disease which closes
the eye to manifest fact and opens it to fancy, could have led learned critics
to ascribe this song to anybody but David. Alexander well says, "The
Davidic origin of this psalm is as marked as that of any in the Psalter."
It
is to God the devout warrior sings when he extols him as his strength and stay
(Ps 144:1-2). Man he holds in small account, and wonders at the Lord's regard
for him (Ps 144:3-4); but he turns in his hour of conflict to the Lord, who is
declared to be "a man of war", whose triumphant interposition he
implores (Ps 144:5-8). He again extols and entreats in Ps 144:9-11 and then
closes with a delightful picture of the Lord's work for his chosen people, who
are congratulated upon having such a God to be their God.
EXPOSITION
Verse
1. Blessed be the LORD my strength. He cannot delay the
utterance of his gratitude, he bursts at once into a loud note of praise. His
best word is given to his best friend—"Blessed be Jehovah." When the
heart is in a right state it must praise God, it cannot be restrained; its
utterances leap forth as waters forcing their way from a living spring. With
all his strength David blesses the God of his strength. We ought not to receive
so great a boon as strength to resist evil, to defend truth, and to conquer error,
without knowing who gave it to us, and rendering to him the glory of it. Not
only does Jehovah give strength to his saints, but he is their strength. The
strength is made theirs because God is theirs. God is full of power, and he
becomes the power of those who trust him. In him our great strength lieth, and
to him be blessings more than we are able to utter. It may be read, "My
Rock"; but this hardly so well consorts with the following words:
Which
teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight. The word rock is
the Hebrew way of expressing strength: the grand old language is full of such
suggestive symbols. The Psalmist in the second part of the verse sets forth the
Lord as teacher in the arts of war. If we have strength we are not much the
better unless we have skill also. Untrained force is often an injury to the man
who possesses it, and it even becomes a danger to those who are round about
him; and therefore the Psalmist blesses the Lord as much for teaching as for
strength. Let us also bless Jehovah if he has in anything made us efficient.
The tuition mentioned was very practical, it was not so much of the brain as of
the hands and fingers; for these were the members most needful for conflict.
Men with little scholastic education should be grateful for deftness and skill
in their handicrafts. To a fighting man the education of the hands is of far
more value than mere book learning could ever be; he who has to use a sling or
a bow needs suitable training, quite as much as a scientific man or a classical
professor. Men are too apt to fancy that an artisan's efficiency is to be
ascribed to himself; but this is a popular fallacy. A clergyman may be supposed
to be taught of God, but people do not allow this to be true of weavers or
workers in brass; yet these callings are specially mentioned in the Bible as
having been taught to holy women and earnest men when the tabernacle was set up
at the first. All wisdom and skill are from the Lord, and for them he deserves
to be gratefully extolled. This teaching extends to the smallest members of our
frame; the Lord teaches fingers as well as hands; indeed, it sometimes happens
that if the finger is not well trained the whole hand is incapable.
David
was called to be a man of war, and he was eminently successful in his battles;
he does not trace this to his good generalship or valour, but to his being
taught and strengthened for the war and the fight. If the Lord deigns to have a
hand in such unspiritual work as fighting, surely he will help us to proclaim
the gospel and win souls; and then we will bless his name with even greater
intensity of heart. We will be pupils, and he shall be our Master, and if we
ever accomplish anything we will give our Instructor hearty blessing. This
verse is full of personality; it is mercy shown to David himself which is the
subject of grateful song. It has also a presence about it; for Jehovah is now
his strength, and is still teaching him; we ought to make a point of presenting
praise while yet the blessing is on the wing. The verse is also preeminently
practical, and full of the actual life of every day; for David's days were
spent in camps and conflicts. Some of us who are grievously tormented with
rheumatism might cry, "Blessed be the Lord, my Comforter, who teacheth my
knees to bear in patience, and my feet to endure in resignation"; others
who are on the look out to help young converts might say, "Blessed be God
who teaches my eyes to see wounded souls, and my lips to cheer them"; but
David has his own peculiar help from God, and praises him accordingly. This
tends to make the harmony of heaven perfect when all the singers take their
parts; if, we all followed the same score, the music would not be so full and
rich.
Verse
2. Now our royal poet multiplies metaphors to extol his God. My
goodness, and my fortress. The word for goodness signifies mercy.
Whoever we may be, and wherever we may be, we need mercy such as can only be
found in the infinite God. It is all of mercy that he is any of the other good
things to us, so that this is a highly comprehensive title. O how truly has the
Lord been mercy to many of us in a thousand ways! He is goodness itself, and he
has been unbounded goodness to us. We have no goodness of our own, but the Lord
has become goodness to us. So is he himself also our fortress and safe
abode: in him we dwell as behind impregnable ramparts and immovable bastions.
We cannot be driven out, or starved out; for our fortress is prepared for a
siege; it is stored with abundance of food, and a well of living water is within
it. Kings usually think much of their fenced cities, but King David relies upon
his God, who is more to him than fortresses could have been.
My
high tower, and my deliverer. As from a lofty watchtower the believer, trusting
in the Lord, looks down upon his enemies. They cannot reach him in his elevated
position; he is out of bow shot; he is beyond their scaling ladders; he dwells
on high. Nor is this all; for Jehovah is our Deliverer as well as our Defender.
These different figures set forth the varied benefits which come to us from our
Lord. He is every good thing which we can need for this world or the next. He
not only places us out of harm's way full often, but when we must be exposed,
he comes to our rescue, he raises the siege, routs the foe, and sets us in
joyous liberty. My shield, and he in whom I trust. When the warrior rushes on
his adversary, he bears his target upon his arm, and thrusts death aside; thus
doth the believer oppose the Lord to the blows of the enemy, and finds himself
secure from harm. For this and a thousand other reasons our trust rests in our
God for everything; he never fails us, and we feel boundless confidence in him.
Who
subdueth my people under me. He keeps my natural subjects subject, and my
conquered subjects peaceful under my sway. Men who rule others should thank God
if they succeed in the task. Such strange creatures are human beings, that if a
number of them are kept in peaceful association under the leadership of any one
of the Lord's servants, he is bound to bless God every day for the wonderful
fact. The victories of peace are as much worthy of joyful gratitude as the
victories of war. Leaders in the Christian church cannot maintain their
position except as the Lord preserves to them the mighty influence which ensures
obedience and evokes enthusiastic loyalty. For every particle of influence for
good which we may possess let us magnify the name of the Lord. Thus has David
blessed Jehovah for blessing him. How many times he has appropriated the Lord
by that little word My! Each time he grasps the Lord, he adores and
blesses him; for the one word Blessed runs through all the passage like
a golden thread. He began by acknowledging that his strength for fighting
foreign enemies was of the Lord, and he concluded by ascribing his domestic
peace to the same source. All round as a king he saw himself to be surrounded
by the King of kings, to whom he bowed in lowly homage, doing suit and service
on bent knee, with grateful heart admitting that he owed everything to the Rock
of his salvation.
Verse
3. LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him? What
a contrast between Jehovah and man! The Psalmist turns from the glorious all
sufficiency of God to the insignificance and nothingness of man. He sees
Jehovah to be everything, and then cries, "Lord, what is man!" What
is man in the presence of the Infinite God? What can he be compared to? He is
too little to be described at all; only God, who knows the most minute object,
can tell what man is. Certainly he is not fit to be the rock of our confidence:
he is at once too feeble and too fickle to be relied upon. The Psalmist's
wonder is that God should stoop to know him, and indeed it is more remarkable
than if the greatest archangel should make a study of emmets, or become the
friend of mites. God knows his people with a tender intimacy, a constant,
careful observation: he foreknew them in love, he knows them by care, he will
know them in acceptance at last. Why and wherefore is this? What has man done?
What has he been? What is he now that God should know him, and make himself
known to him as his goodness, fortress, and high tower? This is an unanswerable
question. Infinite condescension can alone account for the Lord stooping to be
the friend of man. That he should make man the subject of election, the object
of redemption, the child of eternal love, the darling of infallible providence,
the next of kin to Deity, is indeed a matter requiring more than the two notes
of exclamation found in this verse. Or the son of man, that thou makest account
of him! The son of man is a weaker being still,—so the original word implies.
He is not so much man as God made him, but man as his mother bore him;
and how can the Lord think of him, and write down such a cipher in his
accounts? The Lord thinks much of man, and in connection with redeeming love
makes a great figure of him: this can be believed, but it cannot be explained.
Adoring wonder makes us each one cry out, Why dost thou take knowledge of me?
We know by experience how little man is to be reckoned upon, and we know by
observation how greatly he can vaunt himself, it is therefore meet for us to be
humble and to distrust ourselves; but all this should make us the more grateful
to the Lord, who knows man better than we do, and yet communes with him, and
even dwells in him. Every trace of the misanthrope should be hateful to the
believer; for if God makes account of man it is not for us to despise our own
kind.
Verse
4. Man is like to vanity. Adam is like to Abel. He is like
that which is nothing at all. He is actually vain, and he resembles that
unsubstantial empty thing which is nothing but a blown up nothing,—a puff, a
bubble. Yet he is not vanity, but only like it. He is not so substantial as
that unreal thing; he is only the likeness of it. Lord, what is a man? It is
wonderful that God should think of such a pretentious insignificance. His days
are as a shadow that passeth away. He is so short lived that he scarcely
attains to years, but exists by the day, like the ephemera, whose birth and
death are both seen by the self same sun. His life is only like to a shadow,
which is in itself a vague resemblance, an absence of something rather than in
itself an existence. Observe that human life is not only as a shade, but as a
shade which is about to depart. It is a mere mirage, the image of a thing which
is not, a phantasm which melts back into nothing. How is it that the Eternal
should make so much of mortal man, who begins to die as soon as he begins to
live? The connection of the two verses before us with the rest of the psalm is
not far to seek: David trusts in God and finds him everything; he looks to man
and sees him to be nothing; and then he wonders how it is that the great Lord
can condescend to take notice of such a piece of folly and deceit as man.
Verse
5. Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down. The heavens are
the Lord's own, and he who exalted them can bow them. His servant is struggling
against bitter foes, and he finds no help in men, therefore he entreats Jehovah
to come down to his rescue. It is, indeed, a coming down for Jehovah to
interfere in the conflicts of his tried people. Earth cries to heaven to stoop;
nay, the cry is to the Lord of heaven to bow the heaven, and appear among the
sons of earth. The Lord has often done this, and never more fully than when in
Bethlehem the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us: now doth he know the way,
and he never refuses to come down to defend his beloved ones. David would have
the real presence of God to counterbalance the mocking appearance of boastful
man: eternal verity could alone relieve him of human vanity. Touch the
mountains, and they shall smoke. It was so when the Lord appeared on Sinai; the
strongest pillars of earth cannot bear the weight of the finger of God. He is a
consuming fire, and his touch kindles the peaks of the Alps, and makes them
smoke. If Jehovah would appear, nothing could stand before him; if the mighty
mountains smoke at his touch, then all mortal power which is opposed to the
Lord must end in smoke. How long suffering he is to his adversaries, whom he
could so readily consume. A touch would do it; God's finger of flame would set
the hills on fire, and consume opposition of every kind.
Verse
6. Cast forth lightning, and scatter them. The Eternal can
hurl his lightnings wheresoever he pleases, and effect his purpose
instantaneously. The artillery of heaven soon puts the enemy to flight: a
single bolt sets the armies running hither and thither in utter rout. Shoot out
thine arrows, and destroy them. Jehovah never misses the mark; his arrows are
fatal to his foes when he goes forth to war. It was no common faith which led
the poet king to expect the Lord to use his thunderbolts on behalf of a single
member of that race which he had just now described as "like to
vanity." A believer in God may without presumption expect the Almighty
Lord to use on his behalf all the stores of his wisdom and power: even the
terrible forces of tempest shall be marshalled to the fight, for the defence of
the Lord's chosen. When we have once mastered the greater difficulty of the
Lord's taking any interest in us, it is but a small thing that we should expect
him to exert his great power on our behalf. This is far from being the only
time in which this believing warrior had thus prayed: Ps 18:1-50 is specially
like the present; the good man was not abashed at his former boldness, but here
repeats himself without fear.
Verse
7. Send thine hand from above. Let thy long and strong arm be
stretched out till thine hand seizes my foes, and delivers me from them. Rid
me, and deliver me out of great waters. Make a Moses of me,—one drawn out of
the waters. My foes pour in upon me like torrents, they threaten to overwhelm
me; save me from their force and fury; take them from me, and me from them.
From the hand of strange children. From foreigners of every race; men strange
to me and thee, who therefore must work evil to me, and rebellion against
thyself. Those against whom he pleaded were out of covenant with God; they were
Philistines and Edomites; or else they were men of his own nation of black
heart and traitorous spirit, who were real strangers, though they bore the name
of Israel. Oh to be rid of those infidel, blaspheming beings who pollute
society with their false teachings and hard speeches! Oh to be delivered from
slanderous tongues, deceptive lips, and false hearts! No wonder these words are
repeated, for they are the frequent cry of many a tried child of God;—"Rid
me, and deliver me." The devil's children are strange to us: we can
never agree with them, and they will never understand us: they are aliens to
us, and we are despised by them. O Lord, deliver us from the evil one, and from
all who are of his race.
Verse
8. Whose mouth speaketh vanity. No wonder that men who are
vanity speak vanity. "When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own.
"They cannot be depended upon, let them promise as fairly as they may:
their solemn declarations are light as the foam of the sea, in no wise to be
depended upon. Good men desire to be rid of such characters: of all men
deceivers and liars are among the most disgusting to true hearts. And their
right hand is a right hand of falsehood. So far their hands and their tongues
agree, for they are vanity and falsehood. These men act as falsely as they
speak, and prove themselves to be all of a piece. Their falsehood is right
handed, they lie with dexterity, they deceive with all their might. It is a
dreadful thing when a man's expertness lies more in lies than in truth; when he
can neither speak nor act without proving himself to be false. God save us from
lying mouths, and hands of falsehood.
Verse
9. I will sing a new song unto thee, O God. Weary of the
false, I will adore the true. Fired with fresh enthusiasm, my gratitude shall
make a new channel for itself. I will sing as others have done; but it shall be
a new song, such as no others have sung. That song shall be all and altogether
for my God: I will extol none but the Lord, from whom my deliverance has come.
Upon a psaltery and an instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto
thee. His hand should aid his tongue, not as in the case of the wicked,
cooperating in deceit; but his hand should unite with his mouth in truthful
praise. David intended to tune his best instruments as well as to use his best
vocal music: the best is all too poor for so great a God, and therefore we must
not fall short of our utmost. He meant to use many instruments of music, that
by all means he might express his great joy in God. The Old Testament
dispensation abounded in types, and figures, and outward ritual, and therefore
music dropped naturally into its place in the "worldly sanctuary";
but, after all, it can do no more than represent praise, and assist our
expression of it; the real praise is in the heart, the true music is that of
the soul. When music drowns the voice, and artistic skill takes a higher place
than hearty singing, it is time that instruments were banished from public
worship; but when they are subordinate to the song, as here, it is not for us
to prohibit them, or condemn those who use them, though we ourselves greatly
prefer to do without them, since it seems to us that the utmost simplicity of
praise is far more congruous with the spirit of the gospel than pomp of organs.
The private worshipper, singing his solo unto the Lord, has often found it
helpful to accompany himself on some familiar instrument, and of this David in
the present psalm is an instance, for he says, "I will sing praise unto
thee",—that is, not so much in the company of others as by himself alone.
He saith not "we", but "I."
Verse
10. It is he that giveth salvation unto kings. Those whom the
Lord sets up he will keep up. Kings, from their conspicuous position, are
exposed to special danger, and when their lives and their thrones are preserved
to them they should give the Lord the glory of it. In his many battles David
would have perished had not almighty care preserved him. He had by his valour
wrought salvation for Israel, but he lays his laurels at the feet of his Lord
and Preserver. If any men need salvation kings do, and if they get it the fact
is so astonishing that it deserves a verse to itself in the psalm of praise.
Who delivereth David his servant from the hurtful sword. He traces his escape
from death to the delivering hand of God. Note, he speaks in the present tense—delivereth,
for this was an act which covered his whole life. He puts his name to the
confession of his indebtedness: it is David who owns without demur to mercy
given to himself. He styles himself the Lord's servant, accepting this as the
highest title he had attained or desired.
Verse
11. Because of what the Lord had done, David returns to his pleading.
He begs deliverance from him who is ever delivering him. Rid me, and deliver me
from the hand of strange children. This is in measure the refrain of the song,
and the burden of the prayer. He desired to be delivered from his open and
foreign adversaries, who had broken compacts, and treated treaties as vain
things. Whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right hand of
falsehood. He would not strike hands with those who carried a lie in their
right hand: he would be quit of such at once, if possible. Those who are
surrounded by such serpents know not how to deal with them, and the only
available method seems to be prayer to God for a riddance and deliverance.
David in Ps 144:7, according to the original, had sought the help of both the
Lord's hands, and well he might, for his deceitful enemies, with remarkable
unanimity, were with one mouth and one hand seeking his destruction. Riddance
from the wicked and the gracious presence of the Lord are sought with a special
eye to the peace and prosperity which will follow thereupon. The sparing of
David's life would mean the peace and happiness of a whole nation. We can
scarcely judge how much of happiness may hang upon the Lord's favour to one
man.
Verse
12. God's blessing works wonders for a people. That our sons may be
as plants grown up in their youth. Our sons are of first importance to the
state, since men take a leading part in its affairs; and that the young men are
the older men will be. He desires that they may be like strong, well rooted,
young trees, which promise great things. If they do not grow in their youth,
when will they grow? If in their opening manhood they are dwarfed, they will
never get over it. O the joys which we may have through our sons! And, on the
other hand, what misery they may cause us! Plants may grow crooked, or in some
other way disappoint the planter, and so may our sons. But when we see them
developed in holiness, what joy we have of them! That our daughters may be as
corner stones, polished after the similitude of a palace. We desire a
blessing for our whole family, daughters as well as sons. For the girls to be
left out of the circle of blessing would be unhappy indeed. Daughters unite
families as corner stones join walls together, and at the same time they adorn
them as polished stones garnish the structure into which they are builded. Home
becomes a palace when the daughters are maids of honour, and the sons are
nobles in spirit; then the father is a king, and the mother a queen, and royal
residences are more than outdone. A city built up of such dwellings is a city
of palaces, and a state composed of such cities is a republic of princes.
Verse
13. That our garners may be full, affording all manner of store.
A household must exercise thrift and forethought: it must have its granary as
well as its nursery. Husbands should husband their resources; and should not
only furnish their tables but fill their garners. Where there are happy
households, there must needs be plentiful provision for them, for famine brings
misery even where love abounds. It is well when there is plenty, and that
plenty consists of "all manner of store." We have occasionally heard
murmurs concerning the abundance of grain, and the cheapness of the poor man's
loaf. A novel calamity! We dare not pray against it. David would have prayed
for it, and blessed the Lord when he saw his heart's desire. When all the fruits
of the earth are plentiful, the fruits of our lips should be joyful worship and
thanksgiving. Plenteous and varied may cur products be, that every form of want
may be readily supplied. That our sheep may bring forth thousands and ten
thousands in our streets, or rather in the open places, the fields, and
sheep walks where lambs should be born. A teeming increase is here described.
Adam tilled the ground to fill the garner, but Abel kept sheep, and watched the
lambs. Each occupation needs the divine blessing. The second man who was born
into this world was a shepherd, and that trade has ever held an important part
in the economy of nations. Food and clothing come from the flock, and both are
of first consideration.
Verse
14. That our oxen may be strong to labour; so that the
ploughing and cartage of the farm may be duly performed, and the husbandman's
work may be accomplished without unduly taxing the cattle, or working them
cruelly. That there be no breaking in, nor going out; no irruption of
marauders, and no forced emigration; no burglaries and no evictions. That there
be no complaining in our streets; no secret dissatisfaction, no public riot; no
fainting of poverty, no clamour for rights denied, nor concerning wrongs
unredressed. The state of things here pictured is very delightful: all is
peaceful and prosperous; the throne is occupied efficiently, and even the
beasts in their stalls are the better for it. This has been the condition of
our own country, and if it should now be changed, who can wonder? For our
ingratitude well deserves to be deprived of blessings which it has despised.
These verses may with a little accommodation be applied to a prosperous church,
where the converts are growing and beautiful, the gospel stores abundant, and
the spiritual increase most cheering. There ministers and workers are in full
vigour, and the people are happy and united. The Lord make it so in all our
churches evermore.
Verse
15. Happy is that people that is in such a case. Such things
are not to be overlooked. Temporal blessings are not trifles, for the miss of
them would be a dire calamity. It is a great happiness to belong to a people so
highly favoured. Yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD. This comes
in as an explanation of their prosperity. Under the Old Testament Israel had
present earthly rewards for obedience: when Jehovah was their God they were a
nation enriched and flourishing. This sentence is also a sort of correction of
all that had gone before; as if the poet would say—all these temporal gifts are
a part of happiness, but still the heart and soul of happiness lies in the
people being right with God, and having a full possession of him. Those who
worship the happy God become a happy people. Then if we have not temporal
mercies literally we have something better: if we have not the silver of earth
we have the gold of heaven, which is better still. In this psalm David ascribes
his own power over the people, and the prosperity which attended his reign, to
the Lord himself. Happy was the nation which he ruled; happy in its king, in
its families, in its prosperity, and in the possession of peace; but yet more
in enjoying true religion and worshipping Jehovah, the only living and true
God.
EXPLANATORY
NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Whole
Psalm. The psalm, in its mingled tones of prayer and praise, is a fit
connecting link between the supplicatory psalms which go before, and the
strains of thanksgiving which follow it.—Speaker's Commentary.
Whole
Psalm. After six psalms of sorrowful prayer in distress, we have now a
psalm of praise and thanksgiving for God's gracious answer to supplications;
and also a psalm of intercession. The present psalm bears a strong resemblance
to David's last song in 2Sa 22:51 and to Ps 18:1-50. Here we have a vision of
Christ rejoicing;—after his passion—risen in glory, and having ascended in
triumph, and pleading for us at the right hand of God.—Christopher
Wordsworth.
Whole
Psalm. This psalm is ruled by the numbers ten and seven. Ten verses
complete the first part of the psalm, which falls into two divisions. The first
portion contains, in Ps 144:1-2, ten attributes of God,—three and seven, the
seven divided into four and three. In like manner it contains ten requests to
God in Ps 144:5-7, divided precisely as the attributes. To this significance of
the number ten for the first part, allusion is pointedly made in Ps 144:9.
Seven blessings are prayed for in the second part, four in Ps 144:12-13,
(valiant sons, beautiful daughters, full storehouses, numerous flocks), and
three in Ps 144:14 (labouring oxen, no breach and diminution, no cry). The
whole contains, apart from the closing epiphonem, which, as usual, stands
outside the formal arrangement, seven strophes, each of two verses.
An
objection has been brought against the Davidic authorship from the "traces
of reading" it contains. But one would require to consider more exactly,
what sort of reading is here to be thought of. It is only the psalms of David
which form the ground work of this new psalm. But that it is one of David's
peculiarities to derive from his earlier productions a foundation for new ones,
is evident from a variety of facts, which, if any doubt must still be
entertained on the subject, would obtain a firm ground to stand upon in this
psalm, which can only have been composed by David. The way and manner of
the use made of such materials is to be kept in view. This is always of a
spirited and feeling nature, and no trace anywhere exists of a dead borrowing.
That we cannot think here of such a borrowing; that the appropriation of the
earlier language did not proceed from spiritual impotence, but rested upon
deeper grounds, is manifest from the consideration of the second part, where
the dependence entirely ceases, and where even the opponents of the Davidic
authorship have not been able to overlook the strong poetical spirit of the
time of David. They betake themselves to the miserable shift of affirming, that
the Psalmist borrowed this part of the psalm from a much older poem now lost.—E.W.
Hengstenberg.
Verse
1. Blessed be the LORD. A prayer for further mercy is fitly
begun with a thanksgiving for former mercy; and when we are waiting upon God to
bless us, we should stir up ourselves to bless him.—Matthew Henry.
Verse
1. The LORD my strength, etc. Agamemnon says to Achilles—
If
thou hast strength, 'twas heaven that strength bestowed;
For know, vain man! thy valour is from God.—Homer.
Verse
1. My strength (Heb. "my rock"). The climax
should be noted; the rock, or cliff, comes first as the place of refuge, then
the fortress or fastness, as a place carefully fortified, then the
personal deliverer, without whose intervention escape would have been
impossible.—Speaker's Commentary.
Verse
1. The LORD...teacheth: and not as man teacheth. Thus he
taught Gideon to fight with the innumerable host of Midian by sending to their
homes twenty-two thousand, and retaining but ten thousand of his soldiers: and
then again by reducing that remnant to the little band of three hundred who
lapped when brought down to the water. Thus he taught Samson by abstaining from
strong drink, and by suffering no razor to pass over his head. Thus he taught
the three kings in the wilderness to war against their enemies, not by any
strength of their armies, but by making ditches in the desert. Thus he taught
David himself by waiting for the sound of the going in the tops of the mulberry
trees. And so he taught the arms of the True David to fight when stretched on
the cross: nailed, to human sight, to the tree of suffering, but, in reality,
winning for themselves the crown of glory: helpless in the eyes of scribes and
Pharisees; in those of archangels, laying hold of the two pillars, sin and
death, whereon the house of Satan rested, and heaving them up from, their
foundation.—Ayguan, in Neale and Littledale.
Verse
1. The LORD my strength, which teacheth my hands to war.
There were three qualities of a valiant soldier found in Christ, the Captain of
our salvation, in his war against Satan, which his followers are bound to
emulate: boldness in attack, skill in defence, steadiness in conflict, all
which he teaches by his example (Mt 4:1,4,7,10-11). He was bold in attack,
for he began the combat by going up into the wilderness to defy the enemy. So
we, too, should be always beforehand with Satan, ought to fast, even if not
tempted to gluttony, and be humble, though not assailed by pride, and so forth.
He was skilful in defence, parrying every attack with Holy Writ; where
we, too, in the examples of the saints, may find lessons for the combat. He was
steadfast in conflict, for he persevered to the end, till the devil left
him, and angels came and ministered unto him; and we, too, should not be
content with repelling the first attack, but persevere in our resistance until
evil thoughts are put to flight, and heavenly resolutions take their place.—Neale
and Littledale.
Verse
1. Teacheth my hands. Used to the hook and harp, and not to
the sword and spear; but God hath apted and abled them to feats of arms and
warlike exploits. It is God that giveth skill and success, saith Solomon (Pr
8:1-36); wisdom and ability, saith Daniel (Da 2:1-49). And as in the spiritual
warfare, so here; our weapons are "mighty through God" (2Co 10:4),
who promises that no weapon formed against his people shall prosper (Isa 54:17).—John
Trapp.
Verse
1. To war, ...to fight. I want to speak of a great defect
among us, which often prevents the realization of going "from strength to
strength"; viz., the not using, not trading with, the strength
given. We should not think of going to God for money only to keep it in the
bank. But are we not doing this with regard to strength? We are constantly
asking for strength for service; but if we are not putting this out in hearty
effort, it is of no use to us. Nothing comes of hoarded strength. "Blessed
be the Lord my strength, which teacheth my hands to war, and my finger to
fight." David, you see, was looking for strength for a purpose. Some
people seem to expect strength, but never attempt to put forth their hands to
war, and their fingers to fight—there is so little venturing upon God, so
little use of grace given, partly from fear of man, partly from indolence and
worldly mindedness. It is not for us to be merely luxuriating in the power
which God supplies. Action strengthens, and before we have a right to ask for
an increase, we must use that already given.—Catherine Pennefather, in
"Service," 1881.
Verse
1. Is not the spiritual victory of every believer achieved by God?
Truly it is he who teaches his hands to war and his fingers to fight;
and when the final triumph shall be sung in heaven, the victor's song will be,
"Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me, but unto thy name give glory, for thy
mercy and for thy truth's sake."—John Morison.
Verse
1. My hands for fight, my fingers for war. Fight and war
are both verbs and nouns in English, but the Hebrew words are nouns with the
article prefixed.—Joseph Addison Alexander.
Verse
1. My fingers to fight. Probably the immediate reference here
is to the use of the bow,—placing the arrow, and drawing the string.—Albert
Barnes.
Verse
2. My goodness, etc. This way of using the word in a passive
sense, as in the Hebrew, sounds harshly; just as elsewhere (Ps 18:50) he calls
himself "God's king", not in the sense of his having dominion over
God, but being made and appointed king by him. Having experienced God's
kindness in so many ways, he calls him "his goodness", meaning
that whatever good he possessed flowed from him. The accumulation of terms, one
upon another, which follows, may appear unnecessary, yet it tends greatly to
strengthen faith. We know how unstable men's minds are, and especially how soon
faith wavers, when they are assailed by some trial of more than usual
severity.—John Calvin.
Verse
2. My fortress. David calls God by names connected with the
chief deliverances of his life. The psalms abound in local references and
descriptive expressions, e.g. Ps 18:2 (and in this place). The word translated "fortress"
is metzuriah or masada. From 1Sa 23:29, I have no doubt that he is
speaking of Masada, an isolated peak 1,500 feet high, on which was a
stronghold.—James Wareing Bardsley, in "Glimpses through the
Veil," 1883.
Verse
2. My high tower. Such towers were erected on
mountains, on rocks, or on the walls of a city, and were regarded as safe
places mainly because they were inaccessible. So the old castles in Europe,—as
that at Heidelberg, and generally those along the Rhine,—were built on lofty
places, and in such positions as not to be easily accessible.—Albert Barnes.
Verse
2. My shield. The Hebrew word signifies, not the huge shield
which was carried by an armourbearer, but the handy target with which heroes
entered into hand to hand conflicts. A warrior took it with him when he used
his bow or his sword. It was often made of metal, but still was portable, and
useful, and was made to serve as an ornament, being brightened or anointed with
oil. David had made abundant use of the Lord, his God, from day to day, in
battles many and murderous.—C.H.S.
Verse
2. Who subdueth my people under me. David, accordingly, having
ascribed the victories he had gained over foreign enemies to God, thanks him at
the same time for the settled state of the kingdom. Raised indeed as he was
from an obscure station, and exposed to hatred from calumnious charges, it was
scarcely to have been believed that he would ever obtain a peaceable reign. The
people had suddenly, and beyond expectation, submitted to him; and so
surprising a change was eminently God's work.—John Calvin.
Verse
3. LORD, what is man, etc.
Now
what is man when grace reveals
The virtues of a Saviour's blood?
Again a life divine he feels,
Despises earth, and walks with God.
And
what in yonder realms above,
Is ransomed man ordained to be?
With honour, holiness, and love,
No seraph more adorned than he.
Nearest
the throne, and first in song.
Man shall his hallelujahs raise,
While wondering angels round him strong,
And swell the chorus of his praise.
—John Newton, in Olney Hymns.
Verse
3. LORD, what is man? Take him in his four elements, of
earth, air, fire, and water. In the earth, he is as fleeting dust; in
the air, he is as a disappearing vapour; in the water, he is as a
breaking bubble; and in the fire, he is as consuming smoke.—William
Seeker, in "The Nonsuch Professor."
Verses
3-4. LORD, what is man, etc. There is no book so well worthy reading
as this living one. Even now David spake as a king of men, of people subdued
under him: now he speaks as a humble vassal to God: LORD, what is man
that thou takest knowledge of him? In one breath is both sovereignty and
subjugation: an absolute sovereignty over his people: My people are subdued
under me; an humble subjection to the God of kings; "LORD, what is
man?" Yea, in the very same word wherein, is the profession of that
sovereignty, there is an acknowledgment of subjection: "Thou hast
subdued my people." In that he had a people, he was a king: that they
might be his people, a subjection was requisite; and that subjugation was
God's, and not his own: "Thou hast subdued." Lo, David had not
subdued his people, if God had not subdued them for him. He was a great king,
but they were a stiff people: the God that made them swayed them to a due
subjection. The great conquerors of worlds could not conquer hearts, if he,
that moulded hearts, did not temper them. "By me kings reign", saith
the Eternal Wisdom; and he that had courage enough to encounter a bear, a lion,
Goliath, yet can say, "Thou hast subdued my people."
Contrarily,
in the lowliest subjection of himself, there is an acknowledgment of greatness.
Though he abused himself with, "What is man?" yet, withal he adds, "Thou
takest knowledge of him, thou makest account of him": and this
knowledge, this account of God, doth more exalt man than his own vanity can
depress him. My text, then, ye see, is David's rapture, expressed in an
ecstatical question of sudden wonder; a wonder at God, and at man: man's
vileness; "What is man?" God's mercy and favour, in his
knowledge, in his estimation of man. Lo, there are but two lessons that we need
to take out here, in the world, God and man; man, in the notion of his
wretchedness; God, in the notion of his bounty. Let us, if you please, take a
short view of both; and, in the one, see cause of our humiliation; of our joy
and thankfulness in the other: and if, in the former, there be a sad Lent of
mortification; there is, in the latter, a cheerful Easter of our raising and
exaltation.
Many
a one besides David wonders at himself: one wonders at his own honour; and,
though he will not say so, yet thinks, "What a great man am I! Is not this
great Babel, which I have built?" This is Nebuchadnezzar's wonder. Another
wonders at his person, and finds, either a good face, or a fair eye, or an
exquisite hand, or a well shaped leg, or some gay fleece, to admire in himself:
this was Absalom's wonder. Another wonders at his wit and learning: "How
came I by all this? Turba haec! This vulgar, that knows not the law, is
accursed": this was the Pharisee's wonder. Another wonders at his wealth;
"Soul, take thine ease"; as the epicure in the gospel. David's wonder
is as much above, as against all these: he wonders at his vileness: like as the
Chosen Vessel would boast of nothing but his infirmities: "LORD, what
is man?" How well this hangs together! No sooner had he said, "Thou
hast subdued my people under me", than he adds, "LORD, what is
man?" Some vain heart would have been lifted up with a conceit of his
own eminence; "Who am I? I am not as other men. I have people under me;
and people of my own, and people subdued to me"; this is to be more than a
man. I know who hath said, "I said ye are gods."—Joseph Hall.
Verse
3. Dr. Hammond refers this psalm to the slaying of Goliath, and thus
understands the appellation "son of man",—"David was but a young
stripling, the youngest and most inconsiderable of all the sons of Jesse, who
also was himself an ordinary man."
Verse
3. Thou takest knowledge of him. It is a great word. Alas!
what knowledge do we take of the gnats that play in the sun; or the ants, or
worms, that are crawling in our grounds? Yet the disproportion betwixt us and
them is but finite; infinite betwixt God and us. Thou, the Great God of Heaven,
to take knowledge of such a thing as man. If a mighty prince shall vouchsafe to
spy and single out a plain homely swain in a throng, as the Great Sultan did lately
a tankard bearer; and take special notice of him, and call him but to a kiss of
his hand and nearness to his person; he boasts of it as a great favour: for
thee, then, O God, who abasest thyself to behold the things in heaven itself,
to cast thine eye upon so poor a worm as man, it must needs be a wonderful
mercy.—Exigua pauperibus magna; as Nazianzen to his Amphilochius.—Joseph
Hall.
Verse
4. Man is like to vanity As he that goeth to a fair, with a
purse full of money, is devising and debating with himself how to lay it
out—possibly thinking that such and such commodities will be most profitable,
and bring him in the greatest gain—when on a sudden a cut purse comes and eases
him both of his money and care how to dispose of it. Surely you might have taken
notice how some of thy neighbours or countrymen, when they have been busy in
their contrivances, and big with many plots and projects how to raise their
estate and names and families, were arrested by death in a moment, returned to
their earth, and in that day all their gay, their great thoughts perished, and
came to nothing. The heathen historian could not but observe how Alexander the
Great, when he had to carry on his great designs, summoned a parliament before
him of the whole world, he was himself summoned by death to appear in the other
world. The Dutch, therefore, very wittily to express the world's vanity,
picture at Amsterdam a man with a full blown bladder on his shoulders, and
another standing by pricking the bladder with a pin, with this motto, quam
subito, How soon is all blown down!—George Swinnock.
Verse
4. Man is like to vanity. When Cain was born, there was much
ado about his birth; "I have gotten a man child from God", saith his
mother: she looked upon him as a great possession, and therefore called his
name Cain, which signifies "a possession." But the second man
that was born unto the world bare the title of the world, "vanity";
his name was Abel, that is, "vanity." A premonition was
given in the name of the second man what would or should be the condition of
all men. In Ps 144:4 there is an allusion unto those two names. We translate
it, "Man is like to vanity"; the Hebrew is, "Adam is
as Abel"; Adam, you know, was the name of the first man, the name of
Abel's father; but as Adam was the proper name of the first, so it is an
appellative, or common to all men: now Adam, that is, man of all men, are Abel,
vain, and walking in a vain show.—Joseph Caryl.
Verse
4. Man is like to vanity, etc. The occasion of the
introduction of these sentiments here is not quite clear. It may be the
humility of the warrior who ascribes all success to God instead of to human
prowess, or it may be a reflection uttered over the corpses of comrades, or,
perhaps a blending of the two.—A.S. Aglen.
Verse
4. Man is like to vanity, etc. With what idle dreams, what
foolish plans, what vain pursuits, are men for the most part occupied! They
undertake dangerous expeditions and difficult enterprises in foreign countries,
and they acquire fame; but what is it?—Vanity! They pursue deep and
abstruse speculations, and give themselves to that "much study which is a
weariness to the flesh", and they attain to literary renown, and survive
in their writings; but what is it?—Vanity! They rise up early, and sit
up late, and eat the bread of anxiety and care, and thus they amass wealth; but
what is it?—Vanity! They frame and execute plans and schemes of
ambition—they are loaded with honours and adorned with titles—they afford
employment for the herald, and form a subject for the historian; but what is
it?—Vanity! In fact, all occupations and pursuits are worthy of no other
epithet, if they are not preceded by, and connected with, a deep and paramount
regard to the salvation of the soul, the honour of God, and the interests of
eternity...Oh, then, what phantoms, what airy nothings are those things that
wholly absorb the powers and occupy the days of the great mass of mankind
around us! Their most substantial good perishes in the using, and their most
enduring realities are but "the fashion of this world that passeth
away."—Thomas Raffles, 1788-1863.
Verse
4. A shadow that passeth away. The shadows of the mountains
are constantly shifting their position during the day, and ultimately disappear
altogether on the approach of night: so is it with man who is every day
advancing to the moment of his final departure from this world.—Bellarmine.
Verse
5. Bow thy heavens. This expression is derived from the
appearance of the clouds during a tempest: they hang low, so as to obscure the
hills and mountains, and seem to mingle earth and heaven together. Such an
appearance is figuratively used to depict the coming of God, to execute
vengeance upon the enemies of his people. See Ps 18:10, and other instances.—William
Walford.
Verse
5. Bow thy heavens, O LORD, and come down, etc. This was
never so remarkably fulfilled as in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, when
heaven and earth were, as it were, brought together. Heaven itself was, as it
were, made to bow that it might be united to the earth. God did, as it were,
come down and bring heaven with him. He not only came down to the earth, but he
brought heaven down with him to men and for men. It was a most strange and
wonderful thing. But this will be more remarkably fulfilled still by Christ's
second coming, when he will indeed bring all heaven down with him—viz., all the
inhabitants of heaven. Heaven shall be left empty of its inhabitants to come
down to the earth; and then the mountains shall smoke, and shall indeed flow
down at his presence, as in Isa 64:1.—Jonathan Edwards.
Verse
5. Touch the mountains, and they shall smoke. The meaning is,
when God doth but lay his hand upon great men, upon the mightiest of the world,
he makes them smoke or fume, which some understand of their anger; they are
presently in a passion, if God do but touch them. Or we may understand it of
their consumption. A smoking mountain will soon be a burnt
mountain. In our language, to make a man smoke is a proverbial expression for
destroying or subduing.—Joseph Caryl.
Verses
5-6.
Bow
thy heavens, Jehovah,
Come down in thy might;
Let the rays of thy glory
The mountaintops light.
With the bolts of thy thunder
Discomfit my foe,
With the flash of thine arrows
Their force overthrow.
—William Digby Seymour.
Verse
6. Cast forth lightning. The Hebrew here is, "Lighten
lightning"; that is, Send forth lightning. The word is used as a verb
nowhere else.—Albert Barnes.
Verse
7. Send thine hand from above. Hebrew, hands, both
hands, all thy whole power, for I need it.—John Trapp.
Verse
7. Rid me, and deliver me. Away, you who theorize about
suffering, and can do no more than descant upon it, away! for in the time of
weeping we cannot endure your reasonings. If you have no means of delivering
us, if you have nothing but sententious phrases to offer, put your hands on
your mouths; enwrap yourselves in silence! It is enough to suffer; but to
suffer and listen to you is more than we can bear. If Job's mouth was nigh unto
blasphemy, the blame is yours, ye miserable comforters, who talked instead of weeping.
If I must suffer, then I pray for suffering without fine talk!—E. De
Pressense.
Verse
7. Rid me, and deliver me...from the hand of strange children.
We must remember that as the Grecians (conceiting themselves the best bred
people in the world) called all other nations "barbarians"; so the
people of Israel, the stock of Abraham (being God's peculiar covenant people),
called all other nations "aliens" or "strangers";
and because they were hated and maligned by all other nations, therefore they
called all professed strangers enemies; so the word is used (Isa 1:7),
"Your land strangers shall devour"; that is, enemies shall invade and
prevail over you. "Deliver me out of the hand of strange
children", or out of the hand of strangers; that is, out of the hand
of mine enemies. The Latin word alienus is often put for hostis,
and the Roman orator (Cicero) telleth us that "he who is now called a
stranger was called an enemy by our ancestors." The reason was because
strangers proved unkind to, yea, turned enemies against those that entertained
them.—Joseph Caryl.
Verse
7. Strange children. He calls them strangers, not in
respect of generic origin, but character and disposition.—John Calvin.
Verse
7. The strange children, now the enemies of David, shall be
either won to willing subjection, or else shall be crushed under the triumphant
Messiah (Ps 2:1-12). The Spirit by David spake things the deep significance of
which reached further than even he understood (1Pe 1:11-12).—Andrew Robert
Fausset.
Verse
8. Whose mouth speaketh vanity, etc. Two things go naturally
together in the verse—the lying tongue and deceitful hand. The meaning is that
upon the matter in hand nothing was to be looked for from any of their
promises, since it was only to deceive that they flattered with their mouth and
gave the hand.—John Calvin.
Verse
8. Their right hand is a right hand of falsehood. The pledge
of the right hand, which used to be a witness of good faith, was violated by
treachery and wickedness.—Cicero. Philip. xi. c. 2.
Verse
9. Psaltery—an instrument of ten strings. Nebelazor. We are
led to the conclusion that the nebel was the veritable harp of
the Hebrews. It could not have been large, because it is so frequently
mentioned in the Bible as being carried in processions ...The English
translators render nebel (apparently without any special reason) by no
less than four words; (1) psaltery, (2) psalm, (3) lute, (4) viol. The first of
these is by far the most common in the Authorized Version, and is no doubt the
most correct translation if the word be understood in its true sense as a portable
harp. Nebels were made of fir wood, and afterwards of almug, or algum,
which was, perhaps, the red sandalwood of India...With nebel is often
associated the word azor, which is traced to a root signifying ten,
and which has therefore been rendered in the Septuagint by by en dekacordw or
as qalthrion dekacordon, (psalterium decem chordarum) or in
dechachordo psalterio in the Vulgate. In the Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic
versions also are found words implying the existence of ten strings in the nebelazor.
The word azor may therefore be considered as qualifying or describing
the special kind of nebel to be used, much in the same way as we now
speak of a trichord pianoforte. It is in our English version always
rendered by the words "ten stringed."—John Stainer, in
"The Music of the Bible," 1882.
Verse
10. It is he that giveth salvation unto kings. Ferdinand, king
of Aragon, sending his son against the Florentines, thus bespake him: Believe
me, son, victories are not gotten by art or subtlety, but given of God.—John
Trapp.
Verse
10. It is he that giveth salvation unto kings. What a doctrine
this for the kings and great men of the earth to remember! Could they be
brought to feel and acknowledge it, they would not trust to the sagacity of
their own councils, nor to the strength of their own arm; but would ever
remember that the Most High is the ruler among the nations, and that he putteth
down one and raiseth up another according to the dictates of his own all
perfect will. Such remembrances as this would stain the pride of all human
glory, and would lead men to feel that the Lord alone is to be exalted.—John
Morison.
Verse
11. This psalm is the language of a prince who wished his people's
prosperity: that their "garners might be full of all manner of
stores"; that their "sheep might bring forth thousands and ten
thousands in their streets"; that their "oxen" might be fat for
slaughter, or "strong for labour"; that there might be neither
robbery nor beggary in their streets: no oppressive magistrates, nor
complaining people: and as if all these blessings were to be derived from the
character of the people, and the character of the people from the education
they had received, our text is a prayer for the youth of Judea.—Robert
Robinson (1735-1790), in "The Nature and Necessity of Early Piety."
Verse
12. The reminiscences or imitations of Ps 18:1-50, suddenly cease
here, and are followed by a series of original, peculiar, and for the most part
or no doubt antique expressions. Oil the supposition that the title is correct
in making David the author, this is natural enough. On any other supposition it
is unaccountable, unless by the gratuitous assumption, that this is a fragment
of an older composition, a mode of reasoning by which anything may be either
proved or disproved.—Joseph Addison Alexander.
Verse
12. That our sons may be as plants, etc. They who have ever
been employed in the cultivation of plants of any kind, are continually tempted
to wish that the human objects of their care and culture would grow up as
rapidly, as straight, as flourishing, would as uniformly fulfil their specific
idea and purpose, as abundantly reward the labour bestowed on them...If our
sons are indeed to grow up as young plants, like our English oaks, which
according to the analogies of Nature, furnish no inappropriate type of our
national character, they must not be stunted or dwarfed or pollarded, for the
sake of being kept under the shade of a stranger. They should grow up straight
toward heaven, as God had ordained them to grow...There is something so
palpable and striking in this type, that twenty-five years ago, in speaking of
the gentlemanly character, I was led to say, "If a gentleman is to grow up
he must grow like a tree: there must be nothing between him and heaven."—Julius
Charles Hare, in a Sermon entitled "Education the Necessity of
Mankind," 1851.
Verse
12. That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth,
etc. Thus David prays for the rising generation. Metaphors seem generally
unsuitable to prayer, but they do not wear this aspect in the prayers recorded
in the Scriptures. The language of the text is tropical, but the metaphors are
suitable and seasonable. Roots of vegetables are necessarily invisible. Tender
plants are insignificant. A plant grown up, having height in its stem,
width in its branches, abundance in its foliage, and fulness in its bloom, is
conspicuous. David prays that the sons of that generation might be in their
youth "as plants grown up", that is, that their piety might
not only live, but that their godliness might be fully expressed. The stones of
a foundation are concealed. The stones in the mid wall of a
building are also necessarily hid. The stones on the surface of a wall
are visible, but they are not distinguished. The cornerstone of
buildings in that day was prominent and eminent. Placed at the angle of the
structure, where two walls met, on the top of the walls, and being richly
ornamented and polished, it attracted attention. David prays that the daughters
of that day might make an open and lovely profession of religion—that both sons
and daughters might not only have piety but show it.—Samuel
Martin, in "Cares of Youth."
Verse
12. "Plants grown up" "Corner stones
polished." These processes of growth and polish can be carried on in
one place only, the church of Christ.—Neale and Littledale.
Verse
12. That our daughters may be as corner stones, etc. "The
polished corners of the temple", rather "the sculptured
angles, the ornament, of a palace." Great care and much ornament were
bestowed by the ancients upon the angles of their splendid palaces. It is
remarkable that the Greeks made use of pilasters, called Caryatides (carved
after the figure of a woman dressed in long robes), to support the entablatures
of their buildings.—Daniel Cresswell.
Verse
12. That our daughters may be as corner stones, polished after the
similitude of a palace or temple. By daughters families are united and
connected to their mutual strength, as the parts of a building are by the
cornerstones; and when they are graceful and beautiful both in body and mind,
they are then polished after the similitude of a nice and curious structure.
When we see our daughters well established, and stayed with wisdom and
discretion, as cornerstones are fastened in the building; when we see them by
faith united to Christ, as the chief cornerstone, adorned with the graces of
God's Spirit, which are the polishing of that which is naturally rough, and
"become women professing godliness"; when we see them purified and
consecrated to God as living temples, we think ourselves happy in them.—Matthew
Henry.
Verse
12. That our daughters may be as corner stones, etc. One might
perhaps at the first glance have expected that the daughters of a household
would be as the graceful ornament of the clustering foliage or the fruit
bearing tree, and the sons as the cornerstones upholding the weight and
burden of the building, and yet it is the reverse here. And I think one may
read the love and tenderness of the Lord in this apparently casual but intended
expression, and that he meant the nations of the earth to know and understand
how much of their happiness, their strength, and their security was dependent
on the female children of a family. It has not been so considered in many a
nation that knew not God: in polished Greece in times of old, and in some
heathen nations even to this day, the female children of a family have been
cruelly destroyed, as adding to the burdens and diminishing the resources of a
household; and alas! too, even in Christian countries, if not destroyed, they
are with equal pitiless and remorseless cruelty cut off from all the solace and
ties and endearments of life, and immured in that living mockery of a grave,
the cloister, that they may not prove incumbrances and hindrances to others!
How contrary all this to the loving purpose of our loving God! whose Holy
Spirit has written for our learning that sons and daughters are alike intended
to be the ornament and grace, the happiness and blessing of every household.—Barton
Bouchier.
Verse
12. After the similitude of a palace. Most interpreters give
the last word the vague sense of "a palace." There is
something, however, far more striking in the translation temple, found
in the Prayer Book and the ancient versions. The omission of the article is a
poetic license of perpetual occurrence. The temple was the great architectural
model and standard of comparison, and particularly remarkable for the great
size and skilful elaboration of its foundation stones, some of which, there is
reason to believe, have remained undisturbed since the time of Solomon.—Joseph
Addison Alexander.
Verses
12-15. In the former part of the psalm he speaks of such things as
concern his own happiness: "Blessed be the Lord my strength"
(Ps 144:1); "Send thine hand from above; and deliver me out of great
waters" (Ps 144:7); "Rid me, and deliver me from the hand of strange
children" (Ps 144:11). And he might as easily have continued the same strain
in the clauses following: "That my sons may grow up as plants, my
daughters may be as the polished corners of the temple, my sheep
fruitful, my oxen strong, my garners full and plenteous";
and accordingly he might have concluded it also—"Happy shall I be,
if I be in such a case." This, I say, he might have done; nay, this
he would have done, if his desires had reflected only upon himself. But being
of a diffusive heart, and knowing what belonged to the neighbourhoods of piety,
as loath to enjoy this happiness alone, he alters his style, and (being in the
height of well wishes to himself) he turns the singular into a plural—our
sheep, our oxen, our garners, our sons and daughters, that he might
compendiate all in this,—Happy are the people. Here is a true testimony
both of a religious and generous mind, who knew in his most retired thoughts to
look out of himself, and to be mindful of the public welfare in his most
private meditations. S. Ambrose observes it as a clear character of a noble
spirit, to do what tends to the public good, though to his own disadvantage.—Richard
Holdsworth (1590-1649), in "The Valley of Vision."
Verses
12-15. These words contain a striking picture of a prosperous and happy
nation. We are presented with a view of the masculine youth of the
nation by the oaks of the forest, become great in the early period of the
vigour and excellency of the soil. They are represented in the distinguishing
character of their sex, standing abroad the strength of the nation, whence its
resources for action must be derived. On the other hand, the young females
of a nation are exhibited under an equally just and proper representation of
their position and distinguishing character. They are not exhibited by a
metaphor derived from the hardier tenants of the forest, but they are shown to
us by a representation taken from the perpetual accompaniments of the dwelling;
they are the supports and the ornaments of domestic life. Plenty of
every kind is represented to us in possession and in reasonable expectation. No
breaking in, no invasion by a furious foe, oppresses the inhabitants of
this happy country with terror; neither is there any going out. The
barbarous practice employed by Sennacherib, and other ancient conquerors, of
transporting the inhabitants of a vanquished country to some distant,
unfriendly, and hated land,—the practice at this moment employed, to the
scandal of the name and the sorrow of Europe—they dread not: they fear no "going
out." Under circumstances of such a nature causes of distress or
complaint exist not; or, if they do, they are capable of being so modified, and
alleviated, and remedied, that there is no complaining in the streets.
"Happy, then, is that people, that is in such a case."—John Pye
Smith, 1775-1851.
Verse
13. That our sheep may bring forth thousands, etc. The
surprising fecundity of the sheep has been celebrated by writers of every
class. It has not escaped the notice of the royal Psalmist, who, in a beautiful
ascription of praise to the living and the true God, entreats that the sheep of
his chosen people might "bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our
streets." In another song of Zion, he represents, by a very elegant
metaphor, the numerous flocks covering like a garment the face of the
field:—"The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys also are covered
over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing": Ps 65:13. The bold
figure is fully warranted by the prodigious numbers of sheep which whitened the
extensive pastures of Syria and Canaan. In that part of Arabia which borders on
Judea, the patriarch Job possessed at first seven thousand, and after the
return of his prosperity, fourteen thousand sheep; and Mesha, the king of Moab,
paid the king of Israel "a yearly tribute of a hundred thousand lambs, and
an equal number of rams with the wool": 2Ki 3:4. In the war which the
tribe of Reuben waged with the Hagarites, the former drove away "two
hundred and fifty thousand sheep": 1Ch 5:21. At the dedication of the
temple, Solomon offered in sacrifice "an hundred and twenty thousand
sheep." At the feast of the passover, Josiah, the king of Judah,
"gave to the people, of the flock, lambs and kids, all for the passover
offerings, for all that were present, to the number of thirty thousand, and
three thousand bullocks: these were of the king's substance": 2Ch 35:7.
The ewe brings forth her young commonly once a year, and in more ungenial
climes, seldom more than one lamb at a time. But twin lambs are as frequent in
the oriental regions, as they are rare in other places; which accounts in a
satisfactory manner for the prodigious numbers which the Syrian shepherd led to
the mountains. This uncommon fruitfulness seems to be intimated by Solomon in
his address to the spouse:—"Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are
even shorn, which came up from the washing; whereof every one bear twins, and
none is barren among them": So 4:2.—George Paxton (1762-1837), in
"Illustrations of Scripture."
Verses
13-14. Streets, though not incorrect, is an inadequate translation of
the Hebrew word, which means external spaces, streets as opposed to the inside
of houses, fields or country as opposed to a whole town. Here it includes not
only roads but fields.—Joseph Addison Alexander.
Verse
14. That our oxen may be strong to labour. (Margin: "able
to bear burdens", or, loaded with flesh.) As in the verse
before he had ascribed the fruitfulness of the herds and flocks to God's
goodness, so now the fattening of their oxen, to show that there is nothing
relating to us here which he overlooks.—John Calvin.
Verse
14. That our oxen may be strong to labour. Oxen were not only
used for ploughing, thrashing, and drawing, but also for bearing burdens;
compare 1Ch 12:40, which passage is peculiarly fitted to throw light on the
verse before us. Laden oxen presuppose a rich abundance of produce.—E.W.
Hengstenberg.
Verse
14. That there be no complaining in our streets, etc. Rather,
"and no cry of sorrow" (comp. Isa 24:11 Jer 14:2 46:12) "in our
open places", i.e., the places where the people commonly assembled
near the gate of the city (comp. 2Ch 32:6 Ne 8:1). The word rendered "complaining"
does not occur elsewhere in the psalter.—Speaker's Commentary.
Verse
14. No complaining. No outcries but "Harvest
homes."—John Trapp.
Verse
15. Happy is that people, etc. We have in the text happiness
with an echo, or ingemination; "happy" and "happy."
From this ingemination arise the parts of the text; the same which are the
parts both of the greater world and the less. As the heaven and earth in the
one, and the body and soul in the other; so are the passages of this Scripture
in the two veins of happiness. We may range them as Isaac does the two parts of
his blessing (Ge 27:28); the vein of civil happiness, in "the fatness of
the earth"; and the vein of Divine happiness, in "the fatness of heaven."
Or (if you will have it out of the gospel), here's Martha's portion in the
"many things" of the body; and Mary's better part in the unum
necessarium of the soul. To give it yet more concisely, here's the path of prosperity
in outward comforts, "Happy is that people that is in such a
case"; and the path of piety in comforts spiritual: Yea,
happy is that people, whose God is the LORD. In the handling of the first,
without any further subdivision, I will only show what it is the Psalmist
treats of; and that shall be by way of gradation, in these three particulars.
It is De Felicitate; De Felicitate Populi; De Hac Felicitate Populi: of happiness;
of the people's happiness; of the people's happiness, as in
such a case.
Happiness is the
general, and the first: a noble argument, and worthy of an inspired pen,
especially the Psalmist's. Of all other there can be none better to speak of popular
happiness than such a king; nor of celestial, than such a prophet.
Yet I mean not to discourse of it in the full latitude, but only as it hath a
peculiar posture in this psalm, very various and different from the order of
other psalms. In this psalm it is reserved to the end, as the close of
the foregoing meditations. In other psalms it is set in the front, or
first place of all; as in Ps 32:1-11, in Ps 112:1-10, in Ps 119:1-176, and in
the Ps 128:1-6. Again, in this the Psalmist ends with our happiness and
begins with God's. "Blessed be the LORD my strength." In Ps 41:1-13,
contrary, he makes his exordium from man's; "Blessed is he
that considereth the poor"; his conclusion with God's;
"Blessed be the Lend God of Israel." I therefore observe these
variations, because they are helpful to the understanding both of the essence
and splendour of true happiness. To the knowledge of the essence
they help, because they demonstrate how our own happiness is enfolded in the
glory of God, and subordinate unto it. As we cannot begin with beatus
unless we end with benedictus: so we must begin with benedictus
that we may end with beatus. The reason is this,—because the glory of
God is as well the consummation as the introduction to a
Christian's happiness. Therefore as in the other psalm he begins below and ends
upwards; so in this, having begun from above with that which is principal,
"Blessed be the LORD"; he fixes his second thoughts upon the
subordinate, "Blessed, or happy, are the people." He could not
proceed in a better order: he first looks up to God's kingdom, then
reflects upon his own, as not meaning to take blessedness before he had given
it.—Richard Holdsworth.
Verse
15. Happy is that people, that is in such a case, etc. The first part
of this text hath relation to temporal blessings, "Blessed is the
people that be so": the second to spiritual, "Yea, blessed is
the people while God is the LORD." "His left hand is under my
head", saith the spouse (So 2:6); that sustains me from falling into
murmuring, or diffidence of his providence, because out of his left hand he
hath given me a competency of his temporal blessings; "But his right hand
doth embrace me", saith the spouse there; his spiritual blessings fill me,
possess me so that no rebellious fire breaks out within me, no outward
temptation breaks in upon me. So also Solomon says again, "In her left
hand is riches and glory" (temporal blessings) "and in her right hand
length of days" (Pr 3:16), all that accomplishes and fulfils the eternal
joys of the saints of heaven. The person to whom Solomon attributes this right
and left hand is Wisdom; and a wise man may reach out his right and left hand,
to receive the blessings of both sorts. And the person whom Solomon represents
by Wisdom there, is Christ himself. So that not only a worldly wise man, but a
Christian wise man may reach out both hands, to both kinds of blessings, right
and left, spiritual and temporal.
Now,
for this first blessedness, as no philosophers could ever tell us amongst the
Gentiles what true blessedness was, so no grammarian amongst the Jews, amongst
the Hebrews, could ever tell us what the right signification of this word is,
in which David expresses blessedness here; whether asherei, which is the
word, be a plural noun, and signify beatitudines, blessednesses in the
plural, and intimate thus much, that blessedness consists not in any one thing,
but in a harmony and consent of many; or whether this asherei be an
adverb, and signify beate, and so be an acclamation, O how happily, how
blessedly are such men provided for that are so; they cannot tell. Whatsoever
it be, it is the very first word with which David begins his Book of Psalms; beatus
vir; as the last word of that book is, laudate Dominum; to show that
all that passes between God and man, from first to last, is blessings from God
to man, and praises from man to God; and that the first degree of blessedness is
to find the print of the hand of God even in his temporal blessednesses, and to
praise and glorify him for them in the right use of them. A man that hath no
land to hold by it, nor title to recover by it, is never the better for
finding, or buying, or having a fair piece of evidence, a fair instrument,
fairly written, duly sealed, authentically testified; a man that hath not the
grace of God, and spiritual blessings too, is never the nearer happiness, for
all his abundances of temporal blessedness. Evidences are evidences to them who
have title. Temporal blessings are evidences to them who have a testimony of
God's spiritual blessings in the temporal. Otherwise, as in his hands who hath
no title, it is a suspicious thing to find evidences, and he will be thought to
have embezzled and purloined them, he will be thought to have forged and
counterfeited them, and he will be called to an account for them, how he came
by them, and what he meant to do with them: so to them who have temporal
blessings without spiritual, they are but useless blessings, they are but
counterfeit blessings, they shall not purchase a minute's peace here, nor a
minute's refreshing to the soul hereafter; and there must be a heavy account
made for them, both how they were got, and how they were employed.—John
Donne.
Verse
15. Happy is that people, etc. It is only a narrow and one
sided religion that can see anything out of place in this beatitude of plenty
and peace. If we could rejoice with the psalms fully and without misgiving, in
the temporal blessings bestowed by heaven, we should the more readily and
sincerely enter into the depths of their spiritual experience. And the secret
of this lies in the full comprehension and contemplation of the beautiful and
pleasant as the gift of God.—A.S. Aglen.
Verse
15. Yea, happy is that people, whose God is the LORD. "Yea,
happy." This is the best wine, kept to the last, though all men be not
of this opinion. You shall hardly bring a worldly man to think so. The world is
willing enough to misconstrue the order of the words, and to give the priority
to civil happiness, as if it were first in dignity, because 'tis first named:
they like better to hear of the cui sic than the cui Dominus. To
prevent this folly, the Psalmist interposes a caution in this corrective
particle, "yea, happy." It hath the force of a revocation,
whereby he seems to retract what went before, not simply and absolutely, but in
a certain degree, lest worldly men should wrest it to a misinterpretation. It
is not an absolute revocation, but a comparative; it doth not
simply deny that there is some part of popular happiness in these outward
things, but it prefers the spirituals before them: "Yea", that
is, Yea more, or, Yea rather; like that of Christ in the Gospel,
when one in the company blessed the womb that bare him, he presently replies,
"Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it":
Lu 11:28. In like manner, the prophet David, having first premised the inferior
part and outside of a happy condition; fearing lest any should of purpose
mistake his meaning, and, hearing the first proposition, should either there
set up their rest, and not at all take up the second; or if they take it in, do
it preposterously, and give it the precedence before the second, according to
the world's order, Virtus post nummos. In this respect he puts in the
clause of revocation, whereby he shows that these outward things, though named
first, yet they are not to be reputed first. The particle "Yea"
removes them to the second place; it tacitly transposes the order; and the path
of piety, which was locally after, it places virtually before.
'Tis as if he had said, Did I call them happy who are in such a case?
Nay, miserable are they if they be only in such a case: the temporal part
cannot make them so without the spiritual. Admit the windows of the visible
heaven were opened, and all outward blessings poured down upon us; admit we did
perfectly enjoy whatsoever the vastness of the earth contains in it; tell me,
What will it profit to gain all and lose God? If the earth be bestowed upon us,
and not heaven; or the material heaven be opened, and not the beatifical; or
the whole world made ours, and God not ours; we do not arrive at happiness. All
that is in the first proposition is nothing unless this be added, "Yea,
happy are the people which have the Lord for their God."—Richard
Holdsworth.
Verse
15.
Thrice
happy nations, where with look benign
Thine aspect bends; beneath thy smile divine
The fields are with increasing harvests crown'd,
The flocks grow fast, and plenty reigns around,
Nor sire, nor infant son, black death shall crave,
Till ripe with age they drop into the grave;
Nor fell suspicion, nor relentless care,
Nor peace destroying discord enter there,
But friends and brothers, wives and sisters, join
The feast in concord and in love divine.—Callimachus.
Verse
15. David having prayed for many temporal blessings in the behalf of
the people from Ps 144:12-15, at last concludes, Blessed are the people that
are in such a case; but presently he checks and corrects himself, and eats,
as it were, his own words, but rather, happy is that people whose God is the
Lord. The Syriac rendereth it question wise, "Is not the people
(happy) that is in such a case?" The answer is, "No",
except they have God to boot: Ps 146:5. Nothing can make that man truly
miserable that hath God for his portion, and nothing can make that man truly
happy that wants God for his portion. God is the author of all true happiness;
he is the donor of all true happiness; he is the maintainer of all true
happiness, and he is the centre of all true happiness; and, therefore, he that
hath him for his God, and for his portion, is the only happy man in the world.—Thomas
Brooks.
Verse
15. Whose God is JEHOVAH. A word or name well known to us
English, by our translators now often retaining that name in the mention of God
in our English Bible, and therefore we shall do well to retain it. Lord
was a lower word, in common acceptation, than God. But JEHOVAH is a
higher name than either, and more peculiar, incommunicable, and comprehensive.
Ex 6:3: "I appeared" (saith the Lord) "unto Abraham, unto Isaac,
and unto Jacob, by the name God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I
not known to them."
To
have God to be our Jehovah is the insurance of happiness to us. For of
many, observe but these two things in the name Jehovah: First, God's
absolute independency—that he is of himself omnipotent, Ex 3:14:
"And God said, I AM THAT I AM." Secondly, God's faithfulness,
that he cannot but be as good as his word, Ex 6:2-4, 6: "And I have also
established my covenant with them; wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I
am JEHOVAH (so in the Hebrew), and I will bring you out from under the burdens
of the Egyptians." So that this name is our security of God's
performance. Examine we therefore our bonds, and bills, that is, his promises
to us; behold, they are all the promises of Jehovah; they must stand good, for
they bear his name; they must reflect his name, and promote both our good and
God's grand design.—Nathanael Homes, 1678.
With
this prayer of Jehovah's anointed One end the prayers of the Book of Psalms.
The remaining six psalms consist exclusively of praise and high Hallelujahs.—Lord
Congleton, in "The Psalms: a new Version, with Notes", 1875.
HINTS TO THE
VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse
1.
1.
Two things needful in our holy war—strength and skill; for the hands and the
fingers, for the difficult and the delicate.
2.
In what way God supplies us with both. He is the one, and teaches the other.
Impartation and Instruction. The teaching comes by illumination, experience,
distinct guidance.
Verse
1. Things not to be forgotten by the Christian Soldier.
1.
The true source of his strength: "The Lord my strength." If
remembered,
a)
He will not be found trusting in self.
b) He will never be wanting in courage.
c) He will always anticipate victory.
d) He will never be worsted in the conflict.
2.
His constant need of instruction, and the Teacher who never forgets him:
"Which teacheth my hands", etc. If remembered,
a)
He will gird on the armour provided and commended by God.
b)
He will select for his weapon the sword of the Spirit.
c)
He will study the divinely given text book of military tactics and discipline,
that he may learn (1) the devices of the enemy; (2) methods of attack and
defence; (3) how to bear himself in the thick of the fight.
d)
He will wait upon God for understanding.
3.
The praise due to God, both for victories won and skill displayed:
"Blessed be", etc. If remembered,
a)
He will wear his honours humbly.
b) Glorify the honour of his King.
c) Twice taste the sweets of victory in the happiness of gratitude.—J.F.
Verse
2. Double flowers.
1.
Good preserved from evil: "goodness" and "fortress."
2.
Safety enlarged into liberty: "tower", "deliverer."
3.
Security attended with rest: "shield, in whom I trust."
4.
Sufficiency to maintain superiority: "subdueth my people under me."
View God as working all.
Verse
2. A Group of Titles. Notice,
1.
Which comes first. "Goodness." Heb. "Mercy."
a)
It is right and natural that a saved sinner should make the most of
"mercy", and place it in the foreground.
b)
Mercy is the ground and reason of the other titles named. For whatever God is
to us, it is a special manifestation of his mercy.
c)
It is a good thing to see a believer ripe in experience making mercy the
leading note in his song of praise.
2.
Which comes last: "He in whom I trust." It suggests,
a)
That what God is makes him worthy of trust.
b)
That meditation upon what he is strengthens our trust.
3.
What peculiar force the word "my" gives to each. It makes it,
a)
A record of experience.
b)
An ascription of praise.
c)
A blessed boasting.
d)
An incentive, enough to set others longing.—J.F.
Verse
3. A note of interrogation, exclamation, and admiration.
Verse
3. The question,
1.
Denies any right in man to claim the regard of God.
2.
Asserts the great honour God has nevertheless put upon him.
3.
Suggests that the true reason of God's generous dealings is the graciousness of
his own heart.
4.
Implies the becomingness of gratitude and humility.
5.
Encourages the most unworthy to put their confidence in God.—J.F.
Verse
3.
1.
What was man as he came from the hands of his Creator?
a)
Rational.
b) Responsible.
c) Immortal.
d) Holy and happy.
2.
What is man in his present condition?
a)
Fallen.
b) Guilty.
c) Sinful.
d) Miserable, and helpless in his misery.
3.
What is man when he has believed in Christ?
a)
Restored to a right relation to God.
b) Restored to a right disposition toward God.
c) He enjoys the influences of the Holy Spirit.
d) He is in process of preparation for the heavenly world.
4.
What shall man be when he is admitted into heaven?
a)
Free from sin and sorrow.
b) Advanced to the perfection of his nature.
c) Associated with angels.
d) Near to his Saviour and his God.
—George
Brooks, in "The Homiletic Commentary," 1879.
Verse
3. Worthless man much regarded by the mighty God. Sermon by Ebenezer
Erskine. Works 3, pp. 141-162.
Verse
3. It is a wonder above all wonders, that ever the great God should
make such account of such a thing as man.
1.
It will appear if you consider what a great God the Lord is.
2. What a poor thing man is.
3. What a great account the great God hath of this poor thing, man.
—Joseph Alleine.
Verse
4. He is nothing, he pretends to be something, he is soon gone, he
ends in nothing as to this life; yet there is a light somewhere.
Verse
4. The Shadow World.
1.
Our lives are like shadows.
2.
But God's light casts these shadows. Our being is of God. The brevity and
mystery of life are a part of providence.
3.
The destiny of the shadows; eternal night; or eternal light.—W.B.H.
Verse
4. The brevity of our earthly life.
1.
A profitable subject for meditation.
2.
A rebuke to those who provide for this life alone.
3.
A trumpet call to prepare for eternity.
4.
An incentive to the Christian to make the best of this life for the glory of
God.—J.F.
Verse
5. Condescension, visitation, contact, and conflagration.
Verses
7-8, 11. Repetitions, not vain. Repetitions in prayer are vain when they
result from form, thoughtlessness, or superstition; but not, e.g.,
1.
When they are the utterance of genuine fervour.
2.
When the danger prayed against is imminent.
3.
When the fear which prompts the prayer is urgent.
4. When
the repetition is prompted by a new motive, Ps 144:7-8; by God's condescension,
Ps 144:3,11; by God's former deliverance, Ps 144:10; and by the results which
will flow from the answer, Ps 144:12-14.—C.A.D.
Verse
8. What is "a right hand of falsehood"? Ask the hypocrite,
the schemer, the man of false doctrine, the boaster, the slanderer, the man who
forgets his promise, the apostate.
Verse
9. For God's Ear.
1.
The Singer. A grateful heart.
2.
The Song. Full of Praise. New.
3.
The Accompaniment: "Psaltery." Helps to devotion. Give God the best.
4.
The Auditor and Object of the eulogium: "Thee, O God."—W.B.H.
Verse
11. Persons from whom it is a mercy to escape: those alien to God,
vain in conversation, false in deed.
Verses
11-12. The Nature and Necessity of early Piety. A Sermon preached to a
Society of Young People, at Willingham, Cambridgeshire, on the First Day of the
Year 1772.—Robert Robinson.
Verse
12. Youth attended with development, stability, usefulness, and
spiritual health.
Verse
12. (first clause). To Young Men. Consider,
1.
What is desired on your behalf: "Sons may be as plants", etc.
(a)
That you may be respected and valued.
(b)
That you may have settled principles and virtues. Plants are not blown hither
and thither.
(c)
That you may be vigorous and strong in moral power.
2.
What is requisite on your part to the accomplishment of this desire.
(a)
A good rooting in Christ.
(b)
Constant nourishment from the word of God.
(c)
The dews of divine grace obtained by prayer.
(d)
A resolute tendency within to answer the God appointed purpose of your
existence.—J.F.
Verse
12. (second clause). To Young Women. Consider,
1.
The important position you may occupy in the social fabric: "As
cornerstones."
(a)
The moral and religious tone of society is determined more by your character
and influence than by those of men.
(b)
The complexion of home life will be a reflex of your conduct and character,
either as daughters, sisters, or wives.
(c)
The moulding of the character of the next generation, remember, begins with the
mother's influence.
(d)
Let these facts weigh with you as a motive in seeking the grace of God, without
which you can never fulfil your mission worthily.
2.
The beauty which ought to belong to you in your position. "Polished
after", etc. The beauty of,
(a)
Heart purity: "The King's daughter is all glorious within."
(b)
A noble and modest conduct: "wrought gold", no imitation; real gold.
(c)
Gracious and gentle demeanour.
3.
How both the right position and right beauty are obtained.
(a)
By yielding yourselves to God.
(b)
By Christ dwelling in your heart.
(c)
By becoming living stones and polished stones under the workmanship of the Holy
Spirit.—J.F.
Verse
14. A prayer for our ministers, and for the security, unity, and
happiness of the church.
Verse
14. The prosperous Church. There—
1.
Labour is cheerfully performed.
2. The enemy is kept without the gate.
3. There are few or no departures.
4. Faith and content silence complaint.
5. Pray that such may be our case as a church.—W.B.H.
Verse
15. The peculiar happiness of those whose God is the Lord.
── C.H. Spurgeon《The Treasury of David》