EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verse 6.—“I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me.” I have cried, says the Psalmist, because thou hast heard me. One would think he should have said contrariwise: thou hast heard me because I have cried; yet, he says, I have cried because thou hast heard me; to show that crying doth not always go before hearing with God, as it doth with us; but that God will not only hear our cry, but also hear us before we cry, and will help us.—T. Playfere.

Verse 6.—“I have called upon thee,” etc. Prayer is the best remedy in a calamity. This is indeed a true catholicon, a general remedy for every malady. Not like the empiric’s catholicon, which sometimes may work, but for the most part fails, but that which upon assured evidence and constant experience hath its probatum est; being that which the most wise, learned, honest, and skilful Physician that ever was, or can be, hath prescribed, even he that teacheth us how to bear what is to be borne, or how to heal and help what hath been borne.—William Gouge, 1575-1653.

Verse 6.—I have called upon thee formerly, therefore, Lord, hear me now. It will be a great comfort to us if trouble, when it comes, finds the wheels of prayer a-going, for then may we come with the more boldness to the throne of grace. Tradesmen are willing to oblige those that have been long their customers.—Matthew Henry.

Verse 8.—“Keep me as the apple of the eye.” He prays for deliverance (verse 7), “Show thy marvellous lovingkindness” to me; Lord, my straits they are marvellous, I know not what to do, whither to turn me, but my eyes are towards thee; as straits are marvellous, so let the lovingkindness of God be marvellous towards me, and “Keep me as the apple of thy eye.” O Lord unto them I am but a dog, a vile creature in the eyes of Saul and those about him: but blessed be thy name, I can look up to thee, and know that I am dear unto thee as the apple of thy eye. All the saints of God are dear to God at all times, but the persecuted saints, they are the apple of God’s eye; if at any time they are dear to God, then especially when they are most persecuted; now they are the apple of his eye, and the apple of an eye is weak, and little able to resist any hurt, but so much the more is the man tender of the apple of his eye. The saints are weak and shiftless for themselves, but the Lord is so much the more tender over them.—Jeremiah Burroughs.

Verse 8.—Does it not appear to thee to be a work of providence, that considering the weakness of the eye, he has protected it with eyelids, as with doors, which whenever there is occasion to use it are opened, and are again closed in sleep? And that it may not receive injury from the winds, he has planted on it eyelashes like a strainer; and over the eyes has disposed the eyebrows like a penthouse, so that the sweat from the head may do no mischief.—Socrates, in Xenophon.

Verse 9.—“From the wicked:” as though he had said, They are equally enemies to thee and me; not more opposite to me by their cruelty, than by their wickedness they are to thee. Vindicate then, at once, thyself, and deliver me.—John Howe.

Verse 10.—“They are inclosed in their own fat,” or their fat has inclosed them; either their eyes, that they can hardly see out of them, or their hearts, so that they are stupid and senseless, and devoid of the fear of God; the phrase is expressive of the multitude of their wealth, and increase of power, by which they were swelled with pride and vanity, and neither feared God nor regarded man; so the Targum paraphrases it, “their riches are multiplied, their fat covers them.”—John Gill.

Verse 10.—“They are inclosed in their own fat.” Their worldly prosperity puffeth them up, and makes them insensible and obdurate against all reason and just fear; and the Scripture doth use this term of a fattened heart in this sense, because that the fat of man hath no feeling in it, and those that are very fat are less subject to the passion of fear.—John Diodati.

Verse 10.—“They are inclosed in their own fat.” To say a man is fat, often means he is very proud. Of one who speaks pompously it is said, “What can we do? tassi kullap ināl,” that is, “from the fat of his flesh he declares himself.” “Oh, the fat of his mouth! how largely he talks!” “Take care, fellow! or I will restrain the fat of thy mouth.”—J. Roberts, in “Oriental Illustrations:” 1844.

Verse 11.—“They have now compassed us in our steps: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth.” A man who has people watching him to find out a cause for accusation against him to the king, or to great men, says, Yes, they are around my legs and my feet; their eyes are always open; they are ever watching my “suvadu,” “steps;” that is, they are looking for the impress or footsteps in the earth. For this purpose the eyes of the enemies of David were “bowing down to the earth.”—Joseph Roberts.

Verse 11.—“They have now compassed us in our steps.” Like those who destroy game by battue, and so make a ring around their prey from which their victims cannot escape.—C. H. S.

Verse 11.—“They have set their eyes bowing down to the earth.” The allusion probably is to the huntsman tracing the footmarks of the animal he pursues.—Religious Tract Society’s Commentary.

Verse 11.—“They have set their eyes bowing to the earth.” It is an allusion, as I conceive, to hunters, who go poring upon the ground to prick the hare, or to find the print of the hare’s claw, when the hounds are at a loss, and can make nothing of it by the scent.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 12.—“Like a lion,” etc. In “Paradise Lost,” we have a fine poetical conception of the arch enemy prowling around our first parents when he first beheld their happiness, and resolved to ruin them.

Verse 12.—We were consulting as to the best means of getting at a rhinoceros cow which we saw standing at some distance under a tree, when a troop of impalas came charging down, with a fine old lioness after them. We went and saw her lying down, but so flat to the ground, head and all, that no man could shoot with any certainty; and she never for a moment took her eyes from us. When we got up to her, she was lying down flat as a plate to the ground; but her head might have been on a pivot, as her watchful eye glared on us all round, without appearing to move her body, as we decreased the circle, in the hopes she would stand up and give us a fair chance of a shot behind the shoulder.... I looked for a tree to climb up, near enough to make tolerably sure of my shot, and was just getting up one, when the lioness made off.—William Charles Baldwin, F.R.G.S., in “African Hunting,” 1863.

Verse 13.—“The wicked, which is thy sword.”—The devil and his instruments both are God’s instruments, therefore “the wicked” are called his “sword,” his “axe” (Psalm xvii. 13; Isaiah x. 15); now let God alone to wield the one, and handle the other. He is but a bungler that hurts and hackles his own legs with his own axe; which God should do if his children should be the worse for Satan’s temptations. Let the devil choose his way, God is a match for him at every weapon. If he will try it by force of arms, and assaults the saints by persecution, as the “Lord of hosts” he will oppose him. If by policy and subtlety, he is ready there also. The devil and his whole council are but fools to God; nay, their wisdom foolishness.—William Gurnall.

Verses 13, 14.—“Thy sword ... thy hand.” Thou canst as easily command and manage them, as a man may wield his sword, or move his hand. Wilt thou suffer thine own sword, thine own hand, to destroy thine own servant?—J. Howe.

Verse 14 (first clause).—How wonderful are the dispensations of the providence of God, who can use even the wicked to promote the present happiness and the final salvation of his saints!—J. Edwards, M.A., 1856.

Verse 14.—“Men of the world, which have their portion in this life.” Time and this lower world, bound all their hopes and fears. They have no serious believing apprehensions of anything beyond this present life; therefore, have nothing to withhold them from the most injurious violence, if thou withhold them not; men that believe not another world, are the ready actors of any imaginable mischiefs and tragedies in this.—John Howe.

Verse 14.—“Men which are thy hand,” etc. What shall we say then? Because God maketh use of thy sins, art thou excused? Is not thine evil evil, because he picketh good out of it? Deceive not thyself therein. When thou hast done such service to thy Master and Maker, though seven and seven years, as Jacob did service to Laban, thou shalt lose thy wages and thy thanks too. Oh, well were thou if thou didst but lose, for thou shalt also gain a sorrowful advantage. It is unprofitable, nay, miserable service which thou hast thus bestowed. Babylon shall be the hammer of the Lord a long time to bruise the nations, himself afterwards bruised; Asshur his rod to scourge his people, but Asshur shall be more scourged. These hammers, rods, axes, saws, other instruments, when they have done their offices, which they never meant, shall be thrown themselves into the fire, and burnt to ashes. Satan did service to God, it cannot be denied, in the afflicting of Job, winnowing of Peter, buffeting of Paul, executing of Judas, and God did a work in all these, either to prove patience, or to confirm faith, or to try strength, or to commend justice; yet is Satan “reserved in chains, under darkness, to the retribution of the great day.” Judas did service to God, in getting honour to his blessed name for the redemption of mankind, whilst the world endureth, yet was his wages an alder-tree to hang himself upon, and which is worse, he hangeth in hell for eternal generations. He had his wages, and lost his wages. That which the priest gave him, he lost, and lost his apostleship, but gained the recompense of everlasting unhappiness, and lies in the lowest lake, for the worm and death to gnaw upon without ceasing.—John King.

Verse 14.—“Thy hand.” The hand of God, his correcting or cherishing hand, sometimes is an immediate, and sometimes a mediate hand. Sometimes it is immediate, when God by himself doth chasten, or punish, or afflict, when no second cause doth appear or intervene. So it may seem Satan means, when he saith (Job i. 11), “Put forth thy hand,” that is, do it thine own self, let no other have the handling of Job but thyself. God doth send such immediate afflictions; a man is afflicted in his body, in his estate, and many other ways, and he cannot find anything in the creature whence it should come; it is an immediate stroke of God, he cannot see how, or which way, or at what door this evil came in upon him; therefore it is called a creating of evil. Isaiah xlv. 7. “I make peace, and create evil.” Now creation is out of nothing, there is nothing out of which it is wrought. So many times God bringeth evil upon a people or person when there is no appearance of second causes, no matter out of which it is made, but it comes as a creature, formed by the only hand of God. Sometimes likewise it is called God’s hand, when it is the hand of a creature; it is God’s hand in a creature’s hand; God’s hand when it is the hand of wicked men, God’s hand when it is Satan’s hand. So that place is translated (Psalm xvii. 13, 14), “Deliver my soul from the wicked, which is thy sword: from men which are thy hand:” so that “thy hand” may be understood of an instrument; Satan himself is God’s hand to punish in that sense, as wicked men here are said to be God’s hand: “from men which are thy hand,” though there be other readings of that place; some read it, deliver me from men by thy hand; and others, deliver me from men of thy hand; but our translation may very well carry the sense of the original in it, “from men which are thy hand;” as Nebuchadrezzar, that wicked king, is called God’s servant (Jer. xliii. 10), “I will send and take Nebuchadrezzar my servant:” God speaks of him as his servant, or as his hand in the thing.—Joseph Caryl.