EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verse 1.—When Christ complains of having been forsaken by God, we are not to understand that he was forsaken by the First Person, or that there was a dissolution of the hypostatic union, or that he lost the favour and friendship of the Father; but he signifies to us that God permitted his human nature to undergo those dreadful torments, and to suffer an ignominious death, from which he could, if he chose, most easily deliver him. Nor did such complaints proceed either from impatience or ignorance, as if Christ were ignorant of the cause of his suffering, or was not most willing to bear such abandonment in his suffering; such complaints were only a declaration of his most bitter sufferings. And whereas, through the whole course of his passion, with such patience did our Lord suffer, as not to let a single groan or sigh escape from him, so now, lest the bystanders may readily believe that he was rendered impassible by some superior power; therefore, when his last moments were nigh, he protests that he is true man, truly passible: forsaken by his Father in his sufferings, the bitterness and acuteness of which he then intimately felt.—Robert Bellarmine (Cardinal), 1542-1621.

Verse 1.—Divines are wont commonly to say, that Christ, from the moment of his conception, had the sight of God, his human soul being immediately united to the Deity, Christ from the very moment of his conception had the sight of God. Now for our Saviour, who had known experimentally how sweet the comfort of his Father’s face had been, and had lived all his days under the warm beams and influences of the Divinity, and had had his soul all along refreshed with the sense of the Divine presence, for him to be left in that horror and darkness, as to have no taste of comfort, no glimpse of the Divinity breaking in upon his human soul, how great an affliction must that needs be unto him!—John Row.

Verse 1.—Desertion is in itself no sin; for Christ endured its bitterness, ay, he was so deep in it, that when he died, he said, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” A total, a final desertion ours is not; partial the best have had and have. God turns away his face, David himself is troubled: “The just shall live by faith,” and not by feeling.—Richard Capel.

Verse 1.—Oh! how will our very hearts melt with love, when we remember that as we have been distressed for our sins against him; so he was in greater agonies for us? We have had gall and wormwood, but he tasted a more bitter cup. The anger of God has dried up our spirits, but he was scorched with a more flaming wrath. He was under violent pain in the garden, and on the cross; ineffable was the sorrow that he felt, being forsaken of his Father, deserted by his disciples, affronted and reproached by his enemies, and under a curse for us. This Sun was under a doleful eclipse, this living Lord was pleased to die, and in his death was under the frowns of an angry God. The face was then hid from him that had always smiled before; and his soul felt that horror and that darkness which it had never felt before. So that there was no separation between the divine and human nature, yet he suffered pains equal to those which we had deserved to suffer in hell for ever. God so suspended the efficacies of his grace that it displayed in that hour none of its force and virtue on him. He had no comfort from heaven, none from his angels, none from his friends, even in that sorrowful hour when he needed comfort most. Like a lion that is hurt in the forest, so he roared and cried out, though there was no despair in him; and when he was forsaken, yet there was trust and hope in these words, “My God, my God.”—Timothy Rogers.

Verse 1.—Here is comfort to deserted souls; Christ himself was deserted; therefore, if thou be deserted, God dealeth no otherwise with thee than he did with Christ. Thou mayst be beloved of God and not feel it; Christ was so, he was beloved of the Father, and yet had no present sense and feeling of his love. This may be a great comfort to holy souls under the suspension of those comforts and manifestations which sometimes they have felt; Christ himself underwent such a suspension, therefore such a suspension of divine comfort may consist with God’s love. Thou mayst conclude possibly, “I am a hypocrite, and therefore God hath forsaken me;” this is the complaint of some doubting Christians, “I am a hypocrite, and therefore God hath forsaken me;” but thou hast no reason so to conclude: there was no failure in Christ’s obedience, and yet Christ was forsaken in point of comfort; therefore desertion, in point of comfort, may consist with truth of grace, yes, with the highest measure of grace; so it did in our Saviour.—John Row.

Verse 1.—Lord, thou knowest what it is for a soul to be forsaken, it was sometime thine own case when thou complainedst, “My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” not, O my Lord! but that thou hadst a divine supportment, but thou hadst not (it seemeth) that inward joy which at other times did fill thee; now thou art in thy glory, pity a worm in misery, that mourns and desires more after thee than all things: Lord, thou paidst dear for my good, let good come unto me.—Joseph Symonds, 1658.

Verse 1.—The first verse expresses a species of suffering that never at any other time was felt in this world, and never will be again—the vengeance of the Almighty upon his child—“My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”—R. H. Ryland.

Verse 2.—“O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not,” etc. How like is this expostulation to that of a human child with its earthly parent! It is based on the ground of relationship—“I am thine; I cry day and night, yet I am not heard. Thou art my God, yet nothing is done to silence me. In the daytime of my life I cried; in this night season of my death I intreat. In the garden of Gethsemane I occupied the night with prayers; with continual ejaculations have I passed through this eventful morning. O my God, thou hast not yet heard me, therefore am I not yet silent; I cannot cease till thou answerest.” Here Christ urges his suit in a manner which none but filial hearts adopt. The child knows that the parent yearns over him. His importunity is strengthened by confidence in paternal love. He keeps not silence, he gives him no rest because he confides in his power and willingness to grant the desired relief. This is natural. It is the argument of the heart, an appeal to the inward yearnings of our nature. It is also scriptural, and is thus stated, “If ye then being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” Luke xi. 13.—John Stevenson, in “Christ on the Cross,” 1842.

Verse 2.—The princely prophet says, “Lord, I cry unto thee in the daytime, but thou hearest not, also in the night time, and yet this is not to be thought folly to me.”[15] Some perhaps would think it a great point of folly for a man to cry and call unto him who stops his ears, and seems not to hear. Nevertheless, this folly of the faithful is wiser than all the wisdom of the world. For we know well enough, that howsoever God seem at the first not to hear, yet the Lord is a sure refuge in due time—in affliction. Psalm ix. 9.—Thomas Playfere.

Verses 2, 3.—Well, what hears God from him, now he hears nothing from God, as to the deliverance prayed for? No murmuring at God’s proceedings; nay, he hears quite the contrary, for he justifies and praises God: “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.” Observe whether thou canst not gather something from the manner of God’s denying the thing prayed for, which may sweeten it to thee! Haply thou shalt find he denies thee, but it is with a smiling countenance, and ushers it in with some expressions of grace and favour, that may assure thee his denial proceeds not from displeasure. As you would do with a dear friend, who, may be, comes to borrow a sum of money of you; lend it you dare not, because you see plainly it is not for his good; but in giving him the denial, lest he should misinterpret it, as proceeding from want of love and respect, you preface it with some kind of language of your hearty affection to him, as that you love him, and therefore deny him, and shall be ready to do for him more than that comes to. Thus God sometimes wraps up his denials in such sweet intimations of love, as prevents all jealousies arising in the hearts of his people.—William Gurnall.

Verses 2, 3.—They that have conduit-water come into their houses, if no water come they do not conclude the spring to be dry, but the pipes to be stopped or broken. If prayer speed not, we must be sure that the fault is not in God, but in ourselves; were we but ripe for mercy, he is ready to extend it to us, and even waits for the purpose.—John Trapp.

Verse 3.—“But thou art holy.” Here is the triumph of faith—the Saviour stood like a rock in the wide ocean of temptation. High as the billows rose, so did his faith, like the coral rock, wax greater and stronger till it became an island of salvation to our shipwrecked souls. It is as if he had said, “It matters not what I endure Storms may howl upon me; men despise; devils tempt; circumstances overpower; and God himself forsake me, still God is holy; there is no unrighteousness in him.”—John Stevenson.

Verse 3.—“But thou art holy.” Does it seem strange that the heart in its darkness and sorrow should find comfort in this attribute of God? No, for God’s holiness is but another aspect of his faithfulness and mercy. And in that remarkable name, “the Holy One of Israel,” we are taught that he who is the “holy” God is also the God who has made a covenant with his chosen. It would be impossible for an Israelite to think of God’s holiness without thinking also of that covenant relationship. “Be ye holy; for I, the Lord your God am holy,” were the words in which Israel was reminded of their relation to God. See especially Lev. xix. 1. We see something of this feeling in such passages as Psalm lxxxix. 16-19; xcix. 5-9; Hosea xi. 8, 9; Isaiah xli. 14; xlvii. 4.—J. J. Stewart Perowne.

Verse 3.—Were temptations never so black, faith will not hearken to an ill word spoken against God, but will justify God always.—David Dickson.

Verses 4, 5.—Those who look upon this Psalm as having a primary reference to the King of Israel, attribute great beauty to these words, from the very pleasing conjecture that David was, at the time of composing them, sojourning at Mahanaim, where Jacob, in his distress, wrestled with the angel, and obtained such signal blessings. That, in a place so greatly hallowed by associations of the past, he should make his appeal to the God of his fathers, was alike the dictate of patriarchal feeling and religion.—John Morison D.D., in “Morning Meditations.”

Verse 5.—“Thou didst deliver them,” but thou wilt not deliver me; nay, rather thou didst deliver them because thou wilt not deliver me.—Gerhohus.

Verse 6.—“But I am a worm, and no man.” A fisherman, when he casts his angle into the river, doth not throw the hook in bare, naked, and uncovered, for then he knows the fish will never bite, and therefore he hides the hook within a worm, or some other bait, and so, the fish, biting at the worm, is catched by the hook. Thus Christ, speaking of himself, saith, “Ego vermis et non homo.” He, coming to perform the great work of our redemption, did cover and hide his Godhead within the worm of his human nature. The grand water-serpent, Leviathan, the devil, thinking to swallow the worm of his humanity, was caught upon the hook of his divinity. This hook stuck in his jaws, and tore him very sore. By thinking to destroy Christ, he destroyed his own kingdom, and lost his own power for ever.—Lancelot Andrews.

Verse 6.—“I am a worm.” Christ calls himself “a worm” ... on account of the opinion that men of the world had of him.... The Jews esteemed Christ as a worm, and treated him as such; he was loathsome to them and hated by them; every one trampled upon him, and trod him under foot as men do worms.... The Chaldee paraphrase renders it here a weak worm; and though Christ is the mighty God, and is also the Son of man, whom God made strong for himself; yet there was a weakness in his human nature, and he was crucified through it, 2 Cor. xiii. 4: and it has been observed by some, that the word תּוֹלַעַת there used signifies the scarlet worm, or the worm that is in the grain or berry with which scarlet is dyed; and like this scarlet worm did our Lord look, when by way of mockery he was clothed with a scarlet robe; and especially when he appeared in his dyed garments, and was red in his apparel, as one that treadeth in the wine vat; when his body was covered with blood when he hung upon the cross, which was shed to make crimson and scarlet sins as white as snow.—John Gill.