EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verses 5-9:—

Verse 6.—“Thy righteousness is like the great mountains.” Lit. mountains of God, which men have not planted, and which men cannot move.—Christopher Wordsworth.

Verse 6.—“Thy judgments are a great deep.” Men’s sins are a great deep, and Satan’s ways are called a depth; but God’s judgments, his ways in the wheels, are the greatest deep of all, they are unsearchable.—William Greenhill.

Verse 7.—“How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God!” etc. The expressions here which denote the abundance of divine blessings upon the righteous man seem to be taken from the temple, from whence they were to issue. Under the covert of the temple, the wings of the cherubim, they were to be sheltered. The richness of the sacrifices, the streams of oil, wine, odours, etc., and the light of the golden candlestick, are all plainly referred to.—Samuel Burder.

Verse 7.—“Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.” The word signifies to fly, to betake one’s self to a place of safety: as the chickens in danger to be seized on, fly under the wings of the hen. “Under whose wings thou art come to trust.” Ruth ii. 12. The helpless bird pursued by the kite, in danger to be devoured, runs under the shadow of the dam. Thus it is with a sinner at the first working of faith, he apprehends himself pursued by wrath and judgment; he knows if they seize on him he must perish without remedy. Oh, the sad condition of such a soul! Oh, but he sees Christ spreading his wings ready to secure perishing sinners; he hears him inviting in the gospel to come under his shadow! Oh, how sweet is that voice to him (however, while senseless he rejected it)! He hears, obeys, and runs to Christ for shelter, and so he is safe. “How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.”—David Clarkson.

Verse 7.—“Thy wings” A common figure in the Psalms, taken more immediately, in my opinion, from the wings of the cherubim overshadowing the mercy-seat which covered the ark; but more remotely from birds, which defend their young from the solar rays by overshadowing them with their wings.—Francis Hare (Bishop), 1740.

Verse 7:—

In a letter of Jeroninus Segerson, written in the prison at Antwerp to his wife, named Lysken, who likewise lay a prisoner there, 1551.

Verse 8.—“They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house: and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.” Mark, first, the excellency of the provision, “fatness of thy house,” the “river of thy pleasures.” The fattest is esteemed the fairest and the most excellent food; therefore the saint was enjoined to offer the fat in sacrifice under the law. As God expects the best from us, so he gives the best to us. This made David, when he had feasted so curiously, to sing so cheerfully. Fatness here is the top, the cream of all spiritual delicacies. “My soul is filled as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips.” Psalm lxiii. 5. But, though God keeps so noble a house to satisfy his people’s hunger, what special care doth he take to quench their thirst! “Thou shalt make them drink of the rivers of thy pleasures.” Oh, he drinks to them, and they pledge him in his own cup! Hath the child, then, any cause, when his Father keeps so rare and costly a table, to leave such dainties and go a-begging up and down the country for scraps and fragments? Oh, how much do these disgrace their Parent’s provision, and their own discretion! But mark, reader, secondly, the plenty as well as the excellency of this provision. Here is fatness in the abstract, a “river of pleasure;” and so much as that they who enjoy it shall be satisfied, and abundantly satisfied. A river is overflowing and ever flowing; it communicates its water and yet is never empty. It is fed with springs and fountains, and therefore it is no wonder if it always be full. They that are at such a well need not complain of want; but here are not only rivers and fatness, but of God’s people it is said, “they shall be abundantly satisfied.” In the original it is inebriated. They shall have not only a sufficiency, but a redundancy of spiritual delights. The vessels of their souls shall be filled to the brim out of that river whose streams make glad the city of God. Surely, then, they who may have bread in such abundance, enough and to spare, in their Father’s house, made of the kidneys of the wheat, of the finest flour, need not hanker after the world’s homely fare. Our heavenly Father doth not keep so starveling a house that the world’s scraps should go down with us.-George Swinnock.

Verse 8.—“They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house.” I once heard a father tell, that when he removed his family to a new residence where the accommodation was much more ample, the substance much more rich and varied than that to which they had previously been accustomed, his youngest son, yet a lisping infant, ran round every room and scanned every article with ecstacy, calling out in childish wonder at every new sight, “Is this ours, father? and is this ours?” The child did not say “yours;” and I observed that the father while he told the story was not offended with the freedom. You could read in his glistening eye that the infant’s confidence in appropriating as his own all that his father had, was an important element in his satisfaction.

Such, I suppose, will be the surprise, and joy, and appropriating confidence with which the child of our Father’s family will count all his own when he is removed from the comparatively mean condition of things present, and enters the infinite of things to come. When the glories of heaven burst upon his view, he does not stand at a distance like a stranger saying, O God, these are thine. He bounds forward to touch and taste every provision which those blessed mansions contain, exclaiming as he looks in the Father’s face, Father, this and this is ours! The dear child is glad of all the Father’s riches, and the Father is gladder of his dear child.—William Arnot.

Verse 8.—“The fatness of thy house.” If there is an allusion to the temple, as Hupfield thinks, “fatness” would = “fat sacrifices,” and men would be regarded as the priests in the house, after the analogy of Jer. xxxi. 14.—J. J. Stewart Perowne.

Verse 8.—“The fatness of thy house.” Fat was regarded among the Jews, as among all other nations of antiquity, as the richest part of animals, and therefore became synonymous with the first, the best, the prime of anything.—Christian D. Ginsburg, LL.D., in Kitto’s Cyclopedia.

Verse 8.—“Of thy house.” This is emphatic, and means that which thou hast prepared for thine own household, thine own faithful domestics. Here is intended not the good things prepared for all men, but for the household retainers of God.—John Piscator, 1546-1626, and D. H. Mollerus.

Verse 8.—“Pleasures.” Delights, the same word as is translated “Eden” in Genesis, only it is here in the plural number.—Dalman Hapstone, M. A.

Verse 8.—And, saith one of the fathers, do you ask me what heaven is? Saith one, When I meet you there I will tell you. The world to come, say the Rabbins, is the world where all is well. I have read of one that would willingly swim through a sea of brimstone to get to heaven, for there, and only there, is perfection of happiness. What are the silks of Persia, the spices of Egypt, the gold of Ophir and the treasures of both Indies, to the glory of another world? Augustine tells us that one day, when he was about to write something upon the eighth verse of the thirty-sixth Psalm, “Thou shalt make them drink of the rivers of thy pleasures,” and being almost swallowed up with the contemplation of heavenly joys, one called unto him very loud by his name; and, enquiring who it was, he answered, I am Jerome, with whom in my lifetime thou hadst so much conference concerning doubts in Scripture, and am now best experienced to resolve thee of any doubts concerning the joys of heaven; but only let me first ask thee this question—Art thou able to put the whole earth, and all the waters of the sea, into a little pot? Canst thou measure the waters in thy fist, and mete out heaven with thy span, or weigh the mountains in scales, or the hills in a balance? If not, no more is it possible that thy understanding should comprehend the least of the joys of heaven; and certainly the least of the joys of heaven are inconceivable and unexpressible.—Thomas Brooks.

Verse 9.—“For with thee is the fountain of life.”—These are some of the most wonderful words in the Old Testament. Their fulness of meaning no commentary can ever exhaust. They are, in fact, the kernel and the anticipation of much of the profoundest teaching of S. John.—J. J. Stewart Perowne.

Verse 9.—“In thy light shall we see light.” The object and matter of our eternal happiness is called “light.” It will not be a dazzling and confounding light as was the brightness of Moses’ face at his coming down from the mount; the people could not behold him: it will not be an astonishing light, as that in the mount at our Lord’s transfiguration; the disciples fell to the ground, their weak eyes could not behold those glimpses of glory that shined through the vail of flesh. But the light in our heaven of happiness will be a strengthening and comforting light; it will strengthen and confirm the eyes of our understanding to behold it. Then shall we be enabled as the young eagles, to behold the Sun of Righteousness in his brightness and glory. It was said by the Lord to Moses, “None can see my face and live.” Exodus xxxiii. 20. That glorious sight which Daniel saw took strength from him. Dan. x. 8. The object being without him, drew out all his spirits to behold and admire it and so weakened him; but in heaven our God, whom we shall see and know, will be within us to strengthen us; then shall we live because we see his face. It will be also a comforting light, like the light of the morning to the wearied watchman, who longed after it in the night-time.—William Colvill.

Verse 9.—“In thy light shall we see light.” ’Tis but a kind of dim twilight comparatively, which we enjoy here in this world. While we are hid in this prison-house we can see but little; but our Father’s house above is full of light: “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun,” etc. Matt. xiii. 43. If the Day-star be risen in your hearts, live in the pleasant and cheerful expectation of perfect day. For we can ascend but a little way into the mysteries of the kingdom, as long as we are upon the footstool; and we shall know vastly and inconceivably more in the first moment after we come to heaven, than we are capable of attaining here throughout all our days.—Timothy Cruso.

Verse 9.—“In thy light shall we see light.” The light of nature is like a spark, the light of the gospel a lamp, the light of grace a star, but the light of glory the sun itself. The higher our ascent the greater our light; God dwelleth “in the light which no man can approach unto.” 1 Tim. vi. 16—no man, while he carries mortality and sin about him; but when those two corrupt and uncapable qualities shall be put off, then shall we be brought to that light. We are now glad of the sun and stars over our heads, to give us light: what light and delight shall that be when these are under our feet! That light must needs go as far beyond their light as they now go beyond us. But alas! they are only able to discourse of that light, that do enjoy it, to whom that eternal day is risen; not we that live in the humble shade of mortality and natural dimness. I leave it therefore to your meditations: it is a glorious light which we do well often to consider, considering to admire, admiring to love, loving to desire, desiring to seek, and finding to enjoy for ever.—Thomas Adams.

Verse 9.—“In thy light shall we see light.” There is a great boast of light in the world, and there is some ground for it in natural things; but, as of old the world by wisdom knew not God, so of late. If ever we know God, it must be through the medium of his word. This I take to be the meaning of the passage. The term light in the last clause means the true knowledge of God; and, in the first, the true medium of attaining it, namely, divine revelation. The sum seems to amount to this: the word of God is the grand medium by which we can attain a true and saving knowledge of God. What the sun and stars are to the regions of matter, that revelation is to the mental region. Gen. i. 13, 17....