EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verse 4.—“He shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” It shall be unto thee even as thou wilt. It is said of Luther that he could have what he would of Almighty God. What may not a favourite, who hath the royalty of his prince’s care, obtain of him?—John Trapp.

Verse 4.—“The desires of thine heart.” All the desires of this spiritual seed are of the nature of this seed, namely, substantial, and shall meet with substance. All the desires of natural man, even after God, after Christ, after righteousness, shall burn and perish with him (for they are not the truth, nor do they come from the truth, nor can they reach to the truth;) but all the desires of this spirit shall live with the Spirit of God, in rest and satisfaction for ever.—John Pennington, 1656.

Verse 4.—The desires of God and the desires of the righteous, agree in one; they are of one mind in their desires.—John Bunyan.

Verse 5.—“Commit thy way unto the Lord,” etc. When we bear the burden of our own affairs ourselves, and are chastised with anxiety and want of success, and with envying the ungodly who prosper better than we do, the best remedy is first to do our duty, as we are enabled in the use of the means, then cast the care of the success over on God, as the ploughman doth when he hath harrowed his land; and let the burden of it rest on God, and let us not take it off him again, but put our mind to rest, resolved to take the harvest in good part, as he shall send it.—David Dickson.

Verse 5.—“Commit thy way unto the Lord,” is rendered by the Vulgate, Revela viam Domino, reveal thy way; and by St. Ambrose, understood of revealing our sins to God. Indeed, since is it impossible to cover, why should we not discover, our sins? Conceal not that which God knoweth already, and would have thee to make known. It is a very ill office to be the devil’s secretary. Oh, break thy league with Satan by revealing his secrets, thy sins, to God.—Nathaniel Hardy.

Verse 5.—“Commit thy way unto.” Marg. and Heb., Roll thy way upon—as one who lays upon the shoulder of one stronger than himself a burden which he is not able to bear.—William De Burgh, D.D., in “A Commentary on the Book of Psalms. Dublin: 1860.”

Verse 5.—Note the double again, “Commit” and “trust.”—C. H. S.

Verse 5.—“He shall bring it to pass.” When a hard piece of work is put into the hand of an apprentice for the first assay of his skill, the beholders are justly afraid of a miscarriage in his young and unexperienced hand; but when the worker is an old master of craft, none are afraid but his cunning hand can act again what so oft it hath wrought to the contentment of all the beholders. Were our God a novice in the great art of governing the world, and of the church in the bosom thereof; had he to this day never given any proof of his infinite wisdom, power, and goodness, in turning about the most terrible accidents to the welfare and joy of his saints; we might indeed be amazed whenever we feel ourselves sinking in the dangers wherein the practices of our enemies oft do plunge us over head and ears; but the Lord having given in times past so many documents of his uncontroverted skill and most certain will to bring about all human affairs, as to his own glory, so to the real good of all that love him, it would be in us an impious and unexcusable uncharitableness to suspect the end of any work which he hath begun.—Robert Baylie’s Sermon before the House of Commons, 1643.

Verses 5, 7:—

Paul Gerhard (1606-1676), translated by Frances Elizabeth Cox, in “Hymns from the German,” 1864.

Verse 6.—“He shall bring forth thy righteousness as the light,” etc. If thou shouldst be accused as a man of evil designs, let not that trouble thee neither: for though thy fame may be obscured for a time by calumnies and slanders, as the sun is by mists and clouds, yet as that scatters them all at last, so shall thy integrity appear, and shine as bright as the sun at noonday.—Symon Patrick.

Verse 7.—“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” There are two words in the original, which express the privilege and the duty of resting on Christ: one implies such a state of acquiescence, as silences and clamours of conscience, and composes the perturbation of the spirit; the other signifies the refreshment and repose of a weary pilgrim, when he arrives at the end of his journey, and is settled for life in a secure, commodious, plentiful habitation.—James Hervey.

Verse 7.—“Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” Take the case of one who, with a load above his strength, has been toiling some steep and broken path, when suddenly he finds it lifted off and transferred to another whose strength he knows to be more than equal to the task, and in whose sympathy he can securely trust. What would his feeling be but one of perfect rest, and calm reliance, and joyous freedom, as they went on their way together? And such is the blessedness of rolling our care upon the Lord—in weakness we are resting on superior strength, in perplexity and doubt we are resting on superior wisdom, in all times of trial and hard service we can stay ourselves on the assurance of his perfect sympathy. The literal meaning of the word “rest,” is “be silent” towards the Lord. With the eye fixed on him let all unbelieving thoughts be stilled, such thoughts as rise and rankle in the querulous spirit when it sees only its troubles, and not God in them, when the mists of earth hide from its sight the eternal stars of heaven. Then like Jacob, it may say morosely, “All these things are against me;” or, like Elijah, despondently, “It is enough, now, O Lord, take away my life;” or, like Jonah, fretfully, “I do well to be angry.” In regard to all such dark and unbelieving suggestions, the heart is to keep silence, to be still and know that he is God; silent as to murmuring, but not silent as to prayer, for in that holy meditative stillness the heart turns to commune with him. What is “resting in God,” but the instinctive movement and upward glance of the spirit to him; the confiding all one’s griefs and fears to him, and feeling strengthened, patient, hopeful in the act of doing so! It implies a willingness that he should choose for us, a conviction that the ordering of all that concerns us is safer in his hands than in our own.

A few practical remarks:—1. Our “resting patiently” in the Lord applies only to the trials which he sends, not to the troubles which even Christians often make for themselves. There is a difference in the burdens that come in the way of duty, and those that come through our wandering into other ways. We can roll the one upon the Lord, but with the other our punishment may be to be left to bear them long, and to be bruised in bearing them. 2. The duty here enjoined is to be carried through all our life. We all admit that patient waiting is needed for the great trials of life, but may not acknowledge so readily that it is needed as much for little, daily, commonplace vexations. But these are as much a test of Christian principle as the other. 3. This resting in God is a criterion of a man’s spiritual state. It needs a special faculty of discernment, a new sense to be opened in the soul, before our fallen nature can understand or desire it.—James D. Burns, M.A.

Verse 7 (first clause).—“Hold thee still” (so it may be translated). And this is the hardest precept that is given to man; insomuch that the most difficult precept of action sinks into nothing when compared with this command to inaction.—Jerome.

Verse 7 (first clause).—The Hebrew word rendered silent is דּוֹמ, dom, from which the English word dumb appears to be derived. The silence here enjoined is opposed to murmuring or complaining.—James Anderson, in Calvin’s Commentary.

Verse 7.—Note again the twin duties, “rest” and “wait.”

Verse 7.—“Bringeth wicked devices to pass.” Observe the opposition between this and God’s bringing to pass, in verse five. The ground for grief is that the ungodly appear to achieve their end, the reason for comfort is that our end shall be achieved also, and that in the best manner by God himself.—C. H. S.

Verse 8.—“Forsake wrath;” which is anger wrought up to a greater degree; and the rather to be shunned and avoided, as being very disagreeable to the character of a good man. “Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil;” evil may be done by fretting at the prosperity of wicked men, or by imitating them, doing as they do, in hope of being prosperous as they are.—John Gill.

Verse 9.—“They shall inherit the earth.” He means that they shall live in such a manner as that the blessing of God shall follow them, even to the grave.—John Calvin.

Verse 10.—“Thou shalt diligently consider his place, and it shall not be.” To wit because he shall be grubbed up by the roots.—Arthur Jackson.

Verse 10.—“His place ... shall not be.” The very land he occupied as a home, and the title to which was unimpeachable, is no longer “his place.” It has passed into other hands. Nothing of all he had on earth is his. He is as poor as the most miserable object that subsisted on alms.—William S. Plumer.

Verse 10.—The peacock, a glorious fowl, when he beholds that comely fan and circle which he maketh of the beautiful feathers of his tail, he rejoiceth, he setteth, and beholdeth every part thereof: but when he looketh on his feet which he perceiveth to be black and foul, he by-and-by, with great misliking, vaileth his top-gallant, and seemeth to sorrow. In like manner, a great many know by experience, that when they see themselves to abound in riches and honours, they glory and are deeply conceited of themselves; they praise their fortune, and admire themselves; they make plots, and appoint much for themselves to perform in many years to come. This year, they say, we will bear this office, and the next year that: afterward we shall have the rule of such a province; then we will build a palace in such a city, whereunto we will adjoin such gardens of pleasure, and such vineyards: and thus they make a very large reckoning aforehand, who if they did but once behold their feet, if they did but think upon the shortness of their life, so transitory and unconstant; how soon would they let fall their proud feathers, forsake their arrogancy, and change their purpose, their minds, their lives, and their manners.—Thomas Tymme.

Verse 11.—“The meek shall inherit the earth.” In the meantime, they, and they only, possess the present earth, as they go toward the kingdom of heaven, by being humble, and cheerful, and content with what their good God has allotted them. They have no turbulent, repining, vexatious thoughts that they deserve better; nor are vexed when they see others possessed of more honour, or more riches, than their wise God has allotted for their share. But they possess what they have with a meek and contented quietness: such a quietness as makes their very dreams pleasing, both to God and themselves.—Izaak Walton (1593-1683), in “The Complete Angler.”

Verse 11.—“The meek.” What is thy Beloved more than any other beloved? It is spoken to the spouse. So what is meekness more than any other virtues? We may say, here is synecdoche speciei, one particular taken for the general, one virtue for all the rest. Or the effect is put for the cause; because meekness is one of the principal and chiefest parts of holiness. But if you will give me leave to conjecture, the Holy Ghost may seem in this promise at once to show the condition of the church, and to comfort her; and because being laid hard at on every side, she stands in need of this virtue more than any other, to fit and fashion the reward to the virtue, to cherish and exalt it in us with the promise of something beyond our expectation, even the inheritance of the earth. And indeed what fitter reward can there be of meekness? What more fit and just than that they who have been made the anvil for injuries to beat on, who have been viri perpessitii, as Seneca speaks of Socrates, men of great sufferance, who have suffered not only their goods to be torn from them by oppression and wrong, but their reputations to be wounded with the sharp razor of detraction, and have withstood the shock of all spectantibus similes, with the patience of a looker on, should be raised and comforted with a promise of that which their meekness gave up to the spoil; and that by the providence of God which loves to thwart the practice of the world, they should be made heirs even of those possessions which the hand of violence hath snatched from them.—Anthony Farindon, B.D., 1596-1658.