EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verse 3.—Sure that bed must need be soft which God will make.—T. Watson.

Verse 3.—We must not forget that Oriental beds needed not to be made in the same sense as our own. They were never more than mattresses or quilts thickly padded, and were turned when they became uncomfortable, and that is just the word here used.—C. H. S.

Verse 3.—When I visited one day, as he was dying, my beloved friend Benjamin Parsons, I said, “How are you to-day, Sir?” He said, “My head is resting very sweetly on three pillows—infinite power, infinite love, and infinite wisdom.” Preaching in the Canterbury Hall, in Brighton, I mentioned this some time since; and many months after I was requested to call upon a poor but holy young woman, apparently dying. She said, “I felt I must see you before I died. I heard you tell the story of Benjamin Parsons and his three pillows; and when I went through a surgical operation, and it was very cruel, I was leaning my head on pillows, and as they were taking them away I said, ‘Mayn’t I keep them?’ The surgeon said, ‘No, my dear, we must take them away.’ ‘But,’ said I, ‘you can’t take away Benjamin Parsons’ three pillows. I can lay my head on infinite power, infinite love, and infinite wisdom.’”—Paxton Hood, in “Dark Sayings on a Harp,” 1865.

Verses 3, 4.—What saith David from the very bottom of his heart, in his sickness? Not, take away this death only. No; but David being sick, first comforts himself with this promise, “The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness;” and then adds, “I said, Lord, be merciful unto me, and heal my soul;” that is, destroy my lusts, which are the diseases of my soul, Lord; and heal my soul, and renew life and communion with thee, which is the health and strength of my soul. Do not take this sickness and death only away; but this sin away, that hath dishonoured thee, hath separated between me and thee: “Heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.”—Thomas Goodwin.

Verse 4.—“I said, Lord, be merciful.” Mercy, not justice! The extreme of mercy for the extreme of misery. Righteousness as filthy rags; a flesh in which dwelleth no good thing, on the one side; on the other, it is “neither herb nor mollifying plaster that restored” to health; “but thy word, O Lord, which healeth all things.” Wisd. xvi. 12.—Thomas Aquinas, quoted by J. M. Neale.

Verse 4.—God is the strength of a Christian’s heart, by healing and restoring him when the infused habits of grace fail, and sin grows strong and vigorous. A Christian never fails in the exercise of grace, but sin gives him a wound; and therefore David prayed, “Lord, heal my soul, for I have sinned.” And what David prayed for, God promiseth to his people: “I will heal their backsliding.” Hosea xiv. 4. The weakness and decay of grace, brings a Christian presently to the falling sickness; and so it did David and Ephraim; ay, but God will be a physician to the soul in this case, and will heal their diseases; and so he did David’s falling sickness, for which he returned the tribute of praise. Psalm ciii. 3.—Samuel Blackerby.

Verse 4. (last clause).—Saul and Judas each said, “I have sinned;” but David says, “I have sinned against thee.”—William S. Plumer.

Verse 5.—“Mine enemies speak evil of me.” To speak is here used in the sense of to imprecate.—John Calvin.

Verse 5.—“His name.” It is the name, the character, and privileges of a true servant of God, that calls out the hatred of ungodly men, and they would gladly extirpate him from their sight.—W. Wilson, D.D.

Verse 6.—“If he come to see me, he speaketh vanity:” many fair words, but none of them true.—David Dickson.

Verse 6.—I remember a pretty apologue that Bromiard tells:—A fowler, in a sharp frosty morning, having taken many little birds for which he had long watched, began to take up his nets, and nipping the birds on the head laid them down. A young thrush, espying the tears trickling down his cheeks by reason of the extreme cold, said to her mother, that certainly the man was very merciful and compassionate, who wept so bitterly over the calamity of the poor birds. But her mother told her more wisely, that she might better judge of the man’s disposition by his hand than by his eye; and if the hands do strike treacherously, he can never be admitted to friendship, who speaks fairly and weeps pitifully.—Jeremy Taylor.

Verse 6.—“His heart gathereth iniquity to itself.” 1. By adding sin to sin, in that he covers over his malice with such horrid hypocrisy. 2. By inventing or contriving all the several ways he can to ensnare me, or do me some mischief, thereby seeking to satisfy and please his corrupt lusts and affections; 3. (which I like best), by observing all he can in me, and drawing what he can from me, and so laying all up together in his mind, as the ground of his unjust surmises and censures concerning me.—Arthur Jackson.

Verse 8.—“An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him.” An evil deed of Belial cleaveth fast to him. Grammarians maintain that the word Belial is compounded of בְּלִי, beli, and יָעַל, yaal, which signify “not to rise;” the expression, “thing of Belial” (for so it is literally in the Hebrew), I understand in this place as meaning an extraordinary and hateful crime which as we commonly say can never be expiated, and from which there is no possibility of escape; unless perhaps some would rather refer it to the affliction itself under which he laboured, as if his enemies had said that he was seized by some incurable malady.—John Calvin.

Verse 8.—“An evil disease,” etc. What is here meant by דְּבַר־בְּלִיַּעַל is matter of some difficulty. The ancient interpreters generally render it a perverse, or mischievous, or wicked word; the Chaldee, a perverse word; the Syriac, a word of iniquity; the LXX, λόγον παράνομον; the Latin, iniquum verbum, a wicked word; the Arabic, words contrary to the law. And so in all probability it is set to signify a great slander, or calumny—that as “men of Belial” are slanderous persons, so the speech of Belial shall signify a slanderous speech. And this is said to “cleave” to him on whom it is fastened, it being the nature of calumnies, when strongly affixed on any, to cleave fast, and leave some evil mark behind them.—Henry Hammond.

Verse 9.—“Yea, mine own familiar friend,” etc. The sufferings of the church, like those of her Redeemer, generally begin at home: her open enemies can do her no harm, until her pretended friends have delivered her into their hands; and, unnatural as it may seem, they who have waxed fat upon her bounty, are sometimes the first to “lift the heel” against her.—George Horne.

Verse 9.—“Mine own familiar friend.” He who, on visiting me, continually saluted me with the kiss of love and veneration, and the usual address; peace be to thee.—Hermann Venema.

Verse 9.—“Which did eat of my bread.” If the same sentiment prevailed among the Hebrews, which prevails at the present day among the Bedouin Arabs, of sacred regard to the person and property of one with whom they have eaten bread and salt, the language is very forcible. “Hath lifted up his heel:” a metaphor drawn from the horse, which attacks with its heel. This language may well have been used by our Saviour in John xiii. 18, in the way of rhetorical illustration or emphasis.—George R. Noyes, D.D.

Verse 9.—“Hath lifted up his heel against me.” In this phrase he seems to allude to a beast’s kicking at his master by whom he is fed, or the custom of men’s spurning at or trampling upon those that are cast down on the ground, in a way of despite and contempt.—Arthur Jackson.

Verse 9.—“Hath lifted up his heel against me;” i.e., hath spurned me, hath kicked at me, as a vicious beast of burden does; hath insulted me in my misery.—Daniel Cresswell.

Verse 10.—“That I may requite them.” Either (1), kindness for injuries (as in Psalm xxxv. 13): it is the mark of a good and brave man to do good to all in his power, to hurt no one, even though provoked by wrong: or, (2), punishment for wrong-doing—that I may punish them; for am I not their magistrate, and the executioner of God’s justice!—Martin Geier.

Verse 10.—“That I may requite them.” David was not as one of the common people, but a king appointed by God and invested with authority, and it is not from an impulse of the flesh, but in virtue of the nature of his office, that he is led to denounce against his enemies the punishment which they had merited.—John Calvin.

Verse 11.—“By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me:” not because I have no enemies, or because I have no trouble which would overcome me. Therefore when he wrote down many troubles, he blotted it (as it were) with his pen again, as a merchant razeth his book when the debt is discharged; and instead of many troubles, he putteth in, the Lord delivereth. Because he forgiveth all sins, he is said to deliver from all troubles, to show that we have need of no Saviour, no helper, no comforter, but him.—Henry Smith.

Verse 11.—“By this I know that thou favourest me.” In this text we see two things. 1. How David assureth himself of God’s love towards him. 2. How thankful he is to God for assuring him of his love. The first he doth by two arguments; one is taken from his enemies, they were prevented of their expectation “Therefore thou lovest me.” The other is taken from his own estate, which was not one whit hurt, or impaired, but bettered by them.... Here the prophet speaketh of his knowledge, and telleth us that though he knew not all things, yet he knew that God loved him, and so long as he knoweth that, he careth not greatly for other matters, how the world goeth with him, etc. And, to say the truth, he need not, for he that is sure of that, is sure of all. God loveth all his creatures as a good God, and hateth nothing that he made, but he loveth his elect children with a more especial love than the rest, as a Father in Christ Jesus, and he that is sure that God doth so favour him, is sure, I say, of all. For to him whom God loveth, he will deny no good thing, no, not his own Son; and if he gave us his Son, because he loved us, how shall he not with him give us all things else?

When the child is persuaded that his father loveth him, he is bold to ask this and that of his father: so may we be bold to ask anything of God our heavenly Father that is good for us, when we be sure that he loveth us. As Mary and Martha put Christ in mind but of two things; the first was, that Christ loved their brother Lazarus; the second was, that Lazarus was sick; “He whom thou lovest is sick:” it was no need to tell him what he should do, for they knew he would do what might be done for him, because he loved him. So we may say to the Lord, when we are sure that he loveth us: Lord, he whom thou lovest wanteth this or that for his body or his soul. We need not then appoint him what to do, or when, or how; for look what he seeth most convenient for us, and for his own glory, he will surely do it. Therefore whatsoever David knoweth, he will be sure to know this; and whatsoever he is ignorant of, yet of this he will not be ignorant; to teach us that whatsoever we seek to make sure, this must first be made sure, or else nothing is sure. Peter bids us make our election sure; Job, when he saith, “I am sure that my Redeemer liveth,” teacheth us to make our redemption sure. And here David teacheth us to make God’s favour sure: now if we make that sure, then our election is sure, our redemption is sure, our vocation is sure, and our salvation is sure.—William Burton, 1602.

Verse 11.—“Because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.” When God doth deliver us from the hands of our enemies, or any trouble else, we may persuade ourselves thereby, he hath a favour unto us, as David did. But then it may be demanded, If God doth love his church, why doth he suffer his church to be troubled and molested with enemies? The reason is this, because by this means his love may be made more manifest in saving and delivering them. For as a sure friend is not known but in time of need, so God’s goodness and love is never so well perceived as it is in helping of us when we cannot help ourselves. As Adam’s fall did serve to manifest God’s justice and mercy, the one in punishing, the other in pardoning of sin, which otherwise we had never known: so the troubles of the church serve to manifest, first, our deserts by reason of our sins; secondly, our weakness and inability to help ourselves; and, thirdly, the lovingkindness of the Lord our God, in saving and defending, that so we might be truly thankful, and return all the praise and glory to God, and none to ourselves. So that the church of God may have enemies, and yet be still the beloved of God, as Lazarus was beloved of Christ, although he was sick; for whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, and therefore he correcteth them because he loveth them.—William Burton.