EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verse 3.—“Where is thy God?” God’s children are impatient, as far as they are men, of reproaches; but so far as they are Christian men, they are impatient of reproaches in religion; “Where is now thy God?” They were not such desperate Atheists as to think there was no God, to call in question whether there was a God or no, though, indeed, they were little better; but they rather reproach and upbraid him with his singularity, where is thy God? You are one of God’s darlings; you are one that thought nobody served God but you; you are one that will go alone—your God! So this is an ordinary reproach, an ordinary part for wicked men to cast at the best people, especially when they are in misery. What is become of your profession now? What is become of your forwardness and strictness now? What is become of your God that you bragged so of, and thought yourselves so happy in, as if he had been nobody’s God but yours? We may learn hence the disposition of wicked men. It is a character of a poisonful, cursed disposition to upbraid a man with his religion.

But what is the scope? The scope is worse than the words “where is thy God?” The scope is to shake his faith and his confidence in God, and this that is which touched him so nearly while they upbraided him. For the devil knows well enough that as long as God and the soul join together, it is in vain to trouble any man, therefore he labours to put jealousies, to accuse God to man, and man to God. He knows there is nothing in the world can stand against God. As long as we make God our confidence, all his enterprises are in vain. His scope is, therefore, to shake our affiance in God. “Where is thy God?” So he dealt with the head of the church, our blessed Saviour himself, when he came to tempt him. “If thou be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread.” Matt. iv. 3. He comes with an “if,” he laboured to shake him in his Sonship. The devil, since he was divided from God himself eternally, is become a spirit of division; he labours to divide even God the Father from his own Son; “If thou be the Son of God?” So he labours to sever Christians from their head Christ. “Where is thy God?” There was his scope, to breed division if he could, between his heart and God, that he might call God into jealousy, as if he had not regarded him: thou hast taken a great deal of pains in serving thy God; thou seest how he regards thee now; “Where is thy God?”—Richard Sibbes.

Verse 3.—How powerfully do the scoffs and reproaches of the ungodly tend to shake the faith of a mind already dejected! How peculiarly afflictive to the soul that loves God, is the dishonour cast upon him by his enemies!—Henry March, in “Sabbaths at Home,” 1823.

Verse 3.—“Where is thy God?”

Verse 4.—“When I remember these things,” etc. To a person in misery it is a great increase of misery to have been once happy; it was to David an occasion of new tears when he remembered his former joys. Time was, says the poor soul, when I thought of God with comfort, and when I thought of him as my own God; and to lose a God that I once enjoyed is the loss of all my losses, and of all my terrors the most terrible. Time was when I could go and pray to him, and ease myself in prayer; but now I have no boldness, no hope, no success in prayer. I cannot call him my Father any more. Time was when I could read the Bible and treasure up the promises, and survey the land of Canaan as my own inheritance; but now I dare not look into the Word lest I read my own condemnation there. The Sabbath was formerly to me as one of the days of heaven, but now it is also, as well as the rest, a sad and a mournful day. I formerly rejoiced in the name of Christ, “I sat under his shadow.” Cant. ii. 3. I was in his eyes as one that found favour; but now my soul is like the deserts of Arabia, I am scorched with burning heat. From how great a height have I fallen! How fair was I once for heaven and for salvation, and now am like to come short of it! I once was flourishing in the courts of the Lord, and now all my fruit is blasted and withered away: “his dew lay all night upon my branches,” but now I am like the mountains of Gilboa, no rain falls upon me. Had I never heard of heaven I could not have been so miserable as I now am: had I never known God, the loss of him had not been so terrible as now it is like to be. Job xxix. 2, 3.—Timothy Rogers.

Verse 4 (first clause).—The blessedness of even the remembrance of divine worship is so great, that it can save the soul from despair.—J. P. Lange’s Commentary.

Verse 4.—“I pour out my soul.” The very soul of prayer lies in the pouring out of the soul before God.—Thomas Brooks.

Verse 4.—“I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday.” The gracious God is pleased to esteem it his glory to have many beggars thronging at the beautiful gate of his temple, for spiritual and corporal alms. What an honour is it to our great Landlord that multitudes of tenants flock together to his house to pay their rent of thanks and worship for their all which they hold of him! How loud and lovely is the noise of many golden trumpets! Good Lord, what an echo do they make in heaven’s ears! When many skilful musicians play in concert with well tuned and prepared instruments the music cannot but be ravishing to God himself.—George Swinnock.

Verse 4.—Do but consider David’s tears and grief for want of, and his fervent prayers for the fruition of, public ordinances even then, when he had opportunities for private performances; and surely thou wilt esteem the ministry of the Word no mean mercy. See his sorrow when he was driven from God’s sanctuary. “When I remember these things I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God.” “My soul is poured out;” that is, I am overwhelmed with grief, and ever ready to die when I compare my present condition with my former happiness in the fruition of religious assemblies. There is an elegancy in the phrase “poured out;” the word is applied to water, or any liquid thing, and in Scripture signifieth abundance. Joel ii. 28. My life is ready to be poured out as water upon the ground, which cannot be gathered up again, when I remember my former mercies, and consider my present misery.... The loss of his father, mother, wives, children, lands, liberty—nay, of his very life, would not have gone so near his heart as the loss of public ordinances. As his sorrow was great for the want, so was his suit most earnest for the enjoyment of them. How many a prayer doth he put up for the liberty of the tabernacle! Psalm xliii. 3, 4, and xxvii. 4, 8. It is the one thing, the principal thing which he begs of God.—Henry Smith.

Verse 4.—The bias of the soul is remarkably shown by the objects of regretful recollection.—Henry March.

Verse 4.—“With a multitude that kept holy day.”

Verse 5.—See also on verse 11, and Psalm xliii. verse 5.

Verse 5.—“Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” Athanasius counselled his friend, that when any trouble should fall upon him, he should fall presently to the reading of this Psalm; for there was a way, he thought, of curing by the like, as well as by the contrary: for ’tis observed indeed that when two instruments are tuned to the same unison, if you touch the strings of the one, the strings of the other will move too, though untouched, if placed at a convenient distance. That therefore you may try the same experiments upon yourselves, do but set your affections for a tune in the same key in which these words were spoken; if really you feel none, imagine some affliction laid upon you; when you have done so, that you may be the more fully moved, place your attention at a convenient distance, look narrowly on this holy prophet, observe how he retires himself, shuts out the world, calls his sad soul to as sad a reckoning: Quare tam tristis? O my soul! thou that wert infused to give me life; nay, says Philo the Jew, a spark, a beam of the divinity, thou, which shouldst be to this dark body of mine as the sun is to the earth, enlightening, quickening, cheering up my spirits; tell me, why art thou clouded? why art thou cast down?...

Think of this, ye that feel the heaviness of your soul; think of it, ye that do not, for ye may feel it. Know there is a sorrow “that worketh repentance not to be repented of.” Know again there is a sorrow “that worketh death.” Remember there were tears that got sinful Mary heaven; remember again, there were tears that got sinful Esau nothing. For as in martyrdom, it is not the sword, the boiling lead, or fire, not what we suffer, but why, that makes us martyrs; so in our sorrows, it is not how deep they wound, but why, that justifies them. Let every one, therefore, that hath a troubled heart, ask his soul the “Why:” “Why art thou cast down?” Is it not for thine own sins, or the sins of others? Take either of them, thine eyes will have a large field to water. Is it for that thou hast been a child of wrath, a servant of the devil? Is it for that thou art a candle set in the wind, blown at by several temptations? or is it for that thou wouldst be freed from them? “Woe is me, that I sojourn in Mesech, that I dwell in the tents of Kedar!” Psalm cxx. 5. Art thou troubled as St. Augustine was, when he read that the way to heaven was narrow, the number small that travelled thither? Or hast thou put on St. Bernard’s resolution, who had made a compact with his soul, never to joy till he had heard his Saviour call him, “Come, ye blessed,” nor never to leave sorrowing till he had escaped the bitter sentence, “Go, ye cursed”? If any of these be the “Why,” the ground of thy sorrows, if such thoughts have cast thee down; know, that thy Saviour hath already blessed thee, for, “Blessed are they that mourn.” The angels are thy servants, they gather thy tears; God is thy treasurer, he lays them up in his bottle; the Holy Ghost is thy comforter, he will not leave thee. Fear not, then, to be thus “cast down,” fear not to be thus disquieted within thee.—Brian Duppa (Bishop), 1588-1662, in a Sermon entitled “The Soule’s Soliloquie.”

Verse 5.—“Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” Why, or what may be the reason, that this text is three times used in this Psalm and in the next? whereas you do not find two verses of the same length used in all the Book of Psalms besides, except in Psalm cvii., where is often repeated, “O that men would praise the Lord,” etc. Now, surely, the frequent mention of this text and words doth argue and note unto us the weightiness of the matter....

Wicked men oppressed David, and the devil tempted him; yet he chides his own heart and nothing else. David did not chide at Saul, nor chide at Absalom; but he chides and checks his own heart. “Why art thou cast down, O my soul?” Though the devil and wicked men, the one do tempt, the other do oppress as instruments of punishment for sin; yet we with David are to chide our own hearts.

Consider, what though in our translations the words are translated and rendered passively, “Why art thou cast down?” yet, in the original, they are rendered actively; we read it, “Why art thou cast down?” etc.; but in the original it is read, מַה־תִּשְׁתּוֹחֲחִי נַפְשִׁי וּמַה־תֶּהֱמִי עָלָי[19] “Why bowest (or pressest) thou down thyself, my soul? and why tumultest thou against me?” As Arias Montanus, Cur humiliasti te? Cur deprimes te anima mea? So Lorinus, Prov. xii. 25. And the words so read, they do intimate thus much, that God’s own people may be cast down too much for the sense of sin, and they are most active in their own down-casting. It is not God nor the devil that cast thee down; but Why dost thou cast thyself down? to create more trouble on thy self than either God doth inflict or the devil tempt thee to.—Christopher Love, in “The Dejected Soul’s Cure,” 1657.