EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verse 2 (last clause).—David even then when he fled from Saul in the cave he looks upon God as having performed all things for him. The word is, he hath perfected all things; and it is observable that David uses the same expression of praising God here when he was in the cave, hiding himself to save his life as he did when he triumphed over his enemies.—Ps. vi. and Ps. cviii.—Jeremiah Burroughs, 1599-1646.

Verse 2 (last clause).—The Targum curiously paraphrases this clause: “Who ordered the spider that wrought the web, on my account, at the mouth of the cave;” applying a later historical fact, which, however, may have had its prototype in David’s history.—Andrew A. Bonar, in “Christ and his Church in the Book of Psalms,” 1859.

Verse 3.—“Him that would swallow me up.” If I were to take you to my house, and say that I had an exquisitely fat man, and wished you to join me in eating him, your indignation could be restrained by nothing. You would pronounce me to be crazy. There is not in New York a man so mean that he would not put down a man who should propose to have a banquet off from a fellow man, cutting steaks out of him, and eating them. And that is nothing but feasting on the human body, while they all will sit down, and take a man’s soul, and look for the tender loins, and invite their neighbours in to partake of the little titbits. They will take a man’s honour and name, and broil them over the coals of their indignation, and fill the whole room with the aroma thereof, and give their neighbour a piece, and watch him, and wink as he tastes it. You all eat men up.... You eat the souls, the finest elements of men. You are more than glad if you can whisper a word that is derogatory to a neighbour, or his wife, or his daughter.... The morsel is too exquisite to be lost. Here is the soul of a person, here is a person’s hope for this world and the world to come, and you have it on your fork, and you cannot refrain from tasting it, and give it to some one else to taste. You are cannibals, eating men’s honour and name and rejoicing in it—and that, too, when you do not always know that the things charged against them are true; when in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the probabilities are that they are not true.—Henry Ward Beecher, 1870.

Verse 3.—“God shall send forth his mercy and his truth,” viz., to save me. That is to say, God, to manifest his mercy, and vindicate the truth of his promises, will save me. The reader will observe, that mercy and truth are here poetically represented as ministers of God, standing in his presence, ready to execute his pleasure, and employed by him in the salvation of his people.—Samuel Chandler.

Verse 3.—“His mercy and his truth.” He need not send down angels, he need send but “mercy and truth” down, which elsewhere it is said he prepares in the heavens. Ps. lxi. 7. He prepares commissions for them, and sends them down with them for execution.—Thomas Goodwin.

Verse 4.—“My soul is among lions.” This may also be construed of the church and that both in respect of her spiritual enemies and temporal. As for her ghostly foes, the devil is a roaring lion (1 Pet. v. 8), and our sins are the whelps of lions, ready to devour us. And concerning outward enemies, the church in this world is like Daniel in the lion’s den, or as “the sucking child playing upon the hole of the asp.” Isa. xi. 8. She hath here no visible power or outward help to fly to for succour, all her trust is in the Lord, and “under the shadow of his wings is her refuge, till this evil is overpast.” ... And surely, beloved, if the church had not any other enemies, but only these monstrous Antichrists of Rome, yet she might truly complain with our prophet here, “My soul is among lions.” Eleven popes had that name, whereof all, excepting two or three, were roaring lions in their Bulls, and ravening lions in seeking after their prey. Leo the tenth so pilled[29] and polled[30] the goodly nations of Germany with his impardonable pardons and merciless indulgences, as that his insupportable cruelty gave the first occasion of the Reformation of religion in that country.—John Boys.

Verse 4 (first clause).—“Mudge translates literally, ‘I lie with my soul amidst lionesses.’” This agrees with the opinion of Bochart, who thinks that the animals here intended are lionesses, properly, when giving suck to their young, a time when they are peculiarly fierce and dangerous, “nor need we wonder,” he observes, “that the lioness is reckoned among the fiercest lions; for the lioness equals, or even exceeds, the lion in strength and fierceness;” and this he proves from the testimonies of ancient writers.—James Anderson’s Note to Calvin in loc., 1846.

Verse 4.—“And I lie even among them that are set on fire.” The whole pith lies in the word אֶשְׁכְּבָה I will recline, which denotes a tranquil and secure condition of body and mind, like a man reclining and sleeping, as Ps. iii. 5: “I laid me down and slept, I awaked;” and lived composedly; Ps. iv. 9; “I will both lay me down in peace” etc.—Hermann Venema.

Verse 4.—The horrors of a lion’s den, the burning of a fiery furnace, and the cruel onset of war, are the striking images by which David here describes the peril and wretchedness of his present condition.—John Morison.

Verse 6.—“Net.” Not having fire-arms, the ancients were much more skilful than the moderns in the use of snares, nets, and pits for capturing wild animals. A large class of Biblical figures and allusions necessarily presupposes this state of things.—W. M. Thomson.

Verse 7.—“My heart is fixed, O God” etc. The Psalmist, knowing that it is the order and work of God, first to prepare the heart for communion, and then to incline his own ear to hear his people, and to entertain communion with them in ordinances, he doth observe this order, and follow it with a practise suitable to it in his daily addresses to God, that is thus, wheresoever he doth find his heart put into a fitted and prepared frame for communion with God, he doth not let it die again, and go out of frame by a slothful neglect of such a disposition of heart. No, but he immediately sets himself to duty, to worship God, and to the acts of his worship, in his ordinances, as he expresseth himself in Ps. lvii. 7; viz., thus—נָכוֹן לִבִּי אֱלֹהִים נָכוֹן לִבִּי, Nachon libbi Elohim, nachon libbi (there is the first; he finds his heart fitted and prepared for communion with God): “My heart,” saith he, “is fitted or prepared” (for the word נָכוֹן, nachon is the passive conjugation niphal, signifying, he is fitted or prepared, from the root, כּוּן chun, he fitted or prepared, in the active; and so it is rather to be rendered prepared or fitted, then “fixed,” thus: לִבִּי, libbi, my heart; נָכוֹן, nachon, is fitted or prepared), “O God, my heart is fitted or prepared” for communion with thee. Well, what follows? He presently sets himself upon that great duty and ordinance of communion with God, in the praising of his name and singing forth those praises, as in the words immediately following in the same verse, thus: “My heart is prepared, O God, my heart is prepared:” therefore, וַאֲזַמֵּרָה, ashidah va-azamerah, “I will sing and give praise.”—William Strong, in “Communion with God,” 1656.

Verse 7.—“My heart is fixed, O God,” etc. Fitness for duty lies in the orderly temper of body and mind, making a man willing to undertake, and able to finish his work with comfortable satisfaction. If either the body or mind be distempered, a man is unfit for such an undertaking; both must be in a suitable frame, like a well-tuned instrument, else there will be no melody: hence when David prepared himself for praises and worship, he tells us his heart was ready and fixed, and then, his tongue was ready also (Psalm xlv. 1.), so was his hand with Psaltery and harp; all these were awakened into a suitable posture. That a man is or hath been in a fit order for service may be concluded from (1.) His alacrity to undertake a duty. (2.) His activity in the prosecution. (3.) His satisfaction afterward. Right grounds and principles in these things being still pre-supposed.—Richard Gilpin, (1625-1699, 1700) in “Dæmonologia Sacra.”

Verse 7.—“I will sing.” It should alarm the wicked that they are contending with a people who sing and shout on the battle-field. Yea, they never sing louder than when most distressed and afflicted. Whether saints conquer or are conquered they still sing on. Blessed be God for that. Let sinners tremble at contending with men of a spirit so heavenly.—William S. Plumer.

Verse 7.—Sincerity makes the Christian sing, when he hath nothing to his supper, David was in none of the best case when in the cave, yet we never find him merrier: his heart makes sweeter music than ever his harp did.—William Gurnall.

Verses 7, 8.—That worship that is performed with a sleepy, drowsy body, is a weak worship, but the Psalmist here makes the awaking of the body to be the fruit and effect of the preparation of the heart; “Awake up, my glory; awake, Psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.” Why so? My heart is prepared. The heart prepared and thereby awakened, will awake the body. To worship God therefore without a prepared heart, is to worship him with a drowsy body, because with a drowsy heart, and therefore weakly.—John Angier, in “An Help to better Hearts, for better Times,” 1647.

Verse 8.—“Awake up, my glory; awake, Psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.” We must prevent God by early praise as well as prayer; “The God of my mercy shall prevent me,” sings David; and every child of David must prevent God again with his songs. Jehoshaphat delighted God with instruments of music before his deliverance. Faith must tune an επινίκιον, a psalm of victory before the triumph. Praise is the ingenious mother of future mercies; as the Virgin Mary sang at Hebron before the birth of her son at Bethlehem. Oh, heavenly contention between mercy and duty!—Samuel Lee, 1625-1691.

Verse 8.—“Awake up, my glory,” etc. We must sing with excited grace. Not only with grace habitual, but with excited and actual: the musical instrument delights not but when it is played upon. In this duty we must follow Paul’s advice to Timothy (2 Tim. i. 6), ἀναζωπυρεῖν, stir up the grace that is in us, and cry out as David, “Awake love, awake delight.” Ps. lvii. 8. The clock must be wound up before it can guide our time; the bird pleaseth not in her nest, but in her notes; the chimes only make music while they are going. Let us therefore beg the Spirit to blow upon our garden, that the spices thereof may flow out, when we set upon this joyous service. God loves active grace in duty, that the soul should be ready trimmed when it presents itself to Christ in any worship.—John Wells, in “Morning Exercises,” 1674.

Verse 8.—“I will awake early,” Literally, “I will awake the dawn,” a bold figure of poetry, as if the writer had said—The morning shall not awake me to praise; but in my songs I will anticipate the dawn.—R. T. Society’s Notes.

Verse 8.—It will answer our purpose to take notice, first, of the terms David uses, and then, secondly, press the exhortation. Of the terms he uses: 1. My glory. That is my soul (say some) because the spirit of a man is the glory of a man, whereby he is dignified and raised so much above the brutes, as to be but a “little lower than the angels,” nay, to be akin to God himself, “the Father of spirits.” My musical skill, say others, the glory of the artist above the unskilful; and that wherein David had the glory of excelling, as Jubal had of the first invention. My tongue, say others; for this is also the glory of a man above dumb creatures, and the glory of a wise man above a fool. And as the tongue is the glory of a man, so the glory of the tongue is to glorify God. Praise is the glory of all other uses to which the tongue is employed; and the tongue is, in the body, that “temple of the Holy Ghost,” what the silver trumpet was in the temple of Solomon; to sound the high praises of God, and express the raised affections of our souls.

2. “Awake Psaltery and harp.” The one for a Psalm, the other for a spiritual song or hymn; that is to say, all my musical instruments and skill I will employ in, and consecrate to the glory of him who “puts new songs into my mouth.” He first teaches my fingers to fight, and then to play the epinikion, or song of triumph. Sound, then, my Psaltery and harp, emulous of those that are around the throne above; your melody can soften my cares, lay my fears, and turn my cave into a choir. As to these instruments in the worship of God, they were doubtless allowed to David, and to the church in his time. They were agreeable to the state of that church and people, who were led very much by their senses; and whose infant and less discerning condition made it needful for the natural man to have something to fasten upon and be entertained with in the worship of God, and to sweeten and take off from the labour and burden of that service. But as the gospel worship and appointments are a more spiritual, pleasant, and reasonable service, and need them less, so in the gospel institution we find no footsteps of them; and we know who first brought them into the church, as well as who first brought them into the world. It is not my business here to dispute this matter; and he must at any time do it but indifferently, whose inclination is against him all the while, and whose genius tempts him to wish himself solidly confuted in all he can advance. But since I find these instruments in my text, and since the sound of such texts as these is made use of to turn the public worship so frequently into concerts of music, I shall leave them with this remark: that to let them alone, especially in public worship, though one thought them tolerable, has a much better grace with it than to declare them “sorely displeasing to God, and that they filthily defile his holy house and place of prayer.”