EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (2)

Verse 10.—“My defence is of God.” Literally, “My shield is upon God,” like Psalm lxii. 8, “My salvation is upon God.” The idea may be taken from the armour-bearer, ever ready at hand to give the needed weapon to the warrior.—Andrew A. Bonar.

Verse 11.—“God judgeth the righteous,” etc. Many learned disputes have arisen as to the meaning of this verse; and it must be confessed that its real import is by no means easily determined: without the words written in italics, which are not in the original, it will read thus, “God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry every day.” The question still will be, is this a good rendering? To this question it may be replied, that there is strong evidence for a contrary one. Ainsworth translates it, “God is a just judge; and God angrily threateneth every day.” With this corresponds the reading of Coverdale’s Bible, “God is a righteous judge, and God is ever threatening.” In King Edward’s Bible, of 1549, the reading is the same. But there is another class of critics who adopt quite a different view of the text, and apparently with much colour of argument. Bishop Horsley reads the verse, “God is a righteous judge, although he is not angry every day.” In this rendering he seems to have followed most of the ancient versions. The Vulgate reads it, “God is a judge, righteous, strong, and patient; will he be angry every day?” The Septuagint reads it, “God is a righteous judge, strong, and longsuffering; not bringing forth his anger every day.” The Syriac has it, “God is the judge of righteousness; he is not angry every day.” In this view of the text Dr. A. Clarke agrees, and expresses it as his opinion that the text was first corrupted by the Chaldee. This learned divine proposes to restore the text thus, “אֵל, el, with the vowel point tseri, signifies God; אַל, al, the same letters, with the point pathach, signifies not.” There is by this view of the original no repetition of the divine name in the verse, so that it will simply read, as thus restored, “God is a righteous judge, and is NOT angry every day.” The text at large, as is intimated in the Vulgate, Septuagint, and some other ancient versions, conveys a strong intimation of the longsuffering of God, whose hatred of sin is unchangeable, but whose anger against transgressors is marked by infinite patience, and does not burst forth in vengeance every day.—John Morison, in “An Exposition of the Book of Psalms,” 1829.

Verse 11.—“God is angry.” The original expression here is very forcible. The true idea of it appears to be, to froth or foam at the mouth with indignation.—Richard Mant, D.D., 1824.

Verses 11, 12.—God hath set up his royal standard in defiance of all the sons and daughters of apostate Adam, who from his own mouth are proclaimed rebels and traitors to his crown and dignity; and as against such he hath taken the field, as with fire and sword, to be avenged on them. Yea, he gives the world sufficient testimony of his incensed wrath, by that of it which is revealed from heaven daily in the judgments executed upon sinners, and those many but of a span long, before they can show what nature they have by actual sin, yet crushed to death by God’s righteous foot, only for the viperous kind of which they come. At every door where sin sets its foot, there the wrath of God meets us. Every faculty of soul, and member of body, are used as a weapon of unrighteousness against God; so every one hath its portion of wrath, even to the tip of the tongue. As man is sinful all over, so is he cursed all over. Inside and outside, soul and body, is written all with woes and curses, so close and full, that there is not room for another to interline, or add to what God hath written.—William Gurnall.

Verses 11-13.—The idea of God’s righteousness must have possessed great vigour to render such a representation possible. There are some excellent remarks upon the ground of it in Luther, who, however, too much overlooks the fact, that the Psalmist presents before his eyes this form of an angry and avenging God, primarily with the view of strengthening by its consideration his own hope, and pays too little regard to the distinction between the Psalmist, who only indirectly teaches what he described as part of his own inward experience, and the prophet: “The prophet takes a lesson from a coarse human similitude, in order that he might inspire terror unto the ungodly. For he speaks against stupid and hardened people, who would not apprehend the reality of a divine judgment of which he had just spoken; but they might possibly be brought to consider this by greater earnestness on the part of man. Now, the prophet is not satisfied with thinking of the sword, but he adds thereto the bow; even this does not satisfy him, but he describes how it is already stretched, and aim is taken, and the arrows are applied to it as here follows. So hard, stiff-necked, and unabashed are the ungodly, that however many threatenings may be urged against them, they will still remain unmoved. But in these words he forcibly describes how God’s anger presses hard upon the ungodly, though they will never understand this until they actually experience it. It is also to be remarked here, that we have had so frightful a threatening and indignation against the ungodly in no Psalm before this; neither has the Spirit of God attacked them with so many words. Then in the following verses, he also recounts their plans and purposes, shows how these shall not be in vain, but shall return again upon their own head. So that it clearly and manifestly appears to all those who suffer wrong and reproach, as a matter of consolation, that God hates such revilers and slanderers above all other characters.”—E. W. Hengstenberg, in loc., 1845.

Verse 12.—“If he turn not,” etc. How few do believe what a quarrel God hath with wicked men? And that not only with the loose, but the formal and hypocritical also? If we did we would tremble as much as to be among them as to be in a house that is falling; we would endeavour to “save” ourselves “from this untoward generation.” The apostle would not so have abjured them, so charged, so entreated them, had he not known the danger of wicked company. “God is angry with the wicked every day;” his bow is bent, the arrows are on the string; the instruments for their ruin are all prepared. And is it safe to be there where the arrows of God are ready to fly about our ears? How was the apostle afraid to be in the bath with Cerinthus! “Depart,” saith God by Moses, “from the tents of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, lest ye be consumed in all their sins.” How have the baskets of good figs suffered with the bad! Is it not prejudicial to the gold to be with the dross? Lot had been ruined by his neighbourhood to the Sodomites if God had not wrought wonderfully for his deliverance. Will you put God to work miracles to save you from your ungodly company? It is dangerous being in the road with thieves whilst God’s hue and cry of vengeance is at their backs. “A companion of fools shall be destroyed.” The very beasts may instruct you to consult better for your security: the very deer are afraid of a wounded chased deer, and therefore for their preservation thrust him out of their company.—Lewis Stuckley.

Verse 12.—“If he turn not, he will whet his sword,” etc. The whetting of the sword is but to give a keener edge that it may cut the deeper. God is silent as long as the sinner will let him; but when the sword is whet, it is to cut; and when the bow is bent, it is to kill; and woe be to that man who is the butt.—William Secker.

Verse 13.—“He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors.” It is said that God hath ordained his arrows against the persecutors; the word signifies such as burn in anger and malice against the godly; and the word translated ordained, signifies God hath wrought his arrows; he doth not shoot them at random, but he works them against the wicked. Illiricus hath a story which may well be a commentary upon this text in both the parts of it. One Felix, Earl of Wartenberg, one of the captains of the Emperor Charles V., swore in the presence of divers at supper, that before he died he would ride up to the spurs in the blood of the Lutherans. Here was one that burned in malice, but behold how God works his arrows against him: that very night the hand of God so struck him, that he was strangled and choked in his own blood; so he rode not, but bathed himself, not up to the spurs, but up to the throat, not in the blood of the Lutherans, but in his own blood before he died.—Jeremiah Burroughs.

Verse 13.—“He ordaineth his arrows.” This might more exactly be rendered, “He maketh his arrows burning.” This image would seem to be deduced from the use of fiery arrows.—John Kitto, 1804-1854.

Verse 14.—“Behold, he travaileth with iniquity,” etc. The words express the conception, birth, carriage, and miscarriage, of a plot against David. In which you may consider:—(1.) What his enemies did. (2.) What God did. (3.) What we all should do: his enemies’ intention, God’s prevention, and our duty; his enemies’ intention, he travaileth with iniquity, and conceiveth mischief; God’s prevention, he brought forth a lie; our duty, Behold.... Observe the aggravation of the sin, he conceiveth. He was not put upon it, or forced into it; it was voluntary. The more liberty we have not to sin, makes our sin the greater. He did not this in passion, but in cold blood. The less will, less sin.—Richard Sibbs.

Verse 14.—“He travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief.” All note that conceiving is before travailing, but here travailing, as a woman in labour, goeth first; the reason whereof is, that the wicked are so hotly set upon the evil which they maliciously intend, that they would be immediately acting of it if they could tell how, even before they have conceived by what means; but in fine they bring forth but a lie, that is, they find that their own hearts lied to them, when they promised good success, but they had evil. For their haste to perpetrate mischief is intimated in the word rendered “persecutors” (verse 13), which properly signifieth ardentes, burning; that is, with a desire to do mischief—and this admits of no delay. A notable common-place, both setting forth the evil case of the wicked, especially attempting anything against the righteous, to move them to repentance—for thou hast God for thine enemy warring against thee, whose force thou canst not resist—and the greedy desire of the wicked to be evil, but their conception shall all prove abortive.—J. Mayer, in loc.

Verse 14.—“And hath brought forth falsehood.” Every sin is a lie.—Augustine.

Verse 14.—

Verses 14, 15.—“They have digged a pit for us”—and that low, unto hell—“and are fallen into it themselves.”

The order of hell proceeds with the same degrees; though it give a greater portion, yet still a just proportion, of torment. These wretched guests were too busy with the waters of sin; behold, now they are in the depth of a pit, “where no water is.” Dives, that wasted so many tuns of wine, cannot now procure water, not a pot of water, not a handful of water, not a drop of water, to cool his tongue. Desideravit guttam, qui non dedit micam.[4] A just recompense! He would not give a crumb; he shall not have a drop. Bread hath no smaller fragment than a crumb, water no less fraction than a drop. As he denied the least comfort to Lazarus living, so Lazarus shall not bring him the least comfort dead. Thus the pain for sin answers the pleasure of sin.... Thus damnable sins shall have semblable punishments; and as Augustine of the tongue, so we may say of any member.... If it will not serve God in action, it shall serve him in passion.—Thomas Adams.

Verse 15.—“He made a pit and digged it.” The practice of making pitfalls was anciently not only employed for ensnaring wild beasts, but was also a stratagem used against men by the enemy, in time of war. The idea, therefore, refers to a man who, having made such a pit, whether for man or beast, and covered it over so as completely to disguise the danger, did himself inadvertently tread on his own trap, and fall into the pit he had prepared for another.—Pictorial Bible.

Verse 16.—That most witty of commentators, Old Master Trapp, tells the following notable anecdote, in illustration of this verse:—That was a very remarkable instance of Dr. Story, who, escaping out of prison in Queen Elizabeth’s days, got to Antwerp, and there thinking himself out of the reach of God’s rod, he got commission under the Duke of Alva to search all ships coming thither for English books. But one Parker, an English merchant, trading to Antwerp, laid his snare fair (saith our chronicler), to catch this foul bird, causing secret notice to be given to Story, that in his ship were stores of heretical books, with other intelligence that might stand him in stead. The Canonist conceiving that all was quite sure, hasted to the ship, where, with looks very big upon the poor mariners, each cabin, chest, and corner above-board were searched, and some things found to draw him further on: so that the hatches must be opened, which seemed to be unwillingly done, and great signs of fear were showed by their faces. This drew on the Doctor to descend into the hold, where now in the trap the mouse might well gnaw, but could not get out, for the hatches were down, and the sails hoisted up, which, with a merry gale were blown into England, where ere long he was arraigned, and condemned of high treason, and accordingly executed at Tyburn, as he had well deserven.

Verse 16.—The story of Phalaris’s bull, invented for the torment of others, and serving afterwards for himself, is notorious in heathen story.... It was a voluntary judgment which Archbishop Cranmer inflicted on himself when he thrust that very hand into the fire, and burnt it, with which he had signed to the popish articles, crying out, “Oh, my unworthy right hand!” but who will deny that the hand of the Almighty was also concerned in it?—William Turner in “Divine Judgments by way of Retaliation,” 1697.

Verse 17.—To bless God for mercies is the way to increase them; to bless him for miseries is the way to remove them: no good lives so long as that which is thankfully improved; no evil dies so soon as that which is patiently endured.—William Dyer.