EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

Whole Psalm.—In this Psalm, the strength of Jehovah is celebrated; and the exemplification of it is evidently taken from a thunder-storm in Lebanon. The Psalm seems to be addressed to the angels. See Psalm lxxxix. 7. It thus begins:—

Immediately follows the description of the thunder-storm, in which it does not seem fanciful to observe the historical progression which is usual on such occasions. The first lines seem to describe only the noise of the thunder, the description growing more intense as the rumbling draws nearer.

But now the effects become visible; the storm has descended on the mountains and forests:—

From the mountains the storm sweeps down into the plains, where, however, its effects are not so fearful as on the mountains—

The description of the swollen torrents closes the scene—

And the moral or application of the whole is—

Whole Psalm.—There is no phenomenon in nature so awful as a thunder-storm, and almost every poet from Homer and Virgil down to Dante and Milton, or rather down to Grahame and Pollok, has described it. In the Bible, too, we have a thunder-storm, the twenty-ninth Psalm—the description of a tempest, which, rising from the Mediterranean, and travelling by Lebanon and along the inland mountains, reaches Jerusalem, and sends the people into the temple-porticoes for refuge; and, besides those touches of terror in which the geographical progress of the tornado is described, it derives a sacred vitality and power from the presence of Jehovah in each successive peal.—James Hamilton, D.D., in “The Literary Attractions of the Bible,” 1849.

Whole Psalm.—A glorious Psalm of praise sung during a tempest, the majesty of which shakes universal nature, so much so that the greatness of the power of the Lord is felt by all in heaven and on earth. This Lord is the God of his people, who blesses them with strength and peace. To rightly appreciate the feelings of the bard, one ought to realise an Oriental storm, especially in the mountainous regions of Palestine, which, accompanied by the terrific echoes of the encircling mountains, by torrents of rain-like waterspouts, often scatters terror on man and beast, destruction on cities and fields. Wilson, the traveller, describes such a tempest in the neighbourhood of Baalbek: “I was overtaken by a storm, as if the floodgates of heaven had burst; it came on in a moment, and raged with a power which suggested the end of the world. Solemn darkness covered the earth: the rain descended in torrents, and sweeping down the mountain side, became by the fearful power of the storm transmuted into thick clouds of fog.” Compare also our Lord’s parable, taken from life, in Matt. vii. 27.—Augustus F. Tholuck, in loc.

Verse 1.—“Give unto the Lord.” Give, give, give. This showeth how unwilling such are usually to give God his right, or to suffer a word of exhortation to this purpose.—John Trapp.

Verse 1.—“O ye mighty.” The Septuagint renders it, O ye sons of rams! These bell-wethers should not cast their noses into the air, and carry their crest the higher, because the shepherd hath bestowed a bell upon them, more than upon the rest of the flock.—John Trapp.

Verses 1, 2.—There are three gives in these two verses:—“Give unto the Lord, give unto the Lord, give unto the Lord the glory that is due unto his name.” Glory is God’s right, and he stands upon his right; and this the sincere Christian knows, and therefore he gives him his right, he gives him the honour and the glory that is due unto his name. But pray do not mistake me. I do not say that such as are really sincere do actually eye the glory of Christ in all their actions. Oh, no! This is a happiness desirable on earth, but shall never be attained till we come to heaven. Bye and base ends and aims will be still ready to creep into the best hearts, but all sincere hearts sigh and groan under them. They complain to God of them, and they cry out for justice, justice upon them; and it is the earnest desire and daily endeavours of their souls to be rid of them; and therefore they shall not be imputed to them, nor keep good things from them. But now take a sincere Christian in his ordinary, usual, and habitual course, and you shall find that his aims and ends in all his actions and undertakings are to glorify God, to exalt God, and to lift up God in the world. If the hypocrite did in good earnest aim at the glory of God in what he does, then the glory of God would swallow up his bye-aims and carnal ends, as Aaron’s rod swallowed up the magicians’ rods. Exod. vii. 10-12. Look, as the sun puts out the light of the fire, so the glory of God, where it is aimed at, will put out and consume all bye and base ends. This is most certain, that which is a man’s great end, that will work out all other ends. He that sets up the glory of God as his chief end, will find that his chief end will by degrees eat out all low and base ends. Look, as Pharaoh’s lean kine ate up the fat (Gen. xli. 4), so the glory of God will eat up all those fat and worldly ends that crowd in upon the soul in religious work. Where the glory of God is kept up as a man’s greatest end, there all bye and base ends will be kept at an under.—Thomas Brooks.

Verse 2.—“Give unto the Lord the glory due unto his name.” Which yet you cannot do, for his name is above all praise (Psalm cxlviii. 13); but you must aim at it. The Rabbins observe that God’s holy name is mentioned eighteen several times in this Psalm; that great men especially may give him the honour of his name, that they may stand in awe and not sin, that they may bring presents to him who ought to be feared, and those also the very best of the best, since he is a great king, and standeth much upon his seniority. Mal. i. 14.—John Trapp.

Verse 2.—“Worship the Lord.” If any should ask, Why is the Lord to be worshipped? Why must he have such high honours from those that are high? What doth he in the world that calls for such adoration? David answereth meteorologically as well as theologically, he answers from the clouds (verses 3, 4), “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the Lord is upon many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty;” as if he had said, Although the Lord Jesus Christ will not set up an outward, pompous, political kingdom, such as that of Cyrus, Alexander, etc., yet by the ministry of the gospel he will erect a spiritual kingdom, and gather to himself a church that shall abide for ever, out of all the nations of the earth; for the gospel shall be carried and preached, to not only the people of Israel, the Jews, but to the Gentiles, all the world over, that the minds of men may be enlightened, awakened, and moved with that unheard of doctrine of salvation by Christ, which had been hid from ages and generations.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 3.—“The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: the God of glory thundereth: the Lord is upon many waters.” Yes, great God, these torrents of tears which flow down from my eyes announce thy divine presence in my soul. This heart hitherto so dry, so arid, so hard; this rock which thou hast struck a second time, will not resist thee any longer, for out of it there now gushes healthful waters in abundance. The selfsame voice of God which overturns the mountains, thunders, lightens, and divides the heaven above the sinner, now commands the clouds to pour forth showers of blessings, changing the desert of his soul into a field producing a hundredfold; that voice I hear.—J. B. Massillon.

Verses 3-10.—“The Lord,” etc. All things which we commonly say are the effects of the natural powers of matter and laws of motion, are, indeed (if we will speak strictly and properly), the effects of God’s acting upon matter continually and at every moment, either immediately by himself, or mediately by some created intelligent being. Consequently there is no such thing as the cause of nature, or the power of nature.—Samuel Clarke,[2] 1675-1729.

Verses 3-10.—

Verses 3-11.—

Verse 4.—“The voice of the Lord.” These vehement repetitions resemble a series of thunder-claps; one seems to hear the dread artillery of heaven firing volley after volley, while peal on peal the echo follows the sound.—C. H. S.

Verse 4.—“The voice of the Lord is powerful.” I would render unto God the glory due unto his name, for the admirable change which he has wrought in my heart. There was nothing to be found in me but an impious hardness and inveterate disorder. From this helpless state he changed me into a new man and made resplendent the glory of his name and the power of his grace. He alone can work such prodigies. Unbelievers who refuse to acknowledge the hand of God in creation must surely in this case admit, that “this is the finger of God.” Yes, great God, chaos knows not how to resist thee, it hears thy voice obediently, but the obdurate heart repels thee, and thy mighty voice too often calls to it in vain. Thou art not so great and wonderful in creating worlds out of nothing as thou art when thou dost command a rebel heart to arise from its abyss of sin, and to run in the ways of thy commandments. To disperse a chaos of crime and ignorance by the majesty of thy word, to shed light on the direst darkness, and by the Holy Ghost to establish harmonious order where all was confusion, manifests in far greater measure thine omnipotence than the calling forth of heavenly laws and celestial suns from the first chaos.—J. B. Massillon.

Verse 4.—O may the evangelical “Boanerges” so cause the glorious sound of the gospel to be heard under the whole heaven, that the world may again be made sensible thereof; before that voice of the Son of Man, which hath so often called sinners to repentance, shall call them to judgment.—George Horne.

Verse 4.—Where the word of a king is, there is power, but what imperial voice shall be likened unto the majestic thunder of the Lord?—C. H. S.

Verse 5.—“The voice of Jehovah.” Philosophers think not that they have reasoned skilfully enough about inferior causes, unless they separate God very far from his works. It is a diabolical science, however, which fixes our contemplations on the works of nature, and turns them away from God. If any one who wished to know a man, should take no notice of his face, but should fix his eyes only on the points of his nails, his folly might justly be derided. But far greater is the folly of those philosophers, who, out of mediate and proximate causes, weave themselves vails lest they should be compelled to acknowledge the hand of God, which manifestly displays itself in his works.—John Calvin.

Verse 5.—“The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars,” etc. Like as tempests when they arise, and lightning, quickly and in a trice, hurl down and overturn mountains and the highest trees; even so doth the Lord bring down with a breakneck fall, the proud, haughty, arrogant, and insolent, who set themselves against God, and seek the spoil of those that be quiet and godly.—Robert Cawdray.

Verse 5.—“The voice of the Lord breaketh the cedars.” The ancient expositors remind us that the breaking of the cedar trees by the wind, is a figure of the laying low of the lofty and proud things of this world, by the rushing mighty wind of the Holy Spirit, given on that day. Confringit cedros Deus, hoc est humiliat superbos. (S. Jerome, and so S. Basil.)—Christopher Wordsworth.

Verse 5.—“The Lord breaketh the cedars of Lebanon.”—What a shame is it then that our hard hearts break not, yield not, though thunder-struck with the dreadful menaces of God’s mouth!—John Trapp.

Verse 5.—“Breaketh the cedars of Lebanon:”—

Verse 5.—“The cedars of Lebanon.” These mighty trees of God, which for ages have stood the force of the tempest, rearing their ever-green colossal boughs in the region of everlasting snow, are the first objects of the fury of the lightning, which is well known to visit first the highest objects.—Robert Murray M’Cheyne.

Verse 6.—“He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn;” that is, the Lord by his thundering, powerful voice, first, will make them skip, as frighted with fear; and secondly, as revived with joy. Yet more (verse 7), “The voice of the Lord divideth the flames of fire;” that is, will send and divide to every one as they need (1 Cor. xii. 11), the Holy Spirit, who is compared to and called fire (Matt. iii. 11), and who came as with a thunder-storm of a rushing mighty wind, and with the appearance of cloven tongues, like as of fire, and sat upon each one of the apostles. Acts ii. 2, 3. Nor did this voice of thunder, accompanied with divided flames of fire reach Jerusalem only; for, as it follows (verse 8), “The voice of the Lord shaketh the wilderness; the Lord shaketh the wilderness of Kadesh;” that is, the Lord by the voice of the gospel shall go forth with power to those Gentiles, who are like a wilderness, barren of goodness, and unmanured in spirituals, though they dwell in well-governed cities, and are well furnished with morals. It shall go forth also to those Gentiles who inhabit waste wildernesses, and are not so much as reduced to civility. These wildernesses, the thundering voice of the Lord hath shaken heretofore, and doth shake at this day, and will yet further shake, that the fulness of the Gentiles may come in. Many of these wildernesses hath the Lord turned into fruitful fields, and pleasant lands, by the voice of the gospel sounding among them. For in these wildernesses (as it followeth, verse 9), “The voice of the Lord maketh the hinds to calve;” that is, they that were as wild, as untaught, and untamed as the hind, or any beast in the forest, he brings to the sorrows of their new birth, to repentance and gospel humiliation, and in doing this, “he (as the Psalmist goes on), discovereth the forests;” that is, opens the hearts of men, which are as thick set and full grown with vanity, pride, hypocrisy, self-love, and self-sufficiency, as also with wantonness and sensuality, as any forest is overgrown with thickets of trees and bushes, which deny all passage through, till cleared away with burning down or cutting up. Such an opening, such a discovery, doth the Lord make in the forests of men’s hearts, by the sword and fire, that is, by the word and spirit of the gospel; and when all this is done, the forest becomes a temple, and as that verse concludes, “In his temple doth every one speak of his glory.” And if the floods of ungodliness rise up against this people, whom the thunder and lightning of the gospel have subdued to Christ, and framed into a holy temple, then the Psalmist assureth us (verse 10), “The Lord sitteth upon the flood,” that is, ’tis under his power, he ruleth and overruleth it; “Yea, the Lord sitteth King for ever;” and (verse 11), “The Lord will give strength unto his people; the Lord will bless his people with peace.” Thus, the Lord “thundereth marvellously” (Job xxxvii. 5), and these are glorious marvels which he thundereth; he converts sinners.