EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (3)

Verse 6.—“I will wash mine hands,” etc. David willing to express his coming with a pure heart to pray to God, doth it by this similitude of a priest; that as a priest washes his hands, and then offers oblation, so had he constantly joined purity and devotion together.—Henry Hammond.

Verse 6.—“In innocency.” The very ἀκμὴ and crown of all our preparation, the purest water we can wash in, is innocency; and innocency is a virtue of the heart as well as of the hand. “Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.” James iv. 8. I could wish our washing might be like Cyprian’s baptising, ad tincturam, even till we were dyed in repentance and the blood of Christ. Let the quantity of thy sins be the measure of thy repentance. First offer thine innocency, then thy sacrifice. It is not enough that you come this day by order, you must come with innocency. God requires the duty of the second table, as well as of the first; he abhors the outward act of piety where he finds no conscience and practice of innocency.—Isaac Bargrave.

Verse 6 (first clause).—One morning, as Gotthold was pouring water into a basin, he recollected the words of Scripture: “I will wash my hands in innocency,” a text which shows how diligently the royal prophet had endeavoured to lead a blameless life, and walk habitually in the fear of God. Upon this he mused, and said, Henceforth, my God, every time I pour out water to wash with, I will call to mind that it is my duty to cleanse my hands from wicked actions, my mouth from wicked words, and my heart from wicked lusts and desires, that so I may be enabled to lift holy hands unto thee, and with unspotted lips and heart worship thee, to the best of my ability. What will it profit me to strive after outward purity, if my heart is filthy and abominable in thy sight? Can the food nourish me which I have earned with polluted hands, or seized with violence and injustice, or eaten with insensibility and ingratitude? Ah! no, my God; far from me be food like this. My first care shall be to maintain a blameless walk; my next, when I have thoughtlessly defiled myself, to cleanse and wash away the stain, and remove mine iniquity from thine eyes. “Purge me, O my God, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” Psalm li. 7.—Christian Scriver (1629-1693), in “Gotthold’s Emblems.”

Verse 6.—“I will compass thine altar, O Lord.” On the next day after this feast [the Feast of Tabernacles], the people compassed the altar seven times, with palm boughs in their hands, in the remembrance of the overthrow of Jericho.... Not only the boughs, but the days of this whole Feast of Tabernacles, were termed Hosannoth, from the usual acclamation of the people whilst they carried the boughs up and down.—Thomas Godwyn, B.D. (1587-1643), in “Moses and Aaron.”

Verse 6.—By the phrase compassing the altar, either he alludes to some Levitical custom of going about the altar, as the priests did in the oblation of their sacrifices; and the people, especially those of them who were more devout and zealous, who possibly moved from place to place, but still within their own court, that they might discern what was done on the several sides of the altar, and so be the more affected with it; or rather he implies that he would offer many sacrifices together, which would employ the priests round about the altar.—Matthew Pool.

Verse 8.—“Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house,” etc. “I have in my congregation,” said a venerable minister of the gospel, “a worthy, aged woman, who has for many years been so deaf as not to distinguish the loudest sound, and yet she is always one of the first in the meeting. On asking the reason of her constant attendance (as it was impossible for her to hear my voice), she answered, ‘Though I cannot hear you, I come to God’s house because I love it, and would be found in his ways; and he gives me many a sweet thought upon the text when it is pointed out to me: another reason is, because there I am in the best company, in the more immediate presence of God, and among his saints, the honourable of the earth. I am not satisfied with serving God in private; it is my duty and privilege to honour him regularly in public.’” What a reproof this is to those who have their hearing, and yet always come to a place of worship late, or not at all!—K. Arvine.

Verse 9.—“Gather not my soul with sinners.” Now is the time that people should be in care and concern, that their souls be not gathered with sinners in the other world. In discoursing from this doctrine we shall—1. Consider some things implied in it. 2. Show who are the sinners, that we are to have a horror of our souls being gathered with in the other world. 3. What it is for one’s soul to be gathered with sinners in the other world. 4. Consider this care and concern, or show what is implied in this earnest request, “Gather not my soul with sinners.” 5. Give the reasons why we should be in such care and concern. 6. Make application.

Death is the gathering time, which the Psalmist has in view in the text. Ye have a time here that ye call the gathering time, about the term when the servants are going away, wherein ye gather your strayed sheep, that every one may get their own again. Death is God’s gathering time wherein he gets the souls belonging to him, and the devil those belonging to him. They did go long together, but then they are parted; and saints are taken home to the congregation of saints, and sinners to the congregation of sinners. And it concerns us to say, “Gather not my soul with sinners.” Whoever be our people here, God’s people or the devil’s, death will gather our souls to them.

It is a horrible thing to be gathered with sinners in the other world. To think of our souls being gathered with them there, may make the hair of one’s head stand up. Many now like no gathering like the gathering with sinners; it is the very delight of their hearts, it makes a brave jovial life in their eyes. And it is a pain to them to be gathered with saints, to be detained before the Lord on a Sabbath-day. But to be gathered with them in the other world, is a horror to all sorts. 1. The saints have a horror of it, as in the text. To think to be staked down in their company in the other world would be a hell of itself to the godly. David never had such a horror of the society of the diseased, the persecuted, etc., as of sinners. He is content to be gathered with saints of whatever condition; but, “Lord,” says he, “Gather not my soul with sinners.” 2. The wicked themselves have a horror of it. Numb. xxiii. 10. “Let me die the death of the righteous,” said the wicked Balaam, “and let my last end be like his.” Though they would be content to live with them, or be with them in life, their consciences bear witness that they have a horror of being with them in death. They would live with sinners, but they would die with saints. A poor, unreasonable, self-condemning thought.—Thomas Boston.

Verse 9.—“Gather not my soul with sinners.” Bind me not up in the same bundle with them, like the tares for the fire. Matt. xiii. 30. The contrast to this is seen in the following Psalm (verse 10), “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up;” literally, will gather me to his fold.—Christopher Wordsworth.

Verse 9.—“Gather not my soul with sinners.” The Lord hath a harvest and a gleaning time also, set for cutting down and binding together, in the fellowship of judgments, God’s enemies, who have followed the same course of sinning: for here we are given to understand that God will “gather their souls,” and so will let none escape.—David Dickson.

Verse 9.—“Gather not my soul with sinners.” After all, it may be objected that this concern seems to be common to saints and sinners. Even a wicked Balaam said, “Let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his.” Numb. xxiii. 10. Take a few differences between them in this matter. 1. It is separation from Christ that makes the saints to have a horror at being gathered with sinners hereafter. Separation from Christ is the main ground of the believer’s horror: but if other things were to be right with the sinner in the other world, he would be easy under separation from Christ. 2. The believer has a horror at being gathered with sinners on account of their filthiness; but the thing that makes the sinner concerned is the prospect of punishment. No doubt, a principle of self-preservation must make punishment frightful to all; but abstracted from that, the saints have a concern not to be gathered with sinners in the other world, upon account of their unholiness and filthiness. “He who is filthy, let him be filthy still,” is enough to make a saint abhor the lot of sinners in the life to come. 3. The concern of the saints has a mighty influence upon them, to make them study holiness here; but sinners live unholy for all their concern. “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” 1 John iii. 3. What hope? The hope of seeing Christ as he is, and of being perfectly like him, of being separated from sinners. 4. Lastly, the concern of the saints is such, that they do with purpose of heart come out from among sinners more and more in this world; but sinners are not concerned to be separated from sinners here. Balaam wished to die the death of the righteous; but he had no concern to live the life of the righteous, and to be separated from sinners here.—James Scot, 1773.

Verses 9-12.—David prays that God would not “gather his soul with sinners, whose right hand is full of bribes;” such as, for advantage, would be bribed to sin, to which wicked gang he opposeth himself, verse 11: “But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity;” where he tells us what kept him from being corrupted and enticed, as they were, from God—it was his integrity. A soul walking in its integrity will take bribes neither from men, nor sin itself; and therefore he saith (verse 12), “His foot stood in an even place;” or, as some read it, “My foot standeth in righteousness.”—William Gurnall.

Verse 10.—“Their right hand is full of bribes.” If the great men in Turkey should use their religion of Mahomet to sell, as our patrons commonly sell benefices here (the office of preaching, the office of salvation), it should be taken as an intolerable thing; the Turk would not suffer it in his commonwealth. Patrons be charged to see the office done, and not to seek a lucre and a gain by their patronship. There was a patron in England that had a benefice fallen into his hand, and a good brother of mine came unto him, and brought him thirty apples in a dish, and gave them to his man to carry them to his master. It is like he gave one to his man for his labour, to make up the gain, and so there was thirty-one. This man cometh to his master, and presented him with the dish of apples, saying, “Sir, such a man hath sent you a dish of fruit, and desireth you to be good unto him for such a benefice.” “Tush, tush,” quoth he, “this is no apple matter, I will none of his apples, I have as good as these (or any he hath) in mine own orchard.” The man came to the priest again, and told him what his master said. “Then,” quoth the priest, “desire him yet to prove one of them for my sake, he shall find them much better than they look for.” He cut one of them, and found ten pieces of gold in it. “Marry,” quoth he, “this is a good apple.” The priest standing not far off, hearing what the gentleman said, cried out and answered, “they are all one apples, I warrant you, sir; they grew all on one tree, and have all one taste.” “Well, he is a good fellow, let him have it,” quoth the patron, etc. Get you a graft of this same tree, and I warrant you it shall stand you in better stead than all St. Paul’s learning.—Hugh Latimer.

Verse 10.—“Bribes.” They that see furthest into the law, and most clearly discern the cause of justice, if they suffer the dust of bribes to be thrown into their sight, their eyes will water and twinkle, and fall at last to blind connivance. It is a wretched thing when justice is made a hackney that may be backed for money, and put on with golden spurs, even to the desired journey’s end of injury and iniquity. Far be from our souls this wickedness, that the ear which should be open to complaints should be stopped with the earwax of partiality. Alas! poor truth, that she must now be put to the charges of a golden earpick, or she cannot be heard!—Thomas Adams.