EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (3)

Verse 3.—“My bones waxed old.” God sporteth not at the sins of his elect, but outwardly doth deal with them more hardly, and chastise them more rigorously than he doth the reprobate. David’s troubles and pains were partly external, partly internal: external I call those that were cast on his body; internal upon his conscience. And in the body there were torments and vexations, seizing sometimes on his flesh—which was less painful—sometimes on his bones, which was more grievous, yea, almost intolerable, as experience teacheth. And this is God’s just recompence; when we bestow our strength on sin, God abateth it, and so weakeneth us. Samson spent his strength on Delilah, but to what weakness was he brought! Let us, therefore, learn, that God hath given us bones and the strength thereof for another use, that is, to serve him, and not waste or be prodigal of them in the devil’s service.—Archibald Symson.

Verse 3.—“My bones waxed old.” By bones, the strength of the body, the inward strength and vigour of the soul is meant. The conscience of sin, and the terror of judgment doth break the heart of a true penitent, so long as he beholdeth his sin deserving death, his judge ready to pronounce the sentence of it, hell open to receive him for it, and the evil angels, God’s executioners, at hand to hurry him to it.—Samuel Page, in “David’s Broken Heart,” 1646.

Verse 3.—“My bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.” David here not only mourns for sin as a man, but he roars, as it were, like a pained beast. He seems fitter for a wilderness to cry out, than for a secret chamber to weep in; at other times he can “water his couch” in the night, now he “roars” all the day long; at other times “his moisture is dried,” now his “bones,” the pillars of his house, shake and wax old.—Alexander Carmichael, 1677.

Verse 4.—“Thy hand.” A correcting hand, whereby God scourgeth and buffeteth his own children. Now the sense of God’s power punishing or correcting, is called God’s hand, as 1 Sam. v. 11. The hand of God was sore at Ekron, because of the ark; and a heavy hand in resemblance, because when men smite they lay their hand heavier than ordinary. Hence, we may note three points of doctrine: first, that all afflictions are God’s hand; secondly, that God lays his hand heavily often upon his dear children; thirdly, that God often continues his heavy hand night and day on them.—Thomas Taylor.

Verse 4.—“My moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” Another meaning may be attributed to these words. We may suppose the Psalmist to be referring to spiritual drought.—Charles H. Bingham, B.A., in “Lectures on the Thirty-second Psalm,” 1836.

Verse 4.—“My moisture is turned into the drought of summer.” The summer is from the middle of August to the middle of November. The intensity of the heat is great, and almost intolerable.... Up to the beginning or middle of September there are no showers, rain being as scarce in summer as snow.... The dry grass of the fields sometimes takes fire, and produces desolating conflagrations, and the parched earth is cleft and broken into chasms.—John Eadie, D.D., LL.D., in Biblical Cyclopædia, 1868.

Verse 4.—“The drought of summer.” Dr. Russell, in his account of the weather at Aleppo, which very much resembles that of Judæa, says that the verdure of the spring fades before the middle of May, and before the end of that month the whole country puts on so parched and barren an aspect that one would scarce think it capable of producing anything, there being but very few plants that have vigour enough to resist the extreme heat.—Thomas Harmer’s “Observations,” 1775.

Verse 4.—“The drought of summer.” During the twelve years from 1846 to 1859 only two slight showers fell in Jerusalem between the months of May and October. One fell in July, 1858, another in June, 1859.—Dr. Whitty’s “Water Supply of Jerusalem,” quoted in Kitto’s Cyclopædia.

Verse 4.—If God striketh those so sore whom he favoureth, how sharply and sore will he strike them whom he favoureth not.—Gregory.

Verses 4, 5.—If our offences have been not gnats, but camels, our sorrow must be not a drop, but an ocean. Scarlet sins call for bloody tears; and if Peter sin heinously he must weep bitterly. If, then, thy former life hath been a cord of iniquity, twisted with many threads, a writing full of great blots, a course spotted with various and grievous sins, multiply thy confessions and enlarge thy humiliation; double thy fastings and treble thy prayers; pour out thy tears, and fetch deep sighs; in a word, iterate and aggravate thy acknowledgments, though yet, as the apostle saith in another case, I say in this, “Grieve not as without hope,” that upon thy sincere and suitable repentance divine goodness will forgive thee thy sins.—Nathanael Hardy.

Verse 5.—“Selah.” See Vol. I., pp. 22, 23, 25, 27, 29.

Verse 5.—“I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid.” The godly man is ingenuous in laying open his sins. The hypocrite doth vail and smother his sin; he doth not abscindere peccatum, but abscondere; like a patient that hath some loathsome disease in his body, he will rather die than confess his disease; but a godly man’s sincerity is seen in this—he will confess and shame himself for sin. “Lo, I have sinned, and I have done wickedly.” 2 Sam. xxiv. 17. Nay a child of God will confess sin in particular; an unsound Christian will confess sin by wholesale; he will acknowledge he is a sinner in general, whereas David doth, as it were, point with his finger to the sore: “I have done this evil” (Psalm li. 4); he doth not say I have done evil, but this evil. He points at his blood-guiltiness.—Thomas Watson.

Verse 5.—“I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” Be thine own accuser in the free confession of thy sins. Peccavi pater (as the prodigal child), “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight.” For it fares not in the court of heaven as it doth in our earthly tribunals. With men a free confession makes way for a condemnation; but with God, the more a sinner bemoans his offence the more he extenuates the anger of his Judge. Sin cannot but call for justice, as it is an offence against God; yet, when once ’tis a wound to the soul it moveth him to mercy and clemency. Wherefore, as David having but resolved to confess his sins, was accosted eftsoon with an absolution: so, Tu agnosce, et Dominus ignoscet.[8] Be thou unfeigned in confessing, and God will be faithful in forgiving. 1 John i. 9. Only let confessio peccati be professio desinendi[9]—the acknowledgment of thy sin an obligation to leave it; and then thou mayest build upon it. “He that confesseth and forsaketh shall have mercy.” Prov. xxviii. 13.—Isaac Craven’s Sermon at Paul’s Cross, 1630.

Verse 5.—“I said, I will confess,” etc. Justified persons, who have their sins forgiven, are yet bound to confess sin to God.... There are many queries to be despatched in the handling of this point. The first query, is, what are the reasons why persons justified and pardoned are yet bound to make confession of sin unto God in private? The reasons are six. First, they are to confess sin unto God because holy confession gives a great deal of ease and holy quiet unto the mind of a sinner: concealed and indulged guilt constracts horror and dread on the conscience. Secondly, because God loves to hear the complaints and the confessions of his own people. Lying on the face is the best gesture, and the mourning weed the best garment that God is well pleased with. A third reason is, because confession of sin doth help to quicken the heart to strong and earnest supplication to God (see verse 6). Confession is to the soul as the whetstone is to the knife, that sharpens it and puts an edge on it; so doth confession of sin. Confessing thy evils to God doth sharpen and put an edge on thy supplication; that man will pray but faintly that doth confess sin but slightly. A fourth reason is, because confession of sin will work a holy contrition and a godly sorrow in the heart. (Psalm xxxviii. 18). Declaration doth work compunction. Confession of sin is but the causing of sin to recoil on the conscience, which causeth blushing and shame of face, and grief of heart. A fifth reason is, because secret confession of sin doth give a great deal of glory to God. It gives glory to God’s justice. I do confess sin, and do confess God in justice may damn me for my sin. It gives glory to God’s mercy. I confess sin, yet mercy may save me. It gives glory to God’s omnisciency. In confessing sin I do acknowledge that God knoweth my sin. A sixth reason why justified persons must confess sin unto God is, because holy confession of sin will embitter sin, and endear Christ to them, when a man shall let sin recoil on his conscience by a confession.—Condensed from Christopher Love’s “Soul’s Cordiall,” 1683.

Verse 5.—“I said I will confess ... and thou forgavest.” It remaineth as a truth, remission is undoubtedly annexed to confession. Tantum valent tres syllabæ Pec-ca-vi, saith St. Austin, of so great force are those three syllables in the Latin, three words in the English, when uttered with a contrite heart, “I have sinned.”—Nathanael Hardy.

Verse 5.—“Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” This sin seems very probably to have been his adultery with Bathsheba, and murder of Uriah. Now David to make the pardoning mercy of God more illustrious, saith he did not only forgive his sin, but the iniquity of his sin; and what was that? Surely the worst that can be said of that, his complicated sin, is that there was so much hypocrisy in it, he woefully juggled with God and man in it; this, I do not doubt to say, was the iniquity of his sin, and put a colour deeper on it than the blood which he shed. And the rather—I lay the accent there—because God himself, when he would set out the heinousness of this sin, seems to do it rather from the hypocrisy in the fact than the fact itself, as appears by the testimony given this holy man (1 Kings xv. 5): “David did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, and turned not aside from anything that he commanded him all the days of his life, save only in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.” Were there not other false steps which David took besides this? Doth the Spirit of God, by excepting this, declare his approbation of all that else he ever did? No, sure the Spirit of God records other sins that escaped this eminent servant of the Lord; but all those are drowned here, and this mentioned as the only stain of his life. But why? Surely because there appeared less sincerity, yea, more hypocrisy in this one sin than in all his others put together; though David in them was wrong as to the matter of his actions, yet his heart was more right in the manner of committing them. But here his sincerity was sadly wounded, though not to the total destruction of the habit, yet to lay it in a long swoon, as to any actings thereof. And truly the wound went very deep when that grace was stabbed in which did run the life blood of all the rest. We see, then, God hath reason, though his mercy prompted him, yea, his covenant obliged him, not to let his child die of this wound, yet so to heal it that a scar might remain upon the place, a mark upon the sin, whereby others might know how odious hypocrisy is to God.—William Gurnall.

Verse 5.—“Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.” We must observe the matter forgiven, and the manner of forgiving. The matter forgiven is the iniquity of his sin. It is disputed what is meant here by iniquity, whether culpa or pœna. Some understand pœnam, and think that an allusion is made in this word unto the message of Nathan, wherein God doth remit the heaviest stroke of his wrath, but yet retains some part in punishing the child, and permitting Absalom to rebel and abuse king David’s concubines: so Theodoret, Deus non condigna pœna Davidem punivit. Some understand culpam, and will have this phrase to be an amplification of that, as if superbia defendens, or taciturnitas celans, or impietas contra Deum assurgens, or some such great guilt were meant by this phrase. But as I do not censure these opinions, which may well stand, so I think the phrase looks back unto that word which was in the confession. The sin confessed was פֶּשַׁע, and this is but an analysis of this word; for עֲוֹן חַטָּאתִי, what is it, word for word, but the perverseness of my aberration? חֲטָּאָה is an aberration from the scope or mark whereat we aim; all men aim at felicity, but most men stray from it, because they are not led by the law that guides unto it, the violating whereof is called חֲטָּאָה. But some do stray out of mere ignorance, and they only break the law; some out of stubbornness, which will not submit themselves to the Lawgiver; these men’s sin is called perverseness, which God is said here to forgive. So that David did not confess more against himself than God includes in his pardon. Well may God exceed our desire; he never doth come short thereof if it do concern our spiritual, our eternal good. As he doth exclude no sinner that doth confess, so doth he except against no sin that is confessed.—Arthur Lake.