EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (3)

Verse 12.—“They rewarded me evil for good.” For the good David did in killing Goliath, and slaying his ten thousands of the Philistines, and thereby saving his king and country, Saul and his courtiers envied him, and sought to slay him: so our Lord Jesus Christ, for all the good he did to the Jews, by healing their bodies of diseases, and preaching the gospel to them for the benefit of their souls, was rewarded with reproaches and persecutions, and at last with the shameful death of the cross; and in like manner are his people used, but this is an evil that shall not go unpunished; see Prov. xvii. 13.—John Gill.

Verse 12.—“To the spoiling of my soul.” They robbed not his body of goods but his soul of consolation. They bereaved his soul (that is the word), like a widow who loses her children in whom she delighted and found succour. They were not content with injuring his estate, but they were for ruining the man himself by their undeserved malice, they attacked him in name and reputation, which were as dear to him as his sons and daughters, or even as his soul. It is evermore an injury to the soul to be attacked with slander, it puts a man into a warring attitude, endangers his peace of mind, imperils his enjoyment of quiet contemplation, and tends to interrupt his communion with God. Thus the spiritual nature is despoiled and suffers bereavement.—C. H. S.

Verse 13.—“My prayer returned into, or was directed to, my bosom.” Of the many interpretations that are given of this passage, that appears to me the most probable which derives it from the posture of the worshipper; who standing with his head inclined downward toward his bosom, turned away his attention from all external objects, and uttered his mournful and earnest requests, as if they were directed to his own bosom. Such a posture of devotion is in use both among Jews and Mohammedans.—Koehler in Repertor. Lit. Orient.; and Reland de Relig. Mohammedica, quoted by Walford in loc.

Verse 13 (last clause).—We may read it thus: Let my prayer return into my bosom; that is, I wished no worse to them than to myself: let me receive of God such good as I prayed for them. See Psalm lxxix. 12.—Henry Ainsworth.

Verse 14.—“For his mother.” On account of the plurality of wives in an Eastern household, the sons are usually far more attached to their mother than their father. Their father they share with a numerous band of half-brothers, who are envious of them, or of whom they are jealous, but their mother is all their own, with her they are brought up in childhood; she takes their part in youth, in the numerous battles of the harem; and on their part when they are grown up, they love her intensely, and hence their mourning at her decease is of the bitterest kind.—C. H. S.

Verse 14.—“His mother.” Mahomet was once asked what relation had the strongest claim upon our affection and respect; when he instantly replied, “The mother, the mother, the mother.”

Verse 14 (last clause).—Bewaileth his mother: mourneth at her funeral. In this case the affections are most strong. Therefore the priests were permitted to mourn for such. Levit. xxi. 1, 2, 3.—Henry Ainsworth.

Verse 15.—“But in mine adversity they rejoiced,” etc.—Do not glory in your neighbour’s ruins. The fire-fly leaps and dances in the fire, and so do many wicked men rejoice in the sufferings of others. Such as rejoice in the sufferings of others are sick of the devil’s disease; but from that disease the Lord deliver all your souls. ’Tis sad to insult over those whom God hath humbled; ’tis high wickedness to triumph over those to whom God hath given a cup of astonishment to drink. Such as make the desolations of their neighbours to be the matter either of their secret repast, or open exultation, such may fear that the very dregs of divine wrath are reserved for them. ’Tis bad playing upon the harp because others have been put to hang their harps upon the willows. We must not pray with him in the tragedy, but it may rain calamities; nor with Clemens’ Gnostic, Give me calamities that I may glory in them. There cannot be a greater evidence of a wicked heart, than for a man to be merry because others are in misery. “He that is glad at calamities (that is, at the calamities of others) shall not be unpunished.” Prov. xvii. 5. If God be God, such as congratulate our miseries instead of condoling them, shall be sure to be punished with the worst of punishments; for such do not only sin against the law of grace, but also against the very law of nature; the law of nature teaching men to sympathise with those that are in misery, and not to rejoice over them because of their miseries. O, sirs, do not make others’ mourning your music, do not make others’ tears your wine; as you would not be made drunk at last with the wine of astonishment.—Thomas Brooks.

Verse 15.—“But in mine adversity they rejoiced,” etc. Marvellous prophecy of the cross! second only, if indeed second, to that in the twenty-second Psalm. Still closer to the history if we take the Vulgate: the scourges were gathered together upon me. Even so, O Lord Jesus, the ploughers ploughed upon thy back, and made long furrows: precious furrows for us, where are sown patience for the present life, and glory in the next; where are sown hope that maketh not ashamed, and love that many waters cannot quench. “The very abjects.” Even those worst of abjects, who said, “God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are;” who had set the poor sinner before the Lord, with their “Moses in the law commanded that such should be stoned.” “Making mouths at me.” And is it not wonderful that, well knowing the prophecy, yet the chief priests and scribes should have so fulfilled it, as that it should be written concerning them. “They that passed by mocked him, wagging their heads”?—Lewis de Grenada, 1504-1588.

Verse 15.—“In mine adversity they rejoiced.” Now, as men often relent at seeing the misfortunes of their enemies, so that they cease to hate or persecute those who are already miserably wretched, it was an evidence of the very cruel and fierce spirit by which David’s former friends were actuated against him, when, upon seeing him cast down and afflicted, they were rather by this incited furiously and insolently to assail him.—John Calvin.

Verse 15.—“The abjects.” The very abjects (Prayer Book Version). The Hebrew word Nechim, thus translated, comes from a verb signifying to be smitten. Hence, in the Septuagint it is rendered scourges. But it may also be rendered, with Jerome, smiters, and may mean smitten with the tongue. Com. Jer. xviii. 18. Another of its meanings is, according to Buxtorf, the wry-legged, the lame; and so it is used in 2 Sam. iv. 4; ix. 3; whence the epithet of Necho was given to one of the Pharaohs who halted in his gait. Our translators seem to have understood the word in this last sense, as a term of contempt.—Daniel Cresswell.

Verse 15.—David, having showed how compassionate he was to his enemies in their affliction (verse 14), he presently shows (verse 15), how incompassionate, or barbarously cruel rather, his enemies were to him in his. “Abjects” are vile persons, men smitten in their estates and credits; yea, often as slaves or ill servants smitten with cudgels or whips. So a learned translator renders the Psalm, The smitten gathered against me; that is, vile men who deserve to be beaten and cudgelled.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 16.—“With hypocritical mockers in feasts.” Some cannot be merry, but it must be with Scripture; if they want a little diversion, the saints must be the subject of their discourse! they can vent their profane jests upon the word of God; this is their pastime over their cups upon the ale-bench. How ready they are with their contumelious reflections; they have learnt their father’s dialect, they are accusers of the brethren, their speech bewrays them to be Hellians. You know that in ordinary, we can tell what countryman a person is by his speech, every country having almost a peculiar idiom; so it is here, these scoffers at religion by speaking the language of hell, let us understand whence they are. They have, it may be, a little wit, which they set off with a sort of an air in rhetorical raillery, and oh, how quick and sharp when they are upon this subject! These scoffing Ishmaelites are seated in the devil’s chair, somewhat above their brethren in iniquity, as most deserving the place; and there is less ground to hope that such persons will be savingly wrought upon who arrive to such a height in sin as to make a mock of it, and to sport with holiness, than of others. Persons are got a great way towards hell when they mock at what is serious, and that with delight. This the Lord will visit for in his due time; for he knows who they are that so dishonour him by reproaching them that are his.—Oliver Heywood.

Verse 16.—“Hypocritical mockers in feasts.” בְּחַנְפֵי ל׳ מ׳. Very difficult. The word מָעוֹג, in Kings xvii. 12, the only other passage where it occurs, means “a cake.” Hence ל׳ מ׳ is interpreted by Gesenius and other to mean, hangers-on at the tables of the rich (lit. “cake-mockers”) whose business it was, by witticisms and buffoonery to make entertainment for the guests, and who got their dinner in return, like the Gr. ψωμοκόλακες, κνισοκόλακες, and the Mediæv. Lat. buccellarii. Then the words would mean, “Amongst the profanest.”—J. J. Stewart Perowne. [Would not our word loafers be somewhat analogous to these cake-eaters of antiquity!]—C. H. S.

Verse 16.—“Hypocritical mockers.” David aggravates the sin of those jeering companions who made him their table-talk, and could not taste their cheer except seasoned with some salt jest quibbled out at him, with this, that they were “hypocritical mockers;” they did it slily, and wrapped up their scoffs, it is like in such language as might make some think, who did not well observe them, that they applauded him. There is a way of commending which some have learned to use when they mean to cast the greatest scorn upon those they hate bitterly, and these hypocritical mockers deserve the chair to be given them from all other scorners.—William Gurnall.

Verse 16.—“Mockers in feasts.” If it were known at a feast that there was any one present or absent, whom the host disliked, it was customary for the guests to “make fun of them,” and use sarcastic language respecting them. These are the “hypocritical mockers in feasts.”—John Gadsby.

Verse 17.—Satan no sooner spies our wanderings, but he presently runs with a complaint to God, filing bills against us in the star-chamber of heaven, where the matter would go hard with us, but for the Great Lord Chancellor of peace, our Advocate Jesus Christ. As God keeps all our tears in a bottle, and registereth the very groans of our holy passion in a book, so Satan keeps a record of our sins, and solicits justice against us. Were God like man, subject to passions, or incensible by the suggestions of the common barrator, woe were us. But he will hear one son of truth before ten thousand fathers of lying. No matter what the plaintiff libelleth, when the judge acquitteth. We have forfeited our estates by treason, and the busy devil begs us; but there is one that steps in, and pleads a former grant, and that both by promise and purchase. “Lord, rescue my soul from their destructions, my darling from the lions.” Lord Jesus, challenge thine own; let not Satan enter upon by force or fraud, what thou hast bought with thine own blood.—Thomas Adams.

Verse 17.—“My darling.” In Poole’s Synopsis the critics explain this name for the soul, as my only one, my solitary one, desolate, deserted, and destitute of human hope. Such is the soul under sore affliction. See Ps. xxii. 21. “From the lions.” Daniel in the den was literally where David was spiritually. Shut in among fierce, cruel, and angry creatures, and himself defenceless, having no weapon but prayer, no helper but the Lord. The people of God may be exposed to the lions of hell, and their roarings may grievously affright them; but the soul which is their “darling” is also God’s dear one, and therefore they shall be rescued.—C. H. S.

Verse 19.—“Wink with the eye.” Showing pleasure in their eyes because of my evil.—Francis Vatablus, 1545.

Verse 19.—“Wink the eye.” This was a sign which malicious persons made to each other when the object of their malice was gained, scornfully twisting their eyes together. The Hebrew word here has no sufficiently expressive substitute in English.—Benjamin Weiss.

Verse 21.—“Our eye hath seen.” Eye for eyes, unless we would say that all the wicked are so conjoined, that they may seem to have but one eye, heart, head.—John Trapp.