EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (3)

Verse 16 (second clause).—Emphasis is laid on the phrase, to declare God’s statutes, which both denotes such an accurate knowledge of them as one may obtain by numbering them, and a diligent and public review of them. Properly speaking the word is derived from the Arabic, and signifies to reckon in dust, for the ancients were accustomed to calculate in dust finely sprinkled over tablets or the Abacus.—Hermann Venema.

Verse 16.—“But unto the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do ... to take my covenant into thy mouth?” For whom is the covenant made but for the wicked? If men were not wicked or sinful, what needed there a covenant of grace? The covenant is for the wicked, and the covenant brings grace enough to pardon those who are most wicked; why, then, doth the Lord say to the wicked, “What hast thou to do to take my covenant into thy mouth?” Observe what follows, and his meaning is expounded: “Seeing thou hatest to be reformed.” As if God had said, Thou wicked man, who protectest thy sin, and holdest it close, refusing to return and hating to reform; what hast thou to do to meddle with my covenant? Lay off thy defiled hands. He that is resolved to hold his sin takes hold of the covenant in vain, or rather he lets it go, while he seems to hold it. Woe unto those who sue for mercy while they neglect duty.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 16.—When a minister does not do what he teaches, this makes him a vile person; nay, this makes him ridiculous, like Lucian’s apothecary, who had medicines in his shop to cure the cough, and told others that he had them, and yet was troubled with it himself. With what a forehead canst thou stand in a pulpit and publish the laws of God, and undertake the charge of souls, that when thine own nakedness appears, when thy tongue is of a larger size than thy hands, thy ministry is divided against itself, thy courses give thy doctrine the lie; thou sayest that men must be holy, and thy deeds do declare thy mouth’s hypocrisy; thou doest more mischief than a hundred others.—William Fenner.

Verse 17.—“And castest my words behind thee.” Thou castest away contemptuously. with disgust and detestation, as idols are cast out of a city; or as Moses indignantly dashed to the earth the tables of the law.—Martin Geier.

Verse 17.—“My words:” apparently the ten commandments, accustomed to be called the ten words, by which God is often said to have made his covenant with Israel.—Hermann Venema.

Verse 18.—“When thou sawest a thief, then thou consentedst with him;” or didst run with him. This was literally true of the Scribes and Pharisees; they devoured widows’ houses, and robbed them of their substance, under a pretext of long prayers; they consented to the deeds of Barabbas, a robber, when they preferred him to Jesus Christ; and they joined with the thieves on the cross in reviling him; and, in a spiritual sense, they stole away the word of the Lord, every man from his neighbour; took away the key of knowledge from the people, and put false glosses upon the sacred writings.—John Gill.

Verse 18.—“Thou consentedst with him;” became his accomplice. Συνέτρεχες αὐτῷ, LXX, i.e., you helped him to carry off his booty and to make his escape.—Samuel Horsley.

Verse 18.—“Thou consentedst with him.” Or, thou runnest along with him. “Hast been partaker with;” namely, thou art his companion; a term taken from commerce of merchants, or from banquets made after the ancient manner, to which divers did contribute, and had their shares therein.—John Diodati.

Verse 18 (last clause).—To give entertainment to them we know to be dissolute, is to communicate with their sins.—Thomas Adams.

Verse 19.—“Thou givest thy mouth to evil,” etc. “Thou givest.” Heb., thou sendest forth; to wit, free; for the word is used of men’s dismissing their wives or their servants, whom they left to their freedom. Thou hast an unbridled tongue, and castest off all restraints of God’s law, and of thine own conscience, and givest thy tongue liberty to speak what thou pleasest, though it be offensive and dishonourable to God, and injurious to thy neighbour, or to thy own soul; which is justly produced as an evidence of their hypocrisy. “To evil,” either to sinful or mischievous speeches. “Frameth deceit,” i.e., uttereth lies or fair words, wherewith to circumvent those who deal with them.—Matthew Pool.

Verse 19.—The ninth commandment is now added to the other two, as being habitually violated by the person here addressed.—J. A. Alexander.

Verse 20.—“Thou sittest and speakest,” etc. A man may both speak and do evil while he sits still and doth nothing; an idle posture may serve the turn for such work as that.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 20.—“Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother,” etc. When you are sitting still, and have nothing else to do, you are ever injuring your neighbour with your slanderous speech. Your table-talk is abuse of your nearest friends.—Samuel Horsley.

Verse 20.—“Thine own mother’s son.” To understand the force of this expression, it is necessary to bear in mind that polygamy was allowed amongst the Israelites. Those who were born to the same father were all brethren, but a yet more intimate relationship subsisted between those who had the same mother as well as the same father.—French and Skinner.

Verse 21.—“These things hast thou done, and I kept silence.” Neither sleep nor slumber, nor connivance, nor neglect of anything can be incident to God. Because he doth not execute present judgment and visible destruction upon sinners, therefore blasphemy presumptuously inferreth—will God trouble himself about such petty matters? So they imagined of their imaginary Jupiter. Non vacat exiguis rebus adesse Jovem. What a narrow and finite apprehension this is of God! He that causeth and produceth every action—shall he not be present at every action? What can we do without him, that cannot move but in him? He that takes notice of sparrows, and numbers the seeds which the very ploughman thrusts in the ground, can any action of man escape his knowledge, or slip from his contemplation? He may seem to wink at things, but never shuts his eyes. He doth not always manifest a reprehensive knowledge, yet he always retains an apprehensive knowledge. Though David smote not Shimei cursing, yet he heard Shimei cursing. As judges often determine to hear, but do not hear to determine; so though God does not see to like, yet he likes to see.—Thomas Adams.

Verse 21.—“Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.” Such is the blindness and corruption of our nature, that we have very deformed and misshapen thoughts of him, till with the eye of faith we see his face in the glass of the word; and therefore Mr. Perkins affirms, that all men who ever came of Adam (Christ alone excepted) are by nature atheists; because at the same time that they acknowledge God, they deny his power, presence, and justice, and allow him to be only what pleaseth themselves. Indeed, it is natural for every man to desire to accommodate his lusts with such conception of God as may be most favourable to and suit best with them. God charges some for this: “Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.” Sinners do with God as the Ethiopians do with angels, whom they picture with black faces that they may be like themselves.—William Gurnall.

Verse 21.—“Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself.” This men do when they plead for sins as little, as venial, as that which is below God to take notice of; because they themselves think it so, therefore God must think it so too. Men, with a giant-like pride, would climb into the throne of the Almighty, and establish a contradiction to the will of God by making his own will, and not God’s, the square and rule of his actions. This principle commenced, and took date in Paradise, when Adam would not depend upon the will of God revealed to him, but upon himself and his own will, and thereby makes himself as God.—Stephen Charnock.

Verse 21.—“I will set them in order before thine eyes.” This is to be understood more militari, when sins shall be set in rank and file, in bloody array against thy soul; or more forensi, when they shall be set in order as so many indictments for thy rebellion and treason.—Stephen Charnock.

Verse 21.—“And set them in order before thine eyes:” as if he should say, Thou thoughtest all thy sins were scattered and dispersed; that there was not a sin to be found; that they should never be rallied and brought together; but I assure thee I will make an army of those sins, a complete army of them, I will set them in rank and file before thine eyes; and see how thou canst behold, much less contend with, such an host as they. Take heed therefore you do not levy war against your own souls; that’s the worst of all civil or intestine wars. If any army of divine terrors be so fearful, what will an army of black, hellish sins be? when God shall bring whole regiments of sins against you—here a regiment of oaths, there a regiment of lies, there a third of false dealings, here a troop of filthy actions, and there a legion of unclean or profane thoughts, all at once fighting against thy life and everlasting peace.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 21.—Atheists do mock at those Scriptures which tell us that we shall give account of all our deeds; but God shall make them find the truth of it in that day of their reckoning. It is as easy for him to make their forgetful minds remember as to create the minds in them. When he applieth his register to their forgetful spirits they shall see all their forgotten sins. When the printer presseth clean paper upon his oiled irons, it receiveth the print of every letter: so when God shall stamp their minds with his register, they shall see all their former sins in a view. The hand was ever writing against Belshazzar, as he was ever sinning, though he saw it not till the cup was filled: so is it to the wicked; their sins are numbered, and themselves weighed, and see not till they be divided by a fearful wakening.—William Struther.

Verse 21 (last clause).—“God setteth his sins in order before his eyes.” Imprimis, the sin of his conception. Item, the sins of his childhood. Item, of his youth. Item, of his man’s estate, etc. Or, Imprimis, sins against the first table. Item, sins against the second; so many of ignorance, so many of knowledge, so many of presumption, severally sorted by themselves. He committed sins confusedly, huddling them up in heaps; but God sets them in order, and methodizes them to his hands.—Thomas Fuller.

Verse 22.—“Now consider this, ye that forget God,” etc. What is less than a grain of sand? Yet when it comes to be multiplied, what is heavier than the sands of the sea? A little sum multiplied rises high; so a little sin unrepented of will damn us, as one leak in the ship, if it be not well looked to, will drown us. “Little sins,” as the world calls them, but great sins against the majesty of God Almighty, whose majesty, against which they are committed, doth accent and enhance them, if not repented of, will damn. One would think it no great matter to forget God, yet it has a heavy doom attending on it. The non-improvement of talents, the non-exercise of grace, the world looks upon as a small thing; yet we read of him who hid his talent in the earth—he had not spent it, only not trading it is sentenced.—Thomas Watson.

Verse 22.—“Lest I tear you in pieces.” This is a metaphorical expression, taken from the strength and irresistible fury of a lion, from which the interference of the shepherd can supply no protection, or defence, for his flock.—William Walford.

Verse 23.—“Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me.” Thanksgiving is a God-exalting work. Though nothing can add the least cubit to God’s essential glory, yet praise exalts him in the eyes of others. Praise is a setting forth of God’s honour, a lifting up of his name, a displaying the trophy of his goodness, a proclaiming his excellency, a spreading his renown, a breaking open the box of ointment, whereby the sweet savour and perfume of God’s name is sent abroad into the world. “To him that ordereth his conversation aright.” Though the main work of religion lies within, yet “our light must so shine,” that others may behold it: the foundation of sincerity is in the heart, yet its beautiful frontispiece appears in the conversation. The saints are called “jewels,” because they cast a sparkling lustre in the eyes of others. An upright Christian is like Solomon’s temple, gold within and without: sincerity is a holy leaven, which if it be in the heart will work itself into the life, and make it swell and rise as high as heaven. Phil. iii. 20.—Thomas Watson.