EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (4)

Verse 18.—“The Lord is nigh unto them,” etc. We are apt to overlook men, in proportion as they are humbled beneath us; God regards them in that proportion. Vessels of honour are made of that clay which is “broken” into the smallest parts. George Horne.

Verse 18.—“Broken heart ... contrite spirit.” Oh, this is the misery of all miseries which ministers have most cause to complain of, that men are not fitted enough for Jesus Christ, they are not lost enough in themselves for a Saviour. “In thee the fatherless findeth mercy.” Hosea xiv. 3. Were we more hopeless, helpless, and fatherless, we should find more mercy from the hand of Jesus Christ. O that God would awaken and shake some sin-sleeping soul this day! O that this doctrine thus opened might be as a thunderbolt to let some of you see the inside of yourselves! O poor sinner, thou hast an unsupportable burden of sin and guilt lying on thy soul, ready to press thee down to hell, and yet thou feelest it not; thou hast the wrath of God hanging over thy head by the twined thread of a short life, which it may be thou mayest not be free from one year, nay, perhaps not one month, but thou seest it not; if thou didst but see it, then thou wouldest cry out as he did in Bosworth field, “A horse! a horse! a kingdom for a horse!” So thou wouldest cry out, None but Christ! nothing but Christ! ten thousand worlds for Christ! James Nalton, 1664.

Verse 18.—“A contrite spirit.” דַּכְּאֵי־רוּחַ, dakkeey ruach, “the beaten-out spirit.” In both words the hammer is necessarily implied; in breaking to pieces the ore first, and then plating out the metal when it has been separated from the ore. This will call to the reader’s remembrance Jer. xxiii. 29, “Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord: and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?” The breaking to shivers, and beating out are metaphorical expressions: so are the hammer and the rock. What the large hammer struck on a rock by a powerful hand would do, so does the word of the Lord when struck on the sinner’s heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. The broken heart, and the contrite spirit, are two essential characteristics of true repentance.—Adam Clarke.

Verse 19.—“Many are the afflictions of the righteous,” etc. Be our troubles many in number, strange in nature, heavy in measure; yet God’s mercies are more numerous, his wisdom more wondrous, his power more miraculous; he will deliver us out of all.—Thomas Adams.

Verse 19.—“Many are the afflictions of the righteous,” etc. When David did behold his trouble, like the host of the Aramites (2 Kings vi. 16), he looked back unto God like Elisha, and spied one with him stronger than all against him. Therefore, respecting his afflictions he crieth, “Many are the troubles of the righteous;” respecting the promise he sayeth, “The Lord delivereth him out of all.” Thus, by his own foot, David measureth the condition of the righteous, and saith, “Many are the troubles of the righteous;” and then, by his own cure, he showeth how they should be healed by saying, “The Lord will deliver him out of them all.”... The lawyer can deliver his client but from strife, the physician can deliver his patient but from sickness, the master can deliver his servant but from bondage, but the Lord delivereth us from all. As when Moses came to deliver the Israelites, he would not leave a hoof behind him, so when the Lord cometh to deliver the righteous he will not leave a trouble behind him. He who saith, “I put away all thine iniquities,” will also say, “I put away all thine infirmities.”—Henry Smith.

Verse 20.—“He keepeth all his bones,” which were very many. Perhaps (saith Abenezra here), David had been scourged by the Philistines, but his bones were not broken, nor were our Saviour’s. John xix. 36.—John Trapp.

Verse 20.—“All his bones.” Muis observes, “It says not his body, for this he permits to be afflicted; but it signifies that the evils of the godly are light, and scarcely penetrate to the bone;” but Geier observes, “This is too subtle, rather the bone reminds us of the essential parts of the body, by whose injury the whole frame is endangered. It is a proverbial form of speech like that in Matt. x. 30, ‘The very hairs of your head are all numbered,’ expressing the remarkable defence afforded to the righteous.” Genebrard, says, “The bones are put by synecdoche for all the members.”—From Poli Synopsis.

Verse 20.—The passover lamb, of which not a bone was broken, prefigured Jesus as one, “not a bone of whose body should be broken;” and yet, at the same time it prefigured the complete keeping and safety of Christ’s body, the church; as it is written, “He keepeth all his bones; not one of them is broken.”—Andrew A. Bonar’s Commentary on Leviticus.

Verse 20.—Christ’s bones were in themselves breakable, but could not actually be broken by all the violence in the world, because God had fore-decreed, a bone of him shall not be broken. So we confess God’s children mortal; but all the power of devil or man may not, must not, cannot, kill them before their conversion, according to God’s election of them to life, which must be fully accomplished.—Thomas Fuller.

Verse 20.—Observe as a point of resemblance between this and the following Psalm, the mention of the bones here and in Psalm xxxv. 10.—C. Wordsworth.

Verse 21.—“Evil.” Afflictions though in the plural, prove not ruinous to the righteous, for the Lord delivers him out of them all, whereas evil in the singular slays the wicked, to signify the difference of God’s economy towards righteous and wicked men. The former is permitted to fall into many pressures, the latter is not so frequently exercised with them, yet the many that befall the one do no hurt, but work good for him, whereas the fewer that befall the wicked, or perhaps the one singular affliction of his life is the utter ruin of him.—Henry Hammond.

Verse 21:—

Verse 21.—“Shall be desolate.” In the margin it is, shall be guilty. And this is the proper meaning of the original word, יֶאְשָׁמו. They are guilty, and liable to punishment. Thus the word is frequently rendered in our version (see Levit. iv. 13, 22); and generally includes in it the idea of guilt, and the punishment incurred by it.—Samuel Chandler, D.D.

Verse 22.—The promises of God to his church, and his threatenings of sin recorded in the living book of his word, are not antiquate; no age shall ever superannuate them, or put them out of full force and virtue. What if good persons and good causes do suffer oppression? The poet is a divine in that case—

After foul weather comes fair; though it be ill with us now, it will not be always. What if enemies of religion and moths of commonwealth do flourish and prosper, and have all things at will, let it not trouble David and Job; both of them saw as fair a sunshine shut up in a dark cloud, and a world of foul weather following.—Edward Marbury.

Verse 22.—Satan cannot tempt longer than God shall give him leave; and he will never suffer thee to be tempted above measure, but will give a good issue unto the temptation. Thou art called to fight under the banner of Christ Jesus, and in the name of the Lord thou shalt be enabled to do valiantly and overcome. If Satan continue his assaults, “God’s grace is sufficient for thee.” 2 Cor. xii. 9. If thy strength be clean gone, God’s power shall be magnified the more in thee, and he hath brought thee low that thou mayest not trust in thyself, but in the living Lord, and that the whole praise of the victory might be ascribed unto him. If thy strength did remain, it was not to be leaned unto; and now it is decayed and gone, there is no cause of fear for the Lord will be thy stay. In the most difficult assaults and tedious encounters, we are exhorted to “be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.” Be of good courage, and God will grant thee an easy, a joyful victory. Satan’s drift in tempting is to turmoil, dishearten, and perplex with fears, and drive into despair; and if thou take heart to rest quietly upon God’s grace, and fly unto his name, thou shalt put him to flight, thou hast already got the day. Wait but awhile, and these dark mists and terrible storms shall be dispersed. By these temptations the Lord hath taught thee to see thy weakness, and the malice of Satan; to deny thine own wisdom and prize his favour, lightly to esteem all things here below, and highly to value mercy reaching to the pardon of sin, and heavenly communion, and fellowship with God. And if this bitter potion hath wrought so kindly for thy spiritual good, why shouldst thou be dismayed? Trust in the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thee. “The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants: and none of them that trust in him shall be desolate.”—John Ball.