EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (4)

Verse 22.—“Cast thy burden upon the Lord,” etc. The best way to ease thyself is to lay thy load upon God; he will take it up and also carry thee. There is many a man would be willing to go of himself, if another would but carry his burden for him; but if thou throwest thy burden upon God he will not only carry that, but will also carry thee. He cares not how much weight a Christian layeth on his back; a true Israelite may ease himself, and best please his God at once. God delights not to see tears in thine eyes, or paleness in thy countenance; thy groans and sighs make no music in his ears. He had rather that thou wouldst free thyself of thy burden by casting it upon him, that he might rejoice in thy joy and comfort. Now, true confidence in God, and resting upon God, will both free thee of thy burden and also bring in the strength of God to sustain and bear thee up from falling. Wouldst thou, therefore, own God as thy strength, and fetch strength from God to thy soul? rest upon God, roll thyself upon him, and that, (1) In time of greatest weakness. (2) In time of greatest service. (3) In times of greatest trials.—Samuel Blackerby, 1674.

Verse 22.—“Cast thy burden” on him in the same way that the ship in a storm casts her burden on the anchor, which anchor holds on to its sure fixing place. And to my mind, that is the more beautiful sense of the two—a sense which once entered into, may be followed out in these glorious verses:—

Verse 23.—“Shalt bring them down.” Indicating a violent death, like that of the slain ox, which is said to descend, when it falls under the stroke. The pit of putrefaction is meant, in which the corpse decays, nor does it here merely denote the sepulchre, but the ignominious condition of a corpse cast forth, as when it is thrown into a pit.—Hermann Venema.

Verse 23.—“Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days.” A wicked man never lives out half his days; for either he is cut off before he hath lived half the course of nature, or he is cut off before he hath lived a quarter of the course of his desires; either he lives not half so long as he might, or not a tenth, not a hundredth part so long as he would; and therefore let him die when he will, his death is full of terror, trouble, and confusion, because he dies out of season. He never kept time or season with God, and surely God will not keep or regard his time or season.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 23.—“Half their days.” In the Jewish account threescore years was the age of a man, and death at any time before that was looked upon as untimely, and deemed and styled כּרת excision, of which they made thirty-six degrees; so that not to live out half one’s days, is in their style to die before thirty years old.—Henry Hammond.

Verse 23 (second clause).—The more sins we do commit, the more we hasten our own death; because as the wise man saith, “The fear of the Lord prolongeth days, but the years of the wicked shall be shortened” (Prov. x. 27); and the prophet David saith, “Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days;” for sin is an epitomiser or shortener of everything: it consumes our wealth, it confines our liberty, it impeacheth our health, and it abbreviated our life, and brings us speedily into our graves.—Griffith Williams, 1636.