EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

Title.—The Syriac says, “It was a Psalm of David, when he appointed overseers to take care of the poor.”—Adam Clarke.

Whole Psalm.—A prophecy of Christ and the traitor Judas.—Eusebius of Cæsarea, quoted by J. M. Neale.

Verse 1.—“Blessed is he that considereth the poor.” Interpreters are generally of opinion that the exercise of kindness and compassion, manifested in taking care of the miserable, and helping them, is here commended. Those, however, who maintain that the Psalmist here commends the considerate candour of those who judge wisely and charitably of men in adversity, form a better judgment of his meaning. Indeed, the participle, מַשְׂכִּיל maskil, cannot be explained in any other way. At the same time it ought to be observed on what account it is that David declares those to be blessed who form a wise and prudent judgment concerning the afflictions by which God chastises his servants.... Doubtless it happened to him as it did to the holy patriarch Job, whom his friends reckoned to be one of the most wicked of men, when they saw God treating him with great severity. And certainly it is an error which is by far too common among men, to look upon those who are oppressed with afflictions as condemned and reprobate.... For the most part, indeed, we often speak rashly and indiscriminately concerning others, and, so to speak, plunge even into the lowest abyss those who labour under affliction. To restrain such a rash and unbridled spirit, David says, that they are blessed who do not suffer themselves, by speaking at random, to judge harshly of their neighbours; but discerning aright the afflictions by which they are visited, mitigate by the wisdom of the spirit, the severe and unjust judgments to which we naturally are so prone.—John Calvin.

Verse 1.—“Blessed is he that considereth the poor.” As Christ considered us in our state of poverty, so ought we most attentively to consider him in his; to consider what he suffered in his own person; to discern him suffering in his poor afflicted members; and to extend to them the mercy which he extended to us. He, who was “blessed” of Jehovah, and “delivered in the evil day” by a glorious resurrection, will “bless” and “deliver” in like manner, such as for his sake, love and relieve their brethren.—George Horne.

Verse 1.—“Blessed is he that considereth the poor.” Not the poor of the world in common, nor poor saints in particular but some single poor man; for the word is in the singular number, and designs our Lord Jesus Christ, who, in the last verse of the preceding Psalm, is said to be poor and needy.—John Gill.

Verse 1.—“Blessed is he that considereth the poor.” I call your attention to the way in which the Bible enjoins us to take up the care of the poor. It does not say in the text before us, Commiserate the poor; for, if it said no more than this, it would leave their necessities to be provided for by the random ebullitions of an impetuous and unreflecting sympathy. It provides them with a better security than the mere feeling of compassion—a feeling which, however useful to the purpose of excitement, must be controlled and regulated. Feeling is but a faint and fluctuating security. Fancy may mislead it. The sober realities of life may disgust it. Disappointment may extinguish it. Ingratitude may embitter it. Deceit, with its counterfeit representations, may allure it to the wrong object. At all events, Time is the little circle in which it in general expatiates. It needs the impression of sensible objects to sustain it; nor can it enter with zeal or with vivacity into the wants of the abstract and invisible soul. The Bible, then, instead of leaving the relief of the poor to the mere instinct of sympathy, makes it a subject for consideration—“Blessed is he that considereth the poor,” a grave and prosaic exercise, I do allow, and which makes no figure in those high-wrought descriptions, where the exquisite tale of benevolence is made up of all the sensibilities of tenderness on the one hand, and of all the ecstacies of gratitude on the other. The Bible rescues the cause from the mischief to which a heedless or unthinking sensibility would expose it. It brings it under the cognisance of a higher faculty—a faculty of steadier operation than to be weary in well-doing, and of sturdier endurance than to give it up in disgust. It calls you to consider the poor. It makes the virtue of relieving them a matter of computation, as well as of sentiment, and in so doing puts you beyond the reach of the various delusions, by which you are at one time led to prefer the indulgence of pity to the substantial interest of its object; at another, are led to retire chagrined and disappointed from the scene of duty, because you have not met with the gratitude or the honesty that you laid your account with; at another, are led to expend all your anxieties upon the accommodation of time, and to overlook eternity. It is the office of consideration to save you from all these fallacies. Under its tutorage attention to the wants of the poor ripens into principle....

It must be obvious to all of you, that it is not enough that you give money, and add your name to the contributions of charity. You must give it with judgment. You must give your time and your attention. You must descend to the trouble of examination. You must rise from the repose of contemplation, and make yourself acquainted with the object of your benevolent exercises.... To give money is not to do all the work and labour of benevolence. You must go to the poor man’s sick-bed. You must lend your hand to the work of assistance. This is true and unsophisticated goodness. It may be recorded in no earthly documents; but, if done under the influence of Christian principle, in a word, if done unto Jesus, it is written in the book of heaven, and will give a new lustre to that crown to which his disciples look forward in time, and will wear through eternity.—From a Sermon preached before the Society for Relief of the Destitute Sick, in St. Andrew’s Church, Edinburgh, by Thomas Chalmers, D.D. and LL.D. (1780-1847).

Verse 1.—“Blessed is he that considereth the poor.” A Piedmontese nobleman into whose company I fell, at Turin, told me the following story: “I was weary of life, and after a day such as few have known, and none would wish to remember, was hurrying along the street to the river, when I felt a sudden check, I turned and beheld a little boy, who had caught the skirt of my cloak in his anxiety to solicit my notice. His look and manner were irresistible. No less so was the lesson he had learnt—‘There are six of us, and we are dying for want of food.’ ‘Why should I not,’ said I to myself, ‘relieve this wretched family? I have the means, and it will not delay me many minutes. But what if it does?’ The scene of misery he conducted me to I cannot describe. I threw them my purse, and their burst of gratitude overcame me. It filled my eyes, it went as a cordial to my heart. ‘I will call again to-morrow,’ I cried. ‘Fool that I was to think of leaving a world where such pleasure was to be had, and so cheaply!’”—Samuel Rogers (1763-1855) in “Italy.”

Verse 1.—“He that considereth the poor:”—

Verse 1.—How foolish are they that fear to lose their wealth by giving it, and fear not to lose themselves by keeping it! He that lays up his gold may be a good jailer, but he that lays it out is a good steward. Merchants traffic thither with a commodity where ’tis precious in regard of scarcity. We do not buy wines in England to carry them to France, spices in France to carry them to the Indies; so for labour and work, repentance and mortification, there is none of them in heaven, there is peace and glory, and the favour of God indeed. A merchant without his commodity hath but a sorry welcome. God will ask men that arrive at heaven’s gates, ubi opera? Rev. xxii. 12. His reward shall be according to our works. Thou hast riches here, and here be objects that need thy riches—the poor; in heaven there are riches enough but no poor, therefore, by faith in Christ make over to them thy moneys in this world, that by bill of exchange thou mayest receive it in the world to come; that only you carry with you which you send before you. Do good while it is in your power; relieve the oppressed, succour the fatherless, while your estates are your own; when you are dead your riches belong to others. One light carried before a man is more serviceable than twenty carried after him. In your compassion to the distressed, or for pious uses, let your hands be your executors, and your eyes your overseers.—Francis Raworth, Teacher to the Church at Shoreditch, in a Funeral Sermon, 1656.

Verses 1, 3.—It is a blessed thing to receive when a man hath need; but ’tis a more blessed thing to give than to receive. “Blessed (saith the prophet David) is he that considereth the poor.” What? to say, alas, poor man! the world is hard with him, I would there were a course taken to do him good? No, no; but so to consider him as to give; to give till the poor man be satisfied, to draw out one’s sheaf, ay, one’s very soul to the hungry. But what if troubles should come? were it not better to keep money by one? Money will not deliver one. It may be an occasion to endanger one, to bring one into, rather than help one out of trouble; but if a man be a merciful man, God will deliver him, either by himself, or by some other man or matter. Ay, but what if sickness come? Why, “the Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing;” and, which is a great ease and kindness; God, as it were, himself “will make all his bed in his sickness.” Here poor people have the advantage: such must not say, Alas, I am a poor woman, what works of mercy can I do? for they are they who can best make the beds of sick folk, which we see is a great act of mercy in that it is said, that the Lord himself will make their bed in their sickness. And there are none so poor, but they may make the beds of the sick.—Richard Capel.

Verses 1, 5.—“He that considered.” “Mine enemies.” Strigelius has observed, there is a perpetual antithesis in this Psalm between the few who have a due regard to the poor in spirit, and the many who afflict or desert them.—W. Wilson, D.D.

Verse 2.—“The Lord will preserve him, and keep him alive.” It is worthy of remark, that benevolent persons, who “consider the poor,” and especially the sick poor; who search cellars, garrets, back lanes, and such abodes of misery, to find them out (even in the places where contagion keeps its seat), very seldom fall a prey to their own benevolence. The Lord, in an especial manner, keeps them alive, and preserves them; while many, who endeavour to keep far from the contagion, are assailed by it, and fall victims to it. God loves the merciful man.—Adam Clarke.

Verse 2.—“He shall be blessed upon the earth.” None of the godly man’s afflictions shall hinder or take away his begun blessedness, even in this world.—David Dickson.

Verse 3.—“Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.” Into what minuteness of exquisite and touching tenderness does the Lord condescend to enter! One feels almost as we may suppose Peter felt when the Saviour came to him, and would have washed his feet, “Lord! thou shalt never wash my feet;” thou shalt never make my bed. And yet, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me;” if the Lord make not our bed in our sickness, there is no peace nor comfort there. We have had David calling on God to bow down his ear, like a loving mother listening to catch the feeblest whisper of her child; and the image is full of the sweetest sympathy and condescension; but here the Lord, the great God of heaven, he that said when on earth, “I am among you as one that serveth,” does indeed take upon him the form, and is found in fashion as a servant, fulfilling all the loving and tender offices of an assiduous nurse.—Barton Bouchier.

Verse 3.—“Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.” The meaning rather is, “it is no longer a sick bed, for thou hast healed him of his disease.”—J. J. Stewart Perowne.

Verse 3.—When a good man is ill at ease, God promiseth to make all his bed in his sickness. Pillow, bolster, head, feet, sides, all his bed. Surely that God who made him knows so well his measure and temper as to make his bed to please him. Herein his art is excellent, not fitting the bed to the person, but the person to the bed; infusing patience into him. But, oh! how shall God make my bed, who have no bed of mine own to make. Thou fool, he can make thy not having a bed to be a bed unto thee. When Jacob slept on the ground, who would not have had his hard lodging, therewithal to have his heavenly dream?—Thomas Fuller.