EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS

EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS.

Verse 1.—“Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation.” It is certain that the greater part of men, as they babble out vain, languid, and inefficacious prayers, most unworthy the ear of the blessed God, so they seem in some degree to set a just estimate upon them, neither hoping for any success from them, nor indeed seeming to be at all solicitous about it, but committing them to the mind as vain words, which in truth they are. But far be it from a wise and pious man, that he should so foolishly and coldly trifle in so serious an affair; his prayer has a certain tendency and scope, at which he aims with assiduous and repeated desires, and doth not only pray that he may pray, but that he may obtain an answer; and as he firmly believes that it may be obtained, so he firmly, and constantly, and eagerly urges his petition, that he may not flatter himself with an empty hope.—Robert Leighton, D.D.

Verses 1, 2.—Observe the order and force of the words, “my cry,” “the voice of my prayer;” and also, “give ear,” “consider,” “hearken.” These expressions all evince the urgency and energy of David’s feelings and petitions. First, we have, “give ear;” that is, hear me. But it is of little service for the words to be heard, unless the “cry,” or the roaring, or the meditation, be considered. As if he had said, in a common way of expression, I speak with deep anxiety and concern, but with a failing utterance; and I cannot express myself, nor make myself understood as I wish. Do thou, therefore, understand from my feelings more than I am able to express in words. And, therefore, I add my “cry;” that what I cannot express in words for thee to hear, I may by my “cry” signify to thine understanding. And when thou hast understood me, then, O Lord “Hearken unto the voice of my prayer,” and despise not what thou hast thus heard and understood. We are not, however, to understand that hearing, understanding, and hearkening, are all different acts in God, in the same way as they are in us; but that our feelings towards God are to be thus varied and increased; that is, that we are first to desire to be heard, and then, that our prayers which are heard may be understood; and then, that being understood, they may be hearkened unto, that is, not disregarded.—Martin Luther.

Verse 1.—“Meditation” fits the soul for supplication; meditation fills the soul with good liquor, and then prayer broaches it, and sets it a-running. David first mused, and then spake with his tongue, “Lord, make me to know mine end.” Psalm xxxix. 3, 4. Nay, to assure us that meditation was the mother which bred and brought forth prayer, he calls the child by its parent’s name, “Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation.” Meditation is like the charging of a piece, and prayer the discharging of it. “Isaac went into the field to meditate.” Genesis xxiv. 63. The Septuagint, the Geneva translation, and Tremellius, in his marginal notes on it, read it to “pray;” and the Hebrew word הָגִיג used there signifieth both to pray and meditate; whereby we may learn they are very near akin; like twins, they be in the same womb, in the same word. Meditation is the best beginning of prayer, and prayer is the best conclusion of meditation. When the Christian, like Daniel, hath first opened the windows of his soul by contemplation, then he may kneel down to prayer.—George Swinnock.

Verse 3.—“My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord.”

Verse 3.—“My voice shalt thou hear in the morning.” “In the morning shall my prayer prevent thee,” said Heman. That is the fittest time for devotion, you being then fresh in your spirits, and freest from distractions. Which opportunity for holy duties may fitly be called the wings of the morning.—Edward Reyner, 1658.

Verse 3.—“In the morning.” “In the days of our fathers,” says Bishop Burnet, “when a person came early to the door of his neighbour, and desired to speak with the master of the house, it was as common a thing for the servants to tell him with freedom—‘My master is at prayer,’ as it now is to say, ‘My master is not up.’”

Verse 3.—“In the morning I will direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up,” or I will marshal my prayer, I will bring up petition after petition, pleading after pleading, even till I become like Jacob, a prince with God, till I have won the field and got the day. Thus the word is applied by a metaphor both to disputations with men and supplications to God. Further, we may take the meaning plainly without any strain of rhetoric, Set thy words in order before me. Method is good in everything, either an express or covert method. Sometimes it is the best of art to cover it; in speaking there is a special use of method, for though, as one said very well (speaking of those who are more curious about method than serious about matter), “Method never converted any man;” yet method and the ordering of words is very useful. Our speeches should not be heaps of words, but words bound up; not a throng of words, but words set in array, or, as it were, in rank and file.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 3.—“I will direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.” In the words you may observe two things: first, David’s posture in prayer; secondly, his practice after prayer. First, his posture in prayer, “I will direct my prayer unto thee.” Secondly, his practice after prayer, “And I will look up.” The prophet in these words, makes use of two military words. First, he would not only pray, but marshal up his prayers, he would put them in battle array; so much the Hebrew word עָרַךְ imports. Secondly, when he had done this, then he would be as a spy upon his watch-tower, to see whether he prevailed, whether he got the day or no; and so much the Hebrew word צָפָה imports. When David had set his prayers, his petitions, in rank and file, in good array, then he was resolved he would look abroad, he would look about him to see at what door God would send in an answer of prayer. He is either a fool or a madman, he is either very weak or very wicked, that prays and prays, but never looks after his prayers; that shoots many an arrow towards heaven, but never minds where his arrows alight.—Thomas Brooks.

Verse 3.—David would direct his prayer to God and look up; not down to the world, down to corruption, but up to God what he would speak. Psalm lxxxv. 8. “I will hear what God the Lord will speak.” Let the resolution of the prophet be thine, “I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.” Micah vii. 7.—William Greenhill, 1650.

Verse 3.—“I will direct my prayer to thee, and will look up,” that is, I will trade, I will send out my spiritual commodities, and expect a gainful return; I will make my prayers, and not give them for lost, but look up for an answer. God will bring man home by a way contrary to that by which he wandered from him. Man fell from God by distrust, by having God in suspicion; God will bring him back by trust, by having good thoughts of him. Oh, how richly laden might the vessel which thou sendest out come home, wouldst thou but long and look for its return!—George Swinnock.

Verse 3.—Faith hath a supporting art after prayer: it supports the soul to expect a gracious answer: “I will direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up,” or I will look; for what, but for a return? An unbelieving heart shoots at random, and never minds where his arrow lights, or what comes of his praying; but faith fills the soul with expectation. As a merchant, when he casts up his estate, he counts what he hath sent beyond sea, as well as what he hath in hand; so doth faith reckon upon what he hath sent to heaven in prayer and not received, as well as those mercies which he hath received, and are in hand at present. Now this expectation which faith raiseth in the soul after prayer, appears in the power that it hath to quiet and compose the soul in the interim between the sending forth, as I may say, the ship of prayer, and its return home with its rich lading it goes for, and it is more or less, according as faith’s strength is. Sometimes faith comes from prayer in triumph, and cries, Victoria. It gives such a being and existence to the mercy prayed for in the Christian’s soul before any likelihood of it appears to sense and reason, that the Christian can silence all his troubled thoughts with the expectation of its coming. Yea, it will make the Christian disburse his praises for the mercy long before it is received.... For want of looking up many a prayer is lost. If you do not believe, why do you pray? And if you believe, why do you not expect? By praying you seem to depend on God; by not expecting, you again renounce your confidence. What is this, but to take his name in vain? O Christian, stand to your prayer in a holy expectation of what you have begged upon the credit of the promise.... Mordecai, no doubt, had put up many prayers for Esther, and therefore he waits at the king’s gate, looking what answer God would in his providence give thereunto. Do thou likewise.—William Gurnall.

Verse 4.—“Thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness.” As a man that cutteth with a dull knife is the cause of cutting, but not of the ill-cutting and hacking of the knife—the knife is the cause of that; or if a man strike upon an instrument that is out of tune, he is the cause of the sound, but not of the jarring sound—that is the fault of the untuned strings; or, as a man riding upon a lame horse, stirs him—the man is the cause of the motion, but the horse himself of the halting motion: thus God is the author of every action, but not of the evil of that action—that is from man. He that makes instruments and tools of iron or other metal, he maketh not the rust and canker which corrupteth them, that is from another cause; nor doth that heavenly workman, God Almighty, bring in sin and iniquity; nor can he be justly blamed if his creatures do soil and besmear themselves with the foulness of sin, for he made them good.—Spencer’s Things New and Old.

Verses 4-6.—Here the Lord’s alienation from the wicked is set forth gradually, and seems to rise by six steps. First, he hath no pleasure in them; secondly, they shall not dwell with them; thirdly, he casteth them forth, they shall not stand in his sight; fourthly, his heart turns from them, thou hatest all the workers of iniquity; fifthly, his hand is turned upon them, thou shalt destroy them that speak leasing; sixthly, his spirit riseth against them, and is alienated from them, the Lord will abhor the bloody man. This estrangement is indeed a strange (yet a certain) punishment to “the workers of iniquity.” These words, “the workers of iniquity,” may be considered two ways. First, as intending (not all degrees of sinners, or sinners of every degree, but) the highest degree of sinners, great, and gross sinners, resolved and wilful sinners. Such as sin industriously, and, as it were, artificially, with skill and care to get themselves a name, as if they had an ambition to be accounted workmen that need not be ashamed in doing that whereof all ought to be ashamed; these, in strictness of Scripture sense, are “workers of iniquity.” Hence note, notorious sinners made sin their business, or their trade. Though every sin be a work of iniquity, yet only some sinners are “workers of iniquity;” and they who are called so, make it their calling to sin. We read of some who love and make a lie. Rev. xxii. 15. A lie may be told by those who neither love nor make it; but there are lie-makers, and they, sure enough, are lovers of a lie. Such craftsmen in sinning are also described in Psalm lviii. 2.—“Yea, in heart ye work wickedness; ye weigh the violence of your hands in the earth.” The psalmist doth not say, they had wickedness in their heart, but they did work it there; the heart is a shop within, an underground shop; there they did closely contrive, forge, and hammer out their wicked purposes, and fit them into actions.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 5.—What an astonishing thing is sin, which maketh the God of love and Father of mercies an enemy to his creatures, and which could only be purged by the blood of the Son of God! Though all must believe this who believe the Bible, yet the exceeding sinfulness of sin is but weakly apprehended by those who have the deepest sense of it, and will never be fully known in this world.—Thomas Adam’s Private Thoughts, 1701-1784.