EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (6)

Verse 25.—“With the merciful,” etc. In Jupiter’s hall-floor there are set two barrels of gifts, the one of good gifts or blessings, the other of evil gifts or plagues. Thus spake Homer falsely of Jupiter; it may be truly spoken of the true God, Jehovah; that he hath in his hand two cups, the one of comforts, the other of crosses, which he poureth out indifferently for the good and for the bad; “with the kind (or merciful) he will shew himself kind, and with the froward, froward.” Now this is not to make God the author of evil, but of justice, which is good; quorum deus non est author eorum est justus ultor, saith Augustine; “God is not the author of sin, but he punisheth the sinner justly.”—Miles Smith (Bishop), 1632.

Verse 26.—“With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure,” etc. But doth the Lord take colour from every one he meets, or change his temper as the company changes? That’s the weakness of sinful man: he cannot do so with whom there is no variableness nor shadow of changing. God is pure, and upright with the unclean and hypocritical, as well as with the pure and upright, and his actions show him to be so. God shows himself froward with the froward when he deals with him as he hath said he will deal with the froward—deny them and reject them. God shows himself pure with the pure, when he deals with them as he hath said he will—hear them and accept them. Though there be nothing in purity and sincerity which deserveth mercy, yet we cannot expect mercy without them. Our comforts are not grounded upon our graces, but our comforts are the fruits or consequents of our graces.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 26.—“The froward one.” Here, as in the first promise, the two combatants stand contrasted—the seed of the woman and the serpent—the benignantly bountiful, perfect, pure One, and the froward one, whose works he came to destroy, and who made it his great business to circumvent him whom he feared. The literal meaning of the word is “tortuous,” or “crooked,” and both the ideas of perversity and cunning which the figure naturally suggests, are very applicable to “that old serpent the devil.” From the concluding part of the sentence, I think there is no doubt that it is the latter idea that is intended to be conveyed. God cannot deal perversely with any one; but he outwits the wise, and takes the cunning in their own craftiness.—John Brown.

Verse 26.—“With the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.” The Hebrew word in the root signifieth to wrest or writhe a thing, or to wrest or turn a thing, as wrestlers do their bodies. Hence by a trope, it is translated often to wrestle, because a cunning man in wrestling, turneth and windeth his body, and works himself in and out every way, to get an advantage of his adversary any way; therefore your cunning-headed men, your crafty men, are fitly presented under this word; they are like wrestlers who turn and wind themselves in and out, and lie for all advantages; or as we speak, they “lie at catch.” A man knows not where to have them, or what they mean when they speak plainest, or swear solemnest; when we think we see their faces, we see but their vizards; all their promises and performances too are under a disguise.... And this word is applied to the Lord himself, “With the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward;” that is, if men will be winding and turning, and thinking to catch others or over-reach the Lord himself with tricks and turnings of wit, the Lord will meet and answer them in their own kind; he can turn as fast as they, he can put himself into such intricate labyrinths of infinite wisdom and sacred craft, as shall entangle and ensnare the most cunning wrestler or tumbler of them all. He will Cretize the Cretians, supplant the supplanters of his people.—Joseph Caryl.

Verse 26.—“Wilt shew thyself froward.” It is a similitude taken from wrestlers, and noteth a writhing of one’s self against an adversary. Compare herewith Deut. xxxii. 5. “They are a perverse and crooked generation,” the same two words that are here in this text; the latter importeth that they wriggled and writhed after the manner of wrestlers that wave up and down, and wind the other way, when one thinks to have him here or there. But all will not serve their turn to save them from punishment. God will be sure to meet with them, his Word will lay hold on them, and their sin shall find them out.—John Trapp.

Verse 27.—“The afflicted people.” The word rendered “afflicted,” properly signifies “poor” or “needy.” The persons spoken of are obviously afflicted ones, for they need to be saved or delivered; but it is not their affliction, so much as their poverty, that is indicated by the epithet here given them; and, from the poor being contrasted, not with the wealthy, but with the proud—for that is the meaning of the figurative expression, “the man of high looks”—it seems plain that, though the great body of the class referred to have always been found among the comparatively “poor in this world,” the reference is to those poor ones whom our Lord represents as “poor in spirit.”—John Brown.

Verse 27.—“High looks:” namely, the proud; the raising up of the eyebrows being a natural sign of that vice. Psalm ci. 5; Prov. vi. 17.—John Diodati.

Verse 28.—“For thou wilt light my candle,” etc. The Psalmist speaks in this place of artificial light; “a candle,” or “lamp;” which has been supposed to be illustrated by the custom prevailing in Egypt of never suffering their houses to be without lights, but burning lamps even through the night, so that the poorest people would rather retrench part of their food than neglect it. Supposing this to have been the ancient custom, not only in Egypt, but in the neighbouring countries of Arabia and Judæa, “the lighting of the lamp” in this passage may have had a special allusion. In the parallel passage, 2 Sam. xxii. 29, Jehovah is figuratively styled the “lamp” of the Psalmist, as above.—Richard Mant.

Verse 28 (first clause).—“Thou also shalt”—when none else can. And notice too, how here, and often elsewhere, the Psalmist begins with speaking of God, and ends with speaking to him. So the bride in the Canticles, “Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth, for thy love is better than wine.”—Dionysius the Carthusian (1471), quoted by J. M. Neale.

Verse 29.—“By thee I have run through a troop,” etc. David ascribes his victories to God, declaring that, under his conduct, he had broken through the wedges or phalanxes of his enemies, and had taken by storm their fortified cities. Thus we see that, although he was a valiant warrior, and skilled in arms, he arrogates nothing to himself.—John Calvin.

Verse 29.—“By my God have I leaped over a wall;” or, “taken a fort.”—Henry Hammond.

Verse 29.—“Leaped over a wall.” This probably refers to his having taken some remarkable town by scaling the ramparts.—John Kitto, in “The Pictorial Bible.”

Verse 31.—“For who is God save the Lord?” Here first in the Psalms, occurs the name Eloah, rendered God. It occurs more than fifty times in the Scriptures, but only four times in the Psalms. It is the singular of Elohim. Many have supposed that this name specially refers to God as an object of religious worship. That idea may well be prominent in this place.—William S. Plumer.

Verse 32.—“It is God that girdeth me with strength.” One of the few articles of Eastern dress which I wore in the East, was the girdle, which was of great use as a support to the body in the long and weary camel-rides through the Desert. The support and strengthening I received in this way, gave me a clearer idea than I had before the meaning of the Psalmist.—John Anderson, in “Bible from Bible Lands,” 1856.

Verse 33.—“He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet, and setteth me upon my high places:” that is, he doth give swiftness and speed to his church; as Augustine interpreted it, transcendendo spinosa, et umbrosa implicamenta hujus sæculi, passing lightly through the thorny and shady incumbrances of this world. “He will make me walk upon my high places.” David saith, “He setteth me upon high places.” For, consider David, as he then was, when he composed this Psalm, it was at the time when God had delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. For then God set his feet on high places, settling his kingdom, and establishing him in the place of Saul.—Edward Marbury.

Verse 33.—“He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet:” מְשַׁוֶּה רַגְלַי כָּאַיָּלוֹת. Celerity of motion was considered as one of the qualities of an ancient hero. Achilles is celebrated for being πόδας ὠκύς. Virgil’s Nisus is hyperbolically described, “Et ventis et fulminis ocior alis;” and the men of God, who came to David, “Men of might, and men of war fit for the battle, that could handle shield and buckler,” are said to have had “faces like the faces of lions,” and to have been “as swift as the roes upon the mountains.” 1 Chron. xii. 8. Asahel is described as “light of foot as a wild roe” (2 Sam. ii. 18); and Saul seems called the roe (in the English translation, “the beauty) of Israel.” 2 Sam. i. 19. It has been said that the legs of the hind are straighter than those of the buck, and that she is swifter than he is; but there is no sufficient proof of this. Gataker gives the true account of it when he says, “The female formula is often used for the species.” This is not uncommon in Hebrew. The female ass obviously stands for the ass species. Gen. xii. 16; Job. i. 3; xlii. 12. Some (at the head of whom is Bochart, Hierozoicon, P. i. L. ii. c. 17), have supposed the reference to be to the peculiar hardness of the hoof of the roe, which enables it to walk firmly, without danger of falling, on the roughest and rockiest places. Virgil calls the hind “æri-pedem,” brass-footed. Others suppose the reference to be to its agility and celerity. There is nothing to prevent our supposing that there is a reference to both these distinguishing qualities of the hind’s feet.—John Brown.

Verse 33.—“He maketh my feet like hinds’ feet,” etc. He maketh me able to stand on the sides of mountains and rocks, which were anciently used as fastnesses in time of war. The feet of the sheep, the goat, and the hart are particularly adapted to standing in such places. Mr. Merrick has here very appositely cited the following passage from Xenophon; Lib. de Venatione: Ἐπισκοπεῖν δεῖ ἔχοντα τὰς κύνας τὰς μὲν ἐν ὄρεσι ἑστώσας ’λαφους. See also Psalm civ. 18, where the same property of standing on the rocks and steep cliffs is attributed to the wild goat.—Stephen Street, M.A., in loc., 1790.

Verse 34.—“He teacheth my hands to war,” etc. To him I owe all that military skill, or strength, or courage, which I have. My strength is sufficient, not only to bend “a bow of steel,” but to break it.—Matthew Poole.

Verse 34.—“Steel.” The word so rendered in the authorised version, properly means “copper” (נְחוּשָׁה). It is doubtful if the Hebrews were acquainted with the process of hardening iron into steel, for though the “northern iron” of Jer. xv. 12, has been supposed by some to be steel, this is by no means certain; it may have only been a superior sort of iron.—William Lindsay Alexander, in “Kitto’s Cyclopædia.”

Verse 34.—The drawing of a mighty bow was a mark of great slaughter and skill.

Verses 37, 38:—

Verse 38.—“I have wounded them,” etc. Greater is he that is in us than he that is against us, and God shall bruise Satan under our feet shortly. Rom. xv. 20.—W. Wilson.

Verses 38-40.—Though passion possess our bodies, let “patience possess our souls.” The law of our profession binds us to a warfare; patiendo vincimus, our troubles shall end, our victory is eternal. Hear David’s triumph, “I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet. Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me. Thou hast given me the necks of mine enemies,” etc. They have wounds for their wounds; and the treaders down of the poor are trodden down by the poor. The Lord will subdue those to us that would have subdued us to themselves; and though for a short time they rode over our heads, yet now at last we shall everlastingly tread upon their necks. Lo, then, the reward of humble patience and confident hope!—Thomas Adams.

Verse 39.—To be well girt was to be well armed in the Greek and Latin idioms, as well as in the Hebrew.—Alexander Geddes, LL.D., 1737-1802.

Verse 41.—“They shall cry, but there shall be none to help them,” etc. Sad examples enough there are of the truth of this prophecy. Of Esau it is written that he “found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears.” Heb. xii. 17. Of Antiochus, though he vowed in his last illness, “that also he would become a Jew himself, and go through all the world that was inhabited, and declare the power of God, yet,” continues the historian, “for all this his pains would not cease, for the just judgment of God was come upon him.” 2 Macc. ix. 17, 18. But most appropriately to this passage, it is written of Saul, “When he enquired of the Lord, the Lord answered him not, neither by dreams nor by Urim, nor by prophets.” 1 Sam. xxviii. 6. And therefore, the prophet warns us: “Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains” (Jer. xiii. 16): as Saul’s feet, indeed, stumbled on the dark mountains of Gilboa. “Even unto the Lord shall they cry:” but not, as it has been well remarked, by a Mediator: and so, crying to him in their own name, and by their own merits, they cry in vain.—John Lorinus (1569-1634), and Remigius (900), quoted by J. M. Neale.