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The Vision of God Here and Hereafter.
As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness : I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
Ps. xvii. 15.
1. The investigations as to the authorship and the date of this Psalm yield the usual conflicting results. Davidic, says one school ; undoubedly post-exilic, says another, without venturing on closer definition ; late in the Persian period, says Cheyne, Perhaps we may content ourselves with the judgment of Baethgen : " The date of composition cannot be decided by internal indica- tions." The background is the familiar one of causeless foes round an innocent sufferer, who flings himself into God's arms for safety, and in prayer enters into peace and hope. The psalm is called a " prayer," a title given to only four other psalms, none of which is in the First Book. It has three movements, marked by the repetition of the name of God, which does not appear elsewhere, except in the doubtful verse 14. These three are vv. 1-5, in which the cry for help is founded on a strong profession of innocence ; vv. 6-12, in which it is based on a vivid description of the enemies ; and vv. 13-15, in which it soars into the pure air of mystic devotion, and thence looks down on the transient prosperity of the foe and upwards, in a rapture of hope, to the face of God.^
2. "As for me, in righteousness let me behold Thy face: Let me be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness." With the low desires of worldly men the Psalmist contrasts his own spiritual aspirations. He does not complain of their prosperity ; it does not present itself to him as a trial of patience and a moral enigma, as it does to the authors of Ps. xxxvii. and Ixxiii. Their blessings are not for an instant to be compared with his.
^ A. Maclaren.
284 THE VISION OF GOD
"To behold Jehovah's face" is to enjoy communion with Him and all the blessings that flow from it ; it is the inward reality which corresponds to " appearing before Him " in the sanctuary. " Kighteousness " is the condition of that "beholding"; for it is sin that separates from God. He concludes with a yet bolder prayer, that he may be admitted to that highest degree of privilege which Moses enjoyed, and he satisfied with the likeness or form of Jehovah. Worldly men are satisfied if they see them- selves reflected in their sons : nothing less than the sight of the form of God will satisfy the Psalmist.
^ Likeness to God is not a far-off hope, a light that gleams upon us through the mists of time, a prize to be won only when revolving years have passed. It is a present and immediate experience, or rather it is a thing which does not belong to the sphere of time and cannot be spoken of in forms of expression that belong to it. In religion the spirit passes out of the realm of time, rises above the passing shows of things, the vain fears and vainer hopes that pertain to the things seen and temporal. The outward life may be still in some measure a life of effort, struggle, conflict; but in that inner sphere in which the true life lies, the strife is over, the victory already achieved ; hope has passed into fruition, struggle into conquest, restless effort and endeavour into perfect peace — " the peace of God which passeth all understanding." ^
3. What is meant by " when I awake " ? Not " when the night of calamity is at an end " — a sense which the word will not bear. Wliat the writer desires is the daily renewal of this communion ; and, as the passage in Exodus suggests, a waking sight of God, as distinguished from a dream or vision. These words are commonly explained of awaking from the sleep of death to behold the face of God in the world beyond, and to be transfigured into His likeness. Here, however, this reference is excluded by the context. The Psalmist does not anticipate death, but prays to be delivered from it. The contrast present to his mind is not between " this world " and " another world," the " present life " and the " future life," but between the false life and the true life in this present world, between " the flesh " and "the spirit," between the "natural man "with his sensuous desires, and the "spiritual man" with his Godward desires.
^ John Caird.
PSALM XVII. 15 285
Here, as in xvi. 9-11, death fades from the Psahnist's view. He is absorbed with the thought of the blessedness of fellowship with God. But the doctrine of life eternal is implicitly con- tained in the words. For it is inconceivable that communion with God, thus begun and daily renewed, should be abruptly terminated by death. It is possible that the Psalmist and those for whom he sang may have had some glimmering of this larger hope, though how or when it was to be realized was not yet revealed. But whether they drew the inference must remain doubtful. In the economy of revelation, " heaven is first a temper and then a place." ^