for your health;" he administered to them some bread, and then " cast into the sea the very wheat" with which the ship was provisioned ; and soon " the ship ran aground, and was broken in pieces by the violence of the wavesf." How must all this crew have longed for safety ! How must their " soul have broken for the longing which they had" to escape from their peril! Yet not even this exceeded the desire which David had for the word of God.]
3. A deserted soul —
[This will come nearer to the point. The feelings of a hunted deer or an endangered mariner are merely natural : but those of a deserted soul are spiritual, and therefore more suited to illustrate those which David speaks of in our text. See the state of a deserted soul in Job : " O that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and my calamity laid in the balances together ! for now it would be heavier than the sand of the sea ; therefore my words are swallowed up. For the arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison whereof drinketh up my spirit : the terrors of God do set themselves in array against meg." Or take the case recorded in the 88th Psalm : " Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps. Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction. Lord, I have called daily upon thee ; I have stretched out my hands unto thee. Lord, why casteth thou off my soul? Why hidest thou thy face from me? I am afflicted, and ready to die from my youth up : while I suffer thy terrors, I am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me ; thy terrors have cut me offh." Here we see what is meant by the soul breaking for the longing that it hath after God. And there is in this psalm another verse, which, to one who has ever felt what it is to have an overwhelming desire after God, will convey the true import of my text: " I opened my mouth and panted : for I longed for thy commandments1."
Nor was this a sudden emotion on some extraordinary occa- sion : no ; it was the constant habit of David's mind : it was what he felt " at all times .•" " My soul breaketh for the long- ing that it hath unto thy judgments at all times."]
I am aware that this may appear extravagant. But we must remember that this expression was not
f Acts xxvii. 14 — 41. s Job vi. 2 — 4.
h Ps. lxxxviii. 6, 7, 9, 14, 15, 16.
1 ver. 131. This is sadly weakened by Commentators, who inter- pret it as referring to a person running or oppressed with heat. The sigh of one overwhelmed with a desire after God, expresses the very thing.
698. J david's desire after god's word. 313
a poetic fiction, but an argument solemnly addressed to the heart-searching God. And that it was not stronger than the occasion called for, will appear whilst I shew you,
II. The reason of his so longing for God's blessed word —
The reasons that might be assigned are number- less. But I will confine myself to three. He so longed for God's word, because,
1. In it he found God himself —
[In the works of creation somewhat of God may be dis- cerned ; but it is in his word alone that all his perfections are displayed, and all his eternal counsels are made known. In this respect, "God has magnified his word above all his name," and al the means whereby he has made himself known to men k. There he met Jehovah, as Adam met him, amidst the trees of the garden in Paradise. There " he walked with God, and conversed with him as a friend." There he had such " fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ," and such " communion with the Holy Ghost," as he could never find in any other field, nor ever attain but by meditation on the word of God. Can we, then, wonder that he so longed for that word, and that his very soul brake for the longing that he had for it ? The wonder rather is, that there should be a per- son upon earth who could have access to that sacred volume, and not so value it ]