The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 3 — Section 55

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-8.-The soul's exodus. The psalm is a wonderfully vivid and beantiful de~cription of the deliverance of God's people from Egypt. In all ages of the Church this has been looked upon as the pattern and type of the soul's deliverance by the redemption of Christ. Much of that history is suggested here. We are.shown- !. FROM WHEKCE THE soUL WAS BET FREE. l._From Egypt, the true type of the world. At first so pleasant, so prosperous, so Goshen-like, so free from care, life so easy and secure. 2. But at length its true character is revealed. They are a strange -a barbarous, or tyrant, so the word is variously rendered-people. And the redeemed soul has found that out. H. ,VHAT HAPPENED .AT THIS EXoous. (Ver. 2.) 1. There was tlie indwelling of God. The soul became his shrine. He was worshipped, beloved, trusted day by day. 2. There was willing obedience. God was the Lord of their life. The soul becomes the dominion, the dom:iin, of God. 3. Things beforehand impossible, liappened, (Vers. 3, 4.) The sea, symbol of the whole power of spiritual death, saw and fled. "You hath he quickened who were dead," etc. It is a true picture of what takes place at the real conversion of a soul. Old things pass away. The stream and course of life are turned in an opposite direction, as was the Jordan. On and on, rapidly flowing downwards to the Dead Sea, so was it with the Jordan; so is it with the soul till its redemption comes. But then there is a conversion, a complete turning round, in the aims, principles, and motives of the life. The fixed habits and propensities-fixed like the mountains and hills of Sinai-the pride, unbelief, selfishness, love of sin, all which seemed firmly settled in our nature, are shaken, plucked up by the roots. The rock- like heart, so hard and barren and lifeless, becomes transformed as into a standing water, a very fountain of waters (cf. John vii. 37, 38). Tht1 soul is blessed, and becomes a blessing. IIL Bow IS .ALL TBIS TO DE EXPLAINED? Men will ask this, and no answer will they find save that it is the presence of the Lord (vers. 5-7). It is the standing miracle of the Christian Church.-S. C. Ver. 2.-Man is God's temple. "Judah became his sanctuary." Though neither the author nor the occasion of this psalm can be definitely known, it clearly belongs to the time of the returned exiles, when the remaking of the nation was the matter most prominent in the interests of the people. It was quite a familiar thing to compare the remaking of the uatiou with the first making of it; and to get the comforting 1.1ssur- ance tLat God was presiding over the remaking, by realizing, in as forcible a manner as possiLle, how he had presided over the waking. In the makicg there had indeed been very remarkable, truly miraculous, outward and visible signs of the Divine presence- the dividing of the Red Sea at the beginning, the quaking mountains in the earlier pa.rt, the smitten rock and flowing water in tbe latter part, the divided Jordan at the end. After these signs had fixed their impressions, the people could act as a nation. I. G:m's PRESENCE AND POWER WERE THE GLORIES OF THE NATION FROM THE Flll~T. This truth was impressed by the marvels which were wrought in connection with their rleliverance from Egypt. The plagues were indeed judgments; but they were, even more truly, teachings, sanctifying impressions made upon the people of Israel. They tauaht them God, and helped them to real~e what God with them would involve. T11e trutl1 was impreesed by such signs as dividing the sea; but this only illustrated God's presence as the Ruler, Rewarder, and Judge of the people. From all material si"DS of the Divine relations, we should rise to discern the far more important moral si~ns. God himself mouldina the national life; God himself directly ruling the moral ::n~d religious life of the natio~ ;-these are the marvels of grace and wisdom which the Jews never tired of contemplating. ll. Goo's PRESENCE AND PQ\H:ll WEr:E THE GLORIES OF THE IlESTOilED NATION. re. CXIV, 1-8.J THE BOOK or PSALMS. 59