The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 3 — Section 269

exhortation to forget a lost home, and make the best of a new country;" but the psalmist was in no mood to respond to such an exhortation, I. TnE CAPTIVES MIGHT HAVE SUNG EVEN IN CAPTIVITY, They would if their faith in God had mastered their circnmsta.nces. It is not much to say for them that they were so overwhelmed by their sorrows, and so crushed by their humiliations, that they could not even sing a song. True, their Zion was a desolation; but God, their God, still lived. True, they were under his chastening hand; but then he only chastens for onr profit. True, a long waiting-time was before them; but then God's promises never fail. It was not praiseworthy that they should hang up their harps on the willows for the wind to make melancholy music throu~h them. They had better have kept them in their hands, and cheered each other with enlivening strains of trust and hope. And as to the people of Babylon, they would have honoured God much more if they had responded to the request brightly and cheerfully, put their owu feelings a.side, and sung them songs of high confidence and joy and hope. These captives who refused a reasonable request did nothing praiseworthy. A Christian's harp has no business on the willows. !I. THE CAPTIVES WOULD HA VE BEEN ABLE TO SING IF THF:Y HAD THOUGHT LESS OF THEm OWN AFFAIRS. Their patriotism was self-centredness; and that always makes people feel weak aud miserable. It led these captives to neglect their duty. They were put in Babylon to witness for God to the Babylonians; and instead, they made themselves miserable and helpless by brooding over their miseries, so that when a song was asked for in honour of Jehovah, they could not sing. If they had tho11ght about God, and less about themselves and about their country, they would have found the joy of serving even by "singing the Lord's song in a strange land."-R. T. Vers. 5, 6.-Sa,nctified patriotism. "Let my right hand forget," i.e. be numbed into deadness. The psalm expresses the feelings of an exile who has but just returned from the land of his captivity, He is oppressed with the desolation around him. His heart is heavy and bitter with the memory of wrong and insult from which he has but lately escaped, "He takes his harp, which he could not sound at the bidding of his conquerors by the waters of Babylon; and now with faltering baud he sweeps the strings, first in low, plaintive, melancholy cadence pouring out his griefs, and then with a loud cra.sh of wild and stormy music, answering to the wild and stormy numbers of his verse, he raises the pman of vengeance over his foes" (Perowne). "Jeru~alcm is still the centre round which the exiled sons of Judah build, in imagination, the mansions of their future greatness. In whatever part of the world he may live, the heart's desire of a Jew is to be buried in Jerusalem." I. THE LOVE OF COUNTRY MAY TAKE THE PLACE OF LOVE OF Goo. Not all patriots arc personal servants of God. Indeed, it is curious to observe that, as a matter of fact, active patriots have seldom been actively religious men; and interest in God has tended to shunt men aside from interest in country, some pious sections even going so far as to withdraw altogether from political and even social life. It is, however, the other side of the matter to which attention is now drawn. Supreme interest in the material things of patriotism tends to loosen the ho1d on a man of spiritual things. 'l'he po.triotism of the returned exiles seems very beautiful ; but it was a most serious peril to them, and proved so engrossing that patriotism, not Divine service, became the great national characteristic during the age of the Maccabees. Mon fought for Jerusalem, not for God. II. THE LOVE OF COUNTRY MAY EXPRESS THE LOVE OF Goo. Of this it is possible to take David as e.n example. There could not be a worthier instance of patriotism, but back of the patriotism, and its inspiration, was the love of God. His country was God's country; and service to his country wa.s service to God. And this relation he kept up right through his life, and so he stands, in the historio page, the supreme example of" sanctified patriotism."-R, T. Vere. 1-9.-The bad moods of good people. The psalm closes with what must be regarded as the unrestrained utterance of over-excitement. Tho psalmist was in a bad mood; perhaps it did him good, and relieved undue strain, for him thus to utter hi~ ood feelings. But no devices of explanation should be allowed to relieve our conviction 302 THE BOOK OF PSALMS. [Ps. cxxxvm. 1-8.