The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 3 — Section 353

was naturally awakened by the circumstances of the period of return from the Captivity, to which these psalms belong." "This psalm was evidently composed for a time of great national depression, when the community, sick of dependence on the favour of foreign princes, turned more and more to the thought of the eternal righteousness and faithfulness of Jehovah." "Oh, how wretched Is that poor man that hangs on princes' favours I" "The word employed, n'dibim, means primarily free-will givers or benefactors, eo that it is not the capriciousness of earthly potentates that is in view, but their inability, willing or not, to render substantial assistance." I. THIS IS THE LESSON wmca THE RACE HAS TO LEARN, In the light of it may be ~d the story of humanity. That story begins with the safety and innocence of free- willed, voluntary dependence. It passes into the peril and disaster of seif-'T'eliance. Ages unfold a thousand forms in which man vainly tries to remedy the disaster into which he has brought himself by relying on the aid of his fellow-man. The universal hopelessness of such reliance, however tried, will bring round the race at last to the safety and virtue of full and entire and obedient trust in God. IL THIS IS THE LESSON WffiCH THE INDIVIDUAL HAB TO LEARN. It is the lesson to be learned in every life that is lived; and yet some never seem to learn it. The more marked instances of the untrustworthiness of man, which sometimes bring about our material ruin, are but prominent and impressive illustrations of an insufficiency which belongs to humanity, and is found in some degree affecting every form of human relation and alliance. Measures of trust in men are permissible, and bring much of the restfulness and joy of life; but absolute trust in man is never safe. Even from our dearest and best friends of earth we learn to turn to God, and find in him, and in him alone, our soul's refuge and rest.-R. T. Ver. 5.-" The God of Jacob." It is suggestive that Jacob should be thus singled out, and God should be presented in the special relations that he bore to that particular patriarch. God is the God of Abraham and of Isaac; but while there is much to be learned of God from his relations to them, there was-and in an unusual sense there was for the returned exiles-something special to learn about God from his relations with Jacob. The point of interest seems to lie in these contrasts. T. ADBAHAM AND lBAAO LIVED, ON THE WHOLE, RESTFUL, QUIET LlVEBj JACOB LIVED A LIFE OF STRAIN AND CHANGE. The impression left on ue by the lives of Abraham and Isaac is that of peaceful careers. Their movements were quiet tribal migrations, and the troubles they passed through were only family experiences and neighbourly quarrellings. From them we learn what God is in relation to the t1,sual and common- place in human experience. But Jacob was a man who was tossed about from the beginning to the end of hie days. A quiet, home-loving man, who was never permitted to be quiet. He had a life full of stern experiences; the strain was on him right up to life's close. We cannot wonder that the returned exiles, who found they had entered upon a very hard experience, should think of Jacob, and comfort themselves by recalling what God had been to him. The "God of Jacob" is the God of the chequered life. II. ADBAHAM AND lsAAC IlAD, ON TIIE WHOLE, GOOD NATUDAL DIBPOBITIONS j J ACOD HAD A TAINT OF EVIL JN HIB NATURAL DISPOSITION. God is the God of those who are Lorn amiable, as Samuel was; and the most beautiful flowers of character are those in which grace is triumphant in sanctified amiability. And yet most of us turn anxiously to inquire what God was to Jacob, who was not born amiable, who carried from his mother a guileful, grasping, and over self-reliant taint of evil, God could be the God of Jacob. True, a man with such a disposition will make for himself a hard, stern lire. And it is well for him not to have that easy life which would only nourish his evil. But God is In full and direct relations with the man in whom principle is struggling for ma~tery over frailty, But that just describes Jacob, and may just describe 11s.-R. 'l'. Vere. 6-8.-SutiBjaction in the activity of God. Ilcrein ls a marked contrast PS, 0XLVJ. 1-10.] THE BOOK OF PSALMS. 397