The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 1 — Section 157

horrible darkness, which found expression in the very same words, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 1 Mr. Spurgeon, indeed, admits some possible application to D.1,id himself, but says that believers will scarcely care to think of hie sufferings ; they will rather fasten their gaze on those of their Lord. That is true, in a very touching s,nse. At the same time, we shall lose much of the comfort the psalm is adapted to afford, if we do not look very distinctly at the sufferings of David, in order to see, with equal distinctness, how comp] etely our Lord shared his" hrethren's" 8orrows, darkness, and groans, when he took up their burdens and made them his own.a Let us therefore fkal with this psalm in a twofold outline-first, as it applies to the writer; and then as it it taken up by the Lord Jesus, and made his own (with such exceptions as that named in the first footnote below). I. hRAEL's Kl:KG rASSES TllllOUGII DEEPEST DARKNESS TO THE LIGHT. Here let us answer by anticipation a remark with which we have frequently met, to the effect that we cannot fasten on any incident in the career of Dadd which would lead to such extreme anguish as that indicated here. Who that has anv knowled.,.c of the horrors to which s~nsiti¥e souls are liable, could raise any difficulty over this? Far more depends on subjective conditiou than on outward incident. Why, the saints of God now do pass through times of indescribable angnish, of which no outward incidcut affords even a glimmer of explanation. "The heart knoweth its own bitterness." Let the outer occasion have been whatsoever it may, here at any rate is: 1. .A saint in terrible darkness. In the midst of his woe, he remembers his tran,gressions, 3 and it may haYe Leen, as is so often the case, that the writer attributes his anguish to his numberless transgressions (ver. 1, LXX.). 'rhe details of his intensity of sorrow are manifold. (1) Prayer rises from his heart day and night without relief (ver. 2). (2) He is despised (vers. 6-8). His enemies laugh and mock. (3) llis foes, wild, fierce, ravenous, plot his ruin (vers. 12, 13), (4) His strength is spent with sorrow (ver. 15). (5) There are eager anticipations of his speedily being removed out of the way (ver. 18). (6) And, worst of all, it seems as if God, his own God, whom he had trusted from childhood (vers. 9, 10), hlld now forsaken him, and given him up to his foes. How many suffering saints may find solace in this psalm, as they see how God's people have suffered before them? Surely few could have a heavier weight of woe than the writer of this plaintive wail. 2. The woe is freely told to God. '!'here may be the stinging memory of hy~one sin piercing the soul, still the psalmist cleaves to his God. (1) The heart still craves for God; even in the dark; yea, the more because of the darkness, (2) Heuce the abandonment is not actual. However dense the gloom may be, when 1 It would be by no means wise or so.Fe to sny that el'ery phrase, even in the first verse, would apply to our Saviour. The last clause is thus given in the LXX.: Ma,cp<lv u,rb .,-;j, uo,TT;pias 1-'•u o/ .>..6')'01 .,-&v ,rapa,rTOJ/J,a.Tw~ 1-'•u: Vulgate, Longe a salute mea verba delic- torum meorum, "Far from my deliverance are the words of my transgreseious." Thus we 5.nd that, according to the translation gi veu in th_e Septuagint, 11~d accepted by the uanslators into tbe Vulgate, the psalmist regards Ins owu transgressions o.s a part of the weight of anguish which presses upon him, and, indeed, as accounting for it. No such :Y.>nlcssion could possibly suit our Lord; nor can his anguish in using this first verse, even ,n part, be acoouuted for, sa~e as he had made the burden_ of th_e world his own. But when we hear bis cry of agony, and remember that the quotations m the New Testament from the Old T,,stament are generRlly from the LXX. rather than from the Hebrew, how 1tartlingly touching and striking are the words_, 'W_ho was in_ nll points tcrnptou like 11s we are, yet without Ein"' ! n~ if tl:~ sacred _writer, m_ the Ep1,~le to the Ho_brew~ woul_d remind us that our great High Priest, having been m all tl11nga marle hke uuto Ins brethren, could mo.kc their most agouizing cries his own, Bat•e the aclmowledgment of si,i I The psalm will thus become more and more precious to us as wo al"Oiu the tbcory of nn ezcluBively Messianic meaning on the one ha.nd, and Chcyne's heartlo,s oritioiam on tho otber. 2 On this psalm, Perowne, Orelli, and Calvin may be rend with great adl'nntage and profit. It is very painful to read Ch_cyne on this pealm; ~e, ca.n~o~ understan~ _his references to Orelli, nor can we vei·ify lus statements e.a to Calvm s op1mons. A stnkmg exposure of some of Cheync's inaccu1-aeiea will be found in an able article by Mr. Waller, in the Tlteolor,ical Monthly, April, 1889. ' See first footnote above, and LXX. We venture to call in question the statement that the LXX. are cl arly 11rong. rs. xxu. 1-31.] TIIE BOOK OF PSAUfS. 15!)