The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 1 — Section 292

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Vers. 1-22.-Sin stinging lil,e an adde;r. This has been called one of the peni- tential psalms. It may be called so without any severe strain of language; and yet its penitential tone is very far removed from that of either the thirty-second or the fifty-first psalm. There is little doubt that there is a sincere acknowledgment of the sin; but here the main stress of the grief seems to be attributable rather to the suffe;r- ing consequent upon the sin, than to the guilt of the sin itself. And we cannot resist the conviction that an undue reticence (which, alas I often results in an infrequent and inadequate warning against sins of the flesh) has somewhat warped and fettered the remarks of many expositors. For the physical suffering which is here detailed with distressing precision, points to sin as the cause thereof-to that sin which is one of the seriously poisoning influences in our social fabric, and against which no pleadings can be too tender, and no warnings can be too loud. Let us first study the case, and then utilize it. I. THE CASE STATED. Even before entering into detail, it is obvious that the case is one of intense suffering. The details, however, will show us but too clearly what the suffering was, and how it was accounted for. I. There had been the commission of ,in. Vers. 3-5 give us three terms-" sin,"" foolishness," 11 iniquity." The sin wa8 one which brought about a great deal of: 2. Bodily disorde;r. Note the following expres~ions: (1) 11 My flesh" (ver. 3). (2) "M_y bones" (ver. 3). (3) "M.v loins" (ver. 7). (4) "No soundness" (ver. 3). (5) "No health" (ver. 3). (6) "Wounds" (ver. 5). (7) "fficers" (ver. 6, Hebrew). (8) "Offensive" (ver. 6). (9) "Burning" (vcr. 7). (10) This alternating with deathly coldness (ver. 8). (11) "Polpitation" (ver. 10). (12) The frame bent and bowed with the suffering (ver. 6). (13) "Failing strength" (ver. 10). (14) "Dimness of sight" (ver. 10).1 Surely this puts before us, in no obscure fashion, the terrible physical woe which the writer was enduring. 3. Great mental anguish. (1) God's arrows struck very deeply into his soul (ver. 2). (2) God's hand pressed heavily upon him (ver. 2). (3) He went abroad as a mourner (ver. 6). (4) He roared-groaned aloud-all the day long. It may not be always possible to affirm that such and such suffering is the effect of this or that specific sin. But sometimes we can. And it is no wonder if sins of the flesh bring fle.;hly suffering. It is an ordained law of God that it should be so. Hence the sufferings are rightly regarded as" the arrows of God." 4. In his trouble, lovers and friends stand alooffrom him. Even neighbours and kinsmen drew themselves afar off (ver. 11). Earthly friends are like swallows, who come near in fine weather, and fly away ere the weother turns foul. 6. He was laden with reproach, and even beset with snare.,. (Ver. 12.) 6. Ho did not and could not reply. To the charges le.id at his door he had no justifications to offer, and thorefore said nothing (cf. ver.14, Hebrew). This was so for wise. 7. Though silent lo man, he pours out his heart lo God. H0 calls God hia God'; oven though guilt lies heavily on the son!. (1) lie declares the whole case before the mercy-seat (ver. 9). (2) He confesses the sin (ver. 18). (3) He deprecates the Divine displeasure (ver. I). (4) He appeals for help (ver. 22). Note: There is a great difference between men who "are overtaken in a fault," and those whose life is one 1 Perowne's notes on the several terms are helprul; as also are Kirkpatriok's. Fausset'11 1eme.rks on this psalm, in his 'Horm Pse.lmicm' (pp. 56, 57, H4), shed help!ul light upon it.  302 .,RE DOOK OF PSALMS. [PS, XXXVIII, 1-22, . __...----------------------- perpetual sin of alienation from God. D,wid lived i 1 an age when. lnstfulncss wns scarcely recognized as wrong at all, save where the holy Law of God hnd gleamed on it with the searching light of Heaven. If David foll into this sin, it was because he was injured by the low conventional standard of his day. If he regarded it as sin, o.nd mourned over it, it was because he was under the educating influence of that Word which was as "a lamp to bis feet, and a liµ:ht unto his path." 8. While David moans his sin as thN'.ate11ing him with destruction and ruin, he looks for salvation in God and God alone. (Ver. 22.) "0 Lord my Salvation." II. THE OASE UTILIZED. Here is evidently a p.•alm which is one of a number that contain a rehearsal of the writer's private experience. They profess to be that, and therefore, unless some good reason to the contrary is shown, we rightly assume that they are that. The expositor who desires to deal faithfully with all the psalms, and with the whole of each psalm, will often find himself between two opposite schools. On one side, there are those who would enclose every psalm within the limits of a naturalistic psychology; while there are others who seem to regard every psalm as referring directly or indirectly to Christ.1 But while the second and forty-fifth psalm can by no means be accounted for by a rationalistic psychology, so this thirty-eighth psalm can by no means be applied to the Messiah directly or indirectly. Let us not select facts to fit a theory;_ hut study all the facts, and frame the theory accordingly. In this personal moan nnd groau we have: 1. Suffering following on sin. Of what kind the sin was there can be little question. And if we wcnder that David could fall into such sin, we may well ask-\Vhat can be exper·ted of a man who had six wives (2 Sam. iii. 2-5)? The Law of God might, indeed, be the rule of his life, but he was injured and corrupted by falling into the conventionalisros of his day; and hence in his private life he came far short of his own professed ideal. Is not the like incongruity between the ideal and the actual often seen even now? 2. If it was owing to "con- formity to the world " tlzat David thus sinned, it was because he had before him God's revelation of the evil of sin that he was so bowed down under a sense of the guilt thereof. The revealed Law of God stood high above the level to which he had attained; hence a shame aod self-loathing on account of sin, which would nowhere else have been known. 3. Smarting under the sense of guilt, David yet tells God all. He knew God to be one" pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin;" and hence tho burdens of sin and guilt, as well as of care, were laid before the mercy-seat (Ps. xxxii. 5). 4. At times, l,owever, words/ail; then the desire and the groaning are perfectly understood. (Ver.\:!.) Who does not understand something of this that knows anything of the "energies of prayer"? There are "groanings which cannot be uttered." As there are "songs without words," so are there "prayers without words." For the griet consequent upon sin may be, and often is, aggravated by the desertion of those friends who will smile on us when we aro prosperous, and will turn their backs on us when adversity comes. But, even so, it is an infinite mercy to be shut up to God, and to let the heart lie "naked and opened" before One who will never misunderstand, and who will never forsake us. 6. For our God is " Jehovah owr Salvation." 'l'hat is his revealed name, and to it he will ever be true. See how gloriousl.v "the sure mercies of Da,•id" a.re set forth in Ps. lxxxix. 26-33. God is "a just God, and a Saviour" (Isa. xiv. 21). Hence we should never let our consciousnedB of guilt drive us from him; rather should it always make us "flee unto" him "to hide us." 6. Hence only those who have the light of God's revelation can possibly have any gospel for men smarting under the guilt of sin. We do not know any one passage in Scripture in which the combination is more remarkable of a man whose sin has brought deepest shame and agony upon hiw, and who yet is iaying hold of God under that beautiful, tliat matchless name, "my Salvation" (ver. 22). Very often, indeed, the word "salvation" in the Old Testament means mainly, if not exclusively, temporal deliver- ance. Here, at any rate, it cannot be so limited; for the salvation required to meet the case of woe thus laid before God must be one which includes cancelling guilt, 1 On one side oro such o.s Wellhausen and Oheyne: on the other, moh BB Horne and Alexander. If, however, such e. psalm RB this mo.kes the extreme Messianio theory obviously unten11.ble, on the other ho.nd, there are fo.cts onough adduced, twenty times over, in Dishop Alexander's Bampton Lectures, to show lhat the naturalistic psyehologioo.l theory cannot 11lo.nd for a moment. Why cannot we let each psalm speak for itaelf l PB. xxxvm.1-22.] THE BOOK OF PSALMS.