The Pulpit Commentary — Psalms — Volume 2 — Section 212

ones which set forth similar views, Their melancholy is very profound. Bee this in- I. 'l'HE DEB0BIPTION OF THE HABITATION OF THE DEAD. The term8 they use are all sad, As: 1. " The pit." (Ver. 4.) "The lowest pit" (ver. 6). The idea is of a vast profound eubterro.nean cavern, into which no ray of light entered. Infernal regions indeed. 2. "Des!1'UCtion." (Ver. 11.) A place where all living powers came to an end, o.nd deo.th only reigned. 3. "The dark." (Ver.12.) And" darkness" (ver. 6). 4. "171e land of forgetfulness" o.nd silence. God had been their Light, their Joy, their Life; but now they should know him no more. What wonder that they so shrank from death I II. 'l'HE BLESSINGS OF WHICJH THEY WERE DEPRIVED. The living might rejoice in them, but never the dead. These blessings were: 1. Knowled_qe of God's wonder,. The memory and experience of these were to the living their perpetual gladness; but the dead know and can know nothing of them. They are unhappy beings who know not anything, clean forgotten, out of mind-beings whom God himself remembers not. 2. Got£s loving-kindness. (Ver. 11.) They had been wont to exclaim," How excellent is thy loving-kindness!" to pray that God would" continue" it; to declare that they would "not conceal'' it from all men, that they continually "thonght of" it, that it was "good," that it was" life," yea, "better than life." But now they were shut off from it altogether, 3. God's "faithfulness." (Ver. 11.) 'l'his, too, they were wont lovingly to extol ( cf. Pss. xxxvi. 5; xl. 10; lxxxix. 1, 5, 8, 24, 33, etc.). But it was gone from them in the grave. 4. God's righteousness. (Ver. 12.) This had been all their trust and stay when living, but in the grave they knew it no more. III. THEIR LOSS OF ALL POWER. 1. They cannot praise God. (Ver. 10.) This had been their joy on earth. 2. They cannot see. It would be in vain that God's wonders were displayed before them. 3. They cannot hear. Therefore it would be of no avail to declare God's loving-kindness to them. 4. 'l'hey cannot know either the wonders or the righteousness of God, 5. They have no power even to stand on their feet. Body, mind, and soul all stripped of their former powers. No wonder that Hezekiah cried, in his dread of death, "The living, the living, he shall praise thee!" And this was the belief of all the saints of the Old Testament. IV. QUESTIONS THAT ARISE FROM THE FACT OF THESE VIEWS ABOUT DEATH. 1. Are they true 1 Certainly not. In no one single particular are they true. The believer does not after death abide in the grave, nor in any pit, nor in the land of destruction, of darkness, and of forgetfulness. He is "with Christ, which is far better" (see New Testament, passim). 2. Were they ever true 1 In part they were. Christ opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers. He was the Forerunner. None entered into the heavens until Christ," the Way," first entered. Until then the spirits of the just were being sa[ely guarded-the rendering (1 Pet. iii. 19) "in prison" is surely a misleading one, suggesting, as it does, the idea of punishment, whereas the "·ord only signifies being" watched over,"" guarded," "kept"-in the invisible world, in Hades, the place of departed spirits. They were in an inferior, but not in an unhappy, condition. It was called by the Jews" Abraham's bosom,"" Paradise'' (Luke xvi. 23; xxiii. 43). And again and again in the Psalms we have utterances of bright though not definite hope as to the future (Pss. xi. 7 ; xvi. 8-11 ; xvii. 15; xlix. 15, etc.). But they had their seasons of despondency, and thtm this hope fled away, and they could speak only as in these verses before us, which are BO very far from the complete truth. Even then, blessed were the dead who died in the Lord I 3. Why was our better, brighte1· hope withheld from them, so that they could hold such sad views as these? The reply is to be found in God's method of educating the race. Step by step, here a little and there e. little, progressively--such seems to have been the Divine plan. As we educate our children, BO did God educate man (cf. Heh. i. 1). Our Lord taught the people, when he was here on earth, "as they were able to bear it.'' And such seems ever to have been God's way. It haa been suggested (J. A. Froude) that, seeing how Egypt bad perverted the doctrine of a future life, making it the minister of all kinds of wrong, God kept any clear knowledge of this life from Israel, concentrating their attention upon the present life and it~ duties by means of present temporal rewards and punishments. It may have been so; but the question is one beyond our pqwer to fully answer. 4. Why ia the better hope given to usP 'l'o vindicate God (cf. 1 Cor. xv. 12-1\l). 'fo sustaiu  234 THE BOOK OF PSALMS. [PB. LXXXVIII, l-18,