perceiving that for a matter to be settled in the highest court,
even in heaven itself, is a far more solemn matter. Let believers
take heed lest they fall in a degree into the same error, and
begin to criticise the actions of The Great Supreme, when they
are too elevated for human reason to comprehend them. C. H.
S.
Verse 5. "The judgments of God are far above out of his
sight." Out of his sight, as an eagle at her highest towering
so lessens herself to view, that he sees not the talons, nor
fears the grip. Thus man presumes till he hath sinned, and then
despairs as fast afterwards. At first, "Tush, doth God see it?"
At last, "Alas! will God forgive it?" But if a man will not know
his sins, his sins will know him; the eyes which presumption
shuts, commonly despair opens. Thomas Adams.
Verse 5. "As for all his enemies, he puffeth at
them." David describeth a proud man, puffing at his
enemies: he is puffed up and swelled with high conceits of
himself, as if he had some great matter in him, and he puffs at
others as if he could do some great matter against them,
forgetting that himself is but, as to his being in this world, a
puff of wind which passeth away. Joseph Caryl.
Verse 5. "As for all his enemies, he puffeth at
them;" literally, "He whistles at them." He is given
over to the dominion of gloomy indifference, and he cares as
little for others as for himself. Whosoever may be imagined by
him to be an enemy he cares not. Contempt and ridicule are his
only weapons; and he has forgotten how to use others of a more
sacred character. His mental habits are marked by scorn; and he
treats with contempt the judgments, opinions, and practices of
the wisest of men. John Morison.
Verse 6. "He hath said in his heart, I shall not be
moved: for I shall never be in adversity." Carnal security
opens the door for all impiety to enter into the soul. Pompey,
when he had in vain assaulted a city, and could not take it by
force, devised this stratagem in way of agreement; he told them
he would leave the siege and make peace with them, upon condition
that they would let in a few weak, sick, and wounded soldiers
among them to be cured. They let in the soldiers, and when the
city was secure, the soldiers let in Pompey's army. A carnal
settled security will let in a whole army of lusts into the soul.
Thomas Brooks.
Verse 6. "He hath said in his heart, I shall not be
moved: for I shall never be in adversity." To consider
religion always on the comfortable side; to congratulate one's
self for having obtained the end before we have made use of the
means; to stretch the hands to receive the crown of righteousness
before they have been employed to fight the battle; to be content
with a false peace, and to use no effort to obtain the graces to
which true consolation is annexed: this is a dreadful calm, like
that which some voyagers describe, and which is a very singular
forerunner of a very terrible event. All on a sudden, in the wide
ocean, the sea becomes calm, the surface of the water clear as a
crystal, smooth as glass—the air serene; the unskilled passenger
becomes tranquil and happy, but the old mariner trembles. In an
instant the waves froth, the winds murmur, the heavens kindle, a
thousand gulfs open, a frightful light inflames the air, and
every wave threatens sudden death. This is an image of many men's
assurance of salvation. James Saurin, 1677-1730.
Verse 7. "Under his tongue is mischief and vanity."
The striking allusion of this expression is to certain venomous
reptiles, which are said to carry bags of poison under their
teeth, and, with great subtlety to inflict the most deadly
injuries upon those who come within their reach. How affectingly
does this represent the sad havoc which minds tainted with
infidelity inflict on the community! By their perversions of
truth, and by their immoral sentiments and practices, they are as
injurious to the mind as the deadliest poison can be to the body.
John Morison.
Verse 7. Cursing men are cursed men. John Trapp.
Verses 7, 9. In Anne Askew's account of her examination by
Bishop Bonner, we have an instance of the cruel craft of
persecutors: "On the morrow after, my lord of London sent for me
at one of the clock, his hour being appointed at three. And as I
came before him, he said he was very sorry of my trouble, and
desired to know my opinion in such matters as were laid against
me. He required me also boldly in any wise to utter the secrets
of my heart; bidding me not to fear in any point, for whatsoever
I did say within his house, no man should hurt me for it. I
answered, 'For so much as your lordship hath appointed three of
the clock, and my friends shall not come till that hour, I desire
you to pardon me of giving answer till they come.'" Upon this
Bale remarks: "'In this preventing of the hour may the diligent
perceive the greediness of this Babylon bishop, or bloodthirsty
wolf, concerning his prey. 'Swift are their feet,' saith David,
'in the effusion of innocent blood, which have fraud in their
tongues, venom in their lips, and most cruel vengeance in their
mouths.' David much marvelleth in the spirit that, taking upon
them the spiritual governance of the people, they can fall into
such frenzy or forgetfulness of themselves, as to believe it
lawful thus to oppress the faithful, and to devour them with as
little compassion as he that greedily devoureth a piece of bread.
If such have read anything of God, they have little minded their
true duty therein. 'More swift,' saith Jeremy, 'are our cruel
persecutors than the eagles of the air. They follow upon us over
the mountains, and lay privy wait for us in the wilderness.' He
that will know the crafty hawking of bishops to bring in their
prey, let them learn it here. Judas, I think, had never the tenth
part of their cunning workmanship.'" John Bale, D.D., Bishop
of Ossory, 1495-1563, in "Examination of Anne Askew."
Parker Society's Publications.
Verse 8. "He sitteth in the lurking places of the
villages," etc. The Arab robber lurks like a wolf among these
sand heaps, and often springs out suddenly upon the solitary
traveller, robs him in a trice, and then plunges again into the
wilderness of sand-hills and reedy downs, where pursuit is
fruitless. Our friends are careful not to allow us to straggle
about, or lag behind, and yet it seems absurd to fear a surprise
here—Kaifa before, Acre in the rear, and travellers in sight on
both sides. Robberies, however, do often occur, just where we now
are. Strange country! and it has always been so. There are a
hundred allusions to just such things in the history, the Psalms,
and the prophets of Israel. A whole class of imagery is based
upon them. Thus, in Psalm 10:8-10, "He sits in the lurking
places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the
innocent: he lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he
lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he
draweth him into his net; he croucheth and humbleth himself, that
the poor may fall by his strong ones." And a thousand rascals,
the living originals of this picture, are this day crouching and
lying in wait all over the country to catch poor helpless
travellers. You observe that all these people we meet or pass are
armed; nor would they venture to go from Acre to Kaifa without
their musket, although the cannon of the castles seem to command
every foot of the way. Strange, most strange land! but it tallies
wonderfully with its ancient story. W. M. Thompson, D.D., in
"The Land and the Book," 1859.
Verse 8. My companions asked me if I knew the danger I had
escaped. "No," I replied; "What danger?" They then told me that,
just after they started, they saw a wild Arab skulking after me,
crouching to the ground, with a musket in his hand; and that, as
soon as he had reached within what appeared to them musket-shot
of me, he raised his gun; but, looking wildly around him, as a
man will do who is about to perpetrate some desperate act, he
caught sight of them and disappeared. Jeremiah knew something of
the ways of these Arabs when he wrote (chapter 3:2) "In the ways
hast thou sat for them, as the Arabian in the wilderness;" and
the simile is used in Psalm 10:9, 10, for the Arabs wait and
watch for their prey with the greatest eagerness and
perseverance. John Gadsby, in "My Wanderings," 1860.
Verse 8. "He sitteth in the lurking places of the
villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his
eyes are privily set against the poor." All this strength of
metaphor and imagery is intended to mark the assiduity, the
cunning, the low artifice, to which the enemies of truth and
righteousness will often resort in order to accomplish their
corrupt and vicious designs. The extirpation of true religion is
their great object; and there is nothing to which they will not
stoop in order to effect that object. The great powers which have
oppressed the church of Christ, in different ages, have answered
to this description. Both heathen and papistical authorities have
thus condescended in infamy. They have sat, as it were, in ambush
for the poor of Christ's flock; they have adopted every stratagem
that infernal skill could invent; they have associated themselves
with princes in their palaces, and with beggars on their
dunghill; they have resorted to the village, and they have
mingled in the gay and populous city; and all for the vain
purpose of attempting to blot out a "name which shall endure for
ever, and which shall be continued as long as the sun." John
Morison.
Verse 9 "He doth catch the poor." The poor man is
the beast they hunt, who must rise early, rest late, eat the
bread of sorrow, sit with many a hungry meal, perhaps his
children crying for food, while all the fruit of his pains is
served into Nimrod's table. Complain of this while you will, yet,
as the orator said of Verres, pecuniosus nescit damnari.
Indeed, a money-man may not be damnified, but he may be damned.
For this is a crying sin, and the wakened ears of the Lord will
hear it, neither shall his provoked hands forbear it. Si
tacuerint pauperes loquentur lapides. If the poor should hold
their peace, the very stones would speak. The fines, rackings,
enclosures, oppressions, vexations, will cry to God for
vengeance. "The stone will cry out of the wall, and the beam out
of the timber shall answer it." Habakkuk 2:11. You see the beasts
they hunt. Not foxes, not wolves, nor boars, bulls, nor tigers.
It is a certain observation, no beast hunts its own kind to
devour it. Now, if these should prosecute wolves, foxes, &c.,
they should then hunt their own kind; for they are these
themselves, or rather worse than these, because here homo
homini lupus. But though they are men they hunt, and by
nature of the same kind, they are not so by quality, for they are