an image of his own fashioning, and therefore with complacency he
regards them. Shall we dare to put forth our hand unto iniquity in
order to escape affliction? Let us have done with by-ways and short
turnings, and let us keep to that fair path of right along which
Jehovah's smile shall light us. Are we tempted to put our light under
a bushel, to conceal our religion from our neighbours? Is it
suggested to us that there are ways of avoiding the cross, and
shunning the reproach of Christ? Let us not hearken to the voice of
the charmer, but seek an increase of faith, that we may wrestle with
principalities and powers, and follow the Lord, fully going without
the camp, bearing his reproach. Mammon, the flesh, the devil, will
all whisper in our ear, "Flee as a bird to your mountain;" but let us
come forth and defy them all. "Resist the devil, and he will flee
from you." There is no room or reason for retreat. Advance! Let the
vanguard push on! To the front! all ye powers and passions of our
soul. On! on! in God's name, on! for "the Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge."
EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
Whole Psalm. The most probable account of the occasion of this
Psalm is that given by Amyraldus. He thinks it was composed by David
while he was in the court of Saul, at a time when the hostility of
the king was beginning to show itself, and before it had broken out
into open persecution. David's friends, or those professing to be so,
advised him to flee to his native mountains for a time, and remain in
retirement, till the king should show himself more favourable. David
does not at that time accept the counsel, though afterwards he seems
to have followed it. This Psalm applies itself to the establishment
of the church against the calumnies of the world and the compromising
counsel of man, in that confidence which is to be placed in God the
Judge of all. W. Wilson, D.D., in loc., 1860.
Whole Psalm. If one may offer to make a modest conjecture, it
is not improbable this Psalm might be composed on the sad murder of
the priests by Saul (1 Samuel 22:19), when after the slaughter of
Abimelech, the high priest, Doeg, the Edomite, by command from Saul,
"slew in one day fourscore and five persons which wore a linen
ephod." I am not so carnal as to build the spiritual church of the
Jews on the material walls of the priests' city at Nob (which then by
Doeg was smitten with the edge of the sword), but this is most true,
that "knowledge must preserve the people;" and (Malachi 2:7), "The
priests' lips shall preserve knowledge;" and then it is easy to
conclude, what an earthquake this massacre might make in the
foundations of religion. Thomas Fuller.
Whole Psalm. Notice how remarkably the whole Psalm corresponds
with the deliverance of Lot from Sodom. This verse, with the angel's
exhortation, "Escape to the mountains, lest thou be consumed," and
Lot's reply, "I cannot escape to the mountains, lest some evil take
me and I die." Genesis 19:17-19. And again, "The Lord's seat is
in heaven, and upon the ungodly he shall rain snares, fire,
brimstone, storm and tempest," with "Then the Lord rained upon
Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire out of heaven:" and again
"His countenance will behold the thing that is just," with
"Delivered just Lot . . . for that righteous man vexed his righteous
soul with their ungodly deeds." 2 Peter 2: 7, 8. Cassidorus
(A.D., 560) in John Mason Neal's "Commentary on the Psalms, from
Primitive and Mediaeval Writers," 1860.
Whole Psalm. The combatants at the Lake Thrasymene are said to
have been so engrossed with the conflict that neither party perceived
the convulsions of nature that shook the ground—
"An earthquake reeled unheedingly away,
None felt stern nature rocking at his feet."
From a nobler cause, it is thus with the soldiers of the Lamb. They
believe, and, therefore, make no haste; nay, they can scarcely be
said to feel earth's convulsions as other men, because their eager
hope presses forward to the issue at the advent of the Lord.
Andrew A. Bonar.
Verse 1. "I trust in the Lord: how do ye say to my soul,
Swerve on to your mountain like a bird?" (others, "O thou
bird." ) Saul and his adherents mocked and jeered David with such
taunting speeches, as conceiving that he knew no other shift or
refuge, but so betaking himself unto wandering and lurking on the
mountains; hopping, as it were, from one place to another like a
silly bird; but they thought to ensnare and take him well enough for
all that, not considering God who was David's comfort, rest and
refuge. Theodore Haak's "Translation of the Dutch Annotations, as
ordered by the Synod of Dort, in 1618." London, 1657.
Verse 1. "With Jehovah I have taken shelter; how say ye to
my soul, Flee, sparrows, to your hill?" "Your hill," that
hill from which you say your help cometh: a sneer. Repair to that
boasted hill, which may indeed give you the help which it gives the
sparrow: a shelter against the inclemencies of a stormy sky, no
defence against our power. Samuel Horsley, in loc.
Verse 1. "In the Lord put I my trust: how say ye to my
soul, Flee as a bird to your mountain?" The holy confidence of
the saints in the hour of great trial is beautifully illustrated by
the following ballad which Anne Askew, who was burned at Smithfield
in 1546, made and sang when she was in Newgate:—
Like as the armed knight,
Appointed to the field,
With this world will I fight,
And Christ shall be my shield.
Faith is that weapon strong,
Which will not fail at need:
My foes, therefore, among,
Therewith will I proceed.
As it is had in strength
And force of Christe's way,
It will prevail at length,
Though all the devils say nay.
Faith in the fathers old
Obtained righteousness;
Which makes me very bold
To fear no world's distress.
I now rejoice in heart,
And hope bids me do so;
For Christ will take my part,
And ease me of my woe.
Thou say'st Lord, whoso knock,
To them wilt thou attend:
Undo therefore the lock,
And thy strong power send.
More enemies now I have
Than hairs upon my head:
Let them not me deprave,
But fight thou in my stead.
On thee my care I cast,
For all their cruel spite:
I set not by their haste;
For thou art my delight.
I am not she that list
My anchor to let fall
For every drizzling mist,
My ship substantial.
Not oft use I to write,
In prose, nor yet in rhyme;
Yet will I shew one sight
That I saw in my time.
I saw a royal throne,
Where justice should have sit,
But in her stead was one
Of moody, cruel wit.
Absorbed was righteousness,
As of the raging flood:
Satan, in his excess,
Sucked up the guiltless blood.
Then thought I, Jesus Lord,
When thou shall judge us all,
Hard it is to record
On these men what will fall.
Yet, Lord, I thee desire,
For that they do to me,
Let them not taste the hire
Of their iniquity.
Verse 1. "How say ye to my soul, Flee as a bird to your
mountain?" We may observe, that David is much pleased with the
metaphor in frequently comparing himself to a bird, and that of
several sorts: first, to an eagle (Psalm 103:5), "My youth is renewed
like the eagle's;" sometimes to an owl (Psalm 102:6), "I am like an
owl in the desert;" sometimes to a pelican, in the same verse, "Like
a pelican in the wilderness;" sometimes to a sparrow (Psalm 102:7),
"I watch, and am as a sparrow;" sometimes to a partridge, "As when
one doth hunt a partridge." I cannot say that he doth compare himself
to a dove, but he would compare himself (Psalm 55:6), "O that I had
the wings of a dove, for then I would flee away and be at rest." Some
will say, How is it possible that birds of so different a feather
should all so fly together as to meet in the character of David? To
whom we answer, That no two men can more differ one from another,
that the same servant of God at several times differeth from himself.
David in prosperity, when commanding, was like an eagle; in
adversity, when contemned, like an owl; in devotion, when
retired, like a pelican; in solitariness, when having no
company, (of Saul ), like a partridge. This general
metaphor of a bird , which David so often used on himself, his
enemies in the first verse of this Psalm used on him, though not
particularising the kind thereof: "Flee as a bird to your
mountain;" that is, speedily betake thyself to thy God, in whom
thou hopest for succour and security.
Seeing this counsel was both good in
itself, and good at this time, why doth David seem so angry and
displeased thereat? Those his words, "Why say you to my soul, Flee
as a bird to your mountain?" import some passion, at leastwise, a
disgust of the advice. It is answered, David was not offended with
the counsel, but with the manner of the propounding thereof. His
enemies did it ironically in a gibing, jeering way, as if his flying
thither were to no purpose, and he unlikely to find there the safety
he sought for. However, David was not hereby put out of conceit with
the counsel, beginning this Psalm with this his firm resolution,
"In the Lord put I my trust: how say ye then to my soul," etc.
Learn we from hence, when men give us good counsel in a jeering way,
let us take the counsel, and practice it; and leave them the jeer to
be punished for it. Indeed, corporal cordials may be envenomed by